Lyrics with a Higher Purpose

Favorite lines from Christian songs. I love God and I love music. When they come together in the right way it is captivating. If you like these lyrics go listen to the songs. They're a million times better. Deeply emotional and logical simultaneously.


"You are more than the choices that you've made, 
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes 
You are more than the problems you create
You've been remade....

This is not about what you've done 
But whats been done for you. 
This is not about where you've been 
But where your brokenness brings you to
This is not about what you feel
But what He felt to forgive you
And what He felt to make you loved" -Tenth Avenue North, You are More

"Why do we think that our hate's gonna change their hearts

We're rippin' arms over wars that don't need to be fought
Cause pride wont let us lay our weapons on the ground''-Tenth Avenue North, Losing

"In the middle of my little mess, I forgot how big I'm blessed..
So break me of impatience
Conquer my frustrations
I've got a new appreciation
It's not the end of the world"-Francesca Battistelli, This is the Stuff

"Why are you trying to earn Grace?" -Tenth Avenue North, By Your Side

"You give me everything I need to walk in my dreams
You whisper words that free my soul
You're the reason I have hope
You're everything I need and more"-Dara Maclean, Free


"Why in the world did I think I could only get to know You when my life was good?"

"Be strong in the Lord and,
Never give up hope,
You're going to do great things,
I already know,
God's got His hand on you so,
Don't live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don't forget why you're here,
Take your time and pray" -Sidewalk Prophets, The Words I would Say

"The One the wind and waves obey

Is strong enough to save you" -Tenth Avenue North, Strong Enough to Save

 All of these songs and more get played Christian radio. If you live around me then that's 89.7 on FM radio. Just wanted to share. Thanks for reading.

Love Advice from a silly Michigan girl

Disclaimer: I am not claiming to be an expert. I know some of my friends date and others don't, either way I hope you find this informative and entertaining.
   Last week I had a conversation with a new friend about one of her experiences with a guy. She liked a boy so much and didn't know what to do, and she did just about everything wrong. She stalked the guy and he ended up thinking of her as a crazy,obsessed weirdo. I wanted to cry for her and give her a hug. I wished that I had met her sooner so I could have provided a few pointers. These are just some basic things every teen guy/girl should know.
1. Don't be super complicated about how you start up a conversation. You don't need to make up something up in order to talk to them. Also, do not be that stranger on Facebook who messages someone saying "I know you don't know me, but you're so beautiful." Most likely his/her reaction will be: "Ahhh creeper!" (unless you are really attractive, and in that case if someone responds then you do not want to get involved with him/her anyway.)
2. Texting: Oh my dear Lord, the desperation that I have seen. You would think it is common knowledge to not text someone 20 times in an hour if they are not responding to you. Infatuated girls excuse: "But I just want to talk to him <333" If he is not texting you back, don't keep texting him. It is a simple rule that gets easier to follow the more you put it into practice. This is all about will-power. If he is not texting you back, it could be because he does not like you or that he is simply busy. In either scenario, you go from cute girl to stalker when he sees he has 9 messages from you.
    2.b Communication in general with your crush has to be "give and take." In every other aspect of life my advice is: Give, give, give without expecting anything in return. In this case, when you give a ton and receive little or no reciprocation, you can expect a broken heart.
3. Those stupid sayings are true. "You always want what you can't have." "Once a cheater, always a cheater." "If he does it with you, then he'll do it to you." Accept that now and you will be better off. On the note of cheaters, never let it happen twice. No matter how many "I'm sorrys"and "I can do betters", and no matter how much guilt he/she makes you feel, it is not worth it to get back together. It will be a shell of your previous relationship with him/her. It might take him/her a long time to cheat again, but it is bound to happen. By taking him/her back, you silently enabled that behavior.
4. Just because you want to believe it, doesn't mean you should believe it. This relates to a lot of things. People will lie to you and some of their lies will be incredibly beautiful, but denial is bad for the heart. It prolongs the blow but never is an escape from it.
5. That revealing Facebook picture will not get you a dreamy, respectful boyfriend. Guys: the same goes for your abs pictures. Modesty shows self-respect (and a brain.)
6.Cliche love advice is overused for a reason: it's foolproof. "Be yourself." Yes, be yourself with the person you like, even if that makes you different from him/her. Who would want to hang with someone who has the exact same interests anyway? You should be able to learn from each other. People with varying perspectives and opinions coming together can be epic. Don't mimic their interests hoping to flatter them.

Thanks for reading, I hope it made you smile at least once. Add on anything you feel is important to include in the comments section.

"That girl who..."

This is a post I made on facebook months ago:

For those of you who do not know, a Flushing High school student committed suicide. Hearing about [student's name] led me to two thoughts after my initial sadness for him and his family. Today at school when someone asked “did you know anything about him?” Almost everyone said “he played varsity football.” We all wanted to know more but we didn’t.

1.When you think of a suicidal person, you do not think football player. We are conditioned to picture an “emo” kid probably dressed in black. This sad incident shows that EVERYONE is susceptible to feeling alone and being hurt. Everyone has problems, insecurities, and “bad days.” That is why it is so vital that everybody shows respect toward everybody.

2.“He played varsity football” At my school that is about all we knew of him. Obviously there was much more to him than that. I am not saying that CA (my school) is shallow and I am not pretending to know him, but he probably had hopes, dreams, and fears. He probably loved a lot of people and a lot of people loved him, yet all we know about him at a neighboring school is that he was a football player. If you died tomorrow, what would be the one thing people identify you as? What are you known for? Are you happy with that? Does it represent who you are? It is unfair but true that if one of us were to die tomorrow, our whole identity would get shoved into one sentence. I learned from this to act out what I believe. My heart goes out to his family and anyone who knew him. God bless and hopefully we can learn something from this tragedy.

 

I shared this again on my blog because I am against suicide, I believe in tolerance, and I want my one sentence to be "That girl who was always spreading compassion." Thank you for reading.

To be great is to be misunderstood

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion" - Ralph Waldo Emerson.
     Today I was working at my tutoring job and I had to read a passage from Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance." The bolded quote above is where the excerpt started.  I was reading it out loud to my student and every once in a while I asked her if she knew what that word and this word meant. This was partly to strengthen her vocabulary and partly to gauge if she was as affected by his writing as I was. His intelligence blew me away. This is what I thought after reading the opening sentences: Envying others is bad, knew that. Calling it ignorance stresses that only people who have never been told "It is bad to envy others" should do it. I have been taught that and I still am overcome with jealousy at times. That is ignorance. As for the second point, I knew imitation was not the best thing to do. However I would have never thought to compare imitation and suicide. Essentially though, that is a just comparison. Imitation is willingly killing your identity to replace for another. It is disrespecting the identity that God gave you, trying to paint over His picasso. The third sentence is a rock solid word-to-the-wise to love yourself as you are, one of the easiest ideas to grasp and the hardest to put into practice. Needless to say, I was engaged for the rest of the reading.
      Emerson said that "Whoso be a man must be a non-conformist." He stated that God uses brave men to do great things, not scared and hesitant people. "God will not have his work made manifest by cowards." He said not to be scared of being thought of as odd, as a freak, and to be outcasted. "To be great is to be misunderstood." His reasons were because some of the brightest, wisest people were thought as, well, weirdos. He named Copernicus, Galileo, Jesus and Newton. I was so inspired by that.  Being counter-cultural is sometimes the best thing you can do. It assures you of who you are. It is acknowledging that you do not need man's approval to understand yourself. We are so afraid to be disliked, but maybe that is the cost of magnificence.