Simple Pleasures

My insect friends..

Garden orb weaver spider.

Garden tiger moth.

Road Trip!

Connor and Marion gettin' some story time.

Jerry and Grandpa

Fondu!

Breakfast: Steel cut oats. That utensil was soon in action.

Meh sista and I on the beach.

Oregon coast.

I became the Ghost of the Grande Hotel..

Fondu for Two.

Daddy and I.

Frolic of the beach.

Carpet in the 100 year old hotel.

Solitary blackbird.

And old friend: Amy.

Cassia's eye

New friend: Chloe

We hiked to a lake in Bend Oregon.

The Dreadless Malinja continuation..

The next day we got up early, geared up, and headed out to injure one another for four hours playing paint-ball. This was my second time playing so being a bit wet behind the ears i teamed up with the two "experts" for the first couple rounds to get some basic training. The idea is run, doge, hide, and wipe out everyone on the other team.

Some peoples methods of doing this was different from others. Some preferred to stay in one spot and peg people from a distance, others liked to go bonzi and run really close to their victim before annihilating them. Once i developed my own style it was to keep out of sight sneaking as close to a persons hiding place as i could and freaking them out with my rather loud gun. It worked pretty well! I enjoyed seeing them almost fall over in their scramble to retreat even more than shooting them. It was GREAT! And I now have a new nickname to add to my already long list of aliases, "Malinja".

The only down side to the morning was getting a blister the size of a nickle rubbed on, then off, the back of my heel. It still has a scab and split open several times a day for about a week before it stopped.


Then we headed to Pizza hut for a lunch of champions. While there Mr. Berg decided to joke with his wife, who was at home, and sent her a text saying "We're doing good, the ER doctor is really nice." I asked him if she might be taken in by it and go to the ER, he didn't think so. When we got back to the house she wasn't there but she pulled up soon after we got there and informed us that she HAD been to the ER and was rather upset, so she and Mr. Berg had a chat while the rest of us had a hard time keeping huge half guilty-half mischievous grins off our faces. I have always been terrible at keeping a straight face. My poker technique is to grin madly the entire time.

After that I started making dinner, I LOVE cooking and had an old recipe for spinach casserole that had almost no measurement on it, so i had to wing it. I made a couple mistakes such as not realizing that when garlic flakes become re-hydrated they get rather large so you should chop them up first and add less than you normally would. Fortunately I had friends about that gave good advise as to what to do and it turned out great.

We then got to go play soccer for four hours! Soccer was a sport i had never played. I didn't know any rules beside don't touch the ball with your hands, which I later learned is pretty much the only rule anyway. I got to learn a new sport and meet lots of people i didn't know. Plus i managed to rip about every muscle in my legs so that i walked like I'd been in a saddle for 24 hours. But I'm in shape now! So it was good pain. Besides, pain is weakness leaving the body. Afterwards we headed to DQ to eat something bad for us to make up for whatever we had just lost. I had a freakishly good heath blizzard that zapped every bit of heat out of my body and left me chattering like a three year-old filled black coffee. We sat and told every pathetic yet funny kid joke that we could think of until DQ closed and then we headed back to the house.

I was super tired after all of this so i went straight to bed, though due to my habit of talking like I hit the jackpot of words I ended up talking with one of my pals for 2 hours before actually going to sleep.

I headed home at about 8:30 the next day to pack before heading back to WA. I hate saying goodbye to people I adore and this is a family i consider to be "my other family" so saying goodbye to them always makes me cry. I'm a bit teary right now thinking about them in all their epicness. I miss them bunches and hope to see them again soon.

The Dreadless Malinja

I just got back from a trip to the capitol of Montana where I spent the weekend with some amazing people. After a short car ride I arrived in Helena with a few of the aforesaid amazing people, and ate a delicious lunch consisting of a euro and a huge Dr. Pepper at a place called "Coney Island". While there, I heard the most high pitch scream since the decibel was invented. A little girl apparently wanted to go on a ride and was told "No, Sweetheart". So that was my first adventure.
This was followed by a joyous reunion with the rest of the "amazings" known as the Berg family. There were grins, hugs, laughter, presents, and more hugs. Five of us went on a walk and we skipped about, took pictures of a Buddha bobble head in a car and anything else we felt like pointing the camera at. A few of us then went to the Theater to see "Kung Fu Panda 2", I highly recommend it. It was beyond phenomenal. We went straight for the theater to church where i met a few people and
got to worship the God i love with people who love him every bit as much as me.




Then it was time for my second adventure..

I have had dreadlocks for two years and decided it was time to cut them off, not because i didn't like them but because I was ready for something new, AKA short hair. We made quick work of my dreads, cutting them with razor blades and piling all 50 of them in a box. My friends then saturated my hair with conditioner and proceeded to pick and comb out what was left of my hair, in the end I had 4 inches and a headache, but it was worth it! I will not have all that fur around my neck this summer! Yay me!



Then it was off to bed; one of my chica friends decided to be my bed fellow, which i didn't mind until in the middle of the night when i woke up rather groggily, forgetting where i was, and stretched... and felt a foot. I only screamed on the inside, when i realized it was just my pal Millie I grew calm again and fell back to sleep.

To be continued..

Hello, Goodbye

My grandma was taken in, and hugged by God on Saturday. I don't blame him for wanting her, she's phenomenal, but I'm still here so I'll miss her like crazy. I was there when she died and it was strange to see her face, the face i have always associated with her spirit, but no longer see HER in her face. It reminded me that when we die the body we currently have is stripped away and we can no longer hide behind a smile or a stony expression or tell "white lies" because without our bodies our soul is bare before God and before man. We will then realize that it was truly impossible all along to deceive God for this is how he has seen us always.

My grandma was one of the sweetest people i have ever had the privilege to know. She loved God so deeply that she would talk to him in her sleep. Her whole day was out of whack if she forgot to do her devotions in the mornings. She thought about herself very little and loved others very much. She kept her eyes on heaven and did her best to bring some of it to earth.

I love you Grammy, I hope to become like you in that you did your best to become like God.

A Song Inspired by Snores

One night while I was in Washington I couldn't sleep due to the snoring of my Mum; So I went out to the living room and spent some time with God. Now and then i write my prayers as i sing them. I did so that night and I thought I'd share.

Let us be the clay in Your hands
mold us shape us to carry out Your plans

Your name shines from the mountain tops
the sky paints Your love for us
we shout Your name
let our voices strain
till we can sing no longer
but our hearts carry on shouting for You
for You to come
to sweep through this place
free us with Your grace

uncover our eyes
unchain all our souls
we want to see You
to see Your face
to see Your name lifted high
we want to glorify You

Let all our tears fall
we crumble to our knees
and accept Your humble crown
to Your cross we crawl
and lay all our sin down
and pick up Your grace
we serve the One who gave it all
let people wonder why we stand so tall

He is our joy
He is grace
He is the one who took my place
He paid my debt
He is beside me day after day
He is the only way home

Long Story Short

Allot has happened in the past month, so sorry i haven't posted anything in awhile. I was flooded with babysitting jobs and used my spare time by spending it with God, family, and friends. Then my grandma called and informed us that what the doctors had originally thought was pneumonia turned out to be cancer. It was already to far along to do anything and was told she has 6 to 9 months to live. But i still believe in miracles and even if God does not heal her on earth he will gibe her a new body in heaven. She has already begun to anticipate heaven and would be perfectly happy either way. She continues to be a constant inspiration to me even while she suffers. Please be praying for her. She's a woman who had poured out her life to serve God and bring people to him. My Mom and I took a trip to see her for a week in Washington and I got to make some memories with her as well as see some old friends. The following are the highlights of my trip:

Above and below are the Lancaster girls. Beautiful sisters that love God and love people. They come from a huge family of ten children. They are all very friendly so i quickly felt like i was one of the family.


This is my old Sunday school teacher. She has been through allot but she has way more smile lines than frown lines and she continues to bring comfort and frank truth to everyone she meets.

Karyn is a childhood friend of mine. She has grown up to be a beautiful lady tattoos and all.

Kayla is another childhood friend and is one of my many friends that is adopted. I look forward to being able to change the lives of kids like her when I have a family of my own.

These are members of the Henrickson brood. Ruth and Rose are sweet as sunshine dipped in honey. I'm excited to see them grow into amazing women of God.
I got to go to my favorite pizza place with these really awesome people. Diana (lovely lady on the right) is a girl i've known since i was five. She just got married to the fella next to her who is also rather awesome. The blur Is a newer friend that was in Diana's wedding party last year. The blur's name is Zac and he is a member of a family of ten that is stuffed with awesomeness.

There were allot more people i got to see that i just didn't get pictures with. One big highlight was my uncle. I have very few memories of him but I got to see him again for the first time in 5 years. He is not a christian but over the week that i was there I noticed changes in him and on Sunday he told us he was coming to church with us. He cried during the service and I prayed hard the whole time. Please pray the God will get a firm grip on him, and that he will continue to use me to be a light to him.
The whole trip was amazing. i was always tired by the end of the day but it was the good kind of tired where your exhausted by all the hugs and chats and laughter with good friends. And the good times keep on coming. I even got to go to my old church and fill up my hug-o-meter, and hear an amazing sermon from a pastor that I've known my whole life who continues to help me understand more and more about the grace of God, and how it is free but not cheap.

Why?

This is something i wrote a few months ago during my devotional time. I have a habit of arguing with myself so i can see both sides of something. I like being able to see things from another persons view. This is a good example of what goes on inside my head:

Sunday Oct. 10 2010

I had a thought the other night. It was that I don't like being God's pawn.
The idea that God was using me to accomplish his plan bothered me. I thought it wasn't fair that whatever we did had no effect on God's plan because he already knew what we would do and has already taken that into account. What happened to "free will"? I don't like feeling like a slave or prisoner. We were created to serve. Everyone has a god and that god they must serve. Why? Why must we always serve? Why can't we just be, without serving anything? Because if we had nothing to serve there would be no point to our existence.

I was made to serve, to be a slave to my heart. For whatever it chooses to serve that thing will become my master. Why is God willing to be a master to something so broken? Why am i so loved? My mind can get filled with everything but God. I hide him in the closet of my heart under books titled: Work, Fun, Family, Church, Dreams, and Busy. There he sits covered in the dust that is my thoughts. It's hard to see him beneath it all. He looks up at me with tear filled eyes and whispers "I would die for you again if that is what it took for you to see me and know me again." His words disturb the dust, and when it settles i see his hand, a hole in it's palm, stretched towards me. I take a step back and the door closes. "This really needs to be taken care of." I say as i walk down the hall. Then i hear his voice from under the door saying "i love you." That is all.

I choose to be a slave Christ because he is the only perfect master.

Romans 6:12-23

¹² Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. ¹³ Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. ¹⁴ Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.

¹⁵ Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! ¹⁶ Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. ¹⁷ Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. ¹⁸ Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

¹⁹ Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.

²⁰ When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. ²¹ And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. ²² But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord

God of Wonders

O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

Your glory is higher than the heavens. You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength, silencing your enemies and all who oppose you.

When I look into the night sky and see the work of your fingers- the moon and stars you set in place- what are mere mortals that you should think of them, human beings that you should care for them?

Yet you make them only a little lower than God, and crown them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority- the flocks and herds and all the wild animals, the birds of the air and fish of the sea, and everything that swims in the ocean currents.

O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

-psalms 8

Flame: tonight

I once met this dude..

So a couple days ago i met a new Christian. By that i mean he has only been a Christian for about two years. When he started telling me about how much passion God had put in his heart for this generation and how much he wanted to save the lost, it stared stirring me up, getting me more and more excited to go out and conquer the world with grace and love. Being around "new believers" actually lends strength to those who have known Christ for a long time. Seeing the fresh joy that comes with being born again refreshes the joy and efforts of others.
One of my favorite quotes is by A. W. Tozer. He said "What comes to minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the church today is God himself. And the most portentous fact about any man is not what he may at a given time, may say or do, but what he in his deepest heart conceives about God."
What we believe about God is what matters most in our lives. If we believe God poured out his life because he loved us then we will turn around and pour out that same love on others. the other important thing is grace. I'm still just beginning to grasp it, and i'll never fully understand. We would be fools to think we can limit God to something we are capable of comprehending. He is so vast that i feel tiny thinking about one part of who he is.

He almost seems mad at times. To think that he would give up his son because he LOVED us? Why us? God does not need us, but desperately loves us. We desperately need God, but do not always want him. He cannot wait for the day we join him forever. And we wonder how much we need to do for him to get by.
He is an amazing, grace giving, powerful, unfathomable, God who loves us more that everything and everyone put together. I can never understand him, or love him as much as he loves me, so all i can do is pour out my life as one long and loud song of worship for the whole world to hear.
We must also have faith, or we will never see what God has for us through all of the suffering and hurt in the fallen world around us. We can make a difference. I heard a man say once that he asked God "God, why don't you do something about all this suffering in the world?" and God said "I did, i made you". We are Gods hands and feet, and just so long as we do all for his glory, keeping our eyes on him, he can help us reach those around us, and those all around the world, to tell them of his grace. We worship a God that we cannot exaggerate. We have a joy set before us to fight the good fight and we have the strength, in God, to succeed. My dad said once "The world tells us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but the gospel says, you don't have any bootstraps!" God is the only one who can give us the strength to do his will. Opportunities multiply as they are seized. So do whatever God puts in your heart to do, rely on him, and teach others to do the same, and perhaps we'll get a little bit of heaven on earth.

Who Shall Save Us From Ourselves?

As i contemplate the seasons
i see suffering without end
the tides rage for no reason

wisdom passes to daughter and son
On each other they must depend
to survive the brutal seasons

Vows are broken, families undone
we have no life left to spend
to live there is no reason

We have nothing left to rely on
there is no one left to send
to save us from this season

at my life's rope is aimed a gun
my death sentence has been penned
Why? There is no reason

The war is over. No one has won
There is no one left to mend
the ruin of this season
for which there was no reason

the Shadow and the Secret

There is a Shadow

Who has a Secret

that he fights to stifle

but he cannot

for it is too bright

The essence of beauty

he fears the beauty

for there is none in the Shadow

he is blinded by the brightness

of the immortal Secret

blot it out, he cannot

An eternal scream he stifles

if it cannot be stifled

it will bring earth beauty

Stop It's progress, he cannot

on earth he is but a Shadow

who shall vanish in the light of the Secret

maimed by it's brightness

The Secret will shine, bright!

And night shall be stifled

No more shall He be a Secret

but the honored Lord of beauty

He shall defeat the shadow

for withstand him it cannot

Leave us to ourselves, he couldn't

So he showered them with his brightness

but they put walls of Shadow

His voice in their hearts, they stifled

They turned to things of fake beauty

and in their minds he became a Secret

Oh! How he hated being a Secret

but make them love him, he could not

He gave them the choice, to seek his beauty

or shield their heart from his brightness

As fools they chose, and beauty they stifled

Sneaking back to the crippled shadow

How the Shadow gloated over the Secret!

But conquer him he could not

He stole the prisoners keys

resurrecting beauty.

The Voice of the Pages

Hushed words make loud songs.
A single sentence yet
tears fall
wonderful
magical

Voiceless pages shout a war cry
And rush into a battle
smothering
smoke
screams

They can dance to a tune
in perfect step
whirling
swaying
touching

They hide in closets
and hear all that is said
whispering
sneaking
spying

Read from left to right
chant, duel, run, fly
i wish
i may
i wish
i might

'lil ol' Cricket bug

My Sister

In the hollows, by the creek

she sits and listens to the wild woods

They tell her what she needs to hear,

bringing joy, calming fear

In this place, she will delay

giving heed to all they say

Her heart is wise and mellow

as she beholds the wind blow

it sweeps through her hair

and stills every care.

When she returns and speaks to me

her words are filled with felicity

Her joy is abundant in the room

weaving ecstasy at her loom

And then she leaves, taking her work

to give it all away

then to the hollows she returns

to learn what she may.

The Abortion

Living is my goal

Floating in a dark sea

Who am i? No one knows

Thus far i'm only me.

I have a purpose

So i wait

I feel movement

i anticipate

What will it be like?

I wonder

will it be as safe?

i stretch my legs as i think

i will be sad to leave this place

i hope i will be loved

i wonder what dreams i will chase

But my thought are interrupted

by something i've never felt

it is a pain i feel. My life is being corrupted

I let out one last screaming thought

"I am not even wanted"

Living was my goal

floating through a dark land

Who was i? No one will know

before i was born i was damned