a dead man has no BREATH

"I've got to get away from this round and round and round. I've got to find a way from tumbling down and down and down. How long will my bed be made with tears? How long will You leave me here? Don't leave me here.

The grave is too late to sing Your praise. A dead man has no breath. So while there's beating in my chest, my heart will sing, heart will sing this craziness: la la la la la la la, la la la la la. la la la la la la la, You have set me free! la la la la la la la, la la la la la. la la la la la la la, You are all i need!"

Pardon my la las :) i'm totally that girl that hates songs with jibberish in them, but this one, oh man. it's just, if you've ever heard that song you know it's beautiful and overflowing with praise and joy and LIFE! and the la las are intregal! Listen to it right now if you haven't ever or in a while. It'll put your heart in the right attitude for this Thanksgiving holiday.

Speaking of which, i'm going to write about things i'm thankful for. I know it's cliche, and i really loathe being cliche. but come on! With all that God's given me, with all this beauty and goodness, all these reflections of God's character and face walking around me each day, I'll offer it back up as a thank you song to Him. And maybe today, if we all thank Him, He'll feel a little bit of gratitude from the humans He created to praise Him, the ones who so often turn their heads and beat their own chests when something good comes along.

First i want to thank my Jesus for revelation, for getting down the tunnel of these last five years of my life and all of a sudden being handed a flashlight. i look back now and can see what it's all been for. He didn't want my disobedience. He didn't want my stubbornness or defensiveness or self-seeking, but He turned and is turning my darkness to brilliance. He's been doing it all along, and now i can see little bits of how He's working. He's turning streetlamps on along the way, just enough so i can take my next step in confidence, and how stinkin beautiful is that?! A God who wants us to hold onto His hands for guidance. A God who stoops constantly in order to lift my chin, aligning our eyes.

I'm thankful for my singleness, in this moment though definitely not always. I'm thankful because He's saving me from misery, saving my husband from misery. He's trying to make it so that i know how to love right. So that when my earthly love comes along i can try my hand at loving him like Christ instead of someone who takes and takes and takes and doesn't know that that kind of love is a sad cutout version of what i'm capable of, what i'm created to live out. I'm thankful because instead of a man having to sharpen these horrificly poke-y edges of mine, God's doing it. His mercy is so all-encompassing that He's allowing it to be done in the quiet of my house and within the walls of my heart. He's letting it be done in the secret spaces between us rather than in screaming fights and ignoring hours in a marriage.

I'm thankful for my family, the fact that we are so tightly bound to each other when we could've (and really should've) been strangers separated by bitterness and lack of understanding and blame. My youngest brother got baptized this year and in that process really let us know that he KNOWS who God is. I never have to worry about my baby, cuddlebug of a brother being with me in Heaven. He'll be beside me, with that perfect pitch of a voice, singing "holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come" forever. He'll be older, but our hands will still fit together in the moments they aren't lifted to our Abba.

I'm thankful for my friends, the new and the old:

"During a time when i had nothing to give but venom and tears, when i monopolized conversations and entertained the same conspiracy theories over and over again, this small circle of people were the words and fragrance and presence of God in unmistakable ways.

I have never been so clingy and strange, so unmoored and lacking in appropriate smalltalk, and i am beyond thankful to my friends for sticking around in the worst of it.

Telling me the truth as they saw it, which was a lot more beautiful than the truth as i saw it then." -Shauna Niequist

I know my friends well enough to know they think good things of me. They think i'm all the things i think THEY are. But i know that in a true friendship, each person feels like they're surrounded by their betters, feels blessed to even be allowed to keep such company. And my friendships are no exception to that. I'm flooded with love and honesty and loyalty (to the Father first, which changes naturally into loyalty to each other) and well-written cards, emails, facebook posts. I don't have to question who i am, because they remind me. I see better who i am by looking at their hearts, and more often, i see the kind of worshipper i want to be. You know who you are, you're wrapped so tightly around me, like sinew around muscle, and i love you with everything i am.