love story Archives - MAKE TIME FOR GOD

A Letter to the King

Published on January 24, 2020 by VelvetLeave a comment

Lord,

I love your proximity to me. I love how I can talk to you and how you listen. I love how you comfort me in your word. I love how you comfort me with your heavenly peace when I ask for it. Lord, I love how you gift us with imagination. I was imagining earlier today that I was in the mountains. I miss walking in the quiet trees and seeing the sunlight twinkle through the branches and hit different plants and flowers and leaves on the forest floor. I miss the smell of the earth with all of its’ mushrooms and twigs and beetles and birds and rocks. Lord I miss planting myself in your outdoor creation and reveling in the majesty of it. Will I go on a trip soon? I hope and pray so. 🙂

Lord I thank you for all you’re doing in my life. The world would find that I’m strangely content in all areas of my life. I am at peace. I am overwhelmed by gratitude and love and a gentle sense of Your presence with me. I clutch onto this moment and hold it close to my heart. I ask you Lord, please keep me near to you. Help me draw nearer to you day by day and not be enticed by the world and its’ revelry. I thank thee for revealing to me where true life and freedom is. Thank you for freeing my mind to choose your ways…

Lord, thank you for showing me where I have been actively rebelling against you. Where I choose to blatantly ignore the Holy Spirit as He kindly guides me and suggests the next steps to me. Steps that I have prayed for and asked for… but when I receive the instruction, I deny it outright. Foolish. I have been so foolish. I recognize this illumination as a gift. I just want to tell you, Lord, that I accept it. I want to be healthy. I want to prosper. I want to stand apart and lead others to your kingdom. I want to boast in your abilities and give you all of the glory for the work that you’ve done and the work that you’re doing in my life.

These words are for you. Your word tells me that they are from you and by you and through you too. Your word tells me that you hold all things together. Thank you sovereign God…. for holding my little life together. I could write you a list a mile long of all the things that I’m thankful for in this moment, but instead I will praise you.

Great Counselor. Almighty Savior. My Deliverer. Friend. The Christ. My Hope. My Peace. My King. My Father. Dad. The Truth. The Way. Life. Love.

Oh, what love is like this? Your everlasting love that pursues and provides despite my rebellion. Despite my mistrust and mistakes, doubts and destruction. What love is this, that you wrote my name into your book of life. My name. You wrote my name. You knew me already. You knew what I would look like. You equipped me, before I was born. You aligned the stars and the seasons and the details of everything it took to bring me to the very chair that I’m sitting in today; knowing that I would write this very letter. You already knew that I would do this. You knew that my love for you would grow over time. That I would begin to piece together who you really are.

Yet that’s just it. My knowledge of you barely scrapes the surface. Not even barely. Hardly. The only thing I know how to do is surrender. Give you everything. Please Lord, please take everything. All I have. Take me, and every facet of my life and have your way!

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord.

“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God,
and they will be my people.

No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’

because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.

“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”

Jeremiah 31:33-34

You are Faithful, Sovereign King. You are putting your law in my mind and writing it on my heart day after day. I can’t help but turn to you.

What love is this… that I should know the One who gives me sight and sound

What love is this… that He who sees my faults doesn’t cease to have me around

What love is this… that reaches every corner of every frown and promises joy.

I choose to rejoice, O Abba my KING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xoxoxo

Sense and Sensibility/Adventure

Published on October 6, 2016 by VelvetLeave a comment

If you’re into elegant love stories, Sense and Sensibility (S&S) by Jane Austen is a must-read. It tells the tale of two sisters looking for love in the midst of losing their father, fortune and familiarity/comfort of their home. Kind of rings true to my own life actually, except that I don’t have a Colonel Brandon or Edward Ferrars pining after me (read on to know the devilishly handsome blokes I’m referring to!”.

Ferrars, Brandon 😉

The story is about love, loss and the importance of waiting on the right timing for magic to happen.

My current roommate is an Austen lover and knows the story (and several other of Austen’s works) practically by heart. When I moved to Virginia in February, it didn’t take long before S&S was in my left hand and a cup of black tea with cream was in my right (also compliments of my tea-drinking-Austen-loving roommate… ps. she’s single!). My roommate, let’s call her “C” kept me accountable for reading by oh-so-innocently inquiring as to where I was in the story and what had happened last. Following each *ahem* interrogation, my feelings went from annoyance, at first, to gratitude and joy in knowing how dearly C held this story in her heart.

Not only did her joy over the story bring me joy, but it gave me a deeper sense of understanding the characters, plot-line and overarching themes in the novel. After weeks of reading the book, we were ready for the film. Of which there were two versions btw. First we watched the Emma Thompson/Hugh Grant/Alan Rickman/ Kate Winslet version (AKA the good one), and then the old sappy one (of which I don’t recall who was in it because it simply wasn’t memorable), and then the good version again. The soundtrack makes me weak in the knees just thinking about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFQ_N3mSusA

Now, six months later, C & I are ready to hit the theater. We are attending the play! in Washington D.C. this weekend. 🙂 <3 🙂 <3 🙂 <3 The seating availability online looked pretty sparse and we weren’t sure if we’d get seats. I joked that maybe when we want to order, someone will have just returned the two best seats in the house.

Twenty minutes later, I called the theater to inquire about seats and the woman working at the box office said “lucky you called when you did… I have two seats available only because someone just called in and returned them……… and they’re the best seats in the house! Orchestra, row G. Would you like them?”

…

So that was insane.

Though i couldn’t say “YES” right away because C was on the phone with a friend that was interested in coming with us. I tried to explain the seating situation to C and get her to put her friend on hold, but the lady wouldn’t stawp tawking. I had to tell the box office worker I’d call back, after asking her a dozen or more stalling questions and asking her to please keep the seats warm for us.

5 minutes later, once it was evident that C’s friend couldn’t come whether she wanted to or not, we were calling in for the seats. When the lady answered the phone I vibrantly exclaimed “It’s meeeee!!!” to which she replied, “um, I just took over a shift and wasn’t the one you were talking to”

derp

“… but I got the scoop and figure you’re calling about the two seats in G??”

phew, lol

So there you have it. We’re off to D.C. to see the play. We have the best seats in the house. Which, by the way, we paid the “Under 30” price and saved $70 between the two of us!!! (I have never heard of such a discount before, but hey, I’ll take it!)

It’s truly the little miracles that brighten life so so much. From the story, a seed, to the movie, a plant, and now to the theater, a flower… I hope you get as much ever-growing joy out of this story as we did!! <3

xov

“The Best of Me” — Nicholas Sparks movie review

Published on August 6, 2015January 20, 2016 by VelvetLeave a comment

Oh my goodness. I literally just wiped tears from my eyes before I started to write this. I am alone at home, no pants on, fluffy blanket over me. I stuffed my face with dal & pasta and turned on this heart-wrenching love story not knowing what to expect. If I had known that it was based on a story by Nicholas Sparks I would have retrieved the tissues in advance.

“The Best of Me” was a tale of two people deeply in love with each other but torn away from each other in the midst of their love due to a tragedy. Years later, they reunite and old feelings inevitably begin to bubble over the top.

Luke Bracey stars as the young Dawson Cole who wins the heart of Amanda Collier (played by Liana Liberato).

Liana & Luke

The story is told in a retrospective fashion, beginning with older Amanda & Dawson meeting, and the stirring of old memories. The viewer is taken back to when they first met each other with all of the memories and trials they shared together coming to life.

~*~

Something that totally bothered me about this film is the fact that James Marsden was supposed to be the older Dawson Cole. The resemblance is simply not there. It was frustrating.

Marsden & Bracey

As one can clearly see, they look nothing alike. Luke (young Dawson) is obviously way more dreamy. I mean come on:

Luke Bracey

Anywho, I’ll give the film an 8.5/10 on a scale of 1 to well done. The predictability factor was high but that’s because it was by Nicholas Sparks.

Check out “The Best of Me” for a soggy girls’ night in or if you feel as though your heart needs wrenching <3

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord.

“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God, and they will be my people.

No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’

because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord.

“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”