Carry Me by Jenny & Tyler

Broken-hearted I come;

My cup is empty, my mouth is dry.
See how quickly I fall,
Burdened with darkness,
Heavy in lies.

I want to cry, but I can't;

I try to stand, but I fall down again.

I need You to carry me;
I need You to carry me;
I need You to carry me
When I am weak.

O this can't be enough
To just say I'm sorry, to confess my fault
When I've hurt You so much.
And now I am asking for You to do more.

I want to cry, but I can't;
I try to stand, but I fall down again.

I need You to carry me;
I need You to carry me;
I need You to carry me
When I am weak.

I'm always weak...
When I first met you, I drew you in close to me,
Your weaknesses covered with strength and security.
I've never left you, nor will I ever leave.
Child, believe; child, believe.

...but You are strong.
When I first met you, I drew you in close to me,
Your weaknesses covered with strength and security.
I've never left you, nor will I ever leave.
Child, believe; child, believe.

I need You to carry me;
I need You to carry me;
I need You to carry me
When I am weak.

{A message from God to humanity.}

I have this problem called sin.

I just want to talk about how good Jesus is
And how much I am not, because I keep hiding
The shame that I hate so dearly within this
Heart shaped like a flower, ready to bloom,
But I won't let it because of this paralyzing fear
That you'll judge me. And you are judging me
With pursed lips and snide eyes gazing
At this circus act that I call my life.

But I am judging you, too, because for some reason

This brain is fixated on the fact that your sin

Must be so much worse than my own, when

In reality, that is a lie straight from the pits

Of flames blazing, created by the father of lies.

Lies! I keep doing it, and I pray that God

Saves me from my deceptive tongue and

Rotting flesh, joining in His glory up above.

I just want to talk about how deserving He is
And how much I am not, because I keep falling
Away from Him, down a colliding waterfall
That somehow keeps going backwards -
Back to where the river is calm and I try
To tread above the rocky depths, gasping
For air as I slip again. But I am saved by
Someone calling my name and taking my hand.

I have this problem called sin that I hide

Because I am scared of what you would say

If you found out that I am struggling with

Something seemingly small. Well, I struggle

To find a way to tell you what is going on

Inside of this heavy heart and head that feel

As heavy as lead and a pile of fresh-cut bricks.

And it aches and wrenches at me daily.

I just want to talk about how merciful God is,
And how much I need Him, because I keep failing.
I am as broken as a mangled body that fell from
A skyscraper, and I scrape on by, as He picks up
The falling pieces of me, to place it all back to
Make me whole again. I am renewed again.
He puts me together again, even though I keep
Being broken up again and again and again.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. I don't have much time

To give this up, to fight the urge to hold in -

Hold everything back that I need to scream.

I need to get it out to you, because it haunts me,

Like some ghost in a vacated building waiting.

But I just need to say it, and will you listen?

Listen! I am trusting you to hear me out,

Somehow helping me to come to terms with it.

I just want to talk about how forgiving God is,
And how I am nothing, because I keep grazing
Grace, passing on by, realizing that He is enough
For me and for you and for the entire population
Of man, who too scrapes on by, running away
From the arms of the Savior and into the depths
Of the rest of our deprived generation that has
Yet to see the eyes of loving kindness here.

Be here now.

I'm just going to be brutally honest with you, as well as myself: I have been terribly impatient. I have been trying to make what is not yet to be to happen now. I want to be at YWAM right now, to go to school right now; I want the healing process to end and the pain to end right now, broken relationships to be mended right now; I want to be with Jesus right now; I want [insert something here]... right now. I keep wanting to speed up what has not yet come because I want to know where I'm going and what God is doing in my life. Is that wrong? Yes. Is that natural for me to feel at the moment? Yes, but it's still wrong. I must surrender that to the very God that created me. I feel as if everything that I have talked about goes back to surrender, but all things involving faith and trust usually do - heck, anything involving being a follower of Jesus Christ has everything to do with surrender.

The want to know (not need to know, because we don't need to know) what is yet to come is wired within us. I was given a book to read that I finished not too long ago, concerning God's ultimate will for our lives. What it said stuck out to me like a sore thumb: "Live for God. Obey the Scriptures. Think of others before yourself. Be holy. Love Jesus. And as you do these things, do whatever else you like, with whomever you like, wherever you like, and you'll be walking in the will of God." The author had also given evidence from Scripture time and time again, pointing to the fact that God really gives us a lot of free reign, more than we would think. As long as we are loving the Lord with all of our heart, soul, and mind, as well as our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27), keeping with His commandments, we are walking in His will. There is so much more that I learned from that book, but I won't go into that here.

I will be working full-time for the next few months in order to get to YWAM, and in the meantime I will be applying to colleges for next fall. I will be going to the Compassion DTS in YWAM Denver this coming January. If it doesn't work out for some reason or another, I will figure something else out. But all of that will come in time. While I am here, I refuse to just sit and not do anything because I'm not meant to live life that way, waiting for God to "show me the way" and speed up the process. After all, I am here, not anywhere else, and I am going to be here for the next three months. I strive to be content with where I am at, as well as patient. It is my prayer that I say this: "If the Lord wills, I will live and do this or that," as it says (slightly tweaked by me) in James 4:15. And as Ray LaMontagne would advise, I will "be here now."

"We all have the trick of saying—If only I were not where I am!—If only I had not got the kind of people I have to live with! If our faith or our religion does not help us in the conditions we are in, we have either a further struggle to go through, or we had better abandon that faith and religion."

Out of the wreck I rise.

I have been praying a lot lately about what has been going on in my life, wondering many things and asking God to lift me up. It has been difficult to feel stable when so many things have been thrown at me the last couple of weeks, attempting to knock me down, which have definitely hit me physically now. But He has promised me that I can handle this - actually, scratch that, that He can handle this.

C.S. Lewis is by far one of my favorite authors and theologians. I could just quote him all day, but he really does say some fantastic stuff! One thing that I read the other day was this: "Faith is the art of holding onto things in spite of your changing moods and circumstances." As I read this, I sat and thought for a while about if I had truly been doing that. Have I been letting my emotions and circumstances get in the way of holding onto my Rock? And when I asked myself that question, I was at fault. I had felt myself slipping quickly from the Cornerstone. I had indeed been letting all of those things get in the way, especially as of late.

Why is surrender so hard? It's hard for everyone because we are stubborn and set on the belief that I had: that we can do it on our own and that we can handle it. But what a silly thing to tell a God that has endured all things, a God that has seen it all and has helped every other person struggling with the same thing. Now, I'm not saying that it's wrong to feel the pain and anger that you may feel. I feel that way, and I'm not going to sugar-coat the fact that I am a complete and total mess, but what are we leaning on? Whose peace are we seeking after? Because He will freely give it to us. Holding onto the Rock and mighty Fortress is always a good life decision.

I have faith in His promises for me and I am still trusting His direction. I am well aware of the fact that the Lord gives and He takes away. He does everything for a reason. I may not see it at the time that it all has been happening, but He does and I must keep trusting - I must keep fighting. His grace covers me, and I do not deserve anything that He has given me in the first place. So if He takes it from my hands, then that's how it is. Everything that I ever thought was mine is truly His, including my very own heart and soul. So even in times of pain and overwhelming circumstances such as now, I am still going to praise Him, for He is always worthy. His love and grace for me will never fail and it will always be more than enough for me. I will try my best to "be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer," as I am told to be in Romans 12:12. No matter what, God has a plan and a purpose.

"You are love, Lord, 

perfectly defined.

Through the suffering or joy,

we will confide in Your perfect love.

 A mind full of questions

and a future unclear,

but Your perfect love scatters fear."


"Your plan is perfect.
Bewildering. Puzzling. Troubling.
But perfect."

Come together.

Fellowship. I have come to realize how important that it truly is. There is something so distinct about God's people joining together, so alive and vulnerable, to worship Him as one body. It just draws me in. I miss the fire - I miss that burning flame. As most of you know, I am very much a people person. I love being around people, talking with people, laughing with people... I am definitely an extrovert in the way that I feed off of other's energy and emotions. I fall in love with the passion that they have, even more so when it's the same as mine. As of the time that I got back from my first little excursion to Iowa, whenever I have been at home, I have been cooped up in my house by myself. And let me tell you, it has driven me absolutely insane - straight up the wazoo, especially because everyone is gone and I do not have a car. I don't see how some people do it; I couldn't after these next three months. But the truth is, I am lacking some extremely vital things: accountability, encouragement, and time spent with those that are at the same level as me in life.

I am just saying that we need all need community, no matter who we are. We absolutely must listen to Hebrews 10:24-25. A few months ago, the senior pastor at my home church told a story about a man that had stopped going to his church. His pastor had stopped by his abode to check on him, just to see how he was doing. The man had a fire going just before the pastor came by, because it had been awfully chilly that day. They were talking for quite some time, the pastor asking the man why he hadn't been going to church. All of a sudden he took a pair of tongs and picked out a coal from the fireplace, the man bewildered and perplexed. It took a while, but eventually the coal burnt out because it was left on its own, away from the flame. He then proceeded to tell him that he was that coal, and the rest of the fire needed him and he needed them just the same. How true is that? If we stop talking to, being around, or anything involving lack of interaction with people, our fire for God burns out and the rest of the body can feel it because they just know that something, or someone, is missing. Before you go any further, read 1 Corinthians 12:14-26 and you will see what I mean.

We are meant for community. We are not called to be separated from each other. Time and time again we are told how important the body is, and that we are united as one in Christ Jesus. The Lord wants us to be together, so why would be push ourselves away? We are the church - we are the body of Jesus, meant to come as one and be with God. And together we will worship Him for all of eternity. Just don't give up.

"If one member suffers, all suffer together;

if one member is honored, all rejoice together."

- 1 Corinthians 12:26