Behold

I'm not the sort to stand still. I'm always searching for a new taste and a fresh breath. If I'm stagnant, if I don't feel like I'm moving forward, or learning, I get anxious, depressed and soak up constant negativity from everywhere. 

I'm a touch of wind that must always be reaching into new places. Tasting new wine, meeting new souls and growing closer to the ones I love. 

Yet, sometimes every day feels the same. I wake up, I do errands, I go to work, I go home etc. I get swept up in the monotony and my once, vision filled thoughts become violently dull. I grow a little gray and I stop seeing the good world for what it is. I begin wishing to live among the stars, surrounded by magnificence.  I hunger for fullness, richness. To be immersed in joy and thanksgiving. To be overwhelmed by beauty.  

As I drove home from work two weeks ago I began having these thoughts again.  How I longed for an ever present touch of supernatural beauty in my life. How I wished I lived in a grander setting with oceans and skyscrapers and fascinating company, and it hit me.

You will constantly grow accustom to the beauty you live in. The world is always marvelous, it's us who have the weak eyes. Craving new beauty is simply the human way and is also part of our relationship to God, because of course He makes everything about the way we are for a reason. King David, in the Psalms commanded us to sing a new song to The Lord as He is deserving of praise. (Psalm 33). Our praise is never stale because as our revelation of the goodness of Jesus unfolds our song changes. Our contribution of praise is thickened by the pursuit of the next revelation of the beauty of God. We are seekers. By our very nature, seekers of new thoughts for our offering plate. 

But the trick to revelation isn't traveling across oceans or country lines, it's appreciating and opening our eyes to the pleasure that touches our quiet steps. It's giving thanks for a small breeze, a cup of iced coffee, an hour with a good friend. Such are the things of life that when valued become rich with wonder and give us joy. 

(Photo taken on the street near my apartment)

Hold on to your love for the world. Travel, see the sights, and when you have time indulge a curious eye. But in the day to day soak up the goodness in your every breath. Let it burn the callous off your thoughts. Breathe again and take in the pleasure of a good life, a thoughtful life. Be transformed by the idea that beauty, when in the eye of a careful beholder, is in everything. 

Life is lived in the small moments we give attention to. In similar thought I heard my pastor once say that we are what we behold. I think our trouble is less in what we behold then whether or not we behold at all. When I am swept up in the routine of practical living I do a lot of passive looking. Do you ever feel yourself slipping into "just getting by" mode? Where it feels like an accomplishment to just make it to the next moment of rest? We all go through seasons where the water rises a little higher and it takes a lot more effort to give ourselves in any way. In these times we are seeking out of necessity. Intentionally setting ourselves for that next moment of revelation. I will not be a bystander. I will open my eyes. Even if it's for a split second I will...

(Photo taken near sunset in Snohomish county) 

What we love becomes us. What we value reveals us. Whatever my season, whatever level of pressure I'm having to wade through, I will be open to the possibility of beautiful things invading my scenery. Because God, that ever present keeper of beauty, is in all things. Because I am seeker, a beholder, a Belieber.

Ha! You probably didn't expect that last one did you? Hehe. No I am not a Belieber. Not even close.

But seriously, behold. That's all.

- Jaelle 

Let's Talk About When We Were Kids

My childhood bestfriend came to visit me recently!

As you can see he's a big goof named Ben. Yes, he did put somebody else's gum from the
Seattle gum wall into his mouth! Gross.



We did a million things together during his stay. Kayaking, mountain climbing, saw a Mariners game, bookstore exploring and a thousand other things and pictures I will not bombard you with. One of our activities included looking up the house our families used to share on google maps.

When we were just kids we fit nine children and four adults into this house. Looking back it must of have been utter madness for my parents but for the young it was like an endless summer. We spent hours and hours together, building forts, playing freeze tag and all around never ending games of tom foolery. It was heaven.

Because we had been apart so long my friend Ben and I discussed our histories at length. We did a lot of remembering and it got me thinking a lot about another part of my childhood that wasn't nearly as fun as this moment of time. While I appreciate everything I've ever been through, and truly I do, I'd like to talk a little bit today about a season that was very difficult for me, even years after it was over.

My family moved away to Portland when I was in fourth grade, after living with Ben's family for over a year, and I lost touch with all of the people I knew in Seattle. In my new school I felt immediately out of place. I was an awkward kid with purple glasses, who lived in a house where every day we had to clean out and reset the mice traps. It was a stark contrast from the always joyous home I was accustomed to having adventures in. I was in an odd moment in life. I was just starting to grow up and my eyes were opening to the reality of the world I lived in. I became aware of my family's financial instability through the taunting kids who made fun of my old clothes. I understood that we were not the richest folks on the block, and for the first time ever I was ashamed. I felt my family's financial burden like it was all my fault and I was helpless to relieve any of the pain. I watched my mother and father do everything they could to keep us fed and clothed and feeling as normal as possible. And they did a damn good job too. My father did amazing, selfless things to provide for my family and my mother, as well, used all her wits to save us two dollars at the grocery store or value village. They are incredible people. But I was just starting to grow up. I wasn't looking for the next game of tag or cartoon, I was looking at our old house, the beans and rice we had for dinner five nights a week and the strain in my mother's eyes when our garage sale barely made us ten dollars, and I knew. I knew we were struggling.

I was just a kid, taking in everything. In the midst of that bullies were relentless. In Seattle I had dealt with bullies but I still had friends who cheered me up. In Portland, in this new, strange school, I was alone. Everyday, for years, I was alone. I felt like at any moment things would just collapse on me. Like I was living in a delicate house of glass and soon I would just break. I'm sorry if this is all sounding so bleak and desperate. Please know that there were lots of moments of happiness in the midst of all of this gray as well and I wouldn't trade these years for anything in the world. All that to say, these moments defined me as a person and rather then explain it all to you in long paragraphs I wrote a poem. It's such a small thing but here it is.

         House of Glass

         I'm just a poor girl.

Wearing last year's shoes

Feeling oh so small. 

I'm just hoping 

You'll release me,

Because you never called.

I know my hair

Is greasy

And the kids they talk about me as I'm wandering down the hall.

But I was hoping I could love you.

We could climb the cherry tree in my backyard.

We could make a secret handshake and pretend we're super spies

Who travel off to places that are lost and very far.

I'd like to be your partner,

When the summer months are bearing us disentangled skies

And the days feel long and gracious and tall.

But I've no happy company

As the sun sinks down over the trees in fall. 

I'm just a poor girl,

Wearing last years fears

And tired jeans

From the drawers of my brothers.

And my mother she loves me

She carries me softly

In her arms and her heart as I try to abide in the weight of it all. 

I'm far too young,

To hear her tears fall through thin, hushed walls for the love of our family. 

A brave face betrayed in time,

By the worried laid in her brushed green eyes. 

Yet her smile stays golden in a lightless night.

It's in my heart as I go to sleep.

Quiet monster creeping up on me 

I shouldn't be ashamed of my reflection.

You grow up fast in a house of glass

Where your every step is measured by the pressure that your under.

There is no way of fighting back.

You just keep going

Tiptoeing through the lines so everything doesn't fall apart.

Leaving fingerprints on the panes you're holding up,

And every crack is an opening for wind to settle upon your heart. 

Till it shatters in the night.

You learn to take the small things with a grain of sight.

You learn to live with a gentleness for creatures who are misfits in the dark.

Loneliness made me powerless 

Poverty gave me grateful steps that moved me forward.

I found my little pasture in love for lonely, broken things

Who were just like me.

I'm just a poor girl

Who had nothing left to give but what she carried with her in her soul. 

My house of glass when the form gave way 

And the striking pieces in silence laid

Made mosaics that when patched together were beautiful and whole. 

Just a poor girl sure.

In a hopeful world 

With houses made of glass and some of stone

The power is not where the seed falls,

But where it grows.

And the beauty left to tell in the life it sows. 

So this is what I know my fellow readers. 

That very often trials make us softer not stronger. 

Growing up poor and being ostracized for my glasses and ugly clothes made me helpless and tired and at so many moments ready to give up on living at all. Sometimes overcoming pain is as simple as outlasting it. Winston Churchill has a quote that says, "If you're going through hell, keep going." I kept going and in that I found myself softened towards those who were like me. The lonely, unlovable and friendless were those who had my closest confidence. I never wanted another person to feel the way I did. Soon my pain melted away in the empathy I carried for the broken hearted. I was weak but my heart was softer, more open and more willing to love. Perhaps that's the real strength of this world. 

I still have a few scars from that era and whenever I see them nowadays I smile. Scars can be beautiful sometimes, we shouldn't be so afraid of them. God uses everything for the goodness of His purposes. He makes lovely things out of ashes. Now, please understand, I don't believe that you have to struggle in order to be beautiful or to understand your place in the world because God has his own way of making everyone who they're supposed to be. We can't overglorify the struggle because the glory isn't in the struggle it's the Lord's. Always, it's His. Whether you've been through hell or you've only glimpsed it from the outside, the Lord has us just where He wants us and He makes us prosperous all the same. I certainly reaped many good things but only because the Lord is so sovereign that even the emptiest of times have meaning. For this I'm always grateful. 

Many people who read this blog are people I know. I would like to take the time to tell you (friend) how much I value the love given to me by you. Your relationship is precious to me, more then you realize. 

- J

An Idea Has Overwhelmed Me

Excuse me while I ramble over a thought I've been having recently. You'll notice the jump from point to point over the next few paragraphs as I haven't completely processed all I'm about to say. But this is a blog, not a a research paper for a masters degree so my gangly format is hopefully more acceptable. 

So here's the question that's been overwhelming me.

How is it that the God of every age, of all time and space lives within me? 

He must make Himself infinitesimally small or I have depths of the ages in me. I think it's a combination of both. God of course is larger then I could imagine yet one human was able to be all that God was, in flesh. God was able to live comfortably in His skin, in the boundaries of humanity. So though I am bound by age, by time by space God can still be all that He is, the emperor of the universe, within me. I wouldn't believe it if Jesus hadn't already demonstrated that it is possible. 

My body is more then a vessel for this simple time that I live and die. In order to contain agelessness it must be, in some way, immortal. I don't mean that I will live forever, my time is a breath, but that my aging face, my sagging brain, cannot be all that there is to me. There is a piece of us, as humans that cannot be contained by time, because God is not contained by time. That is the Spirit. It is the seat where God dwells. And the larger your Spirit is the more it presses against the pieces of you that are bound by the world. It cannot be contained. It spills over like a bowl that overflows. 

The larger your spirit grows the more eternal your existence in time becomes.

It's strange isn't it? We are immortal beings living in aging bodies. No wonder so many of us have no peace. There is only one person in the history of time who has lived in harmony with God's eternal will inside a human form. Only by fashioning our lives after his will we ever be satisfied. If we do not imitate that lifestyle that we are doomed to live in a constant uphill battle for peace with our existence. 

- J 

Book Review: The Fault In Our Stars

Hello loves,

I recently read a great book that left me very speechless. My good friend (and reliable literary source) Samara recommended The Fault In Our Stars by John Green, as a good choice for my next bookish venture. I was a little thrown off that she recommended and enjoyed the novel so deeply because it's teen fiction and teen romance. Two genres I avoid like the disgusting, desperate, perilous mass they usually are. Surprisingly, for such a gripping story, I actually left this book more impressed with the author then with anything else about the book,



I'd like to believe that an authors intentions for his or her readers are pure. That they write to touch our souls, to change us, to move us, educate us and leave us with hope and understanding. This belief is hardly ever proven true. Most writers find a hard balance between themselves and their work. Now, here's the magic of John Green, his writing felt like it was written for somebody besides himself. I caught myself wondering aloud, during my reading, why John Green would write a teen novel and at that a romance? His characters, though teens, were vastly existential, asking questions and considering premises that were far above average teen thinking.



Those characters could have fit any age and any time but instead he wrote them as teens, slowly falling in love with the intellectual and emotional wisdom that they both shared after facing cancer. I watched Hazel and Augustus blossom together, drawn to each other by their inability to be normal. I ate it up of course but the idea kept plaguing me. Why are they teens? Why is this a teen romance book? Then suddenly it hit me. The world is full of crappy teen romance and for the first time in a long time somebody decided to write a very thoughtful, heartbreaking story to turn the genre on its head. Maybe this book will help drag us out of the vomit filled pit of lusty vampires and supernatural garbage. Because finally and graciously Green wrote a story about people who are more then a supernatural ideal but who are relatable and reachable. I have a feeling one day John Green, exasperated by the idyllic love mush, tossed his hands in the air and chose to write a really good teen book about some ordinarily, extraordinary people. That he chose to show us who we are in his eyes and the kind of teens he hopes for this generation to be. I felt genuinely honored in a sense. Like, wow somebody respects my generation enough to actually write a decent book. For this I thank him. For writing a novel that has injected a little promise into the lost, and passed over, art of teen fiction. For writing a book he is overqualified for and bringing prejudiced book snobs like myself out of my shell to test the waters. I'm sure he isn't the first and only author to do this ,he is only the first I've recognized and again I thank him and I am hopeful for the future of the genre.

Now that my world has been opened to the idea of good stories existing in teen fiction I think I'm ready to take another dip. After all, it's good to know what the kids are all about these days, I am one of them.

Okay? Okay.

- J

Ben Howard

I kind of love Ben Howard.

He sang at the Moore Theatre in Seattle tonight and I was one lucky gal in the audience. His passion was so beautiful. Even though he isn't a Christian I felt something rather spiritual in his performance. His music, with its layered guitar and raspy vocals, reminds me of a person crying out with all his means. My friend Erin wisely commented that He sang how she imagined David would have sang the Psalms. With his heart on the table, no vanity, just a man making meausure of the world and his soul.

Needless to say I am now a huge fan. If you ever have a chance, go and see Ben Howard!


Sincerely,

Jaelle the Soulful

Starting Over.

I THINK I SHALL BE STARTING OVER.

So, I've decided to pick up this blog after more then a year of being silent. Forgive my disturbing lack of posts blogger world. I have no real reason for my renewal other then it feels right. But I promise, I will not leave you again! 

A few things have changed since I've been away.

I got a tattoo. 

My first tattoo is a forearm tattoo of a geometric arrow. It represents my family and our walk together. The six lines are the six of us. It is also loosely based off of a verse in Isaiah 43 about being fashioned as an arrow and kept by the Lord.








I moved. 

Since this was the 18th time I had moved it didn't seem like too big of a deal. We were on the road again. At least we didn't move states this time!

I got another tattoo and I like it perhaps even more then the first.

I like being reminded of my need for gratefulness. The world and its insecurities and emotions tend to stick to me and I can't shake them off. Nothing breathes more deeply into that world then having a heart softened by eternal gratitude.








I went through a bit of a sticky winter. 

These last few months haven't been my best. I must say, you never know where you'll end up when you disconnect from the God. All it took was one question to wake me up. "How are you and the Lord?" My answer was honest, "Yeah, not good." I walked around with a bit of a chip on my shoulder against God. Can't say where it all began exactly only that once a seed of coldness was planted it grew, and fast. Here's the good part though. You know what revived me? I realized that I do want the Lord. I understood, deeply, in a place that hasn't been touched before, that I actually wanted to know the Lord. The grace to want Him is more necessary then I ever imagined. We need to need Him.

AND SO WINTER HAS GIVEN WAY TO SPRING.

I'm still wrestling through different things in life, and perhaps I always will, but I find it such a pleasure to be once again in a partnership with God and in the light. Nothing is sweeter to me then honest conversation. It's like a soothing balm for a scorched spirit. A good talk, long drives,  and a cup of iced coffee are my favorite things these days. 

So there you go, a small snapshot of my time away.

Many more things have happened but since I'm back you'll be seeing a lot more coming soon anyways. Thanks for waiting. It feels good to be back, in many ways.

Sincerely,

Jaelle the Renewed