glass half ____? or maybe half a glass?

I'm always amazed at the big difference small things can make. 

Have you ever had one of those days/weeks/months when you had resolved to look at the glass as half full, but then noticed that the glass was LEAKING? You know, like when you get a huge cherry limeade from Sonic during "happy hour" and then poke your straw through the bottom of the cup over your khaki pants? What then?

well done?

"Jesus" put his hands on my shoulders and said, "Well done." I know it was just pretend, I know he's some church member I haven't met yet and so didn't recognize. But just hearing it, just hearing the words spoken, not in my head while I read them silently from a crisp black and white page... I want to know how He will really sound. I want to hear His voice.

It will be worth keeping my job that I hate, simply out of gratitude and in defiance of discouragement. It will be worth moving to a town full of strangers for two more years of school (gross, I hate that word). It will be worth all the wrong guys I turned down when there didn't seem to be a right one around. It will be worth being the only one in the room who didn't laugh. It will be worth keeping my mouth shut and my heart open. It will be worth the gas money, the B- in a class, the goodbyes, the embarrassment of naked truth.

This set-apart life is not about doing huge things or making drastic changes, although those things happen. The difference is in the ordinary, day-to-day choices, the ones that are not a matter of right and wrong, but of beneficial and merely acceptable. In those tug-of-war moments, when Light and dark are engaged in fierce battle, every step matters. So I keep moving forward, hue by hue, confident that one day I will hear that it was worth being faithful in the shades of gray.

Deja Vu and Second Chances

May 16, 2009
What if progress could be retroactive? So that growth, new success, learning, and moving ahead would go back and cover the past? It would make up for lost opportunities and failed attempts. Isn't that kind of what we get with mercy, grace, and redemption? He doesn't count our sins (and most of all, our selves) against us. No, but He gives us all that is necessary to come out of hopelessness and have life. The past only matters as it relates to our glorifying Him for bringing us out of it, and then applying that change to the present and future.

This is how I feel about school right now...