summer 2012 soundtrack.

two radically different songs are part of our summer 2012 soundtrack. both songs, however, have the power to make us dance (yes, i said us) regardless of the situation or setting. enjoy, friends!

adele.

so much in love with this cover. the photo is perfection.

it's one of those issues where i feel like i should keep it somewhere for safe-keeping. adele, after all, has been the songstress of our love story. chasing pavements was like a battle cry for me during my first year of graduate school (good thing i didn't "give up" on shane), and we danced our first dance as husband and wife to her version of to make you feel my love.

love her.

symmetry is nice.

a reoccurring anything typically means you should take notice, and lately i've been pondering the idea behind the jars of clay song two hands. the chorus echos the heart of so many believers:

i use one hand to pull You closer
the other to push You away

the lyrics question what life would be like "if i had two hands doing the same thing/lifted high." i read and reread these lyrics last night wondering how my life would be different if i wasn't a "house that is divided" like the song says. my actions, so often, are self-motivated. and though i know my purpose is solely to glorify my God, i consistently find myself pursuing my heart's desires rather than His.

after earnestly examining my motives and thinking about the lyrics to the song last night, i found myself singing a different song with the same message in my car today. the song freedom by a band called run kid run almost brought me to tears as i sat there listening, knowing that this reoccurring idea is anything but coincidence.

the song begins:

all my chains i can't disengage
and i don't believe that i want to
one hand sings Your praise
the other brings me shame
i have selfishness to blame

so today, after hearing that song, i made the journey back to school after spending mother's day at home. as i drove, i thought about human nature and our double-minded selves. i thought about the number two of all things.

we've been given two hands, two eyes, two feet. symmetry is nice, but it seem as if, because we have two of each, we've somehow made it okay in our heads to offer God only half of our whole selves.

i know this, though. the half i've been trying to control is missing out.

james 4:8
Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

"lovin' it up till i hit the ground" -- aerosmith

two weeks ago i almost lost my life when the elevator i was in plummeted three whole floors at record speed. after my heart returned to a semi-normal pace, i called 911 from the elevator phone.

yesterday, while in the same elevator, i had a flashback to my childhood. when riding elevators as a kid, i used to jump (and instruct others to jump) as the elevator arrived at the appropriate floor. alone in the elevator yesterday, i dared myself to jump upon arrival... i chickened out. blame it on the traumatic experience two weeks ago.

the same power that conquered the grave lives in me. -- hillsong

worth fighting for.

my previous post was an alphabetic rendition of my life, something that one might forward in an email and politely demand that the next person fill out. i posted it for lack of a better filler, but today, i'm deleting it. it's ugly and quite boring, and i wouldn't forward it in an email so why should i post it here. but, if you're dying to know if i'm A-ttached or single or if you want to know who my B-est friend is, or whether i like C-ake or pie (you get the picture), i guess you can ask (or simply read old posts seeing as the A, B, and C of my life have already been disclosed -- yep, even the cake or pie conundrum).

the letter R on the previously mentioned alphabetic rendition preceded -eason to smile, to which i responded, love. this brings us to today's post:
scripture makes mention of three types of love: agape, phileo, and eros. i would recommend that you do your research on all three; however, in a broader sense of the word, it seems that there are two distinct types. there's romantic love that often incorporates the somehow daunting, baby-of-a-word "in," displayed in the all too popular phrase, "i'm in love with you." and there's platonic love that is unbiased where gender and attraction are concerned. if you haven't been in love, you've probably at least imagined what it's like. and platonically speaking, i would venture to assume that everyone has loved someone, somehow, in this life. i would also venture to assume that we all love for different reasons.
love within a family is almost a given, something you're born with. it's a love you can't really shake, and why would you want to? it's also a love that i believe you grow into. toddlers say "i love you" simply because it is a conditioned response. then, somewhere along the way, the individual learns what it means to love and be loved, and typically those elements of love hold true within the confines of a family. platonic love.
romantic love is quite different. rather than a given, it is a choice -- we choose who we will love, and we choose to continue loving them once we've discovered their faults. romantic love is difficult because the almost euphoric high many people feel early on in a romantic relationship fades at some point. it is at this point that many people choose to claim they've fallen out of love, when in fact i would argue that the ease with which we interchange the words "in" and "out" negates real love in the first place.
within the last six months i've seen a married couple renew their romantic love for one another because they both chose to put the effort forth, i've seen divorce between the most unlikely of people, i've hurt with a friend over a love lost, and rejoiced with another friend because of a love found. romantic love takes a lot of effort, but i believe with all that i am that it is something worth fighting for.

Love is not a place
to come and go as we please
It's a house we enter in
then commit to never leave

So lock the door behind you
Throw away the key
Work it out together
Let it bring us to our knees

Love is a shelter
in a raging storm
Love is peace
in the middle of a war
If we try to leave
May God send angels to guard the door
No, Love is not a fight
but it's something worth fighting for

To some love is a word
that they can fall into.
But when they're falling out
keeping that word is hard to do

Love is a shelter
in a raging storm
Love is peace
in the middle of a war
If we try to leave
May God send angels to guard the door
No, Love is not a fight
but it's something worth fighting for

Love will come to save us
If we'll only call
He will ask nothing from us
but demand we give our all

Love is a shelter
in a raging storm
Love is peace
in the middle of a war
If we try to leave
May God send angels to guard the door
No, Love is not a fight
but it's something worth fighting for
-- warren barfield, "love is not a fight"

reliant on relient k.

i have a tendency of zoning out while i drive. good music will do that to a person.

my sister sydney and i were in the car earlier today, and we literally went a good half hour without talking. we were singing along to the music on the radio, just taking in our surroundings.

when we got to the chorus of chris tomlin's Your Grace is Enough, i laughed when i realized that sydney and i were both methodically drumming along to the beat -- i on the steering wheel and she on the dashboard. in that moment we connected (as it is sometimes hard for siblings with ten years between them to do), and a conversation about grace ensued.

i shared with sydney how i had just recently come to really understand grace. it seems that the word is often times used interchangeably with other words such as mercy and love. she gave me her 14-year-old definition of grace, one that really could be categorized as either mercy or love.

i wanted so much to emphasize the importance of grace, to show her that really it is an attribute that is so set apart -- not greater than mercy or love, but different. as we talked, i struggled to find an example that she could relate to, something that would really make sense. after a few failed attempts, i shared with her a line from a relient k song, lyrics that had really made me think and finally understand the true meaning of grace.

from the song Be My Escape:
"the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair."

then, almost instantly she got it. and to be quite honest, in three years of teaching high school, this "light bulb experience" that i witnessed with sydney was greater than any i had in the classroom.

Romans 6:23
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

how awesome is the grace of our God who forgives our failures and overlooks our inadequacies. we deserve death, yet He in all of His grace and unfairness (thank you relient k) gives us life eternal.