#life is too glorious; wild; diverse; unimaginably beautiful

[hiswordsarekisses]

“In life, as I walk through the fields and plains. I stumble upon a single wild flower that has blossomed and sprouted.

A reflection of God's glory on display. It's fills my eyes with unfathomable beauty and majesty. The intricate details and immaculate design. The subtle, pervasive, and distinctive aroma. It's tenacious and unrelinquishing roots. It's rigorous and vigorous stem. And the variegated radiance of its leaves.

Our hearts always seem to be drawn to such an evasive array. It is unimaginable. It was never intentionally seeded nor planted. Yet, here it lies before my eyes. Existing and subsisting.

Predetermined and deliberate.

More than humanity could ever hope for. I can't fathom but to think aloud.

Even Solomon in all of his splendor was not dressed and adored like this dear wild flower. Yet, it did not labor or even spin. Still, here it is. But, am I the only one?

Out of the billions of people that walk this land; am I the only one that has stopped to enjoy such glorious beauty? To be transfixed on such variety and diversity? But before I blink, I see a petal fall.

It's fatal flaw. The reality of what is to come.

The curse of our brokenness.

The sign of its next season.

As my heart drops, it is filled with appreciation. The feared realization. I am the only one to ever witness this distinct flower.

To comprehend and grasp such tranquility. To notice its existence. It's intended and fixed purpose. To know that I will never understand this moment until it has now become a memory.

An echo within my thoughts.

To show me the state of my well-being. My own fragile humanity. My drained and frail spirit.

My delicate life.

But will it ever count?

Will it fulfill its holy purpose? To herald such a triumphant and glorious truth?

To be sent or be spent?

Will my reply be yes to both?

To be ready for either?

Oh how my heart clamps to comfortability and false security.

To chase my own dreams and desires. My redefinition of myself in my selfish pursuits.

My false delusions and distorted realities.

My schemes and plots to achieve such perfection to only discover a misconception.

My heart to remain unsatiable and determined to answer my preposterous plea.

To hide behind my own pride.

To try to create my own story and act like I give You the glory.

My wondering heart always wants to flee. Yet, it conceives utterly absurd lies to me.

Why can my eyes never seem to see?

I do not plan my life.

I didn't will to exist.

The hardships, temptations, and trials.

The waiting, anxiety, and worrying.

The pain and disappointment.

I did not ask for any of this.

Yet, I did. Because I live to die.

But die to live.

I am not much; but I invite others. For all to be gathered.

To witness me dying to my worst enemy. Myself.

So they can see You live.

For me to count a cost. And be indebted to grace.

To run a race to see my Savior's face.

Because of a stained tree and empty burial place.

To be here and gone within a short distinction and variance of time.

To exclaim though You slay me, I will still hope in You.

That if I perish, I perish.

All that matters is it is for Your Gospel and name to be known.

For others to cherish.

My heart just lingers to see the true source; the reflection of that glorious flower.

To see the scarred hands that wove its pattern and outline.

To see you bind the chains of the Pleiades and to loosen the cords of Orion.

To seek You and live.

To know that being close to You was always still too far.

As my heart cries out to be where You are. To perceive such divine love that I fail to assimilate.

To know You.

To know You as you have known me.

To participate in Your sufferings and death.

To know the power of Your resurrection.

To know the depths of your love based off the depth of Your sacrifice.

To know You intimately.

Being greater than all I have ever wanted.

To understand the wondrous mystery. How you do not accept me just as I am; yet you love me despite how I am.

I don't want the knowledge.

I don't want the information.

I do not want the opinions.

I want the truth.

I want to know you more than I know You.

I just want to know You.

Please just let me know You.

To know You as my Father and to be known as Your Son.

Because You are God and I am not.”

~ Soli Deo Gloria

[heyninja]

One thing I'd like to say, since it's Pride, is that for years I marinated in the message that my gender and sexual expression was "bad representation." If "we" (which we?) wanted to be taken seriously, people like me--bi people who didn't fit into neat boxes of gender expression, who engaged in more than one relationship at a time--were ultimately harmful to the people who needed to see "us" as...what? As conforming to societal norms? As non-threatening to established norms of gender roles and family structures?

So now I just cut out all the crap that even remotely makes me think of all that bullshit. I'm queer. I'm non-binary. Sometimes I might say bi, sometimes I might say pan. It's all true. I still engage in relationships with multiple people at the same time (everyone is aware and consenting, I am not a jerk). I am not ashamed. It is not my responsibility to be "non-threatening" or try to fit into some bullshit cishet normative narrative to make other people feel better about my other-ness. I have a finite time on this earth and as long as I can try to make other people's lives better, I deserve to also make my own life better.

I don't owe you a sanitized version of my best self, even as it continues to evolve and change over time. I owe myself my best self, and my loved ones a commitment to furthering my happiness while trying to further their happiness as I can. That's it. My queerness is my own living, breathing contract with myself and my happiness.

I am authentic to my lived experience. I will not make myself smaller, less than, to live a lie to be palatable to people who have no intention of accepting me ever.

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

She-who-fights-and-writes Top 5 Book Recs 2019!!

Here are my top five books/book series that I think EVERYONE should read or at least try to read in their lifetime!! No matter their standing on this list, I love every single one of these books with my whole heart!!!!!

5. Pet Sematary by Stephen King (Genre: Horror)

Back cover:

When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his family to the idyllic rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Despite Ludlow’s tranquility, an undercurrent of danger exists here. Those trucks on the road outside the Creed’s beautiful old home travel by just a little too quickly, for one thing…as is evidenced by the makeshift graveyard in the nearby woods where generations of children have buried their beloved pets. Then there are the warnings to Louis both real and from the depths of his nightmares that he should not venture beyond the borders of this little graveyard where another burial ground lures with seductive promises and ungodly temptations. A blood-chilling truth is hidden there—one more terrifying than death itself, and hideously more powerful. As Louis is about to discover for himself sometimes, dead is better…

I didn’t sleep for two days after finishing this book. I had to read it in the morning, never at night, and couldn’t put it down whenever I picked it up. However, this book is really a testament to Stephen King’s reputation as the dominator of the horror/suspense genre of fiction.

Beautifully descriptive and creepy, it gives a shocking new perspective of the consequences of playing God. With a very much flawed and very much human main character, along with a gripping story that raises the hairs on the back of your neck, Pet Semetary is the perfect book to read when you’re feeling a flare for the supernatural. 

4. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer (Genre: Sci-Fi)

Back cover of Cinder:

CINDER, a gifted mechanic in New Beijing, is also a cyborg. She's reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's sudden illness. But when her life becomes entwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she finds herself at the centre of a violent struggle between the desires of an evil queen - and a dangerous temptation. Cinder is caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal. Now she must uncover secrets about her mysterious past in order to protect Earth's future. This is not the fairytale you remember. But it's one you won't forget.

These books broke me out of a serious book hangover (caused by the #1 series on this list) and made me realize “Wait, there are other books in this world that can be enjoyed besides this series.”

Funny and captivating, this book puts an interesting twist on classic fairytales. Instead of being the kind of twist where everything is unnecessarily gory and dark, this puts a futuristic spin on the classic stories that we all know and love.

The characters are amazing and very diverse, and although the stories are similar to the Grimm’s fairy tales, they’re a whole new ballpark plot-wise that keeps you on the edge of your seat!

3. In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park (Genre: Memoir)

Back cover:

“I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.”

Still in her early twenties, Yeonmi Park has lived through experiences that few people of any age will ever know--and from which most would never recover. At age thirteen, together with her mother, she made a harrowing escape from brutal conditions in North Korea. Two years later, they reached South Korea and freedom. But the devestating journey in between cost Park her childhood and nearly her life. As she writes, “I convinced myself that a lot of what I had experienced never happened. I taught myself to forget the rest.”

In In Order to Live, Park sines light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and that millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship.

Park confronts her past with a startling resilience. In spite of everything, she has never stopped being proud of where she is from, and never stopped striving for a better life. Today she is a human rights activist working determinedly to bring attention to the oppression taking place in her home country. Park’s testimony is rare, edifying, and terribly important, and the story she tells in In Order to Live is heartbreaking and unimaginable but never without hope.

This book changed my life. 

Riveting, beautiful, and at heartbreaking, it really made me appreciate what I have in life and made me more aware of things that are currently happening in the world as we speak.

I think that no one should be able to talk about North Korea and about how it’s not a big deal that we help the people there until they read this book.

Truly an amazing and unbelievable story.

2. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Genre: Fantasy)

Back cover:

Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful— irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

A phenomenally written and emotional re-telling of the classic Greek epic the Iliad that delves into the romantic relationship between Achilles and Patroclus.

Madeline Miller truly has an undeniable god-given talent for writing; her descriptions and storytelling makes for a book that you CANNOT put down once you’ve picked it up.

I read this book in a day and had a serious, serious book hangover afterward; I literally could NOT stop thinking about it for days. It just sticks with you, you know?

Me and my mom both wept over this book; it is truly a triumph and a masterpiece.

1. The Grishaverse by Leigh Bardugo (Genre: Fantasy)

Back cover of Shadow and Bone, first book in The Grisha Trilogy:

Soldier. Summoner. Saint. Orphaned and expendable, Alina Starkov is a soldier who knows she may not survive her first trek across the Shadow Fold―a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters. But when her regiment is attacked, Alina unleashes dormant magic not even she knew she possessed.

Now Alina will enter a lavish world of royalty and intrigue as she trains with the Grisha, her country’s magical military elite―and falls under the spell of their notorious leader, the Darkling. He believes Alina can summon a force capable of destroying the Shadow Fold and reuniting their war-ravaged country, but only if she can master her untamed gift.

As the threat to the kingdom mounts and Alina unlocks the secrets of her past, she will make a dangerous discovery that could threaten all she loves and the very future of a nation.

Welcome to Ravka . . . a world of science and superstition where nothing is what it seems.

Back cover of Six of Crows, first book in the Six of Crows Duology:

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price―and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone. . . .

A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction―if they don't kill each other first.

The Grishaverse is a group of series that are all set within the same universe where magic runs wild and the world-building-- from the culture of each country to the unique landscapes--is so phenomenal that you almost wish you could jump right into the book like Blue’s Clues and live there forever.

Leigh Bardugo is my favorite author of all time.

Her writing is beyond any other tier that I have every had the pleasure to read, to the point where I couldn’t read any other books for a good year after finishing the Six of Crows Duology because it set my standards so high for YA fantasy.

There are many books within the Grishaverse-- including the Grisha Trilogy, the Six of Crows Duology, the King of Scars series, and the Language of Thorns storybook--but you don’t have to have read one series to understand the other.

Personally, I like the Six of Crows Duology better than the Grisha Trilogy; it was written afterward and the writing and storytelling is far more evolved and sophisticated.

But even so, Leigh Bardugo really is an incredible storyteller, so if you can get your hands on any of these books, please do!