Late Nights + Inspiration - Cold Medicine = Poetry!

Disclaimer: the random, jumbled mess that is this post was either brought about by my inspiration upon reading Psalm 57 or my lack of sleep and Niquil. You decide.


I'd say about 79% of my day is spent wishing I could somehow write down what I'm thinking. I constantly have wordless ideas and silent songs streaming through my head, but rarely find the time or motivation to "enflesh" them by putting pen to paper. I sometimes wonder how many great songs were silenced simply because the writer never made time to listen and write them down. Quite a few, no doubt. 
Tonight, as I read Psalm 57, I was struck by David's poetry, so beautiful yet so straight-forward. He apparently wrote this particular psalm while in a cave, hiding for his life. Talk about writing under pressure. David's heart was so full of "silent songs" that he couldn't help but give them life. And tonight, his words inspired me. So I listened and I wrote.
I wrote this poem- though rough and sing-songy- in response to David's. Much of the poem was taken directly from the Psalm, but I also wanted to include elements of my own, so I took it in a new direction. I'd elaborate more, but I'm sick, its 2:30 am, and I think my creativity has nearly run it's course. So, goodnight to all and without further ado, my poem:

Come, my heart
Have you no voice?
Through shadows and broken sounds
I will cry out

Remember, my heart
Have you forgotten?
Through incarnate grace you were formed
Beautiful

Awake, my heart-
How long will you slumber?
-To a purpose enfleshed
By Humble Birth

Sing, my heart
Though words come slowly
Sing, for what greater love is there on earth?

Awake, my heart
Awake, my glory
Awake and sing of steadfast love.
Awake my heart
Awake my glory
Awake the dawn with living songs.

Relevant Magazine: Women, Stop Submitting to Men

This article is from relevantmagazine.com, one of my favorite websites. I read it and was so encouraged I wanted to share it here. It does an excellent job of describing how devastating our culture's influence has been on our view of women, but also offers the hopeful, Biblical side too. Enjoy!

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.”
Quote Ephesians 5:22 in a small group, a meeting, a marital argument, a dinner among friends or even a Facebook status and just watch what happens. This little line from one of Paul’s many letters is perhaps one of the most hotly debated in all of Scripture. But why is it so controversial—and what does it really mean?
Those of us who hold to so-called “traditional gender roles” are often assumed to believe women should submit to men. This isn’t true. Indeed, a primary problem in our culture and in our churches isn’t that women aren’t submissive enough to men, but instead that they are far too submissive.
First of all, it just isn’t so that women are called to submit while men are not. In Scripture, every creature is called to submit, often in different ways and at different times. Children are to submit to their parents, although this is certainly a different sort of submission than that envisioned for marriage. Church members are to submit to faithful pastors (Heb. 13:17). All of us are to submit to the governing authorities (Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17). Of course, we are all to submit, as creatures, to our God (James 4:7).
And, yes, wives are called to submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22; 1 Peter 3:1-6). But that’s just the point. In the Bible, it is not that women, generally, are to submit to men, generally. Instead, “wives” are to submit “to your own husbands” (1 Peter 3:1).
Too often in our culture, women and girls are pressured to submit to men, as a category. This is the reason so many women, even feminist women, are consumed with what men, in general, think of them. This is the reason a woman’s value in our society, too often, is defined in terms of sexual attractiveness and availability. Is it any wonder that so many of our girls and women are destroyed by a predatory patriarchy that demeans the dignity and glory of what it means to be a woman?
Submitting to men in general renders it impossible to submit to one’s “own husband.” Submission to one’s husband means faithfulness to him, and to him alone, which means saying “no” to other suitors.
Submission to a right authority always means a corresponding refusal to submit to a false authority. Eve’s submission to the Serpent’s word meant she refused to submit to God’s. On the other hand, Mary’s submission to God’s word about the child within her meant she refused to submit to Herod’s. God repeatedly charges His Bride, the people of Israel, with a refusal to submit to Him because they have submitted to the advances of other lovers. The freedom of the Gospel means, the apostle tells us, that we “do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).
Despite the promise of female empowerment in the present age, the sexual revolution has given us the reverse. Is it really an advance for women that the average high-school male has seen images of women sexually exploited and humiliated on the Internet? Is it really empowerment to have more and more women economically at the mercy of men who freely abandon them and their children, often with little legal recourse?
Is this really a “pro-woman” culture when restaurant chains enable men to pay to ogle women in tight T-shirts while they gobble down chicken wings? How likely is it that a woman with the attractiveness of Henry Kissinger will obtain power or celebrity status in American culture? What about the girl in your community pressured to perform sexual favors for a boyfriend; what is this but a patriarchy brutal enough for a Bronze Age warlord?
In the church it is little better. Too many of our girls and young women are tyrannized by the expectation to look a certain way, to weigh a certain amount, in order to gain the attention of “guys.”
Additionally, too many predatory men have crept in among us, all too willing to exploit young women by pretending to be “spiritual leaders” (2 Timothy 3:1-9; 2 Peter 2). Do not be deceived: a man who will use spiritual categories for carnal purposes is a man who cannot be trusted with fidelity, with provision, with protection, with the fatherhood of children. The same is true for a man who will not guard the moral sanctity of a woman not, or not yet, his wife.
We have empowered this pagan patriarchy. Fathers assume their responsibility to daughters in this regard starts and stops in walking a bride down an aisle at the end of the process. Pastors refuse to identify and call out spiritual impostors before it’s too late. And through it all we expect our girls and women to be submissive to men in general, rather than to one man in particular.
For women, sexual and emotional purity means a refusal to submit to “men,” in order to submit to God and to their own husband, even one whose name and face they do not yet know. Closeness with a husband, present or future, means a distance from every man who isn’t, or who possibly might not be, him.
Beauty is found not in external (and fleeting) youth and “attractiveness” but in the “hidden person of the heart” which “in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Peter 3:3-4). And it will be beautiful in the sight of a man who is propelled by the Spirit of this God.
Women owe no submission to Hollywood or to Madison Avenue, or to those who listen to them. Worth and dignity cannot be defined by them. Girls, stop comparing yourselves to supermodels and porn stars. Stop loathing your body, or your age. Stop feeling inferior to vaporous glamor. You are beautiful.
There is no biblical category for “boyfriend” or “lover,” and we owe such designation no submission. In fact, to be submissive to her future husband, a woman must stand back and evaluate, with rigid scrutiny, “Is this the one who is to come, or is there another?” That requires an emotional and physical distance until there is a lifelong covenant made, until she stands before one who is her “own husband.”

Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as unto the Lord. Yes and Amen. But, women, stop submitting to men.

"And They Had All Things In Common...."

"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." ~ Matthew 18:20

Tonight was a spectacular night. A few friends and I were invited to a spur of the moment worship night in the home of complete strangers, and so, of course, we went. Not knowing anyone else there or what to expect once we arrived, we filed into the basement where the group of about 15 college kids sat in a circle with a few guitars and an i-pod. The group was diverse and unfamiliar, but we all had one thing in common: a love for Jesus. One of the guys spoke up and said that Jesus told him to have a worship night to "re-focus and de-stress" during finals week. And am I ever glad He did.
The night wasn't anything fancy. It didn't take a team of professional event planners to put together. There were no lights, no slideshows, no dramas. Just Jesus and kids who were hungry to worship him together. We prayed for unity among the campus ministries and for Christ to use us as agents for His change. We prayed over each other. We prayed for focus during finals. We saw healing. We sang out to God, lifting our voices and our hands to Him in chilling reverence. It was beautiful.
As I sat on the floor, eyes closed, heart raised to God, I couldn't help but picture the early church. They were a small group, much like we were, but they "had all things in common". I realized that this is how it should be. In Christ, total strangers can be drawn together out of the blue and leave, after mere hours, completely changed and knit together. The beauty of Christianity is the community we have to encourage, teach and worship with us. Tonight we embraced that gift, and it was beautiful, for Christ truly was there with us.

Obnoxiously Long but Life-Changing Thoughts

Sometimes God has to re-teach me something I've "known" my entire life. This past month has been one of those times. I've "learned" that knowing something in your head is about 19,594 times easier than knowing it in your heart and then living it out. To illustrate this, I want to share a few journal entries that I wrote over the past couple of weeks. The struggle should be apparent. Or it just might confuse you further. But either way, God taught me something about His will that has encouraged me greatly, and I hope it does the same for you.

                                                                                                                              November 27, 2011
It's 1 o'clock in the morning. I'm laying in bed in Nebraska at the end of a wonderful Thanksgiving break, but I can't sleep. My soul is wide awake and insists on keeping the rest of me up with it. I can't really even describe how I feel right now- longing yet contentment, excitement yet anxiety, confusion yet faith. All my emotions are wound and intertwined so deeply I can barely make sense of them. Yet one thing is completely certain to me: I want to matter. I want my life to truly matter- to make a difference in many other lives, to be lived with passion that sometimes doesn't make sense, to love with a love that is too powerful to be my own, and to glorify the One who gave it to me to live. I want to be vulnerable and completely dependent on Christ. I want to get to the place where my every decision, conversation, smile and glance reflects him to the watching world. I want to matter. But the problem is, I don't know how......

And later.......

November 28, 2011

I shouldn't be allowed to read books. There is something about certain books I read that makes me want to completely change my life. The first was Do Hard Things. We read it in Algebra class, of all places. Its about our culture's low expectations for teens, and it completely change my outlook and goals for my life. Now I'm reading Kisses From Katie- and I want my life to change. Katie moved to Uganda at age 19, started a non-profit ministry educating and feeding over 400 children, adopted 14 daughters of her own and tirelessly cares for the people in the surrounding villages. She is the kind of person we will read about in history books someday. And, of course, I'm inspired, restless and confused by her story.
I still can't make sense of my feelings. Half of me believes I'm where I should be, but the other half longs for adventure and growth. I feel torn. What am I doing spending 1000's of dollars at a college if all I want to be doing is getting my hands dirty and serving? I know there are opportunities to serve here, but I feel like I should be where the need is greatest. All of the needs around me seem to pale when compared to the starving, diseased, dirty, uneducated needs of those Katie is serving. Am I wasting my time? I don't know. But I do know that I need to set aside my own agenda. I know that I'm here- in at school, in my dorm, with my new friends- right now, and I should be serving and loving where I'm at. How could I serve anywhere else if I'm not doing it now? Good question.....
Right now I have two main passions: missions and writing music. I'm terrified by the thought of having to give up music, but then I've never really accomplished enough to give up. But the dream is still there, and the passion still burns inside me like a tea kettle about to boil. I need to act on something. I can't stand feeling unresolved or in the middle. I'm like a sentence without a period, or a song with a dissonant ending. I need to be okay with that. Maybe this season of unrest and uncertainty is really a blessing in disguise. Maybe whatever is to come will be well worth the wait. Maybe my time in "limbo" will prove to be a period of huge growth. Whatever the case, I'm available, and that's when God moves the most.

And today....

December 3, 2011

For the past month or so, my heart has been crying our to God for direction. I feared I was in the "wrong" place, not serving as much as I should be, not growing the way I wanted to. I shared my desire to make a difference and find "where I'm supposed to be" with my Bible study, friends and family, who encouraged me to pray for specifics. And I did. Constantly, I asked God to tell me exactly where he wanted me. But nothing happened. There were no flashing lights in the sky, no messenger from God telling me to move to Africa and save orphans, not even a "feeling" telling me to change, nothing but my desire to serve and the knowledge that His will is good- whatever it is.
But today I went to the gym.
For some reason I decided to google sermons about knowing God's will before I went. I figured I could use all the help I could get. When one from John Piper popped up, I knew I couldn't go wrong. The title of the sermon was "What is the Will of God and How Do We Know It?". Perfect. Just what I needed.
And so I got on the treadmill and just ran for an hour letting Piper's message spill over me. And do you know what happened? I found out God's will. Only the best part was, I knew it all along. Piper talked about two different "wills" God has, or two things the Bible means when it says "God's will". The will of command (what is revealed in Scripture) and the will of decree (God's "secret" unrevealed will that only He knows. Like the future...) At one point in the message I felt God speaking directly to me: Olivia, "there is a world of difference between people who lead their lives constantly hoping for and expecting messages to pop into their head about which way to go, which car to buy, which person to marry and Romans 12:2 (look it up!)...There are ten thousand decisions you must make that are not explicitly addressed in the Bible. So what do you do? You must have a renewed mind. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may prove how to eat, how to drink, cars to drive, houses to live in, missions to go on, friendships to cultivate...There are ten thousand decisions not written in the Bible, and yet informed by all the teachings of the Bible into this new mind; so that you think with the mind of Christ...so that the decisions that are made are flowing from the revealed will of God in the Bible as it transforms your mind"
As I prayed to specifics over the past few weeks, I was expecting a "message" or for things to suddenly become clear to me. That prayer was answered, but the specifics weren't what I had expected. God told me to love. God told me to serve. God told me to be where I am. God told me to pursue my love for writing and music AND to pursue missions and that those things don't have to clash.
And so several-week-long-story short, God told me everything I already knew in my head, but had to re-learn on my own for it to affect my heart.
The freedom he has given me to choose is beautiful, but the sovereignty he has over the life I'm living is freeing. Paradox? Yes. Impossible? Never.


So, did I discover my future and what God has in store for me? No. But I did learn that living with a renewed mind WHERE I'M AT is the best way to "matter". That's his will for me, and it's the same will for you.



Ps. Here is the link to John Piper's sermon (its free!) so you all can get a great work out AND learn God's will for your life!
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/what-is-the-will-of-god-and-how-do-we-know-it