Keeping a Pace

Fan blades are spinning, spinning,
And she will just lay there and stare,
As thoughts are beginning, beginning to swarm,
Filling a mind with questions of
"Why is life so unfair?"
The light casts shadows, throws them into motion,
A repetitive motion, along the ceiling with every rotation
Of every spinning blade of the fan that stays constant,
Constantly moving, keeping a pace, an unchanging pace.
Eyes, weary from intense focus on all of the motion, and commotion,
Filled with emotion, shift down to the left.
A mirror is there, conveniently, placed on the wall,
And if she keeps her eyes open, she can see her face.
The years have aged her; this she can not deny.
She wants to look closer, but too afraid of identity, she will fail any attempt to try.
After the quickest glance, she will divert her eyes back to the ceiling,
Back to the steady spinning blades of the fan.
What a simple existence,
What a simple task to just continue moving,
Unaltered by any other occurrence.
She lays there still, idle, yet insightful,
And a picture has been painted in her mind,
Removing all other thoughts, except for this clear vision
Of a steadfast endurance.
Her hand is on her heart; she knows that she's alive when she feels the rhythm
Of a heart keeping a beat, a constant pace.
She looks back at the mirror.
She looks back at her face, a face covered by grace.
Who has cut in on her and slowed down her pace,
placing roadblocks to hinder her race?
She refuses to accept any defeat,
And, in fact, she has already won, been redeemed by the Son,
So she can stare in the mirror placed conveniently on the wall
Without shame to embrace who she is in the midst of it all.

AEJ 3/6/2012

Blessed

They say blessings wear disguises,
as if they would rather hide behind tragedies and pain.
We also hear, "Count your many blessings",
as if blessings are all around us,
pouring down from the sky likes drops of rain.
Sometimes, I wonder if, maybe,
we are the ones hidden in disguise,
walking around with stoic faces,
handing out weak embraces,
because, to get too close would set us up
for another fall.
Life is full of them, though.
Time will keep changing,
and just like the seasons,
hard times are bound to come and go.
The trials may be imminent,
and we are faced with many kinds,
but do we see the joy in them,
or are blessings the farthest thing from our minds?
Just like a new year, a fresh start,
may our eyes be more aware
of what we have and what we can share.
With mercies poured out, fresh every morning,
there's no denying that His grace is abounding.
It came without warning,
when my heart felt so full and alive.
Filled with love and redemption and acceptance,
this conclusion is what I could derive:
I am blessed.
Oh, how we are blessed!
May our blessings move us to action, unreservedly.
Oh, what blessings we can be!

AEJ 4:43pm

Twentieth Century American Public Address..... I have been struggling to study for an exam for this class tomorrow. I've had a rather negative attitude about the class. Listening to speeches about taxation and war propaganda just doesn't seem to quite capture my attention much. Although, as I was reading William Jennings Bryan's Acceptance Speech of 1900, I found myself not only inspired by the man's choice of words, but his straightforwardness in not sugar-coating the truth-- the truth of the gospel. Here is an excerpt from the speech.
"The young man upon reaching his majority can do what he pleases. He can disregard the teachings of his parents; he can trample upon all that he has been taught to consider sacred; he can disobey the laws of the State, the laws of society and the laws of God. He can stamp failure on his life and make his very existence a curse to his fellow men, and he can bring his father and mother in sorrow to the grave; but he cannot annul the sentence, "The wages of sin is death."
I think my mind will look for any excuse to not study this historical stuff..... Instead, I am pondering on the darkness and utter lostness of a life that has frequent inclinations to sin, in comparison with a life that may still have a frequent inclination to sin, but also acknowledges the heavy cost of that sin.
As I sit here, putting off studying some more, a JJ Heller song came on Pandora radio. It's called "Small".
Here's part of it:
"broken moldings all around

Broken people hit the ground
When they discover that you’re not here for our benefit
You love in spite of us
You use the least of us to prove the strong aren’t really strong at all."
For every time that I am inclined to sin and actually feel strong in the world's eyes, I pray that I would be shaken to the point of trembling at the massiveness of my Saviour.
Jesus, teach me to not hurt you by disobeying you. Father, help me to cling to Your word each day.
Amen.

So, I set up a blog account in November 2005.
I never used it. I just spent the last 35 minutes trying to recover gmail account passwords and usernames, all in an effort to begin blogging tonight. I hope to stay current with this blog.... But, past experience tells me I might get distracted from documenting every part of my life...
I'll give it a try.
This post won't be long, but it should be.
It snowed today!!! I had to go to work just before the white stuff started coming down, but one hour later- an announcement was made that the campus would be shutting down until tomorrow. This meant that my office would be shutting down too! My boss let me leave a little bit before 4pm. I was thrilled!
I went out and played in the snow with friends, ordered a pizza, watched American Idol (lame), and just hung out for the rest of the evening. I love the snow!! I wish we could have gotten more than we did....
Oh well.... Class at 10 AM.... sleep time.