Sanctuary

I was going to write a post about this song. But I don't know that any words that I have could do it justice. So please, take 5 minute and watch this music video. It is well worth your time. Maybe I'll try to write about it later, but right now, every time I watch it, I am left in awe of its universality and the importance of its message. As a review says, "[the actress plays] the girl we can all look back on at least one point in our high school lives and relate to, whether it was feeling alone walking through the school halls, or feeling overwhelmed listening to fighting parents. She finds her escape sitting in her local church. What’s your Sanctuary?"

To Write Love on Her Arms wrote about this song, and I think they sum it up more eloquently than I could- check it out here. See? I'm already talking too much and cluttering this post with unnecessary words. Just watch it. 

Sanctuary - Paradise Fears

So go ahead and lie to yourself,
and pretend that you're a ray of light,
when you're a broken candle,

you're keeping time with yourself,
when did it all start moving way too fast,
for you to handle,

you're short on breath but heavy on time,
you lost the words but you found the rhyme,
it's all just poetry now,

the walls are singing,
hallelujah amen,
the walls are singing,
hallelujah amen,

it's so dark in the room,
and the ceilings are high,
you know the feeling,
you've been here before,

and it's a broken old pew,
and it's an echoing cry,
don't sell yourself short,
on breath and heavy on time,
you lost the words but you found the rhyme,
it's all just poetry now,

the walls are singing,
hallelujah amen,
the walls are singing,
hallelujah amen,

See, we don’t really care who you are,
We’ve kinda got this non-exclusive policy of determining exactly,
Who we open up to and let into our family,
And who becomes a part of our united mass of harmony.
And that’s kind of become the thesis to this song,
Through suffering, acceptance, grief, and strife,
There’s no way that your puzzle piece fits into our puzzle wrong,
‘cause everyone is welcome on this stage that we call life.

And we don’t really care who you are,
Everyone is capable of looking up and wishing on a star.
So catch, so contagious, this day-dreamer’s disease,
And hope can be your sword, slaying darkness with belief.

And we don’t really care who you are,
Regardless of how lost you are returning from, regardless of how far.
So bring me all the worst of your broken, bruised, insane.
Because that’s the thing with music: when it hits, you feel no pain.
No matter what you did, I promise we forgave it,
When all that’s left is your voice, you’ve got no choice but to raise it.
All you broken hearts, all you dejected dreams,
Just let yourself be free because even broken wings can fly away.

in time you'll find,
this life's a painting and you're the artist,
just open your eyes,
it's never too late to clear your canvas,

so paint me jealous,
paint me rage,
for God's sakes paint me anything,
just paint,
your brush awaits,

and the walls are singing,
hallelujah amen,
yeah we're all just singing

hallelujah amen,

let your walls keep singing

hallelujah amen

oh come on keep singing

hallelujah amen

the walls are singing

hallelujah amen,

the walls sing you to sleep,
hallelujah amen,
one secret meant to keep you safe tonight,
I swear that everything will be alright.

Forward Thinking

The future. It seems to be in everyone's thoughts and conversations. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? What is your "end goal"? Are you going back to school? Questions like this seem to be popping up in conversations more and more. 

While, yes, I do believe it is important to be working towards your goals and dreams, I also feel that society is too focused on the "end goal." It's important to be enjoying each and every stage of life as it comes. This has become more apparent to me lately, as I start to look back on college. 

Throughout college, the question was always What career are you pursuing? What are you doing after college? I got swept away in all of the planning for the future, and almost forgot to enjoy the present. Now that college is behind me, I realize the focus shouldn't have been on I can't wait to get a job, but instead I am going to enjoy college while looking forward to a career. In a similar vein, there is a lot of worry about the future. Am I going to have a job? What's going to happen next semester (or in a year, or in 4 years)? Jesus tells us,

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34

How much time do we spend worrying about tomorrow, about the future, that we could spend enjoying today? What would it look like if we took a break from worrying, trusted God about our future, and lived this moment with contentment. 

Contentment is a word that has been popping into my head lately. The idea of being content with the stage of life that you are in, being patient, not comparing your stage to others' around you. More on this later. 

Where did I go?

Whoops! How time has flown, with nary a blog post.

What's been going on?

I am finally living in one place: Milwaukee. I am working full time (albeit second shift) at the psychiatric hospital, and filling my time with fun. I am volunteering at a children's center, hanging out with adorable preschool friends for a few hours each week.

I am also working on digitizing my grandma's photos. A few months ago, my dad and I re-discovered a bunch of old photos from when my grandma was growing up, including photos of her mom at age 16! In order to preserve these photos, I have been scanning them, and then we will make copies for other family members. It has been a large undertaking, but it has been so much fun to see what my family looked like when they were younger. It has also brought back a lot of memories about my childhood, and I love seeing the fashions that were in style then.

I apologize for the lack of updates. Now that my life has settled down, I hope to post on a more regular basis. You can look forward to highlights from the summer, musings on the "real world", and more.