The Little Things

    When it comes to that "special someone", God can use every little encounter and interaction to sway the heart one way or another. What we might see to be an event that draws us farther from what we want, God could be using it to bring us closer to what He wants. The dissatisfying conversation, the sentence left unfinished, the awkward greeting and farewell, the missed opportunity to say anything at all are either necessary for steering our hearts and minds away from a certain person, or, if the relationship is meant to be, only contribute to the little things that friends can easily overlook in the name of affection. Either way, there is no need to worry about those moments in the past, but rather we should trust that God has a perfect purpose for every encounter, and we must only hope that in each one He will receive the greatest glory.

A Messenger of Love

Oh eyes, oh lips!—by Cupid they’re enticed

To form a smile rippled in his face;

Without the one, the other fails to prove

That he delights in words my tongue expressed.

To see them sharing both the myst’ry

And the joy of lighting candles deep within

Our souls, sweet feelings spring from purest fount

When eyes to eyes such subtle graces send.

Thus worlds unfurl, unlocked by sight alone,

A hidden wonder wrought by lovers’ stares,

Where we are slaved, eternity to spend,

Within the colored orbs of passioned souls.

Oh smile!—how potent is your simple art,

Messenger of love, and master of my heart. 

Challenge #3: Students and Teachers

    I want to start off saying that I have not been able to post lately because my computer crashed and all my memory was wiped, so I have had  to wait until I return to school to get it fixed. I was finally able to borrow my brother's laptop though, and so now I can answer the next question for this challenge: who has taught me the most this summer.
    Usually answers to this question consist of God, mentors, parents, close friends, or even yourself. But this summer, my teachers have actually been my "students." I nannied this summer for two different families, one has three kids and the other has just one. I love them all so much, and I would say that they taught me a lot about parenting, God's power, and the beauty of families.
    In the spring I had been fretting about how I was going to find a job back at home, and I was pursing a few options but nothing really popped up. I kept praying that God would put me in a place that I could really teach children about Him. Suddenly, a few days before school ended,  I received a Facebook message from the daughter of one of my high school teachers asking me to join a youth ministry internship at her church. I was all ready to accept her offer when, just the next day, I received two texts messages from different mothers asking me to nanny their kids over the summer. I was stunned by God's abundant answer to my prayers, so overwhelmed actually that I didn't know which job to take! I wanted to be apart of a ministry where God could really use me to impact kids, and I didn't think nannying was it at first. It seemed to common and plain. How wrong I was!
    After much thought and prayer I chose nannying because I was closer to the families who asked me, and also I believe that we have a commitment to friends and family who are immediately around us before strangers. Even Christ said in Acts: "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). They witnessed in their homes before they went out to the Gentiles and strangers. So my job as a nanny began right when I returned from college.
     These kids (12, 10, 8, 7 years old) mostly taught me what it is like to be a parent. I never really understood all that my parents did for me until this summer. It is so exhausting, and yet so rewarding! One evening I talked to my mom, desperate because I didn't know how to handle a certain situation, and she said "Choose one thing to work on (behavior wise) and whenever it comes up you need to deal with it." Lydia Brownback, author of A Woman's Wisdom said "Discipline of your emotions is the proper training of responses." At first I was overwhelmed at this task. All children fight with each other, all talk back, all have their bursts of outrage... where do you begin? Yet slowly but surely, I began to see a change. It was truly incredible. God was at work within them, cultivating and renewing their hearts, and we had many different conversations about real world problems and also spiritual matters. I was able to share about how God's greatest commandment was to love, and that was why it was so important not to hurt each other and talk back to each other. We talked about the End Times and how Christ would raise us all from the dead to be with Him in the New Heavens and the New Earth. We talked about how we would glorify God forever one day. We talked about courage to stand up for something that was right. Over all, car rides were my favorite time because these topics would come up.
    I learned about God's power through the fact that there was nothing I could do to change the heart of a man. No matter how hard and black it is, only God is able to renew it. One day the oldest boy was grounded because he did something to his sister, and so I asked him what happened. He said that it was 100% her fault that he was in trouble, and he did nothing wrong. But as he began to explain the story of how he was unjustly persecuted, his face changed, his voice lowered, and he mumbled out the ending because he realized that he had responded wrongly; and so now he said he was 30% wrong and she was 70%. Only God can make us see that we are 100% wrong whenever we do something that displeases Him. How hard it is to convince someone of a wrongdoing without God working in them! It is truly impossible. I am so glad that He convicts me through different people and through His Word, and that was a reminder to me that I needed to check the plank in my own eye before I saw the speck in my neighbors.
    The beauty of a family is something that God uses as a model of the church. Whether or not an earthly family is united or divorced, God says that the family of believers are one. "Rather, speaking
 the truth in  love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love" (Ephesians 5:15-16). I learned that the beauty of God's family, no matter what our earthly family looks like, will always be united through the bond of Christ. A bond that will never pass away or break. He will never divorce us, even though we struggle in our "marriage" to Him every day, He is faithful. God will redeem us.
    There are so many other lessons I learned through these kids and their families, but I don't have enough time to keep writing about them. All I can say is that God can use anyone, anywhere, for any purpose, even if we don't understand why at first. He taught me so much through my job nannying, more than I thought possible! And He alone equipped me with the words to speak in the circumstances in which He placed me. All the glory belongs to God.

    "Do not say, 'I am only a youth'; for to all whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord."

Jeremiah 1:7-8

 

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The Capture of the Eyes

    I wrote some poems about the eyes because I have always seen them as the portal to the soul. So much can be spoken or understood in one glance.

Stares

I sensed a brush, an iris pair, 

Upon my blind averted back; 

Their fingers reached to smother me--

Such subtle touch with hands unseen. 

Their power grew as moments passed, 

My hair, my arms, all gripped in stares;

And I too shy to break the vise, 

The breath-like capture of the eyes. 

Release! I prayed with whispered words

As salt drops clung upon my brow;

No more could I bear the attack;

I found their gaze-- the hands fell slack. 

Challenge #2: Who should read this blog

    Honestly, I do not know how to answer this question. I think that friends and acquaintances of a blogger will be more likely to read a blog than a stranger. That is not always the case, but I think that knowing something about a person, some background knowledge or past experience, will make you more open to reading something that the person writes and you will connect better. It is the same way with friends who write a song or a novel or create a piece of art. Instead of comparing them to Mumford, Jane Austen, or Picasso, we appreciate them for their talent and ability to create something that we often cannot.
   If I do not know you well though and you are reading this blog, welcome! C. S. Lewis said in his book The Four Loves, "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one." So if any of you  have any of these four things in common with me, I think that the same thing applies to us. 

Love of... 

1. God

2. Poetry

3. Books

4. Quotes

Talk about your blog

    The reason that I started a blog is because I have an amazing friend who pushes me to try new things and encourages me to write frequently. She might not even know it, but she is one of my greatest inspirations for writing, and whenever I read something that she wrote, I immediately want to sit down and write some beautiful song or a even start a novel!
    I have been writing in my journal since I was in 3rd grade, and so now my collection ranges to about 20 notebooks, but I have always kept them hidden. Starting a blog is a way for me to show a piece of who I am, what I like to think about and write about, and to share it with other people. I write poetry all the time, and I guess you could call it my passion. I love seeing other people enjoy a good piece of literature or a poem, and if I could create that enjoyment for them, no matter who it is, it brings me a great pleasure as well.
    I will probably share something whenever I am struck by a new idea and really want to write out in words. For the next thirty posts, or thirty days, my friends and I will be writing about a different topic each time that comes from our own experience or persepective. Today's was talking about our blog. I hope that they all enjoy this as much as I have so far!
    As to why I named my blog When the Bird Sings, the best way I can explain it is by posting this story that I wrote a few months ago. My roommate, her sister, and another friend and I all wanted to write short stories with the same title, and for some reason I thought that this one would make a great title. So I started writing but later scrapped the story because I gave up on it. I looked it over again tonight, and thought it would actually tie in well to why my blog has this name...

The soul of the Nightingale grows stronger in the dark. It is the only bird that will sing at night, when blindness overtakes the world. Many people face the hardship and pain this world brings, some in larger doses than others, but what we do in the blackest moments shows who we truly are and where we place our hope.

§

            Emma’s eyes glimmered with excitement and amazement even as she hid behind the older orphans in the group. She watched the group of eleven Americans with curiosity as we broke free from the bus and unloaded with all of our disorganized VBS material into their Trinidad playground. As we all began introducing ourselves and mingling with the children, Emma suddenly recognized that I was a no greater threat than the grass below her feet, and she confidently walked towards me.

“Do you want to see a magic trick?”

            I was instantly amused at the authority that she took as she assumed the role of a magician, and I willingly obliged her. Soon after she performed the trick (leaving me stunned and wonderstruck) we immediately became friends, and she could not stop talking to me. The older girls even attempted to quiet her, but she refused to listen to them. She asked to hold my hand, to play a game with me, and even offered me a granola bar, and she did so with such confidence and fire that I could not help but laugh with delight at her beautiful strength. Her freckles stood out against her dark complexion, and her braids were so evenly and carefully created, but her heart far outshone her appearances.

            I spent the rest of my time at the orphanage in awe of this young girl who was unable to hide her smile, even in the midst of uncertainty and suffering. Her song of love, delight, and curiosity burst out of her heart and stood against the darkness that surrounded her. She had no money, she had little clothing, and the granola bar that she had offered me represented a small portion of food she received daily, yet her love surpassed that of my own. Her joy for life and the small graces that God sent her overpowered her temporary lack, and she did not fall into despair.

            She was my first nightingale.

§

            Four young children played on the outskirts of a playground in a run down and broken neighborhood in Pennsylvania, looking in defiance at the group of kids singing songs and playing games with adults and teenagers. They believed that they were too cool to join, that songs were for babies, and so they could only glare at us until we left; but in their eyes I saw their longing to join us, their thirst for the happiness they could only watch from afar.

My friend Gale saw their miniature gang, saw beneath their exterior and into their broken hearts, and invited them to watch the battle scene in a skit some adults were performing. Boasting that they were strong enough to fight anyone, the three boys and girl walked over, clearly overjoyed that they were invited, and yet trying desperately to hide their excitement under a pretense of superiority and reserve. They could not keep their act up for long. In just a half hour, I was having pencil sword fights and trying, but failing, to beat them in an arm wrestling contest.

One of the gifts we were giving out to the children were silly bands in the shapes of crosses and hearts, and so these four each received one as well. Tyler (age 7) would not leave my side the whole afternoon, and when I handed him a silly band, he automatically wanted to return a gift to me. He took off a glow in the dark giraffe band that he had found somewhere, muddied and ragged, and put it around my wrist. I still cherish it.

            He wanted me to follow him as he climbed up the monkey bars, showing off to impress me. He was so desperate for love and attention, he only wanted someone to tell him that he was strong, brave, and worth something. As he flipped around the monkey bars, I saw the bottom of his shoes. They were spattered with holes the size of quarters. My heart broke as I later found out that he and his brother Jeremy (8) lived in a terrible area, and their mom was never around. They practically lived on the streets. 

Daniel (9) and JoJo (6), the two others with them, had no parents at all and lived with their grandmother. The four of them had been seen wandering on the other side of town alone, walking the streets that were known for gangs and street fights. Daniel believed he was in charge, and I knew that he would never let anything happen to his friends without putting up a fight, but they were still so young.

            Tyler, Jeremy, and their mother eventually visited the church where we stayed, walking two hours in the summer heat to eat a hotdog, bounce in an inflatable tent, and play basketball with people who loved them with a love from God. Tyler’s dark eyes stared in awe at me whenever I played with him, and I wonder how many people had showed him such attention before. His happiness in my company, their determination to read the Bibles we gave them, and the endurance of their friendships stirred my heart, and I broke down crying when I realized that I would probably never see them again.

            Tyler was my second nightingale.

§

           These children showed me how joy can be found despite the lack of material possessions and even the circumstances that surround us. The greatest light comes from Christ and the belief that he came to save us from our sins, and then our lives now have a purpose and are hidden with him. That is where my only hope lies, and that is the only reason why I can sing like the nightingale too.

“My soul will be satisfied with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you in my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I find joy.” Psalm 63:5-7

“By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.” Psalm 42:8

Lady in Waiting

I often read about the call to purity and the importance and beauty of marriage, and I have always loved writers such as Elisabeth Elliot. So much of my poetry has to do with the emotions that girls face continually, and the natural responses we might have to certain things like singleness and actively waiting. So here is a poem inspired by two of my close friends about something all of us girls have been through.

The Art of Patience

A maiden perched beside a pond

With tempting hook and pole in hand,
And eager eyes fixed on the line
As hook to frenzied depth descends.

A moment passed before she sensed
The shivers of a nibbling prey,
But yank too soon upon a pole
And haste will scare the fish away.

With furrowed brow she cast again
And reeled the prize with wiser ways,
But as she reached to grasp its fins,
It deeply pierced, and swam away.

The tears welled up, but soon dissolved
When stronger beast strained on her line,
She longed to see a fish at last
But only found sea-weed entwined.

All patience left her fervent heart
And sobbing to the ground she fell,
But soothing voice within her soul
Did bid her wait to see all well.

So trusting in the Sovereign Voice
To move the hook in purposed path,
She sat in silence looking up
And patience brought her fish at last.