... She is surprised that Miley Cyrus actually has talent

Call me hater, but I always assumed that Miley was a Disney girl who was forced to sing in order to make more money.

And now she is not classy (or even cute - what is with her short platinum hair?).

But then...

I stumbled upon these gems:

Are you as impressed as I am?

Just thought you would want to be in as much awe as I am.

True talent.

xoxo,
The Blonde

... She hopes in glory

I love journaling. I always have.

Journals starting in 3rd grade are stored in a special bin in my attic. When I want to reminisce  I pull out those journals. My crush of the week from 4th grade is revealed (and a giggle tumbles out of my mouth before I can stop it). The angst of the early teen years fills journals. My heart goes out to the 13 year old me - if only I knew then all that I know now. The heartbreaks, many joys, and random stories of high school are recorded. All so I can look back and remember. 

But sometimes I want to throw what I am thinking out into the vast unknown, unexplored world. It makes me feel validated as a human. 

So, world. What am I thinking about tonight? 

The past year & Romans 8. 

The amount that I was forced to grow up in the past year overwhelms me. I didn't especially desire to grow up to the extent that I have, but I am glad. This is who I am - bruised, broken, & refined.

My heart is beginning to begin to understand what it means to reveal in the Lord. To find the hope of glory. And that alone makes me rejoice. Who would not want to be in close communion with their Lord? 

He is so real

And active. 

And worthy of our awe and respect.

My heart rejoices because I trust in Him. 

And I would not have been able to say that even three weeks ago. But I was forced to deal with emotions about my dad I was terrified to process. 

What were they? 

Well, I don't want to completely bare my soul to the world, so here are the highlights:

- Anger at God for taking my dad from me; 

- The deep disappointment that comes with loss; 

- Not wanting to be strong;

- Feeling fake (I started processing that in my previous entry); 

- Feeling hollow & lacking depth of emotion 

So, I am learning what to do with these emotions and how to talk to Him about it and even acknowledge it. 

And how to talk to others about it. I hate talking about my dad with people. Not on surface level - I can do that. But going any deeper is scary, unknown, and real. 

I can write all I want, but when I say it out loud it is cemented. It cannot be retracted. 

I also feel like a burden to other people. They don't want to hear my stories and random, often inexplicable feelings. Plus, if I tell them - then they know something deep about me. Something precious and sacred. Holy territory. 

But I want to tell people. I want to spill my guts and say everything that weighs my heart down. I want relief and to share the burden even for a moment. So, dear reader of this post, or even the cold, unknown world wide web, I am letting you in. Congrats. You know me better then anyone else. 

Damn it (I am not even apologizing). Why is it so hard? 

But 

The hope of glory never ceases. It may dim, but it is always there. 

For example, the week of the one year anniversary of dad passing away, my eyes fell upon this verse: 

"So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy"

John 16:22

My eyes fill with tears just thinking about it. It was like he spoke directly to my heart and gave me permission to be in grief. Talk about freedom. 

Romans 8. 

Have you read it all in one sitting? (It can be rather difficult - there is just so much wonderfulness in one chapter.)

Give it a go.

I am inserting the Message translation because it gives a unique twist to it all. 

(Plus I love reading the same chapter/verse in different translations)

8 ^1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

^3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

^5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.

^9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

^12-14 So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

^15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

^18-21 That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

^22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

^26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

^29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

^31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us."

Wow. I could spend years talking about this chapter. 

So, I am just going to leave it without any commentary.

Except, 

Bless the Lord oh my soul. 

Thank you for listening to my rambling. 

XOXO,

The Blonde

PS Check out www.setapartgirl.com & download all of these (it's free AND legal) http://noisetrade.com/pageandautumn