The Letter Song

(Intro)

Let me write you a letter

Explaining all I need to say—

It might not make sense now,

I don't expect it to today.

But I've stuck it in the mailbox

And I'm shipping it away,

Because in that little envelope 

Is what's causing the delay.

(Instrumental)

(Verse 1)

Dear Friend.

This day reminds me of last year,

We played pretend.

It's another day I lost to fear

Oh Lord, if I have ever failed

Let me know at least that you prevailed

(Chorus)

You've got my doubt wrapped up

In the palm of your hand, the palm of your hand

And all of my fear

It's weird

But I know you're here

God I'll never give up

I'll never give up again.

(Instrumental)

(Verse 2)

Dear brother,

I've never known how to explain

To some other

Why I never said it to your face

Three little words, I love you

Brother, did I ever really show you?

(Chorus)

(Bridge)

When you read these words of mine

I hope you know that it's all right

Oh Lord, if I have failed tonight

God please assure me it's all right. 

"And all at once the crowd begins to sing

Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing

Are the same."

-- The Fray

School starts in less that two weeks. Senior year, can you believe it? And then what: the rest of our lives. The rest of my life, the beginning of everything I dream about, the end of what I know, the adventure that erupts with a cloud of graduation and slowly fades with time into glittering memories. Does that sound sentimental? And it hasn't even begun yet! 

I look at it with eager anticipation. This year will be different. The road may be the same but I've got a new spring to my step. I refuse to see it as monotony but to expect it with joy, and accept its stresses with an easy laugh as I learn to put my faith into Christ like never before. God, I can feel you working in me! It's like an unveiling. Of course, what I understand now is nothing to what you would want me to understand; how much I know of you is miserably tiny in comparison to what you could teach me; my faith is lacking on the scales of your expectations, but I grow! Oh, Father, I can grow. So please, beautiful Lord, grow me closer to you, and also to the believers around me, so that I may experience for your glory what it truly means to fellowship with the Body. And as my fellowship with others who seek your face strengthens, let us continually be an encouragement to one another, let us love one another fully, and let us not succumb to pettiness or feel the need to please others, as it takes away from us fully focusing on your will. Lord, allow us to truly become the body of Christ! Not an institution! 

"Institutionalism breeds task-based friendships. As long as you're on the same task together, you can be friends. When you're not, people tend to treat you like damaged goods. Now you know what that's like from the other side and one of the big things Jesus is doing in you now is to free you from the game, so that you can live deeply in him rather than worrying about what everyone else thinks about you."

  --So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore, Jake Colsen (great book! check it out! whether you love going to church or not, it's really eye-opening)

Oswald says (2):

The Holy Suffering of the Saint

    "Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good..."— 1 Peter 4:19

Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God's will— even if it means you will suffer— is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God's will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. And no saint should ever dare to interfere with the lesson of suffering being taught in another saint's life. 

The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. But the people use to strengthen us are never those who sympathize with us; in fact, we are hindered by those who give us their sympathy because sympathy only serves to weaken us. No one better understands a saint than the saint who is as close and as intimate with Jesus as possible. If we accept the sympathy  of another saint, our spontaneous feeling is, :God is dealing too harshly with me and making my life too difficult." That is why Jesus said that self-pity was of the evil (see Matthew 16:21-23). We must be merciful to God's reputation. it is easy for us to tarnish God's character because He never argues back; He never tries to defend or vindicate Himself. Beware of thinking that Jesus needed sympathy during His life on earth. He refused the sympathy of people because in His great wisdom He knew that no one of earth understood His purpose (see Matthew 16:23). He accepted only the sympathy of His Father and the angels (see Luke 15:10). 

Look at God's incredible waste of His saints, according to the world's judgment. God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places. And then we say, "God intends for me to be here because I am so useful to Him." Yet Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of the greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be. 

http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php