"I do dare to live a life of extravagant happiness. I will love so fiercely, live so much gladness, that everyone will think that it isn’t fair.
But I will cherish this happiness, and not guilt myself into giving it up because other people don’t have it. No, instead I will find ways to make that happiness for other people, pouring it into every corner that I visit, fearlessly showing my loved ones that I care, allowing my sympathies to be stricken into helping my fellow men with everything inside of me.
But I will not give up my high ground, and sink into despondency. The world needs a higher ratio of happiness to depression, and I will be among the happy. Just my very joyful presence will lighten the load of the overburdened, terrible, broken world.
I do dare to live a life of extravagant happiness."

--Gray

My favorite part of Christmas.

Is still coming to the front of the balcony during Christmas Eve service and watching the flickering candlelight slowly fill the room.

In the past, I've always mourned the un-importance of my single candle flame. I'm just one light in a room full of thousands of lights, how could I possibly be important? I'm just one person in a world with billions of people, how could I ever be significant? Nobody would know if my flame just ceased to exist.

But today as I knelt there at the edge of the balcony, holding my single candle flame, I realized how beautiful it is that I am part of this world, and how precious my one life is.

I may be one single light, but that light is precious. Today I realized that who I am doesn't have to be someone who's wildly unique, original, decisive, and sure. I don't have to spend all my effort trying to make myself -- or even discover myself -- into someone who's "unique" or "set apart."

I am a part of this world. I am one light in a sea of little lights, and it's okay.

A lot of my Christian upbringing has included a large dose of the "you are unique and special" message. And while I don't deny that, I think it has a tendency to make us (or at least me) feel as if I must be better and more special than everyone else in the world.

But -- and I'm going to link you up to this post again because that's how good it is --

There is power in being common.

"If I am...a wise person-- I will seek to understand the things that all men share inside of themselves, instead of the things that set them apart from each other. Why was my self-value wrapped up in the ways that I perceive myself differing from other men?" (Gray)

This little light of mine is wild and precious. It can start fires. It's just the same as everyone else's -- but it's mine. It was lit by my Creator. And I'm going to live it, love it, and let it shine.

Tonight the wall is coming down.

Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you’re alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.

— Norton Juster

Alright, here's another song from Taylor Swift. Again. Sorry, I couldn't resist. I really couldn't. It's just too cute.

Best of all, it's unique, and original. There's no break in the story for singing, or any face-melting-stage-dancing or anything like that. It's like she's human, for once.



ALSO THERE IS AN ASIAN MAN WITH A BANANA.

"Remember, no man is a failure who has friends."

Nothing to cheer your day up like a good 'ol reminder of what you've got.

It is a wonderful life.



I love this movie.

Sin is okay.

I've been beating up on myself a lot recently. Call it perfectionist, call it over-controlling, call it self-righteous...whatever. But when I see a problem, it bothers me.

Honestly, it's a wonder to me that people love me at all when my own love is so distorted. When my view is so dirtied by this fateful curse of sin.

But I wonder if Christians play it up too much. We spend so much time indoctrinating our children on what is right and what is wrong and what ought and ought not to be. We tell them what mindsets are correct, what things are lies of the devil, and that anything contrary to what they are teaching is a falsehood and should be rejected immediately.

We do this so much that when these children grow up and enter the real world, they don't know what to do with it. False love, pride, lust, homosexuality, beauty, acceptance -- it shows up in all ways, shapes, and forms in our lives -- ways far deeper, dirtier, and more terrible than anything they ever taught us in Sunday school. Yes, there are worse things than hitting your brother.

And what have we been taught? That sin in any form is not okay.

But I'm starting to think that....that it is okay.

Oh heavens come crashing down, what am I saying?

No, really. We're taught to reject sin so much that when we discover a new form of it taking shape in our lives that we've never experienced before, we don't know how to deal with it. We've been taught that it's only the really messed up people who think this way. Only the people who are completely lost.

And we're not lost like that, no sir, we have Christ on our side.

We, in fact, are the broken, lost people that we they warned us about in Sunday school -- and when we discover this, it shocks us. How could we be like this when we're supposed to be something greater than this?

So we push it down. Shove it back. Place it in a corner. We're stronger than this.

But we're afraid to be broken. I'm afraid to be broken. I'm afraid to be sinful, because...well, I'm a Christian, so aren't I supposed to be cured of that?

Like any other perfectly homeschooled, Christian kid, I went to VBS every year. Actually I went to about 3 or 4 every year. And I always heard the same thing -- which was really just a condensed version of what I was taught in Sunday school:

When we're saved, that doesn't mean that we stop doing bad things. It means that Jesus now helps us not do bad things.

So perhaps because I feel that because Jesus is not doing anything to "help me not do bad things" that I must be screwed up in some way.

But I'm a Christian. I'm not supposed to be this way.

So I encounter problems. I realize I'm more broken than just "disobeying my parents" or "being mean to my brother." My heart is deceitful, and desperately wicked. I've been taught for years that this - these problems, this brokenness - it's wrong. But I've also been taught that because "every sin past present and future" has been forgiven and that "Jesus helps me not do bad things" that all of these problems I have should be either nonexistent or easy to fix "because I have Jesus."

So I shy away from being broken. From admitting I have a problem. From being brutally honest and real. From finding out who I really am. Even from accepting the brokenness of others.

Oh, they struggle with that? They must not have Jesus. They don't have hope like I do.

(I've always been told I had hope in Jesus. But when does that teaching cease to be a piece of knowledge you must memorize and start to become a truth that you cherish?)

But I'm starting to realize that it's okay. It's okay to be broken. It's okay to be sinful. It's okay to hurt. It's okay to be confused. And it's okay for other people to be that way, too.

You see....we're not God. We're not perfect, and we can never be perfect. We have no business rejecting brokenness and sin when we're living in it. Call me crazy, but yeah, it's taking me awhile to understand this.

Yeah, sin is still wrong.

But it's okay to mess up. It's okay to fail. It's okay to have no clue about anything.

Maybe that's what Jesus sacrifice was supposed to be about.

And maybe....just maybe, because of this radical sacrifice, God is okay with my brokenness, too.

What do you think?

Christmas is finally here.

Despite the fact that I'm one of those Christmas-begins-the-second-thanksgiving-is-over-or-sometimes-earlier kind of person, I persuaded my brother to try an experiment with me this year.

Objective: See how long we can go without putting up the Christmas tree.

Our theory? Parents only do this for their kids. Once we're old enough to reach the top of the thing, if the kids don't take initiative, it won't happen.

Our prediction: We'd make it to Christmas eve before they noticed the tree wasn't up.

However, this process nearly killed us, and we finally just went up to the attic, drug the tree down, and put it up.

And now, it can really be Christmas.