More grace?

I find myself repeatedly saying to God - "God, can I have a little more grace this time? If you just give me grace on this...I should be good for awhile."

What?!

Sometimes I wonder how God could love me, which such wretched thoughts that go on in my mind.

I don't just need God's grace for certain things and then I'm "good for awhile". Eesh. Where did you get that idea, Hannah?

I need to live daily by His grace.

I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. [Galatians 2:20-21]

For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. for the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body,, that you should obey it in its lusts. and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace!

What then? Sheall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed form the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. [Romans 6:7-17]

Enough to let go

This is probably the single most impacting song in my life this school year - You Can Have Me, by Sidewalk Prophets.

I've been thinking particularly on this line a lot lately:

I will love You enough to let go.

Do I love Jesus enough to let go of the cares of this world? The people, places, the things I hold onto? Love is consuming, moving, life-changing. Does my love for Jesus change me?

I say I've given my life to Jesus, but what about the things I want to keep? Have I given those to Him? It's so, so much harder.

Father of love, you can have me.

Okay, so maybe not *that* quiet yet.

Well, it's sort of connected to Idaho, so...

I met Leowren last year at the Idaho tourney, and I *just* discovered her blog today...I love discovering that awesome people have blogs. :) Her blog, Eat...Sleep...Write, is also uh-mahzing.

Aaannnddd, she's having a giveaway in celebration of the new year, which is this *adorable* hat:

So you can hop over to her blog to enter it right HERE!

Alright, that's all for now.

Oh, Oh, Oh! [again]

Remember this post?

Didn't think so. That's why I posted it again for you. :-)

Anyhoo. We're going to I-da-ho! For a speech and debate tournament!

*freaks out* I am SO not ready.

Prayers would be appreciated.

Ze blog will likely be a bit quieter for the next few weeks... ttfn!

Only five?

Today I had an extra quiz practice with my book 4 quizzers for awana T&T quizzing.

Oh, it was so. much. fun. One of them totally forgot about it, so we ended up going way late so they could all be there.

I started out using the goldfish crackers as a snack break, but it proved to be extremely distracting and I wasn't organized enough to just completely move it out of their way. (I've been up since 5am doing math and physics, give me break.) So I came up with the idea of giving them each a bowl and putting a goldfish in it when they did something particularly brilliant, and taking one out when they did something particularly...not so brilliant. =P

It worked quite well.

Halfway through, however, the following conversation ensues.

Me: Okay, take five and eat some goldfish.
>several minutes later<
L to J: you ate all of yours!
J: what's wrong with that?
L: she said eat only five!

Oh, how I love these kids. And coaching. And quizzing. I love seeing them get into it, get excited about remembering the material, learning new material...I especially love to see them in a huddle, buzzer jumping and getting excited like I did a few weeks ago on my quiz team.

(:

Excitement TO THE MAX!

And no! It's not a Narnia post!! Nothing makes me more excited than an opportunity to seek Christ, meet other Christians, and grow more. Oh my word. I am so excited!

THE REBELUTION CONFERENCE IS COMING TO OREGON!!!!

Which means we can FINALLY go!!! Last year they didn't come to Oregon or Washington, or anywhere in the northwest, so it was sort of out of the question. The year before I hadn't quite gotten into it or really understood the vision.



This year is possibly their last tour x( buuuuut I am really really excited for the opportunity to be able to go. So, so excited. AAAHH! Can you just see me now?? Oh. My. Goodness. :)

Check out the site HERE. AHH. I really, really hope it works out because I would give so much to go to that conference.

Translation

Sorry for the lack of blog updates that span more than 3 inches of page. (or perhaps you like short blog updates, reader?) Life is sort of up and down and crazy.

Someone translated my Aslan's Meditations Devotional into Brazilian Portuguese, right HERE. Isn't that just really neat? I stuck it all into google translate, and while it sounded sort of like someone who didn't know english very well, it was the same idea, and I thought that was SO. COOL.

Oh, languages fascinate me!

Aslan's Meditations: Add all that?!

I wrote this week's devotional for Aslan's Meditations - we're starting a series in 2 Peter 1:5-8. You can view the whole thing HERE.

In which I blog to myself.

Okay, so I think I'd better clarify a few things. First off, the actual quote is not "idiot" it's "insanity" (although the two are very closely related =D ) Second of all....I guess..hmm. I got a lot of comments from people about how I shouldn't be degrading myself or labeling myself as a certain way. That's not really what I'm doing...just identifying a certain type of behavior that God has convicted me of.

Idiot: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.

I was thinking. How do we expect to live lives for Jesus, changed lives, lives of radical surrender and love for Him if we're not willing to give anything up? If we're not willing to stop doing what we are doing and start doing what He wants us to do? If we continually keep the same habits, same ideas, refusing to let go of the sin that keeps hold of us....will we ever get different results? Will we ever be changed? Of course not.

I like to plan. I like to plan a lot. But I'm not so good at sticking to that plan. (But I'm really good at the planning.) So I plan, I plan, and I say, okay, I'm going to do this at this time so that I can do this next and then this....but never actually get it done. Yet I still expect that "this time will be different" or "I'll get it right this time".

I've been doing this since I was 7 years old. (Like I said, I'm pretty good at planning.)

I cling to perfection, to thinking I can do it my way, that if I just try one more time, I can get it right on my own.

What?

Maybe Hannah needs to hear this again.

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.

Or the harsher one, that cuts a lot deeper,

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

Really, Hannah?

The only way we can live radical lives for God is if we let Him change us, if we let go of our own plans, the things we stick to like glue the things we want to keep and hold onto forever, little things we try over and over again in attempt to do it ourselves, saying "God, let me try just one more time. I think I can get it this time." I cling to things that are the same. I don't like to let things I do go because if I do, it makes me vulnerable, and it makes me disorganized, and it makes me the weaker one.

But...I am the weaker one. God is the stronger one. He is the one whose plan actually matters. He is the one who can bring things to pass...not me. Since when did my agenda work? It didn't work when I was 7 and it doesn't work when I'm 17, and it won't work when I'm 27 or 57 or 97.

We can't live the lives we live in sin and expect that God will just give us what we want, or that we'll have a nice life, or that God will give us big, important responsibilities. We can't say we've been changed by God, that we're living our lives for Him when we refuse to even let Him change the way we think and live.

I have to allow Him to break down the walls I hide behind, to radically change the way I live, for there to be fruit.

The ideal, the concept of change, of doing things for God's glory is so easy and nice to imagine and get excited about. But it's such a completely different thing to allow God to work that in my life.

By the aforementioned definition, I have the habits of one who is an idiot. Or insane. Or however you call it.

Oh, Praise God for His endless grace.

Timing.

It's funny the places I get random revelations/thoughts-about-life. They generally occur at an unearthly hour of the night while I scribble away in my journal and highlight verses in my Bible...or they occur while I'm lost - or perhaps, not *entirely* lost - in my piano practice.

This post is a result of the latter.

I don't like practicing piano that much. Occasionally I manage to get really into it, but more often than I would like to admit, I'm just watching the clock. There's this little timer that sits on the side of the piano, and sometimes I just play my piece and watch it tick.

But I also play this game with myself, and so far I've only won once. (yes, after almost 12 years of piano) This game consists of me trying to time the last few seconds of my piece so that I end right as the clock does. Like - right as the clock does.

So I have this gorgeous piece by Faure, which has a lot of really weird sounds and flowy things that aren't really that complicated, but takes a bit of wrestling to really get down - and I have yet to accomplish this.

I was quite focused for all my practice time until around the last 60 seconds, where I decided to see if I could play the entire Faure and finish it right as the clock does.

So as I was playing it, I started watching the little black pixels countdown - and of course, lost my place in the music, which caused me to have to slow down, find my place again, and thus I lost a good 5 seconds of time and of course didn't finish it anywhere near the time the timer was done counting, because I had estimated wrong to begin with.

But I thought...how often do we do that in life? Being so focused on how long until this or how many more years till we can do this or when this might happen and thinking and dreaming about this...we watch the clock of our lives and lose our place in the music, forgetting that the one who composed the song will have it end exactly where He wants it. But if we focused on the music in front of us, what God has given us right there in our faces...maybe struggle through some parts and float through others, perhaps we'll find that the time has passed after all...and instead of impatiently waiting, we can complete the piece with satisfaction and fulfillment - and then move on to what He has in store next.

Maybe I'm stretching the analogy a bit, but hey. I never said music practice was a sane process, now, did I?

::grins::

[no title]

This is a [slightly] random post because 1) I feel like posting, 2) I feel like posting, and 3)...yeah. never mind.

My mind is, for once, refusing to cooperate into logical organization and putting things into lists, boxes, and nice little orderly thoughts.

Not like this is a strange occurrence, but I suppose it would be one of the first where I dare to make blog posts while in such a condition.

Normally I don't even touch blogger.

I'm not even sure why I'm posting.

Because I feel like it. And I'm feeling so spontaneous because......

hm. Not sure. Anyway. I could use prayer, because there are a lot of decisions I have to make and things I have to get done and to throw everything off there's something elllllse that just doesn't make life easy. You know? Those types of things. And a lot of other random things that are the kind of thing that you can't be indifferent about. Or middle ground about. Or two sided about. Where you have to pick a side. And I don't know which side to pick. Which is frustrating.

ALSO! You should see Dawn Treader.

AND.....don't see any other movies in theatres, because they're not worth it. No, really, I have looked at the current playing movies. They're all kind of trashy. At least compared to VDT. :)

I'd better hit publish before I say too much more that's overly strange. =P

I always liked filling out surveys...

Yup! Now it's your turn!

If you read this blog, you probably know about the Narnia fansite I run called AslansCountry.com. We started in June 2009, and have since grown to be an awesome, thriving Narnia community! This year we were able to meet the cast members, interview the cast members, cover the Royal World Premiere of the movie, and so much more.

Okay, enough for the scripted blurb about AC. We really, really would appreciate feedback on what you think of the site. Honestly. Tell us what you like, what you dislike, and how we can make things better. What would you like to see us add this year? Now is your chance to say so! :)

You can find the survey HERE.

Thanks guys! =D