listen.

(This post was written to the first song on the playlist to the left. Please click the play button if you'd like music while you're reading.)

A whisper...a song...a violin bow gently pulled across strings that willingly give up the notes whose burden they carry. Away like light across the surface of the sea....Be still. And you are. The whisper.....gently it comes, echoing through every corner, every bend, every dip, every hollow of your heart. Be still. And you are. Yet, the words....you try to grasp them, you strain to hear the words of a song that you know you've heard before. Stop. There. Almost. Not quite. Listen.

A breeze wraps itself around you, the quiet is deep, the Voice is there. Can you hear? Be still. Like a song written for your soul alone. Like a melody you know as sure as you've known anything in your life, it plays. For you. You know this Voice, this song, this whisper in the stillness. Though you may have pushed it away, never listening, turning from all you were made for, still, in the deepest well of your beating heart, you recognize this Voice. And every fiber of your being responds to the Voice of the one who wrought you in the untold depths before another person had seen your face, heard your voice, spoke your name. There, in the heart He imagined, in the soul He painted as a master artist paints a picture on white canvas, He held the brush that swept and spun, twisting and turning, creating His masterpiece. And your soul, your heart, all that you are was painted into a canvas of living, breathing color that reflects the Hand who wields the brush of your life.

Be still, oh child of God. For He loves you with a love untold. You are the living vision of a God who is calling unto the heart and soul He created. Can you hear? Can you feel the living God whisper your name? With each sunset that alights the clouds on fire, with every note of every song that has touched the deepest part of your being, with each tear falling from the weeping clouds above, this is His whisper, His call, His hand gently turning the face He created to gaze into the deepest eyes of Love Untold. No matter where you go, no matter how far you run, He is there, in every breeze that kisses your face, in every wave that crashes and echoes upon every shore of every coast throughout the universe and beyond.

A whisper.....there.

Listen, oh child of God. For He has loved you with an everlasting love, it never fails, and it will endure throughout the ages of this world and into eternity. Look into the face of your God and know. Know that to live is to know who He is. To be fulfilled is to reach out and take what He has already given. 

For the world in which you live echoes every beat of His heart for you.

"Be still and know that I am God." -Psalm 46:10

"...I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness." Jeremiah 31:3

© Jade Valcarcel 2012. All rights reserved

in the deep.

(This post was written to the first two songs on the playlist to the left. Please click the play button if you'd like music while you're reading.)

Evening is creeping in, creating black tree silhouettes against the deep blue of twilight. So many thoughts drift in and out, not pressing or urgent, just simply waltzing by, asking to be thought upon. It is here, in the quiet of the evening that the deep stillness of my God creeps into my very soul. And all that is and all that was and everything that is yet to come, all that I cannot begin to fathom in this moment, none of it matters in the deep with Him.

One by one, against the deepening black of the night's canvas, out from wherever stars sleep during day's bright light they come, twinkling with laughter and joy, smiling at the One who created the heavens in which they call home. And I look in wonder, gazing through the grid of His deep stillness upon this perfectly wonderful, utterly ordinary evening, knowing that in this ordinary place, much that is extraordinary can be found when seen through His eyes. For I am being taught more and more by my great God, that through His most ordinary Son, the extraordinary was culminated. In the ordinary, in the face that bore no beauty that we would esteem it, in the humanness and unlikely form of this man, in Him was born all that is extraordinary and irresistible, beautifully displayed through all that was most ordinary.

It has and will continue to amaze me how the smallest things in this life are used by such a big God to reflect how much He loves us, how much His Son loves us. The notes of a song, the words of a quote, laughter, tears, clouds painted with colors of fire, or the dark canvas of an evening sky sprinkled with stars twinkling laughter down upon us. No matter how small, no matter how meaningless, He uses it all. Throughout history gone by, with each day that passed by with no notice, He perfectly used the nothingness to create that which would forever alter time and space and lives innumerable. Like ripples on the glass surface of a lake, all that is effects all that will be, for His hand is upon the clock that births the moments we do not ponder. All that slips by our eyes unnoticed, all that our ears do not hear, whether we notice or not, we are used. A player in the ripple, an ordinary part of an extraordinary plan, and what then is our greatest fault? Apathy. For all we do not see or hear or feel, is then chalked up to being ordinary and meaningless. We are wrong. Every moment we draw breath, every word we speak, every move we make, it means more than we know. Yet, so willing are we to believe that we mean nothing in the grand scheme of all this, that we can slip by unnoticed. Ah, but noticed we are, by more than we'll ever in this life be able to understand. And in our apathy is wrought the deepest affect of all, for if we only knew, if we but understood that we are a part of His plan, if we let this knowledge fuel our lives and guide each decision made, the world would forever and unequivocally be changed.

There it is. We are to be as Jesus was and is. He was ordinary, He never intentionally drew attention to Himself, and yet, He shown with the brightness of His extraordinary Father, continually being the ripple that affected those around Him to look up...to always look up into the face of a God that gazed with such love upon His children.

He was the ordinary reflecting the extraordinary. And we think we mean nothing? We think we are ordinary, and so we are. But oh, we are to shine forth with the light of the Son who is the reflection of every good and perfect thing in this world.

That, is an astounding, life altering, never be the same again, thought.

And I am overwhelmed at this God who would call unto my heart, who would whisper His great love in each passing moment, in every beautiful, ordinary second that passes in this most wonderful life He has given.

Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night. A prayer to the God of my life.

                                                                                                -Psalm 42:7, 8 

© Jade Valcarcel 2012. All rights reserved

to write and reflect.

"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write."

-Saul Bellow 

  

It's that last word we have to have, that nagging to come out, won't let you sleep, don't think for one second you'll have any peace, can't stop thinking about it word that just. won't. stop. This is what it is to write. This is what it is to have an incessant need to communicate with those who care to read (because, so often we write so much better than we talk) what we've written, no matter the cost. And so we stay up. We burn the midnight oil, though more often than not we honestly can't afford to. Yet, we do it anyway. We write. For, to have something to write residing in us, and to not have it come out is...death. Write or die. Dramatic? Probably;-) But, not for those who have felt it. What is it to be a writer? This:

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

-Thomas Mann 

Yes. It's harder, painful at times, but still and still yet, we do it. Not because we have a choice, because trust me, there are times I'd like nothing more than to stop longing with every breath I draw into my lungs to write. Write. Write. About what? Everything. For life is one long novel in our minds, an endless parade of words that dance before us, somehow just out of our reach...and what we do manage to capture is but a shadow of what we saw, what we felt, what we know. Yes, we write what we know, what our souls are made up of, what our hearts dwell upon.

So, then let me ask you...who do you read? What do you read? For I can assure you, the author in whose words you have fallen in love with are but the reflection of what your soul and heart hold. What you enjoy immersing yourself in, it is the mirror in which is reflected all that which resides in the deepest corners of your heart. To be a writer is simply to find the words that others cannot, but long to. And so, if you have connected with written words, there is good reason.

I have thought about this often, and as Jane Austen stated, "Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery." As a writer, what mirror am I offering my readers? What concerns me when I write? What am I trying to convey? The truth. Always and forever may it be that. And may it be given to me from the Author and finisher of our faith for as long as I breathe the air He has put in my lungs. If I cannot write that which He would have me write, it is all vanity. If this is a gift He has given me, then may it forever and always be used to glorify Him, to point my readers to Him, to reflect Him. This is the mirror that I would have, that when you read the smallest things I write, no matter how normal and commonplace they may be, that you would leave knowing how much He loves you. That He has given beauty to even the smallest, most ordinary moments, if we will but take the time to gaze into His eyes and see as He sees.

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life, and you will save it." 

-C.S. Lewis

© Jade Valcarcel 2012. All rights reserved

breakfast and being transparent.

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.

-A.A. Milne

Good morning! Shall you come over for a steaming mug of coffee, tea, or chai? I'd love it if you would! The air here is just crisp enough for a nice hot mug of something....besides, there will be toast with honey and that just makes mornings worth waking up for! And, I've definitely discovered that I'm in love with meeting friends early in the morning, before the day has really begun, and becoming lost in whomever I'm meeting and whatever they might be saying at said time. So, consider this your open invitation to come meet me for breakfast anytime to talk about whatever might be on your heart....because, there are times when you just need someone to listen to all the words that have built up, all the thoughts you think no one will understand, all the words that want to come out so much they hurt. Yeah. I know that feeling.

On my heart this morning? A lot. Most of all? Being transparent. Not transparent in the "good grief that woman doesn't hide anything at all, EVER" kind of way. Being transparent in the way that projects who I really am into the way I write, that showcases the real person I am on this blog, and actually connects all this with who I am in real life. Because, if I wanted to be someone completely different than me, this would be the perfect place to do it. However, that is not at all what I want to do. I want to write here and have you know me, and then meet me in real life and say "that's exactly what I thought she'd be like!" I want to write only what I'd actually say and talk about for real, beyond the vast space of the internet. This has really been on my heart the last couple days since starting another blog.

I've seen way too often lately just how much our ideas of people, who they are, what we thought they'd be like, especially those we esteem, connects and molds how we look and think about God. Not that this is a good thing. We should never allow how someone else is to influence how we think about our God, but the reality is that this does actually happen. I've let it happen in my own life. But, I don't ever want to let someone influence my perception of who He is again....and hence, I don't want to live my life in such a way that when others look at me, I skew their perception of who Jesus is. I desire to be transparent, to be the "what you see is what you get" kind of woman, the woman who demonstrates Jesus's character, gives glory to Him, and points others to do the same thing. Because, honestly, that's all that matters at the end of the day, that I've showcased who He is, that I've had no pretenses with those around me, and that they've left me thinking of Him.

Will I mess up? Yes. Will I let those around me down? You can count on it, because I'm human, because I screw up, but Jesus has looked at me and said, "Yet, I love you too much to leave you the way you are." So, it is a continuous pattern of striving to be like Him, of falling but as soon as we see what tripped us, to jump up and not let our foot get caught in the same dip in the road. Most of all, it's being transparent, not pretending like I didn't fall or never get it wrong, but to be able to say "I fell! I messed up! But He is bigger than me and through His power in me, through His Spirit living in me, I'm getting back up and giving all the glory to Him!!"

This is what's on my heart this morning. That and I hope you're pressing into Him, that you're gazing into His eyes and longing even more to know who He truly is. Because, He loves you....a lot.

© Jade Valcarcel 2012. All rights reserved

change, struggles, and love.

I haven't written in a year, hence, it is highly possible that my posting will be a bit more frequent in the coming days than is normal. You see, though my thoughts are rusty and do not come out with the ease that they did then, the more I write, the more I think about life in the context of words written once again, the more the thoughts become oiled and perhaps...at some point in the future...they'll once again be a well oiled machine. For now, what you're getting are very stiff and disjointed thoughts...please bear with me until further notice...actually, you'll notice as they become less disjointed, I'm sure.

Also, what I wrote about then may differ a good bit from what I write about now. Life does that to a writer. Time does that. Experience does that. And what was is not, and some that was still is....but, the greatest change seems to be, well, change.Change.....the only constant thing in this life. I've thought about it much in the months between all that was there and all that is here. Reliable, consistent, unchanging, change. Yes, it came and took away what I thought would always be...which is a very naive way to view life. I was naive. And it was not just one thing in particular that changed, but everything. I changed the most of all.

It's terrifying to have all of that happen at once and there's nothing so far that I can compare to it in my life. The world tilted on its axis and when it righted itself again, I stood somewhere I'd never stood before. So, what is one to do? The only thing you can, I suppose. You look around at the change, perhaps struggle through the getting used to it, and then you either change for the better and allow what is being worked in you to actually work, or you don't. There really is only one of two things to choose from. I chose to let it all be worked in me. I chose to allow my God to have His way, though I struggled...a lot...and in the end found that what had changed in me was far better to what I had been before. But, ouch. Ouch!! It's never painless, He never promises a life free of pain or hard stuff or struggles. He promises that He'll be there with us every single step of the journey, but there is pain. Always.Yet, He knows this and understands it far better than we do. So, He can with a full understanding of what we're struggling with, lean down, take our face between His hands, and while gazing into our eyes with perfect confidence say, "Do you know how much I love you? Do you understand that this is all about the journey you and I are on, and though it hurts at times, I will work all the pain you are feeling now to My glory, if you will allow me to? Because I love you, and I will do whatever it takes to bring you to the place where you and I are all that matter in your life."

And I can say with perfect confidence, when you hear these words echo through your heart, whispered by your God who loves you more than you can imagine, you will  know with every single fiber of your being that, beyond the pain, beyond the wondering if you can make it, beyond that place where you think you can't take another breath, beyond all this is a place of beauty like you have never known. He LOVES you. He LOVES you. HE LOVES YOU! Take heart, because He loves you...

flaws and beauty and a great big God.

" I like flaws. I think they make things interesting." 

  -Sarah Dessen

I agree. I've learned with a vengeance that I, and everyone else that walks this breath-taking planet on which we reside are terribly, beautifully, wonderfully flawed. This is, however, no reason to not pour into them every single thing that I possess in me. Because, if I'm not willing to pour into those around me who are flawed, I don't deserve for my God to do the same with me...and oh, how He pours into me with each breath I breathe, with every beat of my heart, with each step I take down this path He's set before me. Pretty astounding thought! 

So, I just wanted to get that out there straight off. And I wanted to thank you for coming by and reading the random thoughts of this woman who is very small, but who loves a very big God! He thinks you're awesome, just in case you didn't know already:-) I hope you'll come by my little corner often and that when you do, that you'll be brought face to face with this God who's stolen my heart away. My prayer for you is that you will know with an even deeper understanding how much Jesus wants to transform your life despite the flaws, and how He longs to have a very personal relationship with you, because you fill a hole in His heart that can be filled by no one else. I also hope that, when you leave, you'll take with you the knowledge that every single moment you draw in breath is an amazing gift and that the smallest things in this life, if we take the time to notice them, are more beautiful than we could ever imagine!

Thank you:-) I appreciate you taking the time to read what I have to say more than you'll ever know. 

© Jade Valcarcel 2012. All rights reserved

echoes of now.

My thoughts feel stiff, like the tin man standing in the rain for far too long. They do not come easy as they once did....and there is pain with each word typed. Gone is the girl who once wrote so many things, whose thoughts were fluent and easy as breathing. Here sits the woman the girl lost herself in...changed. Oh, but beyond the pain, beyond the hurt, beyond that moment when you lose and believe that breathing is too hard, beyond this place is one far better. Sitting here now looking back on all, it is a beautiful, incredible, wonderful thing to see with perfect clarity. And in the clarity, in the unveiling of all that once was, all you thought you wanted, you realize it was just a stepping stone and that here and now, you are right where you are supposed to be. For Jesus has stolen my heart away, He is all I've ever wanted, and to sit in this moment and gaze into His radiant face, this is all I'll ever need.

He has taken time past and like a healing balm, spread a love throughout my soul that I never knew before...could not have known if not for the long stretch in between then and now. What joy there is to be found in this, that He allowed the river to rush in like a raging beast, to sweep me up, carrying me into depths that I never imagined possible, and like a jagged, ugly rock, good for nothing other than to look ugly, His waters tossed and turned, pulling down and then pushing up again until the rough edges are smoother now than before. And the soul in this woman is not what it was when it went into the water. For all of this, for every moment the current ran too fast, for every second that was too painful to breathe, for all the hours when tears fell, filling the river's waters even more, for all this I lift my hands to the heavens and with the honesty that only such an experience can bring, I cry out praise to the One who allows that which we think is too much to mold us into all that He would have us be...

And these are the echoes that come back into this moment, these are the lessons learned. For Jesus can redeem ALL that has EVER happened in our lives and He can turn it for His glory. He is faithful, faithful to ask us to give up what we thought was the best so that He may replace it with something that is incredible beyond all we could ever have dreamed...

© Jade Valcarcel 2012. All rights reserved