Stereotypes: we find the need to define things by words so we fall back on language to create concepts about things that really don't exist.

Writing Advice

Advice to Writers from C.S. Lewis 

1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean, and make sure your sentence couldn't mean anything else.

2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long vague one. Don't "implement" promises, but "keep" them.

3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean "more people died," don't say "mortality rose."

4. Don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was "terrible," describe it so that we'll be terrified. Don't say it was "delightful." make us say "delightful" when we're read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only saying to your readers "please will you do my job for me."

5. Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

- Exerpts from Letters of C.S. Lewis, Wheaton College Wade Collection, 1978

The Spiral of Life

I have come to the conclusion that life does not progress as one straight line. It is a spiral. You continue to learn and discover things that you already know, you are just learning about them on new, more enlightening levels, as if you're climbing a spiral staircase. Every time you go all the way around the spiral of life, your understanding increases, you experience a transformation, and you advance to a new level of thought. Thus, each time you loop around the circle again, you see things differently. You have a different perspective that allows you to understand life more completely. The more times you get around the spiral, the higher you go and the more vantage points you will experience.

Occupy your mind with good thoughts, or the enemy will fill it with bad ones: unoccupied it cannot be. - Sir Thomas More

"Sound The Bugle"

Bryan Adams

Sound the bugle now - play it just for me
As the seasons change - remember how I used to be
Now I can't go on - I can't even start
I've got nothing left - just an empty heart

I'm a soldier - wounded so I must give up the fight
There's nothing more for me - lead me away...
Or leave me lying here

Sound the bugle now - tell them I don't care
There's not a road I know - that leads to anywhere
Without a light I fear that I will stumble in the dark
Lay right down - decide not to go on

Then from on high - somewhere in the distance
There's a voice that calls, "Remember who you are"
If you lose yourself - your courage soon will follow

So be strong tonight - remember who you are
Yeah you're a soldier now - fighting in a battle
To be free once more - yeah, that's worth fighting for

Abandonment

"The true deep crisis of abandonment, or total surrender, is reached internally, not externally. The giving up of only external things may actually be an indication of your being in total bondage."- Oswald Chambers

Trusting with complete abandonment takes extreme faith.

Childhood Promises

Promises can affect you for years if you let them.

Ask

"...how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" - Matthew 7:11

The concept of Divine control.

Consistency

Feelings change, but love is always consistent. I am thankful for the consistency in my life. Without it, I'd be an emotional roller-coaster. I'd be so lost, unable to find the way out of my unpredictable bursts of desire.

If your hopping that life will eventually get better, or wishing it would be like it was before, stop. The future is just an idea, the past a memory. Life at this moment is reality. Invest in this time. Enjoy the now. You will discover how full life really is.

Winners.

Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is. - Vince Lombardi

Again, I'll use a sports analogy. On the track today I know in my heart I could've gone faster, but I was afraid. I knew I could beat those girls in the last two hundred meters, but did I? I think so, but it was so close.

I'm beginning to realize there are two different kinds of people inside of me. There is the weak person who tells me I'm tired, slow, inadequate and incompetent. She sneaks her way into my thoughts, convincing me I'm not good enough to do my best. However, there's also another person. She is a person burning with passion and determination. When she steps up to the line, she is ready to compete, even when it hurts. She fights, she's smart, she's exploding with energy (She comes around more often when I get enough sleep). On the track, I have to decided which person I am going to be, regardless of how I feel. It's called mental toughness.

In real life, even if you can't achieve all the great dreams and desires you feel called to, if you push toward them with every intention of accomplishing them, if you give everything you have with all the means that you have, then it doesn't matter. You were the strong person who pushed through your fears, not the weak person who held back for fear of failing. At the end of your life, you can realize you gave everything you could, and that is enough. We are capable of giving a lot more than we realize, but it is terrifying. We're terrified of burning out; of failing. We're scared that all the time and hard work that got us to this point won't be enough, that in the end we'll fall short.

The greatest leap in human achievement is daring to pass your mental limitations. It is only when you go farther than you think you can that you realize how far you can actually go. Challenge yourself! If you doubt you can finish a "race," run faster! Desire to win, no matter what.

Wisdom

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise.  Seek what they sought."  ~Matsuo Basho

Wisdom is beyond human achievement. It is not a destination. It is a journey. 

"Real leaders are ordinary people with extraordinary determination."

Vulnerable

"A thousand men can’t undress a naked man." ~Greek Proverb

Figuratively speaking, if we are honest, there is nothing to hide. The more we expose ourselves, the less we are violated by those who try to uncover us themselves.

The Four-Letter Word

Love is a strong four-letter word, perhaps the strongest of all. When I consider the implication behind the word love, I realize it has a lot of different meanings, and different people understand it in different ways. However, you are the only person that can love the way you do. You have your own definition of love that nobody can replicate. I realize that sounds extremely cheesy and cliche, but it's true. And when we do not love, we become less like ourselves. The more we love, the more human we are, the way humanity was meant to be. When we do not love, we drop to an animal-like existence. We loose our ability to connect with the souls of other people. When we love we see individuals for who they are, not for who they seem to be. Essentially, we understand them the way they understand themselves.

A Dangerous Place

To live alone with one's thoughts is a dangerous place.

Thoughts have a way of destroying people. It's so gradual you barely notice it at first. A negative thought there, a critical thought here. But gradually they build up on each other. In fact, you can build an entire wall around yourself founded on negative thoughts. That wall of thoughts will close you off from effective communication with people and eventually even your ability to love.

Don't let your own negative thoughts eat you alive. Be conscious of them, evaluate them, confront them! You will never be happy if you are searching for satisfaction by focusing on the negativity around you. If you want to improve, improve your thoughts.

"For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ" - 2 Cor. 4-5

My God is not dead. He is surely alive.

The Principle of Existence

"We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end."- Benjamin Disraeli

If there is no love in the end, then it is not truly the end.

Remember the little things.

Courage

Courage is the voice within that whispers: I will pick myself up and try again tomorrow.


I can't take full credit for that quote, pretty sure I read it on Pinterest. However, that's about where I am at with running. The race was brutal. I've come to the conclusion that situations like this one are completely out of my control. I've run much faster, so I know I am capable. I've put in the time, I've trained hard when it mattered and recovered when necessary. I raced smart, I didn't go out too fast. I've been eating right and drinking enough water, and I invested my heart in the race, not just my head. So the reasons for why I didn't run to my potential today were out of my control. Sometimes we have to face consequences we aren't responsible for, but that isn't an excuse to live in fear or despair. Maybe I will never run fast again, but maybe I will. Maybe someday I'll be running faster than I ever thought possible. Either way, I will continue to run. Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow I will try again.

Courage is accepting your circumstances and looking beyond them. It's choosing to try when you are afraid of failing. Courage is accepting failure, not just once, but multiple times, and trying again anyway.

My Strength

"Yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places." - Habakkuk 3:18-19

To God be the glory in my race tomorrow!

His Unholy Host

I wish there were more hours in the day! With 3 big papers due Thursday, I'm doing enough writing!! I'm working on a novel. Here is the premise:

His Unholy Host; a psychologically complex thriller fully emerged in supernatural experiences, paranormal beings, and an internal conceptual battle between the good and evil of human thought.

Thomas Neil is an experiment. He never had a father. He did not even have a sperm donor. Half of his being is in fact not human at all. He is unaware of the fact that he was artificially made. His body is shared by entities with a mind and emotions of their own. These beings exist on a level of reality humanity had previously left undiscovered.

In a time when there was no perception of time, these beings, called the host, were free to move and interact however they pleased. However, circumstances have changed. Science as breached the sacred gap between the biological, metaphysical and supernatural. Due to a series of unfortunate events, the host is now trapped inside Thomas’ body, desperate to preserve Thomas’ life, yet yearning to be free. Thomas, being only half human, is constantly faced with challenges in every-day social settings. When he finally understands his abnormality after being confronted by the host, he strives to overcome his weaknesses and adequately survive with the supernatural energy running through him, and save his life and theirs in the process. 

It's still in progress, but I believe it's a good start. I'm excited with where I'm going to take it. 

The Deadliest Attitude

I was reading this today in My Utmost for His Highest. The last paragraph really struck me hard because it is one of my greatest fears:

"'If we walk in the light as He is in the light...' (1 John 1:7). For many of us, walking in the light means walking according to the standard we have set up for another person. The deadliest attitude of the Pharisees that we exhibit today is not hypocrisy but that which comes from unconsciously living a lie."

More than anything, I do not want to reach the end of my life and realize I have been living a lie; to not just be a hypocrite, but an ignorant fool. I want the truth! I want the difficult, messy, hard way if that's what it takes to live a genuine life. It is one thing to want Truth, another to live it. Doing the hard thing takes sacrifice. Often, it is tremendous sacrifice. But if we do not have the strength to live in the Truth, then everything our faith is founded on was all for nothing. We have everything it takes to live genuinely. I will not die believing a lie.

"We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ..." (2 Cor. 5:10)

God of Peace

God is not a God of confusion, but a God of peace. - I Cor. 4:33

Thank God for the peace he gives to us. No matter what the situation, if we trust that God is at the head of it, leading the way, what is there to be worried about? Clearly, He is the one in control. He only asks that we give it to him in complete surrender. He wants us, our circumstances, our lives. Yet, He would never take that from us, we must give it freely, as he has freely given.

May I put my desire into action - May I be more like Christ this week. Amen.