"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again--rejoice!"

It's a children's song. I wonder if you hear it now, as you read these words I have typed. It's a verse. Philippians 4:4. It's a reminder of how bright our future is in the Lord. It's a reminder of who we are. That we are to rejoice. That joy comes in the morning. That we need fear nothing if we rejoice in the Lord.

Funny, really. Funny how we hear it and we think of the blithe little children's song. It's not about joy to us--it's about happiness. And it's impossible to be happy most of the time in this life. Happiness is fickle, fleeting, and overall an emotion. Joy is a state of being. It's a truth.

I remember the beginning of my high school years, when I got ahold of Andrew Peterson's album The Burning Edge of Dawn. Everything was awful in my life at that point, and the track entitled "Rejoice" was not the one I thought I needed. I love Andrew Peterson, but he and I have a bit of a fraught relationship. It's one thing to have emotions about God and struggle with them; it's another to have your emotions taken, written down by another individual who's never met you, and put to song. Peterson has an uncanny ability to weave words out of the deepest thoughts of my soul, so sometimes when it's darkest, I can't bear listening to the songs he writes.

Rejoice was just another of those--it hurt so badly that I could hardly bear it. I could not stand to feel the weight of words that gave voice to my feelings. "Rejoice" was a song that made me think maybe it got better. But later. 

Joy, I thought then, as a young teen wrestling with body image, a broken life, and grappling with the reality of losing a life I'd not only never get back but also never have in the first place--joy was not for someone like me. Maybe someday I'd find it. Someday way far away.

It persisted. I felt happiness on and off. I felt the deepest pain and the worst loneliness. God is there, they say, through it all. Funny how that's true when you can't feel it or see his presence. Funny how you can believe something with all your heart and yet so fully doubt its truth.

There's a truth you can't let go of and there's a truth you have to hold onto. Joy is one of these, a thin little gossamer thread that you can't let go of if you wish to keep your life. It's the rope holding Samwise and Frodo against the cliff. It's the thread holding your heart together. But it only comes from truth, the truth that God alone can give.

I went to a concert in spring of 2022 (just this year). It was Andrew Peterson, live and in person. I'd just turned 20. I was ready for some sort of epiphany. I needed a change. I was happy, yes, but joy?

What is joy?

Peterson announced his arrival with a few classics, and then he set into playing the opening bars of "Rejoice."

For some reason, God has a way of using Andrew Peterson specifically to speak to me. There is always one song in his setlists that has a message for me, one that I didn't know I needed in that moment, but that moves me straight to tears. Once at his Christmas concert, which we livestreamed, he played another favorite song, "Carry the Fire," which moved me to tears. It was exactly what I needed.

But "Rejoice." One note and I was right back in that darkness, the water all around me, my heart shattered on the floor. Tears were already on my face right there in that church. I started singing along, but by the end of the first verse, I was in tears to a point where I could hardly breathe, let alone sing. The song itself was beautiful, yes, but that was not what struck me. What struck me was the truth.

Joy comes in truth. In knowing the truth.

I knew the truth.

God was there. God had never let me go in all those moments.

That's the story of the girl sobbing during a song about joy, a girl whose life came full circle. It's all about those moments, I've come to realize. One moment where God makes it all so clear--that's what lets me keep going. He does it so rarely, but I do not forget the moments when he does it. He reminds me of his truth and his presence and he holds on tight. It is my memorial. My reminder that the Lord does not leave us alone or leave us with just ourselves.

He is right there in the dark. And I did not drown then. I will not drown now. For I am not swimming by myself.

Somewhere in the dark is a lifeline, a thread floating on the water, inviting me to reach out and take it. The thread is a single word, glimmering like a light in the darkness.

Rejoice, beloved.

 Hello, wonderful friends! I've been pretty quiet on this side of things, mostly because I finally, finally set my butt down and started writing again. 

I'll be honest: I hit intense burnout and writer's block in the second half of 2020, and I haven't finished a manuscript since. I've "introduced" so many WIPs on this blog...and then made little to no progress, struggling to figure out how to write.

There is, of course, a reason for that. I wanted every book I wrote to have the intense success of the latter half of the Pentegreens series. (If you're new to the blog: I went into a fever dream haze and wrote two massive books, 135k and 119k, in 3 months. The second 119k was entirely written for NaNoWriMo.) I wanted to write everything that fast. Not only that--I wanted my drafts to be that polished, to be as good as those had been. I then followed that book up with another fast and polished draft, Holding Up the Sky, which was 70k in about two months. And then...I was stuck.

College contributed, of course. There are lots of contributing factors. But now, as of July 26, 2022, I can report in and say that I DID IT!

I finished an entire book!

It's hardly my cleanest. It's not my best by a long shot. It will need so many edits, and I'm already working on figuring those out, because breaks are something I struggle with. But here we are. It's a draft, a complete one, and that is WORTH celebrating.

And We Fell in Fire

Medea//barmaid//wants More//secret yearnings//going to fight you//cake please and thanks//love is probably not entirely real//time is a social construct//castle by halsey

Once there was a little girl. She had big red hair full of dreams, and her eyes saw only the stars when they looked up at the fog overhead. Memory of her lives deep inside my chest, where I can draw upon her existence when I need to. She’s everything I should have been, everything I could have been. I think back to the bright-eyed future she imagined for herself, and I want to cry as I think about it. Lying here, in bed, all I can think of is her. Those big bright eyes, fixed on herself in the mirror, wondering who she could be. What the world would be like if the fog wasn’t scary. Wondering what it would be like to be whole and unbroken.

But that’s not who I get to be anymore. I’m not her. I wish I could be her, that I could look at the world and dream. But as the sirens sound in my ears for the entire night, keeping me awake until exhaustion pulls me into the dark of oblivion, I can think only of the child with the bright green eyes, the big smile, and the hopeful freckles.

As I got older, I started wiping away my freckles, one more freckle for every time I lost another piece of my innocence. It’s not hard to get a little white paint from the store and cover over them, but my porcelain skin is a lie, just like the smile I keep pasted onto my face at the tavern.

Icarus//wings//laugh and hold it all in//fire and excitement//three years overdue for a nap//being tall is too a personality trait//time for ANOTHER tattoo//icarus by starset

“I assume I’m going.” I don’t even know why I bother asking at this point. I know what the answer is going to be already. It’s always me, every time recon is needed. Wings are good for that kind of thing.

“You are.” Atalanta nods. “Just you. Cerberus will drive to the border of Sector 4 and wait for you at the mining town of Zenos.”

Not too far, then. I sigh. I don’t want to fly again, not with the way my wings ache from today’s mission, but I don’t really have a choice. Atalanta is the commander here. She trusts me, even though I’ve been shot down more than any other agent.

I will not fail this time. I will get out of there. I will do exactly what she wants.

I stand up and spread my wings. “I’ll meet you. I’ll have information in twenty-four hours?”

“Faster if you can. Get in, assess, get out. Don’t interact and do not engage.” She points to the door. “And do not forget to bring a handgun this time.”

An awkward laugh escapes me. I forget my handgun more often than I forget anything else at this point. “That was one time.”

“Three, actually.” She smirks, a strange expression at a time like this, but it’s comforting somehow. “Go. Be free.”

Jason//heroes don't all wear capes//dream boy//always lurking in your (day)dreams//all the power, all the goods//captain//war hero//afraid of nothing//blindfold by sleeping wolf

Theseus//overcome the fear or it will destroy you//you are mightier than you think//violin in the dead of night//a single heartbeat means another breath and then another//sharks by imagine dragons

Percy//the guilt//all of it is empty//rage is still here and existent//weariness//we're going to win this i mean it//secrets galore//bullet with butterfly wings by sam tinnesz and tommee profitt

It’s still only noontime, a good time of day for me to reflect on my afternoon. I don’t go into work until “happy hour,” our alcohol promo, begins, which is six, right after the soldiers get off duty for the most part. I weave through crowded streets. Bazaars full of goods make the streets so cluttered people have to funnel through in two single-file lines, stepping out only to buy the goods at the nearest booth. 

A flash of light blue fabric catches my eye. I step out of the line before I can stop myself and walk to the booth where a woman is selling dresses. The one hanging from the fabric overhang of her booth is light blue, sleeveless but with a full skirt. It’s cut to almost exactly my size, which is rare around here. I reach up and run my fingers over the skirt. “How much for this?” I ask.

The woman adjusts her thick glasses and squints at me. She’s a tailor, her apprentices sitting on the floor of her tent working on more dresses. “Fifty marks.”

I sigh. It’s more than I should be spending, but right now it’s probably better to lay low than to continue trying to bust into the capital. “Forty?”

The woman raises an eyebrow. “Robbery? Is that what you see this as, child? This dress took my apprentice a week to make and you cry forty!”

I roll my eyes. “That inseam is machine sewn. Once the pattern was cut, this dress would’ve only taken a day. I want it. Forty.”

“Forty-five or my children and I starve!”

I hold my ground. “Forty-one.”

“Forty-one!” She shakes her head. “Forty-two and we have a deal, stubborn little thing.”

“No one else will take that dress.” I dig into my wallet. “Forty two it is. And perhaps, if you wish for better prices, you should make dresses that are a bit more…versatile.”

The guard puts in another code at the end of this hallway, too. I peek at his hand and see the first two numbers: 11- before he covers it with his other hand. It’s a much longer code, too. That won’t help me much. I sigh and toss my head. My hair is sweaty and stringy, and it’s stuck to my forehead. I really do need a haircut. Maybe Atalanta or someone will be willing to cut it in the near future.

I’m going to escape. I will get away. Failing simply is not an option.

I flex my arms, and tired spreads down to my palms. I don’t know how much fight I have left in me, but I’m going to do everything in my power.

The guards escort me into the room. It’s a big office, the stereotypical villainous kind with the big desk and the bigger swivel chair. The man sitting in the swivel chair is writing something, but as I walk in, he leans back and adjusts the glasses on his nose. “I don’t know who you think you are, Master…Icarus,” he says. No introduction.

I grin widely. “Didn’t know my reputation preceded me quite that much.”

“You’re rather infamous, Icarus.” The man points across the desk. “Have a seat, please. We need to discuss your… rather delicate position.”

This is about it! There are MANY edits to come, and I'm sure this book will be occupying my mind for a long time to come. Hopefully now that I'm back on my groove, I can actually write a couple more books, maybe even this year ^_^ More updates to come, of course. Thanks for reading if you made it this far! Let me know what you're writing!

 There's a fundamental flaw in creation science.

We point to a natural wonder of immense, staggering beauty. "Look," we say. "Look at this creation. No natural process could have created this. It must be creation. Only creation could be so perfectly planned."

And that is where we stop.

We do not allow science and the natural world to point us back to what Dorothy Sayers calls the "mind of the Maker." Creation has a creator; creation exists to glorify her Creator. We have eyes that can see the world around us BECAUSE we serve a Creator who gave them to us.

And often we don't look to him. Because there are no words. How can anyone ever express in WORDS, these mere collections of sounds and letters, how great the mind of our God is?

It's so easy to look at our small lives and think of God as small. This is why it is so important to immerse ourselves in the natural beauty he has made. It will all reveal something of God's nature in the nature he made.

When I went to the Grand Canyon, I walked to the very edge. I looked down into pink and orange depths, rocks so big they defied understanding. My mind had to shrink the canyon in order to understand how immense it truly was. It looks infinite, immeasurable. And yet the only word I could conjure upon seeing it was, "Oh."

Oh.

Far too easily, we fall into this trap of thinking God is small like us. We live small lives in small worlds with small people, and we do not know what it means to look up. Then we go to something so much bigger, and it all translates into sense.

The God who made the Grand Canyon is infinite. He cups that in his hand too. It is tiny to him.

And yet it is not the crowning achievement of his creation. No canyon, no mountain, no planet even. Not even a star is his greatest creation. He made those first.

No, his crowning achievement is you and me, the human race, our broken flesh and mortal bones. We are  broken and small but he has not abandoned us. He has not left us to ourselves. He loves us.

THIS is the God we serve. 

Note: I'm sorry for being so very all over the place when it comes to my blogging :') I'm trying very hard to get back on a schedule, but it's difficult with how busy I've been. I'm working on all of that, though, and I'm hoping to get back on it with y'all soon. Peace! 

 that's our first thought so easily. Everything is awful. I've said that to friends and family so many times when prepping for a big change. It's so easy, when you look at the road ahead, to draw in a breath and then say: Everything is awful. I don't want to be here. I don't want to walk this path, for it is dark and there are few lights ahead. Nothing can ever go right again, and my heart cannot take much more.

And yet. We do not serve a God who has not felt it all with us.

He doesn't say "go suffer to find yourself worthy of me." 

He says, "This world is a dark place, and that is how it will be until I make all things new. But you will not be tempted in a way that I have not been."

He feels our sufferings.

He has carried our hurts.

The Lord is with us, and that should be a comforting thought. 

Sometimes when I'm in pain, physical or emotional, I lie in bed and close my eyes and try so hard to make it go away. There is always that little ornery feeling, though--that feeling of loneliness.

Perhaps no one else has ever felt this exact pain that I am in now.

It's strange, how that feels. That feeling of wondering: has anyone else hurt in that place? Has anyone else felt these things? Dealt with this situation?

And they have, but the fact that no one you know immediately, no one physically right beside you, can say, "Yes, I feel it too," breaks you.

But God has.

He was the word made flesh. He was the Suffering Servant. Jesus came to us not as a king upon a throne, not as a deity or vision like the Greeks would have envisioned, not as the great I Am upon the heavenly throne--but as a baby.

He cried.

He spit up.

He was lonely.

He scraped his knees.

He lost people close to him.

He was rejected. 

He was nailed to a cross and left there to die.

God has not told us that this life will be easy--but he is not a distant, tyrannical God. He is a God who hears. Who cares. Who listens.

He walks this path beside us, and it is he who holds us fast. 

He does not ask us to endure what he has not already. 

And we are never, EVER alone.