Tunes Tuesday :: to love you back

Sometimes {how 'bout a lot of times??} I take for granted, the amazing privilege that we have to know God, to be in His presence, and to love Him back. For me anyways, I tend to just kinda float through it, and not think about it that much. But come on - this is the Creator of the universe, before Jesus died and the curtain split, only one man once a year could enter the presence of God, and that was a pretty risky thing to do. Now, we have constant access to the LORD, and we live in His presence at all times - it is even within us! 

And also? We get to know Him and love Him back. He is the awe-some God, I AM, and we finite humans can know Him!! Not only love Him, but love Him. This song by Jamie Grace helps me to remember that when I forget, I love love love the part that goes:

'And I still can't believe,
That you've loved me for eternity,
And what's so marvelous to me,
Is that I finally get,
I finally get,
I get to love You, to love You back'

So today I want to share with you this song, and hopefully it will help remind you of the amazing privilege it is to love Him back. Cuz guys? this is something we need to do intentionally, with our whole hearts!

From the first sunrise You knew my name,
You knew I‘d fail You over and over,
But still You loved me all the same,
You still love me anyway,

The way You don't give up on me,
You really got a hold on me,
You give me more than I deserve,

You've become my everything,
The only reason that I sing,
The beauty is You chose me first,

And I still can't believe,
That you've loved me for eternity,
And what's so marvelous to me,
Is that I finally get,
I finally get,
I get to love You (to love You back),
I get to love You,
I get to love You,
I finally get, I finally get,

I get to know You more and more,
And make every single day about You,
I wanna live like I can't afford,
To spend another second without You,

The way You don't give up on me,
You really got a hold on me,
You give me more than I deserve,

You've become my everything,
The only reason that I sing,
The beauty is You chose me first,

And I still can't believe,
That you've loved me for eternity,
And what's so marvelous to me,
Is that I finally get,
I finally get,
I get to love You (to love You back),
I get to love You,
I get to love You,
I finally get, I finally get,

To go back to the start,
Back when my heart first met You,
Oh, I heard You were good,
But this is more than I expected,

So I answer the call,
I give You my all,
And lay it at Your feet,
I can't praise You enough,
But I promise to give You my love,

Oh I can't believe,
That you've loved me for eternity,
And it's so beautiful to see,
That I finally get, I finally get,
To love You back,
To love You,(to love You back)
I get to love You, (with every part of me)
I get to love You,
Oh I get to love You, yeah,
I get to love you back,
Oh how I love you... 

On another note - I always knew I liked Jamie Grace - I really liked all the radio singles that she had (those were the songs I knew), but my sister got Ready to Fly for Christmas, so I've been listening to it quite a bit, and gosh, love this girl and her music! :)

the love story {of Psalm 105}

Today I was reading Psalm 105. Which is, by the way, a beautiful story, and a great reminder, and I think you should go read it right now. Don't worry, I'll still be here when you get back. :) 

I love the beautiful reminder in vs. 3-4 that when we seek the LORD, we will always find a reason to rejoice.

But as I kept reading, I kept seeing all the reminders to remember all His wonderful acts, and His wonderful faithfulness, and to tell all the nations about what the LORD has done. And it goes on to tell the story of God's chosen people, from His covenant with Abraham;

"He remembers his covenant forever,
    the promise he made, for a thousand generations,
⁹ the covenant he made with Abraham,
    the oath he swore to Isaac.
¹⁰ He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree,
    to Israel as an everlasting covenant:
¹¹ “To you I will give the land of Canaan
    as the portion you will inherit.” "   

 to when He led them to the promised land;

  ⁴³ He brought out his people with rejoicing,
    his chosen ones with shouts of joy;
⁴⁴ he gave them the lands of the nations,
    and they fell heir to what others had toiled for—
⁴⁵ that they might keep his precepts
    and observe his laws. Praise the Lord.

Throughout the Psalm, it tells the beautiful story of God working, a large portion of the first part of the Bible condensed. 

But it got me to thinking. Looking back at it all, there is none who can deny that it is a powerful story which shows the faithfulness of the LORD. But what about in that time? We know there was a lot of heartache, a lot of discouragement that was felt every step along the way there. 

 They wandered around from nation to nation, they were strangers in all lands. How discouraging must that have been?! But we can clearly see that He protected them the whole time. He prepared for them the land in Egypt, where they were to live for many years. 

When Joseph was sold by His brothers, and all that happened to Him in Egypt, including being sent to jail for something he didn't do, it would be easy to say that it was all wrong. But one of my favourite verses is from Genesis 50, when Joseph is talking to his brothers, and he says: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." Think of all the hurt. But God used it to save many, many people from the famine, and to bring His chosen people to high positions in Egypt. 

But then they became slaves in Egypt; we'd say the story's gone wrong. The Israelites must have felt abandoned by God, they must have wondered if they were ever going to be free, going to get to the promised land. But looking back now, we know He was working all things together for them.

And He sent Moses and Aaron to lead the people. Through them He did many signs and wonders. He sent the ten plagues. And through that, the people left Egypt laden with silver and gold. 

And then they wandered around in the desert. We know the Israelites had a lot of problems during that time. Think golden calf, think lots of complaining. But honestly, if I were in that situation, I really couldn't say if I would've been much better. 

He provided well for them in the desert;

⁴⁰ They asked, and he brought them quail;
    he fed them well with the bread of heaven.
⁴¹ He opened the rock, and water gushed out;
    it flowed like a river in the desert. 

And still, they were discouraged, and they complained!! But we know that God was faithful to them.

If we can look at that story of God and the Israelites, and see that despite of, or even through, the discouragement of the people, God worked a miraculous story of love, then we should not doubt that He is doing the same to us even when we are in the middle of days of discouragement. 

He worked all of the story of Joseph for good - maybe, somewhere in your life, someone intended something to harm you. But God is working through that, redeeming it, using it to bring good. He led them through the desert, He fed them manna and gave them water from a rock (hello?!! food from the sky?! water from a rock?! does that not blow your mind??!), God is giving you great and amazing gifts all the time. Will you choose to complain anyways (like the Israelites did, they got tired of manna pretty quick), or will you choose to let the miracle blow your mind and be thankful to the LORD for leading you and providing for you. 

So today, whatever discouragement you are walking through, remember: in the middle of the story told in Psalm 105, it looked like a lotta heartache. But when you look at the whole story, it's beautiful. The same is true for yours. 

Blessings,
love Emma  

  

2015 :: one word

Happy New Year y'all!! 

In some ways it's hard to believe that 2014 is over already, and in other ways it feels like it was a full year. When I look back it feels like it sped by, but then when I think about it, I feel like it was a full year, and I really did appreciate and live in the moments far more than I have ever done previously. {except perhaps when I was a kid, because one of the super awesome things about kids is that they aren't really capable of not living in each moment.}

I've been working on a post to recap my word{s} {lol} for 2014: Here & Now, for quite some time, hopefully it will be published soon. Stay tuned for that. ha!

But for today, I want to share the word that I chose for this year, 2015.  

seek.

I want to seek the LORD this year, more then I have ever before. 

• I want to seek God and His will for my life, and for my future. 
• I want to seek God and the gifts + graces, big + small, that He gives each day. 
• I want to seek God and His character so that by His grace I might become more like Him. 
• I want to seek God and His grace because I so desperately need it myself, + so that I might generously extend it to others. 
• I want to seek God and His presence and all that He is so that I will know Him better, + be ever closer to Him, that I might discern His voice from all others, be satisfied only by Him, + keep my eyes fixed upon Him.

 I want to spend more time seeking Him than I do on small silly selfish fleshly things like I do right now. 

That's what I want this year. 

Do you have a word for 2015? What is it? Do you make new years resolutions?



Also, on the subject of my December Goal, which was slow for Advent and make the most of the Christmas season, I feel like I did that pretty well this year. :) I may or may not make a January Goals post later. We'll see. I have so many post ideas floating around in my head, and so many posts that I wanted to make in December that I never did...  like a Dressember fashion ideas post, and some advent stuff, among many others. like my 2014 word recap.

On a slightly related note, today was the first day for pants again and I'm alovin' it! ;) We also came up with this funny idea that I am not doing, wearing jeans all of January and calling it Jeanuary. lol

please excuse the mess lol