Dear Hollywood

 Somewhere down the line

We bought the devil’s lie

That we are broken beyond repair.

All she wanted was to be known.

But she gave her life up for the throne,

And everything she called her own.

She began pursuit of poise and fame

To bring herself a better name

But somehow ended up alone.

She gave it all for too small a cost

Seeking after all she’d lost

Not knowing how much she’d have to pay

She sacrificed her life her will,

For beauty, men, and dollar bills,

How quickly black does fade to grey.

Lost and broken, torn apart

They covered scars and called it art.

Was this the place of no return?

They took advantage and stripped away

Knowing what she’d have to pay-

As they all watched her burn.

Hollywood-God’s got a plan

Bigger than some one night stand

Or a drug that cannot fill

Forget all that you’ve been told

And trade your glitter for the gold

If you’ll just fight for something real

Hollywood-you hold the key

If you will simply bow your knee

And make known a name for a King

Hollywood-you’ll make it far

On more than just a fancy car

Or an empty diamond ring.

You’ve traded commitment for a fling

And wondered why you felt the sting

Of emptiness and pain

You’ve searched so long for something more

Than what you had to bargain for

And all you had to gain

Were empty bottles and broken dreams

Thinking you could seal the seams

With one enticing plea.

Oh Hollywood-when will you see

What it means to be truly free?

Enough

I could take on the world
here in your arms.
slaying demons in your name.
I could move mountains
with a seed of faith
and withstand the furnace flame.

I could write a book
for every miracle
and the world would be too small
to contain the words
that hold your heart
of your life's impending call

I could win a battle
of a mighty army
with 300 faithful men
I could tame a lion,
raise the dead,
and calm the mighty wind


I could call a nation
to it's knees
if you asked me to my Lord-
I could fight the devil
with but a book
you call the sacred sword.


I could thirst no more
with not one drop,
by the grace of your great love,
but oh the shame
I dare proclaim
when you ask,
"My child, am I enough?"

San Pedro, Belize

"What is the value of a human soul?" My mom tossed out the room-silencing question. Would God send 12 people to leave their home for the sake of one person here? Did the shepherd not leave the 99 other sheep to bring home the 

 one? 

Everything and nothing.

That is what is going on in my head right now. I get so frustrated trying to figure it out, trying to make plans that were never mine to make. And everytime without fail, God keeps whispering, "Just trust me. I have a plan."

Sometimes the greatest peace comes with letting go completely.

If I have learned anything since I have been here, it is this: humanity is selfish. Loving people is hard. Me in my ignorance left America thinking in doing so I would inevitably escape pride, entitlement, selfish ambition, and complacency. Since being here, I have learned that it was not America I was trying to escape, but myself. Complacency is everywhere. Selfishness thrives within every person. I came here thinking a change of location would constitute a change of heart, but being on the mission field does not make someone any more of a missionary than a standing in a doctors office makes someone a doctor. I came here with the same habits, tendendencies, and nature that I had in America. 

Nothing changed. 

I have learned that my natural tendency is not to love others, but to judge them. I gravitate towards selfishness, impatience, arrogance, and entitlement. If I am not willing to reach out to my neighbor in Celina, Texas, what makes me think moving to a foreign country with language and cultural barriers would somehow make it easier?

Today I was forced to ask myself what true sacrifice is as I toured an old house in the bad part of town. Would I be willing to live among the people like Jesus did? How much am I REALLY willing to give up? I say everything, but it is easy to make that statement as I overlook the ocean shore in the comforts of a beautiful air conditioned condo. 

What does it mean to take up your cross daily? What does that look like in a day to day life? I am beginning to realize the paradox of the Gospel; what Jesus is truly asking of His followers. 

Apart from His grace, I do not have the capacity or the ability to love selflessly. Someone once said our walk with the Lord is like a tree: the heights that it reaches is solely dependant on how far it is rooted. In order to go places with God, I must start with the privacy of my own bedroom. In two days I return back to the normalcy of every day life in America. In two days I will still be completely reliant on God's grace to love those around me. Praise God, His grace is enough. It has ALWAYS been enough.

The Victory of John Manalo

Death puts such a perspective on life. It's funny how the little things that consume our time and our energy are suddenly re-prioritized when the wave of death sweeps over.

Today my fellow CCMers and I just received the news that our brother and former fellow CCMer passed away last night. Videos and deadlines, once a consuming fire of our days here at CCM, took their place in the scheme of things, leaving silence to clean up the mess.

Amidst the noise and chaos of media consistently residing in these walls, a young life taken has penetrated the room to mere silent tears. Where words once filler of empty air, now none can suffice the silence suffocating our deepest thoughts. Like a vapor in the wind, we make our mark on this world before we are called home. 

I fear we have made our permanent residence in but a temporary passing.               

John lived in a world that did not deserve him, a world that could not hold him. A heart too big to be carried by this sinful place, is now held by the hands of the Man that conquered death. We ask, bewildered and entitled, why God took him from our midst, when he was never ours to begin with, nor was he ever meant to be. Made for a world where death has no sting, we still cringe at death's awful scream and ask God why it hurts so bad. He has reached the Promised Land, while we are still making our way through the desert. 

I am blessed beyond belief and overwhelmed by the Grace of God that allows us to consider life not loss but victory. Christ said Himself, to live is Him, to die is gain. Unfortunately, it often takes the sting of death to heed to these powerful words. Unfortunately it takes a human life for us to recognize the value of our own. Last night my brother and friend John Manalo was greeted into the arms of His Savior. The few years that John dedicated to knowing His Lord will now be paid off for the rest of eternity-- Which is why I dare not title this entry, The Loss of John Manalo, rather the Victory. For none could find more victory than the one at the feet of Christ.

Broken Alabaster Jar

Break your alabaster jar

and pour it on my feet

In the midst of hair and tears

is where our hearts shall meet <3

To think that I-

but far too gone

A harlot amidst the virgin--

Am but a stickler for broken hearts,

in dire need of a surgeon.

Surely the King

has chosen His bride;

 A lilly among the thorns--

He'll take the beauty;

the Spotless one-

of whom precious gems adorn.

He'll search the castles

and the priciest rooms-

in the rich man's master suite--

While I sell my purity 

for dollar bills-

 like a vender on the street

Surely, He'll seek the loftiest places,

for a bride to claim His hand--

a woman committed; fiercely submitted

not some one night stand.

I'll never forget that knock on the door

that came as such a surprise-

that a King might enter a sinner's floor

much less look me in the eyes.

No value to offer-

but this alabaster jar,

I threw my face at His feet--

between tears and hair and open scars

is where He said we could meet.

Between tears and hair and open scars

is where He said we could meet.

Inspired by Luke 7:36-50

To live is Christ...

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." Luke 6:27-28 It is easy to love when our lives are not negatively or directly involved with whom God is calling us to love. It is easy to love the man that raised us or the hands that clothed us, but what about the man that murdered our children? What about the man that raped our daughters? 

The same God that sent David to slay Goliath, said "forgive these men, for they know not what they are doing," when the soldiers nailed Him to a cross. What is true victory found in? Justice or Mercy?  Embracing persecution or conquering it? Fighting for freedom or giving your life in the hope that your enemy may discover true freedom? 

Perhaps I didn't come back with all of the answers, but I did discover some of the right questions. 

For the past three days, I was placed in an artificial environment to be given the opportunity to ask my self these questions. World Awareness-to be made aware of what is going on outside the walls of America's comfort and entitlement. Most men will never even dream of this kind of life. But for some, it is all they know. 

For three days I, along with the rest of the Internship, were refugees on the run from a tyrannical government that had just enforced a law of "Peace and Safety," - a title embodying the belief system that all religions lead to heaven in an attempt to bring about a Utopian Society in America. In a government like this, Christians were persecuted for their beliefs because they were viewed as intolerant of other religions, judgmental, and extremists. We spent the entirety of our time running from the government officials in 400 acres of woods, hopping from refugee camp to refugee camp to escape the next invasion. Some of us got the opportunity to be captured and experience life in what they called, "a Re-educational facility" in which half of the prisoners were forced to remain silent in individual shower cells , while the others worked pulling weeds in the labor union.

Suddenly, I was forced to ask myself how I would respond if this were to really happen. The age is coming and the prophesies Biblical. The Anti-Christ will first bring about a sense of false peace and harmony through establishment of a one world religion. Was my role as a Christian to simply persevere the persecution, or was I called to do more? If so, what? Do I conduct jail busts, rescuing my fellow prisoners? Or do I submit to authority, up until the point that it contradicts my faith, and show the love of Christ to the true Prisoners? 

We are one Body-but as tension and confusion from the enemy arose, I saw division slip between the cracks of our own flawed belief system and the Body was beginning to split amongst itself. As the church, we have been called to love, not passively or defeatedly, but passionately and victoriously. 

1 John 4:4 tells us that the Battle has already been won. So why then do we keep fighting and resisting as if it is still in our hands?

Jesus died for the murderer hanging next to Him. He died for the ones who hung Him, but most importantly, He died for those responsible for putting Him there--us. He lived to love. But mostly, He died for it. Perhaps true justice can only be attained when we have first claimed it for ourselves. 

Beautifully Broken

Brokenness. Such a beauty few men dare to seek. To feel deeply evokes a courage few men possess. It prompts a journey few men venture in a lifetime. It requires much. Everything in fact. Pure, heart-wrenching, soul-bearing humility. It is the heart cry of man admitting his humanity. Recognizing the burden of generational sin carried since the fall of Adam. It's taking His cross because we not only seek our need for it, we are desperate to become one with Him, to draw near to our Creator, and we would do literally anything to reach that place.

Why does ATF do this to me every time without fail? Perhaps I have allowed my self to feel too deeply, thus opening this door that cannot be closed without some form of therapeutic journaling. I am not broken. Not yet. But I seek a need for it, a desperation even, and that scares me. Because I know God is faithful, and He will break me. Humility is a prayer only bold men proclaim. I always come out of these things feeling so vulnerable. So raw. Sad that it's over. Nostalgic even as I say goodbye to a team of servants I just spent three days getting to know. God is expanding  my world. And I don't know how to take it. At first there was home. And it was enough; more than enough even. But eventually that grew to the confines of the Honor Academy. And suddenly I was a small town, change-hating girl, forced to embrace two very, very different worlds. I used to say that I was born to fly but had an unnerving fear of heights. But it didn't stop there. My world keeps getting bigger. For the next month I will be on the road every weekend, depleting myself so that I can serve Christ. I don't always have this attitude, in fact, it's usually not until the end of the event, once I have recognized my need for Grace and the negative effects of my hardened heart that provokes journal entries like these.

I'm sitting on the SWAT and Support Bus, waiting for it to finish loading so we can drive away from another place that has left a unique mark on my heart. San Diego will not be soon forgotten. For it has caused me to reflect, ponder, and feel. Something many go a lifetime without doing. Coasting through life in the safety of a calloused and hardened heart. I pray I never reach that place of no return. I fear a hardened heart is a heart unbroken. A heart that has yet to recognize its need for a Savior. 

And oh the need for a Savior has me desperate for brokenness.