"You're Not Alone" by Meredith Andrews

I search for love
When the night came and it closed in
I was alone
but you found me where I was hiding
and now I'll never ever be the same
It was the sweetest voice
that called my name
saying

You're not alone
for I am here
let me wipe away your every fear
My love I've never left your side
I have seen you through the darkest night
and I'm the one who's loved you all your life
All of your life

You cry yourself to sleep
cause the hurt is real
and the pain cuts deep
All hope seems lost
With heartache your closest friend
and everyone else long gone

You've had to face the music on your own
but there is a sweeter song
that calls you home
saying

You're not alone
for I am here
let me wipe away your every tear
My love I've never left your side
I have seen you through the darkest nights
And I'm the one who's loved you all your life
All your life

Faithful and true... Forever
For my love will carry you....

You're not alone
for I... I am here
let me wipe away every fear... Oh yeah
My love I've never left your side
I have seen you through your darkest night
Your darkest night
And I'm the one who's loved you all your life
All of your life

Hope through Faith

Often when I'm tempted to view circumstances in my life as debilitating, unfair, hurtful, or despairing, my heart is quietly reminded of 2 Corinthians 4. This passage just might be one of my favorite sections of God's word because it's just such an eloquent, poetic, and beautiful reminder that no matter how hopeless your situation feels, you have the power of God Almighty living in you. He is in control (as my neighbor across the hall reminded me only yesterday), so we have no reason to worry, pity ourselves, or let life get us down in any way. Hope for tomorrow comes only through the faith we have in Him moment by moment. He's only asking us to hold on tight and let Him lead. The question is are we willing to let Him use our light and momentary sufferings to bring Him glory instead of using them as an excuse for a pity party? I'm not saying we don't have real pains in this life or that there's not a perfectly appropriate place for grief in our lives, but there's danger in dwelling too long on pain. There's no pain He can't use to glorify His name if only we'll let Him. I hope this passage in 2 Corinthians blesses you and comforts you tonight as it has done and continues to do for me. May we strive to shine for Him in all circumstances. May our faith in His complete control give us immovable, unshakable hope. And let us not forget that it is only through His ultimate sacrifice and pain that we have that faith and hope.

2 Corinthians 4:7-10, 16-18:
⁷But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. ⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

¹⁶So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, ¹⁸as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Christmas Joy in January

I heard something in the grocery store today that made my week, and let me tell you...it's been one crappy week. I'm talking first-ambulance-ride-to-the-ER-because-I'm-throwing-up-every-hour-and-dehydrated-and-have-the-stomach-flu kind of crappy week. I needed a pick me up today, and apparently God knew that. I love when He does that.

So on to the story. I was in Harris Teeter exhausted from my first day back at work after being sick when I rounded the corner to hear a little girl singing at the top of her lungs. What's the big deal about that? you ask. Well...she was singing "Joy to the World." I couldn't help it. I laughed out loud at this precious little girl who was hanging on to Christmas for dear life, and it got me thinking how all of us could do with a little more Christmas joy year-round. That's the great thing about the hope we have in Jesus, it's new every morning...not just on Christmas. And that's just what I needed today - a reminder that God is always there, always strong, always loving. Here was a little love letter from Him to me in the form of a Christmas carol sung by a little girl in a grocery store. Did I mention I love my God? :)

P.S.: Speaking of hanging on to Christmas, I should really take my Christmas tree down. Um, yeah. I'm that girl.

A Word from The Word for the New Year

¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
¹¹Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
¹²Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
¹³Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.

---Psalm 51:10-13 (emphasis mine)

The Incredible Power That Comes with Feeling Small

This morning as I'm listening to Christmas hymns and trying to understand why the Creator of this universe I see outside my window would humble himself to be wrapped in flesh in the form of a teeny, tiny baby, it makes me feel so small but yet so significant. A love like that can't make you feel insignificant no matter how small you actually are compared to Him. A Casting Crowns song began playing in my head, and this is how it goes (oldie but goodie)...

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name
Would care to feel my hurt?
Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever wandering heart?

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are

I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
Vapor in the wind.
Still You hear me when I'm calling
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours, I am Yours.

Who am I, that the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love and watch me rise again?
Who am I, that the voice that calmed the sea
Would call out through the rain
And calm the storm in me?

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are

I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
Vapor in the wind.
Still You hear me when I'm calling
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours.

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are

I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
Vapor in the wind.
Still You hear me when I'm calling
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours.

I am Yours.
Whom shall I fear?
Whom shall I fear?
'Cause I am Yours
I am Yours.

White as Snow

Friday there was a buzz around town that we'd get some snow flurries on Saturday. Saturday morning I ran a few errands, hit the treadmill (I'm up to jogging 2.25 miles!), and sat down to check the forecast. I turned around a few seconds later, and saw the first few flurries floating to the ground. Within the hour, the ground was covered with a fresh blanket of snow, and the flakes got bigger and bigger. All in all, we got about 3 inches.

I've mentioned this before, but something about snow just warms my heart (ironic, right?). It's just so magical, and the more I think about it, it really is a beautiful picture of salvation. Snow blankets the ground, making it clean, fresh, pure, and spotless. It covers the mud and muck and dead grass underneath so that all you see is white, and it's the whitest of all possible whites too. That's exactly what the blood of Jesus is for us. His sacrifice covered us in a beautiful, pure blanket of snow to cover all our filthy sins so that all the Father sees when He looks at us is His purity. In fact, Scripture even says in Psalms and Isaiah that we'll be whiter than snow: "Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow" (Psalm 51:7). "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool" (Isaiah 1:18). So the next time you witness the breathtaking beauty of a snowfall, take a moment to say thank you to the One who covered your sins with His blood.

A New Chapter

Hello again, gentle reader. I've taken quite the hiatus from blogging lately, and I think it's because I've been feeling for a long time that it needed a fresh start. Thus, I've given it a snazzy new look and renamed it "Pen Strokes of the Author," and it will focus on glimpses I see of God in literature, music, and the beauties of day-to-day life that we so often overlook. Hopefully it will end up being a celebration of the little things in life and art that can point in big ways to the character of God, the love He has for us, and the hope we have for life beyond this one. God always seems to speak to me through the simplicities of life, and I pray that the ones I record here will encourage you and bring glory to Him. I hope that it inspires you to listen for whispers of God in your own life. In the words of C.S. Lewis, let us look "further up and further in" to see the divine in the everyday...snapshots of wait awaits us.

"But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read, which goes on for ever, in which every chapter is better than the one before." - C.S. Lewis, final lines of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle