my poor little...

...neglected blog.

I got so busy at the end of the semester, I simply had no time/energy for extra curricular writing. But now school has been out almost two weeks now, and I've just been plain lazy.

So, update:

The wedding countdown is now down to 82 days

All A's and one B in the spring semester. Curse you B.

Started my new guarding job. Loving being back in the stand screaming at running children.

Started writing and currently have about 15 new songs open. Here's to finishing them all this summer. Hold me to it.

Started tracking for Chad's worship album today. He's bringing the goods.


Thats all folks.

110 days...

...until I'm a "Mrs.".

i love my life.

It's been raining for an entire week.

It's about time for sunshine.

http://www.youtube.com/user/alexiarigginsmusic

I know the remedy for your common disease...

It's a love thats full of Salvation, screaming redemption

Takes what you've broken, and makes it fixed again

Surely restoration sounds like a good plan

When your not so secret wish is to be whole again

James 1:19

"My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry"

Thats quite a tall order when one of my favorite pastimes is running my mouth...with road-raging every clown on the road following in a close second.

the message translation makes me smile:

"Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear."

I need to teach my anger to straggle in the rear. Oh yes indeed. 

yes, I love my man.

A new favorite quote from the love of my life:

"yes. i'm engaged to a lifeguard (hot), who is unwilling to give mouth to mouth resuscitation should i need it (not so hot)"

God didn't screw up when He made you, He's a father who loves to parade you.

I feel like there are so many people in this world that need to hear that. 

I wish they would listen. 

there is a reason for my hope.

I know this is long, but please do read it. 

so... for those of you that don't know, I drive a GMC envoy, which could be categorized as somewhat of a gas guzzler. Therefore, I fuel up at least once, sometimes twice a week. I also play a taylor electric electric/acoustic, which requires a 9V battery. There is a gas station semi-close to my house that I used to go to almost exclusively, both to get gas, and because they had a generous stock of 9 volts... 

In this gas station there was an indian man that seemed to be working EVERY single time I walked in. I got to the point where, if I was outside filling up, and I saw that he was there, I'd walk in to buy a drink or something just so I could say hello to him...and eventually, we ended up being on a first name basis. After a month or so of me coming in and buying a 9V every week, he finally questioned me about it, and so I explained to him that I played guitar, led worship at church, and was the only female in a wildly popular local band (thats right, i said it). He seemed really interested in the fact that I led worship, so... one day I invited him to my church (which was conveniently 5 minutes down the road from there). But alas, he explained to me that he worked every single sunday morning, and couldn't get off (i mean, when did this guy NOT work??). So I began the ritual of leaving a few minutes early for church every sunday so I could stop in to get some cheap, gross coffee...but mostly just to see him and tell him happy sunday :). However, due to higher gas prices/busyness/the fact that I had to do an annoying U-turn to get there, my diligent attendance soon waned, and then stopped all together, for several months. I suppose I just put him to the back of mind. 

Well, I stopped in there last night to get some milk on my way home... and when I pulled in, he popped in my head, and I hoped that he would be there...but...he wasn't. It was some guy I had never seen before.

 I suddenly had this deep and intense feeling of guilt, failure, and desperation. What if he really was lost? What if I was the only one in the world who cared enough to stop in just to say hello, to invite him to church, and to pray for him? 

What if I missed my only chance. HIS only chance. 

I was slammed right in the face with the fact that in this world, every encounter with someone can truly be life or death. And it's possible that my loss of interest could mean that man's eternal death. Not to be morbid, or even a pessimist...but it is God's honest truth. I've been asking all night, and day, that God would give me a second chance with that man. Sheesh..what are we on now? Chance 780548376287465 to get it right? 

All that giant mouthful to say: Be aware of the people you come in contact with...you aren't just running into them by chance. We should be compelled by the great love of Christ in all that we do. We are called to be His ambassadors in this dying, retched world (II Corinthians 5). 

I challenge you to take hold of, and run with every opportunity Christ puts into your path. Always be ready to give a reason for your hope. 

Romans 5:1-11
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

...but for goodness sake

The God that spoke the universe into being, also took the time to create me...and as if the gift of life and living was not enough...he decided to give me the ability to create and speak into existence as well. But wait folks, there's more. He didn't limit us to only creating and making and forming things that are pleasing to him. He gives us the freedom of choice in our artistic/creative abilities day in, and day out. 

But for goodness sake. 

After all he's done for me, sacrificed for me, and freely given to me...how can I not draw on every creative juice in my veins to author music that pays homage to Him and Him alone?

brave enough

I wish were brave enough to jump out of my box and truly dive into being alive.

Am i the only on that feels like the culture and pressure of "living the american dream" can be detrimental to actually "living"?

I just want to quit life and play music. I want to write and play and sing to change people. Do I really have to starve in order to do that? On a scale of 1-10, how necessary is that?

I digress.

It's a lovely day in this lovely city.





This video makes me smile. 

preach it.

"We insult God to believe that Satan has taken away the creative power that music has no matter what the style, and is capable of creating something himself. Only God is creative. Basically that means that God is after the heart of the musician and that is what can be corrupted. Music itself has always been God's." - Don Potter

Nueva

So I started a blog, and then didn't write in it for a month. Epic failure. 

Forgive me?

And this past month just happened to contain pretty much the biggest change of my life thus far. 

I got engaged to the love of my life, Charles. Super stoked. Getting married August 14th. And no, not next year, THIS year.

 

So, surprise...I'm planning a wedding. And it's funny how the world seems to "expect" every young female in the universe to have a magical instinct on how to plan a wedding. I think I missed that magical instinct. 

So be prepared to hear alot about all that "girly girl" wedding stuff. I'm already working on our wedding website. I apologize in advance for any unnecessary "girlyness".

In other news...heres what I'm thinking on tonight:

"...turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama—compared to him I'm a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He's going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he'll put out with the trash to be burned."

Matthew 3:11-12

I may expound later....

Sweet Jesus Christ, my sanity

So I've been going to CharlotteONE on Tuesdays [http://charlotteONE.org], and it has been a breath of fresh air. I feel like I've been trapped in grown-up world as far as church is concerned as of late...So seeing/being around other people my age worshipping, and hearing messages geared to be relevant to my demographic has been a welcome change. Not to mention they jack the music up so loud that it makes my guts shake...and there are no old people there complaining about it [no offense old people, i love you. i just like to have my guts shaken every once in a while]. But anyways, tonight David Hickman talked about "the fall" + "redemption". Here lie a  few points that stuck with me:

The first thing God gave to man was responsibility:

"The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it"

Genesis 2:15 [ESV]

How interesting, for many reasons I suppose... But one that comes to mind is, throughout the bible, God seems to like giving BIG responsibility to the unexpected character...the ones that feel ill-equipped, the underdog, the long-shots. For example [yeah, I'll pick the obvious ones], Moses, Joseph, Daniel, David, Elisha, Paul, all 12 disciples, just to name a few. So how clever is it, that the very first thing that God would give to the very first man, would be responsibility? Even though it seems like a small thing; "here's a garden, go do some gardening"... It's the first "job" God ever handed over to a human. 

But, thinking in terms of today, it's overwhelming to me, the amount of responsibility God has handed over to us humans. He clearly commissioned/assigned/gave us the responsibility of saving lives [matthew 28:18-20, II corinthians 5:11,20-21]. I mean, hello? First responsibility he gave to his disciples after coming back from the dead. I'd say it must be pretty dang important. And for those who are lost...you know, the ones we come in contact with every day...it literally is a life or death situation. Gracious, how much does that push me to tell Jesus to everyone I meet?

The second thing God gave to man was freedom:

"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "of every tree of the garden you may freely eat"

Genesis 2:16 [NKJV]

How much does that speak to the character of our loving and gracious Father? Our whole idea of salvation and redemption is based on freedom and liberty from the sin that would surely be our downfall.  His death and resurrection set us free from the curse of living under an impossible law [galations 3:10-14]. All throughout His Word I see this pattern of His desire for us to have freedom [II corinthians 3:17, galations 5:1, ephesians 3:11-12, ...only a few]. And how beautiful is it that one of the very first things God spoke into mans life was freedom and liberty?

The third thing God gave to man was boundaries:

"but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

Genesis 2:17

So I got to thinking about this whole tree of the knowledge of good and evil thing... And can you imagine, living in a place where you had no idea what right/wrong or good/evil looked or felt like? Adam and Even didn't have any comprehension of sin, or wrongdoing... of guilt, or shame. That is such a crazy concept for me. I look around me, and every day I see people whose lives are MOTIVATED by guilt and shame. And to think, all of that could have been avoided by just following this one boundary that God laid out. 

One of the things that I really love about God is that he's always a gentleman, and he has this desire to be loved and valued...but he doesn't force himself on us. He could have created man and woman without the capacity to choose between right or wrong. But I guess He preferred humans to robots, I would. Love can't be taken by force, it's a precious gift. Today we're still faced with the choice to give and prove our love to Him with our actions; by following His boundaries. Yeah, you know that old saying "actions speak louder than words". He doesn't want empty professions of affection, he wants to see our commitment. Think about it in terms of someone you love. Would you rather they TELL you they love you, or SHOW you they love you by their actions? I just think it's amazing that he gave us the choice to love Him. That he would choose to go thru the pain of rejection Him, just so that we could have that freedom. 

I suppose thats enough for now. 

 

Romans 5:15-17

"But there is a great difference between Adam's sin and God's gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God's wonderful grace and His gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. And the result of God's gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man's sin. For Adam's sin led to condemnation, but God's free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God's wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ."

Who am I, that a simple confession, and a feeble faith would make me entitled to such grace? 

Oh that my heart would be capable of giving such love and absolution.