"now you are a lioness. and now Narnia will be renewed. but come. we have no time to lose."

there's so much on my heart today. i love moments like this.

"For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for i am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when i was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them." --Psalm 139:13-16
there are some things that have been engrained in me since i was very young. one is the idea that God wants to be a part of our lives because He loves us and wants a personal relationship with us. but do you know what i never really gave much thought to? the fact that He wants ME in HIS life. not needs...wants. which is just somehow way cooler. i mean...He wanted me so much that He made me one very certain and unique way. different from all the others in a way i don't understand.
people often say that we are all masterpieces...which is so true, and i love the imagery. but when i think about God wanting me and making me a certain way, for some reason i think of baking cookies. you get a craving for an exact flavor and texture; you know that you want cookies and you know exactly what kind you want. so you make them, and you throw in some extra ingredients not found in the recipe because you want them exactly the way you like them. you put tons of work into making them just right. and then you bake them, pull them out of the oven, let them cool, and enjoy them.
i guess what my weird analogy is trying to say is that God wants us, designs us exactly the way He wants and knows is best, puts plenty of work and love into making us perfectly according to the design...and then when the work is done, He wants to enjoy us. i mean...no one actually NEEDS cookies. but that doesn't mean we don't want them...

"A time is soon coming when we will all have to choose between what is right and what is easy." --J.K. Rowling
i think that very often in life we give up trying to make a change or get out of our comfort zone because it's a difficult thing to do, and we think that means we shouldn't do it. thing is, last i heard, "difficult" is not synonymous with "wrong." we like to imagine that when we are doing things right, everything will be easy and nothing will be unpleasant. i'm pretty sure that's not how it works. i'm also pretty sure that the only "good" thing about comfort zones is that they are comfortable. but even a nice big comfy couch gets really boring after a while if you never get up from it...

"How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! if i should count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. when i awake, i am still with You." --psalm 139:17-18
God really does work in ways that are so much bigger than we could ever imagine. He really does things we can't understand, and He really loves us more than we will ever know.
He really is there.
He really doesn't have a smite button.
He really does have plans for you..."plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."
He really does know you, and He really does care.
He really does want you for a lot more reasons than just to raise church attendance.
He really doesn't buy it when you try to be fake.
He really moves in the hearts of His beloved in radical ways.
He also really is even more excited than we are about spending eternity together. Course, He also has the upper hand on that one cause He knows just how much eternity's gonna rock. My bet is that it'll rock quite a bit...