By Your Side- Tenth Avenue North

Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don't turn away

Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough
To where will you go child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run

And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life

Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I'll never let you go





I never really paid attention to this song by Tenth Avenue North until the youth band at my church sang it. It was all about Jesus... less about the music. Wow. Made me cry. ("Touched me...right here." -Said that to the guys and they made fun of me after that so had to put it in here! )


But really.. I try to earn grace. I try so very hard to be the best this or that. And those things I strive for are mostly good things! I do want to please Jesus. Its so important to me. So important. But if i'm honest... "even my repentance needs to be washed in the blood of Jesus." If my best and most 'amazing' gifts to Him have any motive at all of self seeking.. then its all dirt. All of it. 


But His grace covers just that, yall. He is NEVER letting us go. God, im tired of striving. Not really sure exactly how to stop... but giving Him the first word of every day will lead me. As will the Holy Spirit. 

Negative feelings with a negative outlook

Lift my fears, fall to my knees. I am able to be discouraged after all Jesus has shown me.. after all the testimonies I've heard. Just reminding myself, as well as hopefully reminding you, that all we need is Jesus. All. The more I pray it the more real it will become. Hah I tell so many of the youth I help lead that Jesus does not expect perfection after salvation. or Salvation does not equal perfection but a promise for the Holy Spirit make us the truest form of us.. Salvation is Jesus saying, "All of Heaven its time to celebrate! This Beloved is MINE! WhooHoo! I'm never letting go!" as He continues His work in our lives.

"So hold on my darlin', its goin' to be bumpy. So buckle in tightly..."

I don't have anything to prove.

When you think "my identity..", who do you say you are? or  Who do you want to be?
Is all this seeking who we are , us trying to prove something?

This question seems so hard to answer to me so it got me thinking...

What is the core of these questions, "What is my identity?" or "Who am I?". Okay so maybe we should ask, "What does an Identity consist of?" Is it something able to be labled? Such as popular, nerd, athletic, artistic, musical, dramatic, ugly, pretty, crazy, reserved, black, white, gay, straight, christian, or muslim? Are one of those lables what people see when they look at us? Are those lables what we think of ourselves? Do these things proclaim why we exist? (maybe thats the real question..."What am I doing here?")

None of those things tell anyone who you are. They all talk about things you believe about yourself or do. Not that they are all bad things. Like I am indeed a christian. But is that my identity? Is who I am really found in something I believe?

Hard questions. Because when we talk about this we get so close to the Truth!

We want to be known. Yeah, you're scared of someone knowing the deepest scariest places in your heart.. But guess what you're asking when you ask about your identity. You want someone to recognize WHO you are. Not what you do. Not what you look like . Not what you like. (Don't even get me started that all these things will pass away!)

You want someone to know the deepest parts of you. The good and great parts, the evil desires, the beautiful desires, and still want to know you. To strip down everything we consider our identity and see the core of why we exist. I don't know that we can find our 'identity' in any word. I do believe, however, that we can find freedom from trying to be someone, and let Jesus break through our walls and let Him stand there as our stronghold.

I've found my identity in many things before. Some good to the worlds standards, even some bad to the worlds standards. I have never been filled before allowing Jesus to BE for me.

Look guys, I know you all know something about  me. If you've known me lately you  might even say I'm a pretty good girl. Please, don't flatter me. "Pretty good girl" is not my identity.

Identity isn't what we long for. We long to be known and loved.

Maybe we were never meant to search for who we are. Maybe we just are.

Just maybe we don't have to prove anything.

Maybe we don't have anything to prove...

Just maybe Jesus really is who He says He is.

"For the death that He died, He died to sin once and for all; but the life that He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus."
Romans 6:10-11
                                                                  

Be still...

Being still is a foreign concept to me.

I cant count on two hands the things that have gone wrong the last few weeks, yet God is asking me to be still? What!?

I have a million and two things to do before school starts. How can I be still and wait? wait for what?? for these things that "keep my life running" to complete themselves?

I hear "Get it done whatever the cost. Excel. Be the best you, you can be. Be strong. You can do it. "


'Be still my child, your toils are not necessary. Here, let me carry that heavy class load for you. Yes, Casey, give me your transportation to college, I will provide. Ask me for patience with Sami, I will supply you with what I demand. You're upset about things that are not everlasting, sweet child of mine, I AM. You have stumbled and while carrying your own heart. Focus on Me. Give Me every thing. Youre anchored in Me."

Im anchored in love divine!  His love shall control me in life and in death.
-Anchored in love by Jenny and Tyler.

Carry Me- Jenny and Tyler