Open my eyes.
Let me see the brokenness inside
The hearts of them,
The seven billion
That I never cared to reveal the love I've found to.
Too many times I've said "I believed" in the past tense
And didn't take the step to turn it into present.
I couldn't see what I was doing, I was blind to You.
Shut out the distractions.
Let me find what I'm missing inside
The empty soul,
The quiet ghost
That I left asleep in a dark room.
Too many times I've put You on a shelf and said "Maybe later"
When God, I know I need You now.
I couldn't hear Your callings, I was deaf to You.
Turn off my fears.
Make me fearless and give me the desire
To know what love is
To never break apart from You.
I don't wanna be the one to turn away but wow I came awful close
And who knows where I'd be if time closed on me.
I was too careful, I was dead to You.
I'm done.
I'm done with cookie-cutter Christian talk.
I'm done with not reading the signs.
I'm done with putting my beliefs on bookshelves
Like homework I don't care to do.
I'm done denying the truth.
No more hiding from the truth.
Because the truth is who You are and You are the truth,
Be my northern star and help my life reflect You.
Because I see You, You're my desire
And I am dead to this world,
Alive in what is higher.
Today, I just watched the pinnacle of Narnia's success--- "Prince Caspian": Disney/Walden version. It's not like it was my first time or anything... but it is my first time this year. Overall, this was maybe my 30th time--- if that's not even enough, I don't know what is.
I've been obsessed with Narnia since 2008. I must admit to being very disappointed in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", but that doesn't change my love for it at all.
Seeing the second movie today opened brand new eyes, no pun intended. In all the times I've seen it, I never thought through everything that took place during it. Wanna know what I learned?
"Sometimes we live for no one but ourselves" in Forgiven is so true, and you can see it through Peter's attitude in this movie.
There is an ongoing battle... it never ends.
You're always there for a reason and never doubt it.
You can't always see God---no, you can't see Him at all---but "it's not faith if you're using your eyes". You have to trust that He's there and follow Him anyway, just like when Lucy saw Aslan but didn't follow because she couldn't see him, and no one believed her.
People will not always believe you, but in the end, they'll probably end up looking pretty stupid when they don't. "Last time I didn't believe Lucy, I ended up looking pretty stupid," Edmund said.
Just like when Jesus turned over the tables in the temple when people were selling things there, certain Narnians turned Aslan's tomb into a place to do literal "witch"craft (White "Witch", eh?) and there were consequences.
Bad things happen when you take matters into your own hands, as Peter found out when he (and Caspi) led the Narnians into battle at the castle and got half of them killed, when Caspi told him DIRECTLY that taking on the castle and being the first ones to do it was a horrible idea.
Every knee shall bow... even those that never believed, which Trumpkin found out at the end. He never believed Aslan was alive until he was kneeling before him.
Believe in yourself.
In His time, things can be made whole again.
Just like Aslan's roar beautifully awakened the trees, the Holy Spirit can awaken you.
Just like everything they did for Narnia they did for Aslan, everything you did for someone in need, you did for God.
So, what do you say? Beautiful movie, indeed. It gets me, right down to the perfectly wonderful, perfectly planned, beautiful music. Actually, the music is what makes this movie whole. Without it, that makes the difference between three and five stars for me. It really does. I am very fond of the music because my favorite composer, Harry Gregson-Williams composed the entire movie. He composed my Level 4 Gymnastics Wolverine music, and when I found out he did all the Narnia scores, no wonder I liked my floor music! But the music is sweet. The choir, the cello, the violin... all the way down to the French horn, if there is one. The whole thing is beautiful.
Ever saw someone and instantly hated them? Or maybe you saw someone and instantly knew that you would be friends? Ever had love at first sight? What about hate at first fight?
Maybe you look at someone and think that they're too preppy. Look at them and think they're immature. Too shy. Too loud.
I missed Wednesday's Walk yesterday because my mom made us shut down the computer until we did our chores or something of the sort. Tomorrow is my first "RandomNess Friday" and you can link up! (Don't forget to read Prism's blog.) We're still gonna do our Narnia stuff, but for now, I gotta read The Magician's Nephew.
---------
Honestly, I was going to blog about how much I'm dreading volleyball yesterday, but I'm glad I didn't! We won our game today! I'm loving it! My serve is usually great, (thanks to my coach from last year, Alan) but today it was kinda... well... all over the place. But otherwise, I did good. Our whole team did good. These girls have basically all played junior high school volleyball, so we're a really good team. WHOOO HOO!
The video looks a little small, but I hope you can see it. To tell you the truth, I think it's really weird how like, there's this girl rocking out on her violin, but I can't hear violin, like, anywhere in the song.
This song, anyway, relates to me a lot. It reminds me so much of gymnastics. At the beginning when Taylor says "Somebody else gets what you wanted again", it reminds me of the meets/competitions, really only one meet but gazillion practices, a girl named Megan* and her friend Tori* were good at every event. (although I was really good on the beam and floor, they still did great) Megan was a bigtime vaulter. She was so fast, and she was tall like me. (so I had no excuse for being a slow vaulter.) She was the perfect example of a great gymnast, someone worthy of making the level 5 team. Or was she really worthy of making the team?
Physically, yes. Mentally, no. She was rude. To me, she wasn't. Towards her mom, she was. Very annoying. She always talked back (to the coach, I'm not sure, but I think so) and I couldn't understand why i tried so hard and she still was better than me.
Then there's Tori. The typical middle school cheerleader. Her attitude was the average cheerleader behavior. I'm a cheerleader, I'm not snobby. But I also don't cheer anymore. Kayla is a cheerleader, but she's friendly. Tori isn't.
Tori didn't talk back, (and this is before she was a cheerleader.) and she was kinda nice. To me, at least. But she was a huge perfectionist. If the springboard was slightly out of place, she perfected it. What kind of nerd does that--- WHAT THE HECK???!!!!
She bruised easily. That's her skin, she can't control that. But Tori.... oh Tori. Drama Queen all the way. Once, she bruised on the vault when she fell at practice, (we all got hurt that day, especially me. I had to vault on a cut foot, and she's the one complaining?) and she was crying for so long, we were on the beam and she's still crying. Baby, baby, baby--- annoying.
Tori was great on the floor. At practice, when we knew our dance routines well enough, my coach would turn off the music ("I'll Find My Own Way" by Harry Gregson-Williams from the X-Men Wolverine sountrack) after every single mistake made. Tori and I had good technique, so we both had the longest timing. Her routine was almost flawless, but she messed up on our easiest skill, a handstand forward-roll. At the very end of the routine. A skill I had perfectly, and the way I did it was even compared to the way my coach did it. But Tori could dance better. Tori already had her back walkover. Tori almost had her back handspring. Tori had great balance.
Megan was strong. Megan had her front handspring on the floor and back handspring on the wedge. She was great at tucks. Her tumbling skills were unbelievable. her balance was crazy good.
So here's what happened: We had a competition last March and it was my first time as a level 4, a very respected level at our YMCA. Our first event was floor. "I'm gonna win this." Or so I thought.
During this time, I was very achy from whatever happened to my hip, and could not do the splits. Bad, because that was the beginning of my routine. I couldn't make the back walkover, ya all know that. My legs split in the middle of my back handspring/flic flac/flip flop/lions' leap. I ended the routine perfectly, but it didn't matter at that point, because as usual, Tori did it perfectly.
On beam, I failed worse than that. I fell, one too many times. Megan admitted (her words!) "I was afraid Hope was gonna win. I was surprised she didn't." Well, she won. Because she's really good. She won vault, also, and I got bronze. Not too shabby there. But that didn't matter. 26.2 points. Second-to-last in the all-around, and only beat the last place girl by .1 points. Embarrassing for both of us.
But Marnie* said "Everyone wil be last, sometimes it's you." She was after me in the all-around, and when she said that, I stopped feeling sorry for myself. I felt bad for her, and knew that we needed to practice and then it would work.
Victory isn't easy. "Rome wasn't built overnight..." is one of those inspiring sayings. So I keep practicing, and maybe I'll make it to victory. And maybe I have level 5 in store for me someday.
Those things will change, I'll see it soon. Don't be discouraged, because it will only bring you further down. Do everything with no regrets and you're sure to shine!
