confessionsofarebel:

hawkeyedriza:

absolutelydestinysmood:

nannajane:

in 7 years its going to be the 20s again so we can bring back swing music and the aesthetics of that era but keep modern values who’s with me

you can’t repeat the past

can’t repeat the past? why, of course you can! of course you can. 

old sport

(via dontmakeapromiseyoucantkeep)

3 days ago  /  164,957 notes  /  Source: nannajane

“The Vision” 24-7 Prayer

This reminds me of my trip to Brazil when I was 18.. the trip that turned my life upside down.

“So this guy comes up to me and says “what’s the vision? What’s the big idea?” I open my mouth and words come out like this… The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn’t even notice. They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won. They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying. What is the vision ? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games. This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers

choose to lose that they might one day win the great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don’t need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”

And this is the sound of the underground The whisper of history in the making Foundations shaking Revolutionaries dreaming once again Mystery is scheming in whispers Conspiracy is breathing… This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays

like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of laughter! Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive

inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide. Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,

they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.) Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their words make demons scream in shopping centres. Don’t you hear them coming? Herald the weirdos! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon. How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.”

6 months ago  /  0 notes

My love affair with words

I went from English major to English teacher. Obviously, I love words. But it goes so much deeper than just a fondness for an interesting vocabulary.

Language is an art. People who use it well are artists. I’ve always longed to be creative in the traditional sense.. I would love to be able to paint a beautiful portrait- but it’s not in my skill set.

Writing, however, is something that I can handle. And it truly moves me. I love quotes. I love songs that sound like poetry. If you want me to cry, give me a good book. Happy or sad, I’ll be bawling.

My Pinterest board for quotes has more pins than any other. It’s a borderline obsession. It’s so fascinating to me that someone can express something they believe deep down in their core.. and that thought can make other people feel alive. I know many people think quotes are trite, and some of them are. But they can also be a medium to connect with people in a deep and real way.

I feel like I could happily end up wasting a lot of time losing myself in stories and lyrics. Which is nice for a bit, but not truly fulfilling.

Sharing my love of this muse is one of the goals of my life. My desire as a teacher is to help kids appreciate it and learn to express themselves well. Maybe I’m idealistic (ok, I’m definitely idealistic) but I really believe words can change the world.

8 months ago  /  1 note

Good is better than perfect

What if it is? I mean, is it?

People aren’t perfect. But, I believe, we are good. Not all the time, not whole-heartedly. But overall.. I think we’re good.

God is perfect. And he created us.. but not perfectly. That’s been on my mind lately. Why didn’t he make us perfect? Why have all the pain in life? I trust that his ways are perfect. So there has to be a reason for the way he formed us.

What if he knows that it’s better to have a good life than a perfect life? Would having a perfect relationship cheapen it? If there was nothing to ever work out, never any struggle at all.. how could it mean as much?

I worry that these thoughts are borderline blasphemous. I mean, I’m not trying to justify any kind of wrong doing. But there is the glaring fact that we are flawed. And I’m trying to understand why that is. 

It might be something that we can never answer. But I think of Stepford Wives and all these intellectual theories that imply the same thing- perfection is neither attainable nor desirable.

Please don’t misunderstand this and think I would ever want someone to do less than their best. I think we people are capable of incredible things. More than we’re doing now. The idea of complete perfection just feels.. sterile. And life is messy.

And the God that understands this concept more than I can, and works life out in this way, is a very powerful image to me.

1 year ago  /  2 notes