Chosen

From Ann voskamps blog, "a holy experience" ...

You are wanted when you don’t want to be you.

You are picked when you feel picked apart and glossed over and not good enough.

Your name is called when you’ve had lies in your head for years calling you names.

You are loved when you feel unlovely and unloveable.

You belong as you are — even when you long to be someone else.

You are broken —- and Chosen.

You don’t have to hide your brokenness —- because it doesn’t change your chosenness.

You don’t have to hide your brokenness —- because it doesn’t change your chosenness.

You don’t have to deny your brokenness — because nothing can ever deny you of your chosenness.

You don’t have to fear your brokenness — because there’s nothing that can undo your chosenness.

That is all: You are broken — and Chosen.

There’s nothing to ever fear ever again.

Broken. And Chosen.

The End.

And — the very beginning of everything we’ve ever wanted, this being deeply wanted.

Ulysses

I went to a Josh Garrels concert recently, and it's one of my all time favorites to date. I had been waiting (by waiting i mean DYING) to see him for a few years, but he never seemed to make it from Oregon all the way down to Texas. After class one night, my favorite classmate and I hurried from campus and headed to Austin. His music truly reflects God's heart, and he writes some of the most beautiful words I've heard through song. Before he played his song, Ulysses, he shared these words with us. I finally wrote them down after having them recorded on my phone for a while and wanted to share. I love how God uses people to remind our hearts of things we need to remember.

“Some of the decisions we make can’t be changed  - some things once its broken its tragic, its broken sometimes beyond repair in this life and that’s the truth with some relationships -  and some of  you know what I am talking about – but yet the wonderful thing is that there’s always the possibility of God’s redemption, which is turning something tragic into something beautiful – maybe it’s not restored to what it was – but something good coming from what was meant for evil or something that befell us that we can’t rid ourselves of, but yet there’s the power of redemption and there’s the power of restoration. As long as we have breath in our lungs there is the possibility of return. If we’re continuing on the same route, we have the ability today to decide to turn, and sometimes REturn to the place we know we came , and sometimes there’s a long return, with temptations and perils and sirens and everything else. Sometimes turning around and looking at the wake behind us makes us afraid to turn because that road looks hard, but it’s the only road filled with meaning. We are returning to the one who gives life and who can redeem and restore the things in our life that are truly broken beyond repair and can make something of meaning from it.“ – Josh Garrels