Claire and Dad

                  


     This is too adorable! I love it so much!

Simple Joys #1

I'm having a lot of fun with this whole blog thing...maybe a little too much haha. I think I'll record tidbits of my life- the small things that make me happy. This week it was finding these two sitting patiently and so peacefully on massage chairs. Friends, meet Sharon to the left, and mama Ki to the right. Aren't they so cute? I love days off of relaxing and eating fish tacos with them.

Our Help

I love children's songs because they are so straight forward to convey simple truths. This one has been on repeat lately. The past months I've been reminded of the need of dependence. God is the one to turn information into wisdom, experiences into discernment, hearers into doers. He is the one that gives and takes away, breathes life and expires. Without Him, there is emptiness. But with Him, there is everything.

Here is a quote from Lilias Trotter, a missionary of Algeria, that I can't seem to get over.

"How many of us have said and sung with all our hearts "Anywhere with Jesus", but at the same time we did not realize all that it meant for us. To us in Algeria it must mean sometime or other, Arab food. In some parts it means close contact with dirt and repulsive disease. It means living among a stiff-necked and untrue people and struggling with a strange and difficult language." 

Here is my fav part...
"And yet let us evermore write over all our miseries, big, and for the most part very little, these transforming words "With Jesus". And then the very breath of Heaven will breathe upon our whole being and we shall be glad."

Lilias must have understood the hope and peace of living life "with Jesus" under the umbrella of help, the spirit. So cool :D My current circumstances/frustrations are nothing in comparison to that of Lilias, I assume. Wishing for her perspective!

Running and Refusing Spiritual Burrito-ness

My mind has gone to this video lately as I have been preparing for a half marathon. It's an old video but lately I can't help but make connections between the physical act of running and running in a spiritual sense. Running to His word, making sure not to "miss the miracle". I get lazy and want to stay in bed, rolled up like a burrito. But once I get up and go for a run at the beach, I never once regret it. It's a beautiful sight, great feeling, and good company. Likewise, the missed experiences and beautiful encounters with God when I'm being a spiritual burrito.

"Our weak tired distracted eyes look and all we see is a lifeless boring portrait on the wall. But it's not a portrait. It's a window. It doesn't hang lifeless in an old frame on the wall. It breaks through the wall into another world. The real world, the lasting world, the better world. And through this window shines a divine light that changes everything around us. We all know that the road to knowing God is not easy. Discipline and resolve are important, but they can carry you only so far. A few days a week maybe a month. For the long run, we need something stronger, more compelling than discipline and resolve."

It's crazy to see the difference between running at the gym on a treadmill vs. running at the beach. I struggle so hard on the treadmill counting down the numbers till I hit my miles. I feel like a hamster! My motivation is bottomed out and I get bored. At the beach, I can run 4 miles like it's nothing. So what is the difference? I know my destination. It is not monotonous and aimless as running like a hamster, seeing the same scene of sweaty fellow hamsters. Likewise, Christian life is all about knowing our destination. The direction in which we run; the end point makes all the more of a difference. We have seasons in our lives where we are sprinting, jogging, and sometimes crawling. But our destination: eternal life with Christ, no pain, no struggling. We see it, and we are motivated to run to it.

Hebrews 12:1 
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

1 SEC (or more) (almost) EVERYDAY

2016 from hanna on Vimeo.

First time doing this 1 second a day video thing. It really was the perfect year to record  through many transitions I went through. As I did this, I learned a few things by recording most of my days.
1. Habits can be easily formed. 
Initially it was hard to remember but as the end drew near, I got really excited and would end up recording 6+ seconds a day. 
2. I see the same group of people every week.
I'm not complaining! I love them much! (You're welcome, I recorded your life for you in a way haha)
3. There's much to be grateful for in the routine pulse of life 
"feet tired from the journey but my heart's new that's a good sign"
4. I eat out a lot. nuff said