Always a gripping or maybe letting go and walking down the road barefoot and hair down. Indecent perhaps.

After the day—even if much was accomplished—if at the end of it you can’t bring yourself to do anything anymore, it all seems wasted. And then there is only one thing to do it seems: to walk down the road and see what happens.

This August as the days end, the lack of light starts to cool off the tired earth and soon the autumn sprites on the wind of cherry leaves and chestnut will come and God will bring in the crisp apples days and the hopeful promise of death which always yields life for the soul.

But summer is still here, still the bugs churn under the leaves and underbrush and hum like the symphony of all desire, all loneliness, and the extreme far-away-ness of childhood even as they call to mind all those forgotten summer nights when in fear I would go to bed while the sun still lingered behind the mountain and the parents downstairs talked and the kitchen crockery clinked softly by the sink.

Summer has always been the time of death. Even in all the green—all the old happy tales of the season—for me it has historically been a time of death and grief and the darkest night of my soul. And perhaps that it why it is so important. No one can begin to imagine life if they have not died first. Even in a small wooden room on a hospice bed looking up in the corner—seeing Him. Seeing Him coming to get her. Now more alive than ever. Man.

I just can’t seem to do anything anymore.

If life was only sorrowful or joyous maybe it would be easy. But it is both. It is both the most horrifying terror and the most unbelievable dream. Who could doubt it’s significance? But for some, perhaps it is all sorrow. Yet still, no. For the earth itself brings forth the plentiful arrays of leaf and flower and birdsong. It is not quite horrible. And the fact that it is not makes it harder to bear. Because there is the knowledge in all of us that it really does mean something. And if it means something than something must be done on our part. Some contribution to the symphony which still turns and strings it’s violin and oboe while those mythical Spanish battalions come continually to kill and steal and destroy in the name of truth. The only ones left, naked children paddling away in a dugout canoe.

But even if you die like those old Jesuit Priests in South America you will still live forever.

So here I go walking down the road, barefoot, hair down. Quite conscience of the fact that if I were to pray it would not come naturally in that moment because the simple act of walking there is a prayer now. Existing there with the Lord is a prayer it seems. There are all kinds.

I met a dog on the road. Brown and thin. It never touched me—it walked around me and walked away and growled in the driveway with it’s back turned. And I kept on, feeling rather like a dog myself and keeping my head down when any car would pass. I have always felt uncouth. When I was dirty they were clean and when I was clean they were dirty. And I always sweat. I show up with hair askew, with zits on my face, with overgrown eyebrows.

I don’t care. I wish I didn’t.

This time of life—19 years old with no prospect of romance which is the romantics dream—is an eternity. And all of life has been an eternity. When this eternity is over there will be another eternity. And they all go by as quick as the rain on a tin roof. And I look for the Eternal one: The land of the Living.

I look for Home. This is not my home, I have found.

And as for romance it is a lie and a sham and I don’t care about it. But that isn’t true either. I do, of course—who wouldn’t. But I look for realness. Even though I am an interloper. And I wait. Waiting and waiting and waiting and wondering what there is that I could do.

Brushing teeth in the deteriorating bathroom twice a day and wondering what to do with myself and trying to figure and figure again. And finding it’s freedom I’m after. That in the morning, before the moment when you get out of bed you can’t give in to old mental pathways of compulsion—only freedom. Maybe romance will come someday and maybe it will be real. Maybe somebody will love me. That would be nice. I would like that. I would like to learn how to love someone in return.

I used to imagine Jesus. I used to kind of be able to picture Him coming for me. Smiling, you know. I still can if I try hard. Or really, if I don’t try at all. There He is.

He walks down the street opens the coffee shop door steps in. I stare at Him and mouth agape a little, wait for Him to come over and He does. Get’s in line and looks right at me.

“Ah, I see you’re writing,” He says. “I wonder why you’re so afraid—can I sit here?”

“Yes!” (a quiet breath).

He does sit down and I don’t know what He says. He doesn’t have to say anything. Because He is telling me that He is with me. Here He is. Gone from the chair but inside. Here He is. And now it becomes His story. Now there is a realness. As it always was. As it always will be.

FREEDOM!

Oh Jesus…

This is why His peace cannot be explained. It must be dissolved in the soul. This is the peace that prompts action—even quietly. I came home last night but everyday I will set out and one day I will really get there.

Amen, amen. Amen.

Love,

Soph

A quiet, yellowed room, under a quilt. Outside children lift their voices like an untuned symphony of war whoops and freedom. Perhaps the best description of anyone singing is from Dylan Thomas, “like a big-bosomed thrush.” It comes to mind when I hear these particular thrush’s next door.

And intermittently a real bird ruptures into an orchestral solo.

Every so often I take a drink of coffee which sits on the bookshelf by the bed and grows cool slowly.

Perhaps the most confusing and exciting thing in the world is what to do with oneself at the start of any day, or any moment or any time ever.

I went on a walk the other night and made up a song which I sang for an invisible audience (and sort of God too) about how I could run away and no one would be able to stop me. Just hop in the car and go. And see how long I could make it with all my cash and savings. Of course we all think that sometimes. Or perhaps I’m just a bit funny in the head.

But in truth, as I crested the last hill and walked back to my own driveway, I did consider the strange beauty of my desire to write—which I think is from God—and how it was rather infuriatingly puzzling that I am not really in the kind of position where I can devote myself to it.

Instead I get up in the morning and usually four days a week I go off to watch children or clean and then when I get home I am tired out and I feel like a slug and I don’t get much done at all. But you know, I like being useful, I like being helpful, I like being a blessing to those families. I only have other things I’d usually like to do a little more. (Most of us are not very content with our current state of affairs, I’d venture).

Anyway, all the while I am occupied by things which are not writing, I have all these ideas percolating in my mind and I keep having more and more and more of them popping up all in a matter of moments and cats slinking down the driveway or some mundane experience of cleaning out the car which then starts the process of another idea and everyday I probably have at least two or three stories I could write and it’s always much harder to sit down and write them than it is to imagine them over and over like a fuzzy song in your head.

Then many times it’s doubtful in my mind if God wants me to write any of them at all. So I asked Him to give me a story to write. And I suppose the only way to find it is to start writing it and see if it turns out to be anything.

(Appreciate the good authors whose dreams live on your bookshelf because they had to get through a load of all kinds of rubble to get that paper on your shelf).

But back to God. Why do I feel like He wants me to write when I don’t have much time for it? Maybe I am simply fooling myself. I don’t know. But I have a suspicion.

I have a suspicion that if I was given all the time in the world, a nice study (let’s say somewhere in England—the lake district—out in the middle of the pasture country and the foxgloves) and I could wake up in the morning to eggs and toast and tea with fresh milk and spend the whole day writing at an old desk upstairs with a window seat… Sounds lovely. But in truth, I don’t think I’d get anything down which was very worthwhile.

It is, in fact, the inability to devote myself fully to writing at the moment (the rubble) which produces so many ideas in the first place—ideas which probably wouldn’t come if I was locked away somewhere in the country. And also, it is quite clear to me that God does not want me to devote myself to writing at the moment seeing as how I have many other obligations which are actually not bad—obligations which I actually do enjoy and know that I am being used by God in them. And also seeing as how I have been learning that to give of oneself is quite the happiest thing in the world. And also the most worthwhile, even if it is often the most difficult and laborious thing you’ll ever do.

Wouldn’t I rather be writing something in my room than go upstairs and try to comfort my brothers who are having spiritual doubts and fears? Yet, why in the world would God place me in this family if He didn’t intend for me to ever be a contributor to it’s survival. I realize in moments like those how selfish I am. How I neglect to help people every day. I’d love to help the whole world which scrounges around for sustenance by writing some amazing book but what about my own family? They seem to be the people God has in mind for me to be helping at the moment… And then, I have an opportunity to be a blessing anytime I step out of the house.

Instead of waking up everyday in an old cottage in England and hearing the sound of rain on the roof and walking out to feed the white ducks which paddle about the garden before I sit down to write at an ancient desk and drink a cup of tea, God watches me every day as I stir in my bed in the darkness before the dawn and then jump as the alarm clock buzzes horribly and shrieks as if it was a curse to wake up. He watches me turn it off and mutter something like a thank you for another day. And He watches me sit up and say “Thank you!” louder or, like today, He watches me stay in bed for a little longer with the lamp on and my eyes closed and trying not to get too comfortable before I have to get up. He watches me get out of the arbor eventually and go to the bathroom and brush my teeth and pluck dark hairs from my chin (I wonder what He thinks about that) and He watches me crawl to the kitchen to get a mug and fill the bottom with heavy cream and exchange a few words with my hard-working mother before filling the rest of the mug with coffee and then settling down to my bed again to read Hebrews.

He watches me read it and underline things and re-read things that confuse me and He knows that I think that this is confusing and also beautiful and profound though I couldn't quite explain how. He watches me study His book. He watches me in my fear of not being good enough and He sees my fear dissipate into a relief as I get to a certain verse,

“Consequently, he [Jesus] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

He knows all this because somehow He has made a home in me.

I could spend the rest of my life, whatever the circumstance and confusion about why or how I am supposed to do what I would like to do, just trying to get that—you know, to really live as if that were true.

Seeing as how it is.

Perhaps one day I’ll make it back to this beautiful part of the world. I believe that God has some pretty amazing things in store for me—and all of the children who have drawn near to Him. And by the way, I don’t think one should give up on their dreams, but to consider the fact that some dreams will not be fully realized for a very long time. They will even change, some dreams. And some are beginning to come to fruition even in the darkness before the dawn while we still sleep. Take heart, for God will surely use you.

Love,

Soph

Mostly all written on 6.30.26

Once down the long roads in the summer–cicadas and honeysuckle. When I as young all it was for was drinking. And I helped teach my sister that ritual—funny you have to learn it. The yellow ones were always better usually. But they don’t seem as full as they did back then. The woods could still afford to spare it and make more.

But also all kinds of treachery like stinging nettles and poison oak and spiders, snakes, ticks. Poison ivy to singe your sorry hand for days later when you were only trying to feel the creek-bed. And also jewelweed to ward away the poison, wild-blueberries and those nothing tasting strawberries and mountains and thick trees. This is where I came to grow up. Out in the henbit and the clover and plantain leaves that you could chew and put on the darn mosquito bites cause you better believe you were gonna get a whole lotta those in the summer. And by the way, you’d be in for a long one too, let’s say at least til the end of September until you started to feel the breeze shift and then the leaves til the whole side of the mountain was covered in fire and you could finally pull out the sweaters from a big dusty tupperware of winter clothes.

That is how it is.

The people who grow up here have all different experiences and I like to think that I had a pretty true one seeing as how I was turned outside most days into the sun which didn’t quite agree with the British and Scandinavian skin cause I didn’t get much of the Greek olive. I did like olives though. And tomatoes which came straight from the plant. Warm. And the smell of those leaves was enough for a moment of complete peace. If only you could smell those for a while and not get burned in the grass. I stepped on a bee and I stepped on a Chinese chestnut. I still didn’t wear shoes much.

If the sky was sometimes only woolly I would have thought you could jump on those clouds but instead I learned that they were water. And sometimes water came too much and sometimes not enough. April was the time of tornadoes and thunderstorms. And we would have to hide in the closest where the movies were kept in their cases and once the power went out for days and we had to eat miso soup on the little gas burner outside in the carport.

I understood that the world was a good place to be alive in—well heaven scared me to my cranium because it was eternal. The earth was a wild kind of temperance. It was changing but not much and that was nice for me cause I didn’t like change. My mother understood it better though. She understood that the birds were like a poem and that the earth would yield up food and all manner of beauty and ointments to a human being in need. And she understood that it would also scorch you and not give you a break in the heat and the bugs always came back for the melons. But then she also got the kingfishers’ song by the pond and the bamboo ecstasy across the sweaty field and to her that was better than any old sunburn because it was showing her a vision of Someone eternal.

So I learned from her on that bit. And I took a few of those leaves in my pocket even though I forgot what bird sings that and what tree might that be, I still have it somewheres I think.

A waste of time was never loving this here kudzu like a jungle and flower on the way or that there mother under the eternal sky now and the other-birdly poetry of the always God who made it all. It was always a new day and it still is.

Under the wind-earthed interior of anything 
pounding the road on our street like a cataract 
and the inhumanity of silencing poor mom 
who is only trying to love him who is a kid
addicted to entertainment and distraction 
and the Good Lord knows she has enough 
on her plate. We all have plates 
and some of them are pretty full 
of frivolities and other things and others
full of sour food to eat everyday 
or so we think and we could fry it up 
nice and good in the Lord’s good 

sunshine. Anyway, was there 
always a deepening sense of oh NO!
Now what will I do–quick something–
instead of waking up and asking what 
can I do for You today? Since You 
already did it all and that’s done and THANK
YOU! Did it alright, what I would scour away 
like a scab and never come out but You 
did it. Thanks. 

“Thanks” is never enough but You know that too. 
And so I ask now, what should I do for You?
What are You doing today? 
What does it say in the Word 
of Your heart like a so long story 
of all the human lives and what You did 
and how You fashioned them. 
I admit it’s hard for me to read it
and I suppose that’s because 
it was never meant to be read. Rather 
swallowed and absorbed and turned over 
and examined like a portrait in a museum 
and then once it was sort of dissolved 
into the waters of the soul it would start 
to like bubble up or something of a 
sizzling effervescent exclamation: 

SEE HERE YOU ALL TREES AND HUMANS 
FROGS AND LILYPAD VAIN POETS OF THE EARTH, 
HOW MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL AND SACRED IS THE ONE 
WHO DESIGNED THE EVER AMAZING MOTION OF YOU AND ALL. 
HOW HE DIED ON A TREE OF WOOD FOR THE SAKE OF 
YOU WHO HAS BEEN DESOLATED BY THE EVIL one
AND LOST THE GLOW OF PERFECTION 
ONLY TO NOW HAVE THAT HOPE IF YOU ONLY 
HAVE THE SMALLNESS OF HEART TO SAY YES! 
I SHALL LOWER MYSELF TO BE EXALTED
I SHALL DIE TO BE ALIVE 
I SHALL STARVE MY LUST TO BE FED 
AND HATE MY GREED TO LOVE THE TREASURE IN A JAR OF CLAY 
THAT WAS ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO RADIATE IN ME. 
HOW HE HAS SAID THAT ALL KNOWLEDGE 
ALL POWER AND LOVE AND GOOD IS ONLY HIM. 
AND ALL SOURCE OF ANYTHING IN THE CONCEPTION:
HIM. BUT HE IS GOOD AND NO EVIL CAN BE DONE BY HIM. 
IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE BUT IT IS POSSIBLE.
WHAT IS THE GRACE THAT HE GIVES US FALLEN 
CREATURES AND YET HERE WE ARE. 

...

Amen
Yet
even after that there is still so often now the cataract 
down the road drilling into the earth 
like it was scouring your brain 
and maybe it's still too much and almost always there is:
why did He make us though. 
Why did it all have to be like this. 
Disappointment is the worst grief. 

Well I don’t know. 

But why has never been as good as 
even so 
yes
here I am 
and I’m on my way 
home to You by way 
of the road called earth.  

Written this morning on a sofa in the sun-room. Thanks be to God even in the doubting and the waiting which has always been hard historically and continues to be. I pray He will find us there faithful.

Love,

Sophia

Hey kid.

Did you find what you were looking for?

I’m still alive. Sometimes I look forward to the end when I don’t have to live here anymore. And other days I screech like a hawk inside and think yeesh! I don’t want to die!

I can’t explain the peace of God. I can’t explain how I feel at peace in the battlement of never ending temporary struggle on the hot earth in the hot south over the hot plains of time. But you know, it helps to find feathers on the road.

Or rainbows on the floor.

Truth is, I don’t know what I was after when I was holding that red beat. I was in a dark place, I’ll say that. I look at that picture and feel sad inside.

I went to a show the other day, the same show I was in when she died and I sat there in the new chairs—you know so much is different now—and I cried silently and that was good. Nine years later I guess I finally cried.

These days I cry sometimes or just kind of sit there or stand around and stare at things and people.

I also laugh a lot and I feel a little crazy. I feel like I’m some interloper around here. You know with a slight twitch and an other worldly sort of blinking in the corner of each eye. And then I eat some lunch. Kind of crazily hunker down and chuckle or rock silently inside. Oh man, here we go again… Sometimes I’m a ragged antagonist to humility.

Well anyway, I guess life was never supposed to be easy. We all found that out pretty quick. But that doesn’t mean there’s no space for Joy. I hate being so cynical all the time, so I guess I just wont!

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1 John 3:1).

That explains my alien feelings. But also, I feel quite at home among the scruffians (sometimes). I think they understand that it’s kind of rough to be a human here when you’re trying to really live.

And I love people who understand joy and beauty and sorrow too. And I am tired of people who complain and grouch and chatter and chortle over metal and bolts and nail-polished jabber. But I need to love them too.

I am really glad that God made me. I can’t imagine a better existence cause I wouldn’t change any of it—even the parts I thought would squash me down into Sheol like a slug. The greatest Joy that I can think of is learning to love the life that God has specifically blessed us each with; to jump in love and say “Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!! For me loving me! For making me! I love you God! I know You are here!”

I can’t stop thinking about Him. He dominates my thoughts and my day. And He doesn’t ever go away. He always demands everything. Enough to drive you crazy and think, “Come on! What more do you want!”

And yet… and yet… It’s the funniest thing. I don’t think I could ever talk to Him enough. I could never walk with Him enough on a twilight road I could never sing to Him enough or cry to Him enough. Or paint or draw or love the snotty nosed kids enough for Him. I could never do enough for or with or through or any to make Him happy but that doesn’t matter cause He’s already smiling, oh MAn! imagine that!—I can see it and I believe it even though the rotten granny of a legaslistic kill-joy of my mind comes scratching down the rusty corridor all in a phony nightcap and scratchy fingers screeching: “You fool! What kind of selfish whore do you think you are trying to think you could ever be loved by the God who created the world!”

This is when I either cave or grab her by the slimy throat and say, “Oh see but I need Him! And you’re wrong He does love me!!” I don’t care who thinks I’m crazy I’ll say it, He’s God. He’s my daddy, my friend, my older brother, my beloved lover of my soul, he made me for Himself! Go ahead laugh you old hag, you shell of me! I’m never turning into you—you searcher of fake wisdom and humility and some other cure for the sore on my neck man get out of my life cause man I’m trying to get somewhere! So get out of my way!

And then I’m sitting there…. I look about me. The sky. The clouds. It is silent. There is nothing. No violet letters in the sky or audible voices. A bird. A piece of trash. A sliver of wind. And I wonder, did I make it up? After all I’m a pretty good imaginator. But there’s something that remains that can’t be explained or reasoned. It is only Him. Who else could it be. The voices of saints sing through a troubled mind. They felt Him too. And I end up in my bed at the end of the day.

Yes, I found what I was looking for.

When I first started it I wanted to use it as a way to keep up my writing and be an encouragement to others. Now I feel like it has become a dumping ground for all of my deep dark hurts and fears and emotional, mental, spiritual struggles. I’m sorry for dumping that on you, my kind and supportive readers. I never wanted that to be the case. I was trying to be honest about some of the hardships and faith struggles in my life and I think I may have jumped the gun a bit.

I just feel like I needed to acknowledge that and say that I am struggling a lot these days, but I’m not sure my theology is quite right, to paraphrase another writer and woman I’ve met. And I suspect this because people I love and respect have pointed out that they see a lot of fear in me—even my writing—and the struggle to let God love me and be gracious to me. And they are right.

So I think instead of trying to narrate to you what it’s like to live inside my often legalistic and antagonizing head, I will take a little break from this and work on being present in my life and seeking after God.

I’ll probably be sharing some quotes and things from insightful things I’m reading and seeing, but not much else.

It’s funny how excited and proud I was to start this thing and be an encouragement to others. I figured I’d gone through a lot of hard stuff so my perspective would be super helpful to people. Now I am the one asking for the encouragement.

I’d really appreciate your prayers because I am a very fearful person still. Even though I know in my head that God loves me, I really struggle to live like it and then it’s almost like I don’t even know it at all. So please pray for me.

I hope that I can get to a point in my life where I will be able to share my testimony confidently and with more grace. And get to a point where I live like God loves me and I know He loves me. And I believe I will.

But for now, a little sabbatical, if you will.

Love,

Sophia

When I was in England I experienced a sense of anxieties perhaps similar to the anxieties I am feeling now. Feeling very far from God or very aware of my inability and failure to love Him the way I was thinking He ought to be loved. I would pass people on the streets of Christchurch and London—Muslims, rough old people, people who probably didn’t love Jesus because England had become very dark in many ways. In other ways it hasn’t, but this isn’t about England.

The reason I brought all that up in the first place was because while I was there with my family on holiday I listed to a lot of Iona and a lot of Leeland’s “Invisible.”

I remember one drive, perhaps the one to London from the up near the Lake District Listening to a song by Leeland called 139/Dead of Night. You can click on the link and listen to it yourself if you’d like. That song was particularly comforting to me. I suppose I was feeling like David in Psalm 139. I reckon he might have written that Psalm because he was having bad thoughts. In the end of that beautiful psalm He admits to having anxious thoughts. He has spent time to reflect on his humanity and his design and the reality that he can go nowhere where God will not find Him. God had made him and God knew him.

I was sitting in my room last night and I started listening to that song which starts with Psalm 139. I’d been feeling pretty bedraggled that afternoon. Fear and questions and wondering if I had dishonored God and was falling away cause I was confused and angry about the way that He does things even though I can’t possibly know everything about Him… I looked out to the road and the sun had already set but there was still a bit of light. I decided to take my music with me and go for a walk.

So I did. I walked down to the golf course and saw the moon like distant friend or something. An otherworldly piece of the universe come down to look at the earth for a bit. And I was quite blown away by the clouds.

Particularly this wall of cloud protruding out like a sure sign of the end of things and something hopeful yet quite frightening for little people. Especially if they are afraid that God doesn’t really like them and maybe they were fooling themselves the whole time and maybe it’s all just too hard anyway. But where else would you go… There’s nowhere else to go and not only that, but the Story is True. And they know that too.

Fear does do a number on people though. It does a number on me. I ask God to humble me a lot. Well, I think He is. I have a problem of being self righteous and thinking I’m doing well if I am doing good things and reading my Bible and getting things out of it—like I could do that on my own and like it was something to be getting things out of like self help book!—and anyway I think you get the idea. So coming from this kind of legalistic and selfish and controlling mindset, the idea—the truth—that God is the only way that we are saved at all—that no one can come to Jesus unless God draws them to Him (John 6:44) actually hasn’t really provided me with a lot of comfort these days. On the one hand I question why everyone is not saved and on the other I find it very hard to think of God wanting to draw me at all. I am not a good person as none of us are and I am having serious doubts about Him and His goodness and so maybe He’s given up on me. Except even as I write that I realize the silliness of it and I don’t believe it at all. Yet, it doesn’t feel silly when it marinates in my heart like slugs multiplying and slithering into the flowerbeds.

I’d like to be like this tree.

And also look what Jesus says in the gospel of John: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”1

I boldened the lines there to emphasize that point. God does not want you to be lost—that is not His will. So why do you think that you will be lost? I must speak this to myself over and over. Honestly I have thought some pretty awful things about God. I didn’t want to most of the time—most of the time they were intrusive—but they still scared the living daylights out of me.

So what, cause I thought bad things about God, cause I said bad things to Him in my corrupted mind even though I didn’t want to, cause I can’t seem to trust Him very well and stop worrying about my current state of mind, cause I’m doubting His plain and goodness and all that—is He gonna be like, “Well sorry, Sophia. I gave you a lot of chances and you just don’t seem to be doing well so I’m leaving you here now. Sorry.”

Can you imagine God saying something like that? To a human being that He loves and that He called to Him and who is desiring to follow Him with everything she is even though she’s really not doing a great job and keeps not trusting Him and feeling like maybe she’s the whole problem and if she could just fix herself He’d love her? Do you think He would just leave her there? Even if she had totally gone the other direction thinking she was beyond fixing, because He chose her, she wouldn’t get very far anyway.

I simply have to tell myself, even if I find it hard to comprehend:

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

That’s from the apostle Paul and he knew that very well since God blinded Him into sight.

And of course that reminds us of the old hymn:

Amazing grace (how sweet the sound)
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see. (See website).

It is a hard thing to accept that grace of you are a perfectionist and a legalist and probably just if you’re a human. Cause really, it doesn’t quite make sense. Why would I be given this grace? Why not someone else? Why do I still feel really anxious and sad? And you could think of many other things to ask. But gee willikers, if God’s given that to you, why would you want to fight it?

It feels really hard when you’re not feeling like you’re hearing answers from God. When you feel in the dark and you wonder why in the world he doesn’t just answer you. Like when I was praying in the gold course face to the ground. I’ve been there in the waiting and wondering a lot these days and I do see Him work and He works even when I can’t see the results. It doesn’t mean you’re losing your faith if your doubting. You couldn’t doubt if you didn’t have any faith.

I love what C. S. Lewis says, I’m not sure in which of His works:

“But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him” (emphasis mine).2

Well, we know what it cost Jesus.

As I was walking home I saw one of those telephone poles with the two beams going down and it looks like someone on a cross. I cried.

What will it cost us to follow Him? A lot. Everything. But I am coming to believe more and more that it is worth it. Abundant life is what he promises (John 10:10). And one day we will know that to its fullest. And also, He was who we were made for. God is our Father and our Friend and Comforter and the Lover of our souls. He is who we were made for.

So don’t let the doubts get you down cause you know there is someone else who’d be really happy to see you live a frantic and anxious life even if you are saved. I know that’s easier said than done and quite frankly you can’t get rid of them on your own. But what I guess I should have said is, don’t let your doubts keep you from the Father. He is not mad at you. He wants to hear from you. It may feel like He doesn’t care. I don’t understand why He does things the way He does, but I’ve seen enough to know that He cares.

Jesus has been through it too. So many times but certainly there in the garden of Gethsemane; there on the cross in the horrible reality of being alone and agonized and dying. He did that for me and you. It’s grace that you didn’t deserve. Don’t think that you can’t live in it. He died so many might live.

I’ll end with this song by Skye Peterson who I had the immense privilege of seeing in person not long ago with a friend. I cried when I heard her play it at the small concert. It is comforting to know that other people have felt the same way and they’re still walking with the Lord.

It’s called “Hey Doubter” and I listened to it on the way home last night when I saw the telephone pole that looks like a cross. It hits close right now. I hope it’s a blessing and here it is: "Hey Doubter.”

Love,

Sophia

I took this from Wikipedia and it’s called Christ in the Wilderness by Ivan Kramskoi.

He is the only thing pulling me through tonight, I tell you what. I guess I’m writing this cause I know a lot of you all get lonely too. Well I never knew how hard it was till this season of life and man no one tells you how hard it is to grow up. Well it sure is hard.

I will tell you I cried a lot tonight and asked God to deliver me from my horrid thoughts. I felt a strange sense like it was the Holy Spirit and I think it was. I just kind of stopped mentally panicking. And I looked up and I imagined in my head what I really long to hear Him say to me: “Sophia, I love you.” Why is it so hard for me to believe that. Why.

The truth is, I don’t really believe God will deliver me from my anxiety or whatever it is. I have my doubts. I know He can but I find it hard to trust that He will. I kind of think that maybe I need to go through this terrible stuff so that I will rely on Him. Lately I’ve just been born to the brink of despair though. Already got my feet wet. I feel extremely tired. I find it hard to trust that He is actually enough right now. I feel so distant from Him like a leaf that isn’t making it down the waterfall cause it got stuck and maybe He doesn’t even want to help me anyway. And that’s really frightening.

Ok, I’m not saying all this to make anyone feel awful and terrible but I hoped maybe some of you could relate to these feelings and be encouraged—you’re certainly not a crazy person if you do cause boy do I feel them. And besides I was listening to a podcast my friend sent me and I agree with the guy—we are not open enough with each other about our struggles. Behind the stale “Good!” that someone replies in answers to your reluctant question “How are you?” is probably a heap of horrible struggles and griefs. Perhaps forgotten by the speaker himself. And that’s cause it’s really hard to be vulnerable. There’s always the fear of being rejected. But I suspect there’s more people than not who wish they could have someone to talk to about real heart matters.

And we are a lonely people these days. I felt like I literally had no one to turn to tonight because it was getting late and my hard-working parents are in bed trying to get some rest and my siblings are either asleep or doing homework or something and they probably don’t have the energy to listen to all my woes at this hour of the night anyway. So yeah, I can understand why someone in my place would get on their phone and start the scroll. I mean, what in the world do we expect? Especially if those people have no faintest idea of a glimmer of hope? I do! And still, I feel so lonely! And that’s why folks, that’s why you see all those people on their phone I reckon. It’s not cause their just dumber or lazier—though that may be true too—but it’s probably because they’re so ridiculously lonely that it’s the only way they can feel even remotely ok for like ten minutes until the next thing.

Once I was feeling especially distraught and mad at myself for my failures and lack of zeal for God and also the terrible feeling of being a total outsider and outcast from this ridiculous society we live in. I was trying to communicate this to my dad and he was like, “Well how do you think Jesus felt?” Not about the failure to have zeal for God and the failure of humans to follow in God’s ways, but the feeling of being an outcast. “Well how do you think Jesus felt?”

That kind of floored me. I mean, look at that picture of Him! That artist imagined something that I often come back too in my mind. He looks exhausted. He looks tired and yet He also looks like He’s waiting for something or someone. He looks like He knows what’s going to happen. And He knows it’s going to be hard and He’s still going to choose it.

Death. Total death. I imagine He felt pretty lonely in the desert. Probably extremely so. I imagine He felt parched and even His physical body was screaming out for relief. Our Savior does not do anything halfway—it’s all in for Him. No wonder it is hard for us, His followers. I mean, if you really want to be more like Jesus, you’re not going to have an easy time at life. He certainly didn’t have any Easy life. But it was a good life. Easy living produces nothing lasting. That isn’t to say there is never a break, but life is not a simple pleasure fest we simply walk along through. Thinking that you deserve to have it easy is a total mistake. It is not true.

But Jesus is true. It often baffled me that He said His yoke is easy and His burden light. I mean, I have not been having a very easy or light time of things lately. But someone wisely pointed out that there is still a yoke. And there is also still a burden. Jesus never said that we would have no trouble actually He said we would! No doubt about it. And you know what, I am so glad He said that. Can you imagine if He hadn’t told His disciples that they would have trouble? He knew they would and He told them flat out. He didn’t want them to think that they would have it easy because that would be untrue and He is the Truth, but He also didn’t want them to think that He was unable to help them.

After His words to them in the Passover room in the gospel of John He said to them,

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

This shall be enough for us now in this present time. It is all that we can hold onto perhaps, that there is Power beyond us—far beyond us!

Jesus prayed for His disciples and also for everyone of us who believes (John 17:20-23):

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Isn’t it incredible to think of Jesus praying for you all that time ago? And now. He intercedes for you. Take heart… Even the darkness is not dark to our God. The night is like the day to Him (Psalm 139).

I often think of that phrase “In the dark night of the soul.” I don’t know who said it but it hits hard right now. But maybe a better thing to say would be, in the aching night of the soul. My soul is not dark though I would fear it is. God has washed me clean though I cannot seem to fathom such a thing. I don’t feel very clean often, yet I am. What a wonder! How amazing… But still my soul aches for Home and rest and peace.

I will be alright. I do think that if we want to live a life of realness and deepness and truth, we must also share our sufferings with each other and not be afraid to acknowledge that we are fighting in a battle. We know who will win but still, it is not a dance through life. It is fighting. Fighting for joy and truth. God is on our side. We are not our own and we belong body and soul to Him! He is faithful (Heidelberg Catechism).

Loneliness is really hard. But don’t think that no one cares. There will be someone. And God will open up doors for you. He will not abandon you and forget you forever. And He never has forgotten you. One day you will know that eternally.

Love,

Sophia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKzWz43Sx_o

This song means a lot to me. 🪺

One thing I’ve struggled with in this season I find myself in now is the struggle to see my life as a connected whole. I feel very disconnected to my little self—the Shirley Temple-like little curly haired kid jamming to Reggae in the bouncy chair thing.

A lot of stuff happened between the first scream and now sitting on this bed that my dad made while I write this. I’m still the same DNA though. I feel kind of the same and wildly different. But this isn’t about me.

I was looking through my first mommy’s blog she had when she had cancer and she said in one of the entries, now ten years ago:

“My oldest is turning 9 on the 11th! Please pray that she would have peace and joy in the Lord and that this new year would be a year she grows in knowledge and grace.”

I still feel like I need this prayer. I still want peace and joy in the Lord. I wish I could remember what I thought about God back then. I guess my mom knew how worried I would get. I remember having a really bad day one time. It was my first experience of dealing with the anxiety over intrusive thoughts. I kept having these bad thoughts about people and stuff and kept feeling like I needed to tell my mom and she finally came up to my room and asked if there was something underneath all of my tears and frantic comments about my mental craziness. But there wasn’t. It was just the horrid confusion of the thoughts. Why would I think something like that?

At the end of the day I remember bouncing around the room and telling her, “I feel like I’m getting back to normal!”

“Well, you’ll never really be back to normal,” she said, or something similar to that.

I think she meant, you’re never gonna be free from those thoughts. And she didn’t mean it in some fatalistic and depressive way, but she was right. We’re always gonna be struggling while we’re on earth. We won’t just magically be fine one day and know exactly what to do and how to go on. My intrusive thoughts have been at a all-time high these past few weeks with ups and downs thrown in the mix. But instead of being a nervous wreck it seems to have born in my a sort of hopeless apathy towards my situation and God and I am so tired. I’m tired of fighting them, I’m tired of dwelling on them—in fact I try not to.

We will never be totally fine on earth. (Shocker, right?) But I do believe we have access to so much more than we really can fathom. We have, many of us, lost our amazement about the history of our lives and the origin of our race. God was the one who breathed on the man He made and everyone has come from that man. I mean, do we really find it a simple and bland theological concept that every human on earth came from the result of God making a man out of dust and breathing life into Him from His own self? It sounds like a myth or something and it’s not very logical to our splintered and pixilated modern way of thinking but if that’s true why are we not totally blown away every time we see someone’s face?

The familiar gets familiar. We forget who we are and where we came from just like the Israelites who we think were the stupidest people on earth for all the times they fell back into sin. We forget because we are humans who have fallen away from God’s purpose for us. We forget that eternal peace and joy exists and is found in Christ.

I, and all of us, will always need the prayer that my mom wanted people to pray for me. Ever since our first mother and father got curious about forbidden knowledge and said no to our eternal Father we’ve been missing that peace and joy we had in the Beginning.

Some things have not changed all that much in 19 years. I am still afraid to go to bed many times. I still like so many of the old songs my mom used to play in the living room even though they’re probably totally outdated by now. I don’t care. :) I still like the Robin Hood cartoon with the fox and I still really, really don’t like spaghetti squash. I still have curly hair even though it got kind of straight and then it got curly again. I still don’t like to sleep in silence.

So much has wildly changed though. I love God more and know how much I need Him. (Or at least have a better sense of it). He means far more to me now than He did when I was a kid because I felt pretty secure as long as my parents were around. Then when my mom died that took away a huge part of my security and so I have had to rely on God more. And it is good that I have to rely on God more but it was still hard to lose mommy since she was so in love with Him. I got kind of angry at Him this year. I was so confused why He does things the way He does. I miss being a kid a lot. I guess I just miss the time when I wasn’t wondering who I was all the time. I kind of just lived. But even then, I was anxious a lot. I was scared.

I’m still scared. But actually, I have a deeper sense of God’s presence. Of His everlasting arms underneath me. I feel blessed that he has given me 19 years to be alive. Much more than I deserve. I haven’t always even done all I could in those years and hours and minutes. So many times I wasted my time here. Maybe even most of the time. Why would God allow me to keep living? What an incredible gift. And I realize it is because it is not about me. Life—all life—is God’s. None of us deserve the time we've been given.

I realize that life is a love story between God and those who are following Him. Of course it is confusing for so many lost and lonely people—they are not understanding that there will be a wedding one day. The ones who look to God and choose to follow Him will eat at that feast. We will be the bride for the Bridegroom. No longer will we be lonely and hungry.

We all want to be loved. And life is a love story. God loves the world. He loved the world so much that He desired that His Son should come to be with us. He gave His Son in marriage to a whore of a people. An unfaithful people. But a people in need of a faithful husband to love them so they could have that peace and joy that He desires us to have.

Just like my mother prayed for me.

Thanks to all the people who have prayed for me throughout my life. My dad and my new mommy and my grandparents and friends and cousins and aunts and uncles and so many others. We all need to pray for each other. It is hard to live life alone and I think it’s actually impossible. God’s heart is so much more wonderful than we can know at this time.

I’ll close with this song that I used to listen to when I was little. It is called “Come to Me.” He wants us to come. 19 years later and it’s still what I need most in this life. Just to come to Jesus and He will be that peace and that joy. He will be Himself and that is what we need.

I love you all,

Sophia Elisabeth

The old house. I made a playlist of old songs that I used to hear when I was small. I like to be reminded of them.

Magnolia.

Rest. The sermon today was about peace. How the Holy Spirit is our peace and comfort. “Have you ever felt that peace?” the pastor asked us. The peace that doesn’t make any sense. My mom prays that for me a lot because my mind doesn’t remember it. My mind is not a peaceful place.

It is good to have a friend. I have been so lonely.

I sat there. I tried to do something. But I get distracted. God still loves me.

“For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert….”

Read Isaiah 35 and be comforted. Jesus is the way out folks. He’s the only way.

I love you,

Sophia

                                                                                                                
I sat in the rumbling car and waited, still
in the thick of day. The hospital spires rose brick 
by brick beyond me. I was born there. Wow. 
I waited in a parking lot. She got 
blood drawn inside. 
		                   The sun like tidal grace                                                  
ebbed up the sky into seatown–so bright… 
I don’t take silence enough. So I took some. 
I squirmed and thought of predestination. 

A veteran from Vietnam, his face
in some eternal sadness, came to where
his old car waited and drove away sad. 
He looked so tired. He looked like grief inside. 
But still his war-ruffed hands were strong on the wheel. 

I’d also noticed to my left the van 
which was a dusty color. Inside sat 
a young man wearing dull pajama pants. 
His phone in hand like a death decaying box,
he smoked and smoked. His brother or someone else
sat in the back–his pants in need of a belt–
near a small girl. 
                              Her eyes saw mine. She cried 
and screamed. But not because of me. The smoke                                                  
or lack of love or who knows what. I don’t.  
But it was sad. I stared ahead. Her eyes 
were pleading. Sea-like blue. Afraid and tired.                                                                                                                                                      

I sat and thought of predestination. 
Turmoil. And all these people man. All these                                                 
souls. 
          But still–sun shone like some kind of grace 
somewhere. There must be some answer. Some hope 

for the smoker smelling the air up like a skunk;
the hollow sound of silence on his screen 

even with screams behind him needing love.  
That is the chaos of our time.
                                                     Slow death.

And I was next to them in the bright sunlight. 

Oh God. Do You not love these despairing 
souls of an apathetic nightmare? 

                                                          Silence, 

except His answer. 
                                  A simple sparrow. 

Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (See John chapter 16).

It didn't feel like it in the moment but when I saw that Sparrow on the handicapped sign in the war-torn parking lot near the Erlanger hospital where I was born I knew He wanted me to see that. I knew He cared about all that. And knowing that was better than my feelings. They come and go but the Word of the Lord endures forever and His eye is on even the sparrow.

Peace,

Sophia Riley

Oh the temptation to groggle 
prostrate or upright 
when light awakens the lids. 
The dooming dread 
of actual choice and consequence 
for every thought and look;
all deeds, done or not.
The soul shrinks away 
at the thought of these 
and more; it is weak
like the will to get up. 

Yet, funnily enough 
the same weakness could be turned 
to joy for a small note 
which brilliants 
and shouts for joy to the Lord. 
God! He loves us, and me! 
Even me He loves. 
The Way of Holiness opens, 
clear and strong in the desert. 
And He is the Way. 
To this the nagging vices shudder 
and the truest part of me smiles 
and get's up. 

Read Isaiah 35 and John 14 this morning.

Love,

Sophia

All there seems to be to say is that our belief and faith in Jesus is no vain thing. It is no light faith, no small choice and no small life to live. It is a beautiful communion with God and holy. It is our life.

In this world we have trouble but He told His friends that He had overcome the world. And that is true for us too. Society is a sweltering suffocating bulbous wretch of a thing. A homeless woman swinging her plastic bag and cigarette-thinned arms dangling like wilted dandelion stems. And man it’s so hard. And what in the world are you even supposed to do about it whizzing by in some old car but that’s like a Porsche to her or maybe she doesn’t even care. And who knows what galaxies are firing off in her mind or maybe they’re all getting sucked out and snuffed by the old old dingy little father of lies.

I hate it.

There’s a weight.

And on top of that if you happened to go to a reformed college on a mountain top where they teach you about predestination and of course they would cause it’s in the Bible and so you know that there are some people that God doesn’t choose for salvation or I don’t know it’s so confusing. Well you might think wow maybe He doesn’t care about that or any of it and what in the world am I doing now and what in the world is the point of anything anyway. Cause if God says so it is. And if not, well it’s not. What kind of choice does little me have? Well, hey I’m not gonna try to answer that cause I don’t know right now I’m just here trying to figure out—or really love God more. Cause I do love Him. I just don’t understand. It’s like when you’re dad does something you have beef with and you think, well, I wouldn't have done it that way but I still love the guy! And then you realize later the context and you think, oh. Only, this is with God our Eternal and Creator Father who loves His little girls and boys to the death. And so maybe that’s why it hurts so much to think about that all. Romans 9. I mean it’s hard…

There’s a weight.

Yet, look at Jesus and hear His last words and see Him holding all of that weight somehow. All of the sludge this world has to offer—the real awful depression of a stubborn bunch of humans crawling around like some lost scatterbrain of a star. Stepping on each other to try and get by and then to try to get up so that they could feel like they were the ones with something too important to do in the world. Something to get up in the morning.

And God is forgotten or shoved back—as if He was like one of us. And yes, He was shoved and smacked down eventually—looked pretty bad too people’s eyes. Looked like another person trying to stir the pot and get other people to do something. He got brutalized by the people He knew from the Beginning. He—torn open and apart. And inside too. We think of the physical pain. Yes. And also, don’t you think that He was screaming inside? Why? Why all this brutal passion for death? What for? All this hypocrisy and false religion saying they knew God?

I would have been so angry. I get angry when someone misunderstands something trivial. I would have whipped those idiots as hard as I could. I would have raged at them and slapped them so hard they would have seen stars. But He didn’t do it.

That’s what I’d be like. But Jesus. He let them do all that to Him. And he asked His Father to forgive the crucifiers. I’m inclined to believe that God honored that prayer—at least certainly the centurion realized that Jesus was the Son of God (see Luke 23).

You know, I trust God. How can you not trust Jesus if you really commune with Him, if you dwell on His sacrifice. I don’t understand God ways, they are above me. I look at scruffy people and wonder if God will wake them up. I look at really fancy people and wonder the same thing. I look at all kinds of people in between and wonder. And I wonder why some and not others? Why do some get to know their Creator and some walk in darkness? But I will keep asking these things and I know that God will be working. He will be using the lives of his boys and girls, His children to illuminate the ones still lost. The sheep know it’s Jesus calling. He’s the Way to the Father.

So here you have a sheep, rather sad but hopeful, sitting on a clover hill and about get get up and walk away to her New Testament class. God loves me and He wants me to be honest. I hope you can do that too.

Love,

Sophia

Here’s something from my first mom’s blog that I thought was really encouraging:

I have been having a hard time in college. Thinking about where I came from and stuff. God reassured me a a beautiful way Sunday night that He is my Father. I feel a great weight of anxiety and legalism and insecurity lifted off. I am thankful for my parents. My first mommy and my daddy and my new mommy. I came from all of them in a way, but mostly from God. Life is not easy but it is very blessed when you trust that God loves you so much—cause He does. I am so thankful for His plan, His timing. All of it.

Let His name be praised forever

Remembering God is good…. Spiritual warfare. He equips us for battle.

Natural beauty oh yeah oh yeah. They swim in the glass. But there they are. They are God’s.

Grubby feet yes. Walking around without shoes. Calamity.

Nighttime: when anxiety comes. But also beautiful. Makes you want to go Home, you know?

Yellow is like joy. And joy is not happiness but actually it’s more than that. Look how the flowers hold on. They grow in that trellis. Look how they hope.

“Whatever you give unreservedly to God, He will take. Whatever God takes, He will cleanse. What he cleanses, He fills and what He fills, He will always use.” —Joni Eareckson Tada in Diamonds in the Dust (on Romans 6:13)

“Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.” —Romans 6:13

PEACE TO YOU

Sophia

2/26/26

Today it is very misty and we are in a cloud on the mountain. I came back from my American Literature class with Hemingway and Fitzgerald and a writing mind percolating up there. Met a friend who asked me where I stayed in the Lake District–her friend who lives up in Cumbria wanted to know. “Ulverston” I told her–where Laurel from Laurel and Hardy was from.

It looked rather like the Lake District outside. My umbrella came inside out and the windy rain–just a solid, sprinkling mist really–descended on us. People walked up the hill to class like pilgrims, sober faced and bent toward the wet day. The dull green of late winter, the grayish blue atmosphere, the wetness, the sensation of walking through a cloud and seeing the Celtic fairy-like apparition of a girl surrendering to the wild mystery of damp pine trees.

A lamppost glowed with a warm halo in the grayness. You could see where the light stopped. And coming down to the dorm building the birds sang with hope as they always do. They sang in the rain and they didn’t mind. Perhaps it gave them joy whereas the humans were mostly glum faced or serious–some, perhaps, hopeful. But it is a day of slowness. And my heart is heavy because of my own pride.

I wish to be like how I was last night. I cried because I wanted to go Home. I cried like a child. And that is what I am.

Later…

I talked with a woman today about grief. Her wet eyes were so tender. She understood a lot of things. I was happy to see her. I hoped she wouldn’t feel too sad. That’s what it’s about really—loving people. Loving people like He loved us. That’s what He wants us to do. Love Him and love people. I was happy about that. And the sun came out like a hidden jewel in the clouds and the fragrance of that honeysuckle spring flower sang over me like a promise. The children understand and the ones who are children at heart.

As I walked past the college sign I thought, well, we aren’t anything special. Just a bunch of people with problems. But God works on us. He takes care of us. I feel sad for the people who don’t want Him.

I try to understand Him. But here at the end of the day in my quilt I will trust that He knows and He loves me. I can’t think why but I won’t fight it. I will call Him Father and that is what He is.

¹⁷ Some were fools through their sinful ways,
and because of their iniquities suffered affliction;
¹⁸ they loathed any kind of food,
and they drew near to the gates of death.
¹⁹ Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
²⁰ He sent out his word and healed them,
and delivered them from their destruction.
²¹ Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
²² And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,
and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!

-Psalm 107:17-22

“I borrow His smile every morning.” -Joni Eareckson Tada

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” -My Savior

Go read all of His words now, bit by bit and day by day and minute and hour. I do not put His words here to act as a comforting Hallmark card. No, I put them here to ponder them and they must be pondered and held very close—all of His words must be. He is the only Way.

Praise be to God our Father and Jesus His Son and the Holy Spirit who guides us along!

Love,

Sophia

Sometimes our faith gets tested. That’s not a bad thing. But it’s hard. Recently, I feel like the ground underneath me is being yanked away.

He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
    out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
    making my steps secure.

I feel like I don’t even want to follow God sometimes. I am afraid that I am slipping away.

Teach me to do your will,
    for you are my God!
Let your good Spirit lead me
    on level ground!

I am holding the things of this world so tightly; so afraid to give anything up. I don’t trust Him as I should—it’s shaky. I want to control what happens to me. I am sad about my past. I feel sorry for myself. I want to give it all to God.

The young lions suffer want and hunger;
    but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

I am angry that I don’t understand. Angry that God has let my mind be thrown into turmoil. I am frustrated. I am afraid of His just wrath.

The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
    none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

The Lord is still good to me. But, oh how the devil would like to make me think He isn’t. I keep thinking of the song called “Falling at Your Feet” by Daniel Lanois and Bono. “Teach me to surrender… the last line says; “No my will, thy will.” I guess I thought I could just surrender it all by myself, no big deal. But in reality there is so much built up grief, fear, frustration, legalism, anger…. I need God to move me through this season as only He can do. I am just taking it second by second sometimes. Just trying to remember. Remember what He’s done in the past that has changed me and saved me. My life has been going on and I didn’t always take the time to thank Him for it or cry about it or ask Him why and wail and throb and laugh. I’m in a season right now where I just have to trust Him, because frankly, I have been feeling rather numb. And funnily enough, I ought to be trusting Him all the time. Oh to trust that He is near me and cares for me… I asked Him not long ago to batter my heart but I seem to have forgotten that He is “near to the broken hearted” ( see Psalm 34:18)!

I’ve been caught up on the surrender thing because yes, Jesus wants my whole life, but no, He is not the legalistic task-master that the devil loves to make Him seem. God doesn’t enjoy seeing His beloved children floundering around in anxiety trying to please Him, as if we were trying to appease the dreaded wrath which His begotten, beloved Son already bore on Himself when He died for us. Nor does He enjoy seeing us clamping our hands on the things we have collected and the memories we are afraid will go away and the time that He’s given us as if any of it were ours to begin with. He wants us to be free. I think that’s why, or at least a reason why, He said that we must deny ourselves. We really actually don’t know what’s best for us. How can we follow His example when we are so consumed with us? He’s so much better. He really is. We find freedom in His love for us which we can’t experience when we are still in love with ourselves and the prerogatives of the culture. That freedom He offers, if truly accepted, will give way to an incredible love in our own hearts, I believe. An incredible love for humans and the universe and God.

So, Christian, are you in love with God? He is in love with you. It sounds weird, but I just wanted to write it down. We, the church—the messy, lustful, greedy and grief-filled, sin-struggling people of God who are STILL BEING WORKED ON—are His beloved bride. So I think it only makes sense to say that God is, in a sense, in love with us because he chose to be. It goes deeper than romance, guys. It goes a lot deeper than that. In fact, He loved us first. And can you believe it? He has SO much grace for us and that should make us want to change. He has so much LOVE for us! In abundance! And he wants us to love Him too! He wants our hearts. He wants our hearts. What an honor! Doesn't it just thrill you? It doesn’t matter if we’re messy, He will help us with that.

Ok, I just had to dwell on some truth so I could smash the devil’s feet like a sledgehammer might do to a banana and get his lies out of my brain. It worked. Be encouraged by God. He gives us what we need and we sure do need Him if we’re ever going to change. He loves us like crazy.

Love you guys,

Sophia Elisabeth

Scripture references (top to bottom). Psalm 40:2, Psalm 143:10 Psalm 34:10, Psalm 34:22

I try to write what I feel God puts on my heart. And I know that He will guide all of His children Home someday. I’m getting more excited about that wonderful prospect more and more… :)

I get into these really discouraging times where I just can’t seem to do anything because I feel so awful about myself. It’s like everything I do is wrong. In college its hard because there are often people in places I would like to go in solitude and so I have to sit amongst fellow brothers and sisters in Christ silently squirming under the weight of internal calamity. And the others are oblivious of course. Probably other people are going through similar struggles… I just get real soaked up in myself.

Is that a relatable feeling to anyone else?

For me this discouragement with myself is often a mixture of self-pity and self-loathing; also, despair at my own sinful condition. So basically, pride. I feel like I’m beyond reach which is ridiculous, actually. I mean, do I really think that God isn’t able to help me? Maybe the most depressing reality of all is that oftentimes I don’t even want to stop committing the sins which are pulling on me, as if to the bottom of the sea… There I go down, down, down…

Yet, there I’m reminded of a part of Psalm 139 which says, “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” I can’t escape from Him. (And I’m not saying, by the way, that God is happy with me for giving into my sin, but even when I do He still stays with me).

So, I’m caught in this tension where I’m battling my own pride which looks a lot like fake humility and then all this unmerited Grace and Love from God. I don’t deserve any of it. I guess the struggle is that I want to. I want to find something I can do in order to give my life meaning. Instead of looking to God, I am looking to myself and my calling which is from Him, but it isn’t Him.

I don’t think any soul who truly desires to find Jesus and love Him and follow Him will be cast away. Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37). The hard part comes when sometimes you don’t even want to come to God. When you feel like you could do it better. I guess I never thought I’d ever get to a point in my life when I felt so stubborn or beyond help that I’d rather try to do things my own way. It scares me to realize I really could just completely run the other direction. But would God even let me do that? And it seems like the more I try not to think about myself, the more I do. I don’t want to. I want to be free of this; to worship God as He ought to be worshiped—without question and without despair or doubt of His love and purpose.

Keith Green is one of my favorite musical artists of all time and in one of my favorite songs by him he sings,

“Oh, it’s so hard to see / When my eyes are on me”.

That’s a really relatable feeling for me. It’s true. It’s hard to see things the way God wants us to when all we can think about is ourselves… How we’re failing, how we’re succeeding, how we’re squandering our gifts or being boastful. How we wish we could eat all day or how we would rather just look at someone else’s life on a screen or in a book—anything to not think about our own rubbish inside. All of this is incredibly self-absorbed—even the self-loathing because we are bashing on ourselves. We are letting ourselves consume us (even if by loathing ourselves we think we are being humble). There is a difference between hating your sin and hating yourself; thinking you are worthless.

I can tell you right now, you’re not worthless because God made you. But you’re also a created being and you came from the dust that God formed. So now what? The solution is not to try and stop thinking about ourselves, but instead to think about God—not just think about Him but sing about Him and to Him and wake up talking to Him and actually be pursuing Him with actual movement. If you want Him, you can’t just sit still! He calls us to follow. So get up!! Pick up your cross. He never said it would be easy. But is He not the reason why we are here? Is He not the One who upholds us with His hands? Has he not overcome the world? Can we not take the bitter times along with the sweet ones? Do we always deserve an answer?

God can do whatever He wants. He wants men and women after His own heart. He wants people who are willing to give up everything for Him. And a lot of that—maybe all of it—means giving up self. Self-loathing, self-obsession, self-gratification. It means loving Him. And trusting Him. And you can do anything for His glory. You don’t need to be out searching for some glorious calling when He’s right there in your heart. And if you haven’t received Him, ask Him. And if you are feeling drained, ask for His Spirit to fill you afresh. Always ask.

If you’re struggling like me because you know you are in a muddled place of apathy and disgusted pride, just remember that none of us are as amazing as we think we are. And we’re also so much more loved than we could comprehend. Man, I think if we truly comprehended the love of God, we wouldn’t be so quick to despair. We have access to so much. Oh! Don’t throw it away for your own pride! Don’t fool yourself into thinking you know better than the Creator of the universe! Oh that we would be faithful to His call on our life. To follow wherever He calls. Amen.

Here is the rest of that song by Keith green:

Make my life a prayer to you
I wanna do what you want me to
No empty words and no white lies
No token prayers no compromise

I wanna shine the light you gave
Through your son you sent to save us
From ourselves and our despair
It comforts me to know you’re really there

Well I wanna thank you know
For being patient with me
Oh it’s so hard to see
When my eyes are on me
I guess I’ll have to trust
And just believe what you say
Oh you’re coming again
Coming to take me away

I wanna die and let you give
Your life to me so I might live
And share the hope you gave me
The love that set me free

I wanna tell the world out there
You’re not some fable or fairy tale
That I’ve made up inside my head
You’re God the son and you’ve risen from the dead

Well I wanna thank you know
For being patient with me
Oh it’s so hard to see
When my eyes are on me
I guess I’ll have to trust
And just believe what you say
Oh you’re coming again
Coming to take me away

I wanna die and let you give
Your life to me so I might live
And share the hope you gave me
The love that set me free

Praise God!

Love,

Sophia Elisabeth

I felt so extremely happy as I drove to church this morning listening to jubilant Celtic Christmas music. I felt like a child. I keep thinking about the olden times in the British Aisles. The ancient flutes and Good King Wenceslas and the wassail melodies sung in the snow. I keep thinking back on the motherland and sometimes of my ancestors I never met.

Can you imagine what that might look like covered in snow? I keep wanting to go back there—to England.

Every year Christmas comes so fast and every year I get tireder and tireder of the playlists of Christmas “classics” and all the Bing Crosby I used to love. Now, maybe because I’m growing up, Christmas has a deeper sadness to it. Not because of the day itself, but because of the intensity which we don’t realize.

Under the red cloak of Christmas, 
Under the holly and fur, 
Under the long wished for snow
I often placed my hopes as a girl. 

Only to be disappointed by the warm winded morning 
Or the stagnant frost of human hearts 
In a season of holy joy.

I wrote most of that down in my phone (I’m sorry to say) as I walked out to my car on the day I left college for home. I was using my red coat as a shield from the sparse rain.

It’s rather like the Charlie Brown phenomenon. He tells Linus that Christmas is coming and he knows he should be happy but he’s not. And I suppose many people feel the same way because we’re all so tired and busy and we’re often not even really thinking about what even happened about two thousand years ago. But Christmas has always seemed to be a season where the world has an excuse to be joyful on purpose.

I often feel trapped though. I know the devil wants me to feel this way. He wants me to feel unloved and unforgiven. And he wants me to be self-pitying and self-absorbed. He takes a beautiful thing like Christmas helps us all try to make it into a commercialized, nonsensical mess. And in the process we get stressed out and grumpy and that’s not at all what our God wants. I just can’t stay sad for too long because sooner or later God nudges me again, usually when I’m on the verge of calamity or in the middle of it, and then I wake up from the nightmare.

You know, we really don’t deserve anything, and here God gives us Himself as a gift. Full access to overflowing and never ending love. Full covering for any shady deed or stupid blunder. Total freedom in Christ. I don’t think we dwell on that enough, folks. That is worth celebrating. Oh how it is!

I keep listening to Celtic Christmas music because it makes me happy. I guess happy doesn’t really go deep enough. It tend to awaken something deeper in me that calls to mind something of a home. I think about the British Aisles and the good people on the shores of the windy sea. I think about the olden times of Christmas. I know that God is the eternal resting place for me though. He is the true Home. And He is the true Love of my heart. We need a reminder of Love. Of Love so very deep and strong and powerful that it came as crying baby. Love screamed and bled. Love was ridiculed and beaten for us. Love was so strong that it was willing to be made very low.

Thank you Jesus for coming for us! Oh remind us why we celebrate this year and wake us up! Remind us of your love for us so that we can be like You. You are the strong one and the mighty God. You are the great redeemer and you cried when you were born. Oh, Jesus, how could we not love you and yet we forget you there in the manger so easily. We leave you crying. We leave you dying on the cross. Oh Lord, forgive us. Help us to follow you. Thank you for giving us this time. Thank you for giving us our lives. You are worth anything we endure. Oh Lord, how beautiful you are. How lovely and beautiful Your sacrifice is for us. We need You. Oh Lord, we want to know You better. Thank You! And Happy Birthday, dear Jesus. We give You ourselves as a gift.