It's 5am as I drive through the still quiet streets. It's the time of year where lights glisten as they wrap around trees and paper and glass snowflakes dangle from the surrounding areas. Suddenly I glimpse the lit cross up on the hill once again, and a shiver of joy flickers through my tired spine. The sight of that cross alone does worlds of wonder to the thought of my work that morning. You can only see it in the wee hours of the morning or late in the evening, when darkness hovers. Thinking about that as I looked for it on the drive homeward this afternoon, I realized how interesting it was that it had to be dark and I had to be tired when I saw it. Yet, when the sun is shining and I'm perked up at the thought of an afternoon to clean and do usual things, I can't see it at all- half the time because my brain has been busy and flustered all day; half the time because I'm not looking for it. But it's still there. It's in the still small moments that Christ shines as the beacon of Hope and redeeming Love He is. "Fix your eyes on Me."

I'm learning that I cannot have a table of contents or a timeline, as much as I or others would like me to. My plan is expectancy in all things. My plans involve that prayer that He would reveal Himself more and more. Deeper and truer and more real.  More of You, more of You, more of You, Jesus.  I'm in a fairly new and albeit somewhat howling place.  Newly an adult, not-so-newly a college student, Lord-willing, soon to be a mission transplant, storyteller, artist. I cannot profess to know many things. I'm learning how little I really do know in contrast to how much I really want to think I do; how much I have yet to experience and hope for; how wild and vast and strong and beautiful and broken are the hollow and brimming full depths of this life I call mine. But this: yes, I do know God is good. Yes, I do believe God is good. And I see this in my life. I've seen this more than slightly evidently in this last year, in the vast reaches of joy followed by pain which I'm still working through and the greater joy I'm learning from. I've seen His good and grace in the smallest things, in the most mundane minutes, in the folding of socks and looking under couches, in the most... unexpected places. That's what I want to say, sing, write about, paint. That's what this place is for. Those emotional intersections, this teaching of grace. 

"I believe... in Love." 

It's so trite, so simple, but the words holds so much meaning for me. I believe we inadequate beings are Loved beyond all we profess we know or understand. I believe that Love sings songs, unique songs over each of our broken selves, and that He reveals to us the songs that He prays for our names.  I believe that we are here to love, and love well, as difficult and however vulnerable that makes your soul break, for that is how it becomes.  I believe that we are called to give this Love, receive this Love, walk in this Love, and to live and believe with all our hearts in this Love. I believe  that we are to get our hands dirty, and we are to build up people.  I believe that thankfulness is posture of our hearts that run overflowing out of genuine trust and absolute surrender. I believe that the truest of joys comes from a place of thanksgiving for  who  God is and  what  God is doing  in this instant, here , though I cannot see .  I believe that God opens us to His beauty, present in His people and His creation...and resting and revitalizing in His presence. I believe that He is faithful, even when I am not. I believe that He is constant when I don't see Him because my eyes are blurred. He is everything when I am not; yet I am an unchained beauty He calls His own.  I believe that he is continually awakening us to wonder, that our truest identity is simply, Beloved.  I believe that God has given us all passions that we are to go out into the world with & be brave.  

I believe that we are known.  It's a good way to end this year, I think. I've contemplated closing this corner down and not coming back for a while. But I need this little hallowed space to share what He's working in my human heart. Here is a piece of my heart. 

----> I believe that we are loved. I believe that we are His.