Recollections and Reflections

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[thelovejournals]

Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say My tooth is aching than to say My heart is broken.

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain  (via thelovejournals)

[unapproachablelight]

For now, we live in the shadowlands. Numerous inclinations might convince us otherwise: the patterned softness of a throw blanket, the lazy sweetness of a coffee shop jazz melody, the glint in the eye of a girl after she swings, followed by a dulcet crack of the bat and thunderous cheers.

Look a little harder, though, and it becomes clear that these shadowlands are absolutely barren. A blanket, from an ex partner, left over and never returned. Smooth jazz performed by a bedraggled man hoping to secure dinner before nightfall. The deafening dullness in the eye of the girl who gave up the score.

We are light, however feeble, living in a shadowland. 

Have you ever held up a light bulb against the sun? It still casts a shadow. But that’s because we live in the day.

For those who live in the night, our light may be all that can be seen. So we must go and venture out into these shadowlands. And it’s gonna suck.

But take heart; Day is coming.

[wordsnquotes]

When you love someone, it’s never over. You move on, because you have to but you take them with you in your heart.

Elizabeth Chandler, Kissed by an Angel (via wordsnquotes)

[tequilamockingbird2015]

You don’t know why you’re exhausted? You’re fighting a war inside your head every single day. If that’s not exhausting I don’t know what is.

—My therapist (via tequilamockingbird2015)

[hellohurricane-deactivated20160]

Faith is to say—yes, the future will have pain, but there is a meaning and a purpose deeper than that pain. For me, that is my choice: to believe rather than doubt.

Jon Foreman  (via breanna-lynn)

[unapproachablelight]

Let a righteous man strike me-it is a kindness; let him rebuke me-it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it.

Psalm 141 (via unapproachablelight)

[unapproachablelight]

The grace of God allows shame to become humility.

(via unapproachablelight)

[loveminimalstyle]

[hailstorm101]

Hope is so much stronger than fear

[elysian-dreams-blog]

✧

[hailstorm101]

Hmmm

[boggletheowl]

[clothedinwhite]

Hits home.

Recently came across Boggle the Owl and found a plethora of encouragement, hard truths, and compassionate understanding.

[liangxtinee]

hits right in the feels *ugly sobs*

[hailstorm101]

I've found a new favorite owl

[tblaberge]

What are your thoughts on marriage?

I have had a very emotional day regarding this very topic! I had a great FaceTime with my lovely parents, who will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this coming January. My dad proceeded to tell me about one of my childhood friends, he said that his wife just straight up left him. It broke my heart, I filmed their wedding!

Well, I then had a trip to Walmart with my friend Ryan, he and I began talking about people and friends whose spouses had left them. We talked from a guy just moving out and not talking to his wife, to a wife cheating on her husband with their pastor, and to a friend of mine leaving his wife because he wanted to play more video games. The conversation turned to Ryan’s own marriage, and how the first year and a half was complete misery for him. He talked about deep emotional fights that had ripped his soul apart, about how he had failed her expectations of what a husband should be.

But you know what? This conversation turned into a discussions of how even though marriage is hard, you don’t give up. Even when all expectations fall short, your commitment stays strong. Getting married is risking someone walking out on you, or cheating on you. To be vulnerable is to love, to love is to show someone else your exposed chest, allowing them to take your beating heart and do what they will.

The number one thing I see marriage as is Grace, it is a holy and beautiful thing, but it must be encased in grace. How are we to love someone so wholly? How are we to lay down our pride? It is Grace, and Grace some more!

This conversation about marriage has brought a new reality to what it means to love, it means getting messy and showing another soul your weakness. It means laying down your pride, and offering your service. It is the ripping of the old, and a birth of the new.

If I cannot find someone who loves Christ above her own expectations, than I must be single. But if I can find that beautiful soul, than I must also love Christ above my own expectations of her.

Love is terrifying, to be left, or cheated, or even parted by death, I must be willing to be brave in my choice to love someone. That is the cost of marriage, it is not rainbows and puppies, it is two broken people making a commitment to love each as Christ loves the Church, to help grow and maintain a spirit of Grace.

I think marriage is wonderful, whether it lasts 50 years, like my parents, or it lasts only a little bit, like a couple of my friends. I pray to God that I can say “I do” to a woman who has the love and grace of Christ within her soul; for my charge will be to love her until death do us part.

-Todd

[ifekehinde]

Yep, I’ll. just, leave. This. Here.

[hailstorm101]

Thanks

[jspark3000]

If you talk to anyone who’s involved in a huge tragedy, you can’t say those cute cliches like “Pain forces you to grow” or “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” It sounds hollow and stupid, and I would slap myself in the face if I said those things too.

I believe more and more that not every pain has a lesson. I think sometimes that pain is just pain, that life can be a mystery, and it’s all part of our weird wild crazy human experience. Pain is part of being human. We don’t need to spiritualize everything. We don’t need to wrap things up with a bowtie. Sometimes there is unresolved tension and we need to let it bleed.

However, here’s why I believe in the Christian faith.

I believe in Jesus because his life means God actually showed solidarity with us in our pain. I know that doesn’t solve pain right now. But when I’m hurting, I don’t need a lecture or a connect-the-dots-theology. What I need is a friend who will stay with me side by side and hear my venting, embrace my shaking, love me through my slobbery flailing mess. I need a presence who both understands my pain but is just enough above it to lead me through it.

And if I believe the narrative of Jesus, then we have both a person who has been through what I’ve been through and a divine presence who can help pull me through the worst of it. Jesus on a cross showed an unresolved tension that bled — but Jesus out of a tomb showed there really is a bowtie to this whole thing, a far-off nearly imperceptible light at the end of this tunnel.

Maybe we will find out the “reasons” one day for why everything happened. Maybe they will satisfy us, or not. But by then, the answers probably won’t matter anymore. Because we’ll be face to face with the God who was with us all along, the only one who never left us in our mess and who truly understood us as we are, venting and angry and hurting and all, and we’ll find out He really did love us despite us, and He suffered infinitely more than we could ever bear to face on our own.

I hold onto this hope. It feels foolish some days: but on those days, it’s all I have and all I need.

— J.S.

[liangxtinee]

100% agree.

[brittanyjoyal]

Stop saying sorry. Say thank you instead. When you say, “sorry for being a jerk” the other person is forced to either call you a jerk or say it wasnt a big deal. Instead, say “thank you for being so patient with me” so the other person has a reason to say they love you.

I saw this gem on Reddit tonight.  It was posted under a topic of “What ‘little’ things you can do to improve your relationship with your significant other.”  I’m definitely taking this piece of advice with me into my next relationship. (via blakebaggott)

[anotherhelpingpplease]

I really want to go to a wedding. I think I’ve been to more funerals than I have weddings and I can’t help but think that it’s just a sad characteristic of my life - that there seems to be much more sadness and death in my life than there is joy. 

——-

I’ve seen a lot of relationships fall apart recently. Marriage vows that were said that are mocked. Promises made that were broken. It’s made me pretty pessimistic about the odds, pretty cynical about things breaking. Marriage/Relationships is that tight harmony. The melody and the (musical part) harmony follow each other (and in a way it’s the harmony following the melody). The harmony can’t always just sing a third above or below the melody because sometimes the melody changes notes to something that can’t be harmonized by just a simple third. But it’s so easy for the tight harmony to falter. If any person falters and sings a wrong note, the (general) harmony is off. But seriously what are the odds? What if the soloist just wants to do their thing and sing something else randomly and what if the other soloist just decides to sing random intervals just because? What if someone decides that no, they don’t really want to love and cherish this person, maybe sometimes, through sickness maybe, but not through health? Seriously how does it make sense how much in perfect balance this has to be - that two people somehow have to keep pulling on opposite ends of a rope to keep themselves up, to keep the rope that keeps them together up? Like stop, stop these pop songs that sing about love like it’s candy and summer nights and simple and easy because it’s not and you’ll just get cynical and disillusioned when you and the person who was that one you sang about, the one you sang with, don’t sing together anymore. Cynical Christina doesn’t believe relationships will make it. Cynical Christina thinks that there’s no way. Someone prove it to me because all the proof I’ve seen around me says otherwise. I want to. I really want to believe that relationships don’t just end up falling apart. And even though this is a hope, cynical Christina doesn’t want this hope to grow too big, because if it does than maybe there will just be more disappointment.

I know that it’s only possible through Christ. There is no way two people would be able to constantly hold this rope and keep themselves up. That this fragile structure will break and that grace is how it’s mended, that Christ is what keeps it together. Sometimes, it’s easier to remember that hope is in Christ. Sometimes certain things remind me to hope. Then sometimes it’s just plain hard and I’m in Doubt country with a capital D. I’m trying to hold on to times and things of hope and store them as they come, to look back and remember, to remind myself of. I think we ought to (like memorial stones, as Ebenezers). This song (acoustic version) is one of them. It pushes me onward to hope and to trying.

[hailstorm101]

Even in darkness, may hope rise

[hailstorm101]

[hailstorm101]

I see your monsters

I see your pain

Tell me your problems

I'll chase them away

I'll be your lighthouse

I'll make it okay

When I see your monsters

I'll stand there so brave

And chase them all away