The Children Look Into Infinity

kids on a roof

The hands clasped

What haven’t you grasped?

Today, if you hear His voice

Do not hardened your hearts

With your cap in hand

Where does your mind stand?

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence

So the Holy Spirit can take up residence

I jump rope with a small rope as adult

And I do the hurdle jump with sandals

It’s like riding a bike without handles

It’s time to put my fears behind me

But I am scared of the unknown that goes into infinity

I got still have my braces

And I won’t have room for dentures

Because the inner child left behind her adventures

As a child the more you try to be an adult

You’ll be one to a fault

Preschoolers play on those swings

And 2nd graders play the tether ball

Take your close curiosities to the distant mall

P.S. This poem features two lines from Hebrews 4. Lines 3, 4, and 7.

The Seam is Bursting

seam splitting

The trees retire their leaves

My spirit grieves

I know they will be back

Like paved gravel

The workers lay the ground work

But my day’s plans unravel

Do not hold on too tightly

The breeze doesn’t blow slightly

The kite will blow away

Leaving that little child in dismay

I am a child at heart

Immature and naive from the start

I’ve been told children will inherit paradise

But I’m acting like I already attained the prize

If you shake me

Please don’t forsake me

I don’t always dot my I’s

Even with all these misfortunes

But I am thrilled

The enemy is being stilled

The seam is bursting with a gift inside

I need a new awakening

When the new day is aching

It’s aching like a bruise

I know I cannot lose

Destructive Black and White Thinking

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I can’t form my own opinions
You told me everything you felt
There are hierarchy thoughts
Some fester into wounds
Some dissolve and like ice melt

What if you are wiser than I?
Am I bad person for thinking differently?
This deceiving serpent comes crawling
According to you, I am intellectually naive
At a train station and stalling
I have lukewarm plans and I’m wasting your time

If you are right
That this world is miserable place
And everyone is manipulative
Give me a new reality
I don’t want to live
You are as cold as your thoughts

Your thoughts may be your fears
I just know for sure that I am scared
But you are so oblivious
That by downsizing my heart vision, it’s impaired
Thank you, I have a missing heart valve now

My black and white thinking is so bad
It consist of no color, only patterns
You poured your red blood on my shade
You made a sacrifice with an ace and king of spade
Was it a real inconvenience for you?

Praise God in the Good, Bad, and Ugly

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Praise and worship God in all things. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Praise can change a situation and this posture moves the heart of God. Not every situation has a perfect solution. That’s ok. God is teaching you to rely on Him more. Give your burdens to Him today.

Why does God allow praise to change a situation quicker? You may ask. I hear you say: I pleaded with God in the middle of the night, read the Bible and even prayed in tongues and I heard nothing and my situation stayed the same. While I believe God responds to those selfless acts to Him, there is more the answer. He changes a situation quicker when we are more alignment with His wishes for your life. And praise is the quickest way from my experience in telling God, “I don’t know how this situation is going to turn out but I trust You in the midst of it.” Prayer can be that expression unto God but true praise is often voiced without worry, fear or doubt but complete submission to the loving Father’s will. And this enables to Holy Spirit to do His best work as our requests come before the throne room for Him to answer. When the Holy Spirit and God answers He wants you to know that the solution is for your best. And sometimes you have to “wrestle” with God for the best outcome. Jacob wrestled with God for answers but God overcame. (Genesis 32:22-30). God even changed Jacob’s name after this encounter to Israel which means, “May God prevail.”

So how do you get into that head and heart space of praise? Worship and prayer can be vessels into allowing the Holy Spirit to move your heart into praise. But my first advice is to praise God in the good, bad and ugly. Some situations look hopeless and ugly. You may have a health or financial crisis. Or a broken relationship with a friend or family member. Those are the places where you continue to come to God. I know it’s hard though.

You don’t have to have, “joyous mountaintop-praise” singing “Worthy is the Lamb” at the top of your lungs. Those are wonderful experiences to be felt before God. But if it’s an ugly situation: an unfair lawsuit, verbal or sexual assault or the death of a loved one, maybe singing at the top of your lungs it’s on your mind. Feel no shame for your grief and/or lack of high energy. We all have days like this. The enemy of your soul wants you to feel false guilt so your praise will be reduced. Don’t let him win!

My second advice is, “let it rip.” Don’t think too much. One time I struggled through a broken relationship early on in my walk with Christ. I was on the floor, crying, listening to “Beautiful Lord” by Leeland. The lyrics go, “I’m captured by this love I see/Beautiful Lord/Tender and holy/Your mercy brings me to my knees/It’s Your mercy that has made me free/Beautiful Lord.” I stayed in the moment and thought about how others have let me down but God never will. “His mercy has made me free.” I went to that dark place and gave it to God. That is praise, my friend. The good, bad, and ugly.

Let’s allow our pain to create joy and praise unto God. Here is some encouragement:
y and the sin that so easily holds us back.

“Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith and who makes it perfect. He suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God’s throne.” (Hebrews 12:2. NCV).

He finish the good work in us! Amen and “praise” God! 😀

How do you praise God? Any take away from this piece?

The Rooms

hallway-and-doors

In the halls of discontentment

In the crowded spaces of resentment

Are these cloth coverings of protection?

Because of our wounds of rejection?

We are all mummied up

Spilling this blessed cup

Blocking our vision because of these cloths

We are could-have-been-butterflies moths

When will we allow our ugliness to shine?

That’s where mess and glory allow the stars to align

God is a Ghost

god is a ghost

The cobwebs, the crooked doors, and the darkened hallways
I forget to acknowledge myself in all my ways
I forget there is one constant in all of the universe
It still has to run its course
When I feel all alone
I forget there is a soul of mine I can call my own
Aliens, ghosts, and skeletons
But don’t you forget God is a ghost
He has come to give you what you need most
You should fear this ghost
He can mysteriously pop up in front of you during the day
Sometimes it appears he is unseen
But he knows what you need
He has come to reap and comfort
For he alone can heal our hurt
Don’t forget God’s a ghost
And he loves you very much
Don’t forget his mysterious power

The Romance of the Cosmos

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The celestial realm is doing a waltz

Debris rocks with firefly tails

Are a part of this romance of the cosmos

While spirals of light and gasses are moving

Through an endless expansive universe

Down on one of the rotating rocks

Are a life force of ingenuity

Breathing atoms of purpose

But flesh and bone of pride at times

They wonder if there is other life

They send satellites and robots to assess

But what they are forgetting

Is the One Being who is always there

He has been there before eons began

He watches from afar

But He looks deeply into each heart

Inspecting each motivation and loving act

He has us in His ancient hands

And on His never ending thoughts

So is there life on other planets?

There is more activity than we could ever believe

The Ugly Side of Prophecy

prophecy

One time I received a prophecy that didn’t resonate with me. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21, “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.” While I believe in God’s word and true prophets speaking to God’s people at the same time, I also believe that prophecies should be tested and you should test whether there is truth in it. If it has qualities that “are true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable, then think on these things” (My paraphrase, Philippians 4:8. NLT).

Prophecy is to build up the church. While I believe prophets that give you words that aren’t from God they don’t always do it maliciously. As a person myself who tries to hear prophetically, everything I hear isn’t always from the Lord. It can be your own wisdom or sometimes, I believe, from the evil one himself. That is why you should test the spirits (1 John 4:1. ESV).

I have been hurt by the spirit of prophecy by the church as well as comforted. I have received concrete direction that was hard to hear but spoke to situations in my life. One time when I was told to spend more time with Papa God. I was shocked because I thought I was spending a lot of time with Him. But at the same, honored that He wanted to spend more time with me. I mattered that much to Him. And I must have been distracted at that time, looking back that I didn’t spend more time with God. This prophetic word allowed me to really shape a more real and deeper relationship with God.

But one time I received a prophetic word that struck my heart like an arrow. It felt like they twisted Scripture for their own advantage and it felt like it came from a judgmental place. It came from 1 Samuel 15:22 and it reads, “Obedience is better than sacrifice” (NLT). The pastors who gave me this word said it applies to obeying God prophetically. For instance, if God told me to go talk to this person and I didn’t, I wouldn’t be obeying God. Prophecy is a muscle that you develop. You live and learn if you are hearing from God or not. I don’t believe I am being disobedient if I think I am not hearing from God and decide not to talk to that person. Life is complex. I can’t be squeezed into a prophetic exercise.

Also prophecy is such a personal thing. It’s not an order or ritual. I should participate in it with a joyful heart unto God. I have always done that and now if I do what this prophecy words and “obey” all the time; it wouldn’t be smart and I would be like a Pharisee, under the law and not under grace.

I believe God works hand in hand with my growing ability to discern if I hear from Him or not. And He showed off His patience like He never had before. This experience with these misguided pastors taught me God has an elastic tolerance and unconditional love for me. And He is proud of me and appreciative of me faithfully serving Him for almost 25 years! 🙂

I hear the Lord whisper to me (and this can apply to you as well), “It’s not like 3 strikes and you are out. I am more patient than people give more credit for. I am love. While there are things I do not tolerant, I respect people’s free will. Sweet Carly, I am with you and I am not judging you for thinking for yourself.”

This confirmation brings a lot of warmth to me as I continue to write. Also I remind myself that “Obedience is better than sacrifice” is from the Old Testament. We still follow many things from the Old Testament like the Ten Commandments. But do we still do animal sacrifices (which was the Bible verse background my prophetic word) and have to be circumcised? We aren’t being disobedient if we don’t do animal sacrifices and have to be circumcised in order to follow God’s law now. This was pre-Jesus. We still shouldn’t have any gods before us and not covet another’s possessions but seriously, would we have put the blood of animals on our doors? They will not be consequences if we don’t do these things. So in a nutshell, when you hear things from the Old Testament, we should use discernment and the context clues to see how it applies to you today. Not everything will be applicable in the Old Testament for you today. So, “Obedience doesn’t replace sacrifice,” seems to be Old-Testament-not-under-grace-thinking, in my honest opinion. While there may be nuggets of wisdom one can receive from this Scripture the way it was presented to me by the pastors in reference to prophecy didn’t resonate with me. I my school of philosophy is if it doesn’t stick, let it go. 🙂

Sincerely,

~ Carly (My Ink Smears) ~

One Thousand Gifts

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One Thousands Gifts by Ann Voskamp is a Christian biography about gratitude and overcoming pain. The author lost her sister when she was only a toddler. It tackles the age-old question, where is God when bad things happen? And her life experience throughout the book teach you some surprising revelations about God’s love.

Ann’s writing is really transparent and almost poetic at times. Sometimes she comes from a theological background and turns on “preacher-mode” but other than that, it’s still refreshing. At times she states opinions as facts. Her takes are insightful. I just wish she wrote it with a more honest and humble approach. But I feel her pain. I never went through her pain in life like she did at a very young age. I suffered a lot of anxiety in Elementary School for different reasons. Although the author’s path and mine are very different from one another, I feel like we connect together, Ann and I, through this book.

Here are some quotes from the book:

…”I enter the world like every person born enters the world: with clenched fists.” (Page 1).

“But from that Garden beginning, God has had a different purpose for us. His intent, since He bent low and breathed His life into the dust of our lungs, since He kissed us into being, has never been to slyly orchestrate our ruin.” (Page 17).

Here is a description in the back of the book:

gifts back book

I am only in the very beginning but I am enjoy it so far. Have you read it? What are your thoughts about it?

Happy reading everyone! 😀

Peachy Keen

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I wish everything was peachy keen
I want my testimony to be juicy
The sweetest of hope even seen

It’s more than the finish work of the cross
It’s the struggles, twists and turns
It’s give You all my love and concerns

I wish everything was peachy keen
I want my love to be ripened
Your Spirit is making me sparkling clean

You are making streams in the wasteland
I long to see my joy and crown
In the Lord, I must firmly stand

“Take the kingdom prepared for you before the world was created”
Oh, Lord prepare my heart, I am elated
I rejoice with all of the creation and the angels