The Psalms: 27 | Safe

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation,
or distress,
or persecution,
or famine,
or nakedness,
or danger,
or sword?
As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No,
in all these things
we are
more
than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am
sure
that neither death nor life,
nor angels nor rulers,
nor things present
nor things to come,
nor powers,
nor height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to
separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:35-39 ESV)


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For he will hide me in his shelter

in the day of trouble

(Psalm 27:5 ESV)

Safe
Paul David Tripp

I am safe,
not because I have no
trouble,
or because I never experience
danger.
I am safe,
not because people
affirm me,
or my plans always
work out.
I am safe,
not because I am immune from
disease,
or free of the potential for
poverty.
I am safe,
not because I am protected from disappointment,
or separated form this
fallen world.
I am safe,
not because I am
wise
or strong.
I am safe,
not because I deserve
comfort or have earned my
ease.
I am safe,
not because of
money
or power,
or position,
or intellect,
or who I know,
or where I live.
I am safe because of the glorious mystery of
grace.
I am safe because of the presence of
boundless love.
I am safe because of
divine mercy,
divine wisdom,
divine power,
and divine grace.
I am safe,
not because I never face
danger
but because You are 
with me in it. 
You have not given me
a ticket out of danger.
You have not promised me
a life of ease.
You have chosen to place me in
a fallen world.
I am safe
because you have given me
the one thing
that is the
only thing
that will ever keep me safe.
You have given me
You.

I am safe from my evil heart and this shattered world,
not because I can escape
them both,
but because in the middle of
temptation and trial,
danger and disappointment,
sickness and want,
You give me everything
I need to
fight temptation
and avoid defeat
and point others
to the safety
that can be found only in You.

So I will wake up tomorrow
and face the anxiety
of not knowing
the fear of my own weakness,
and the reality of the fall
I will live with
faith
courage
perseverance,
and hope.
An when danger comes,
and it will
I will whisper to
my weakenng heart,
"Emmanuel is your shelter;
you are safe."

EMS Academy

Checking off goals,
crossing off the bucket list,
whatever you wanna call it,
I have the feeling that 2013 is going to be filled with it.

Since my early highschool days, I've been interested in emergency care- working with a outdoors girls program, keeping up my CPR certification religiously, hanging out with paramedic/emt/firefighter/lifegaurd friends- and have always wanted to pursue taking an EMT course. The timing never seemed to work out. Not until this spring.

For the past 8 weeks I've had the great privilege of studying emergency care with Saint Paul Fire Department's EMS Academy. We're about half way through the program, with 8 more weeks to go, but I'm loving it so far. Loving the people, loving the culture, loving the concepts. It's weird but I think I love emergencies. And people.

I've been blown away by the human body. Things I once thought were 'simple' -respiration, circulation, sleep, the fact that I have bones holding me together- have now become some of the most complex ideas to me- miracles, really.(Respiration is currently one of my favorite things to talk about. Why? Because it's crazy, that's why.) The human body is a masterpiece.

There have been a few moments, over the past months, where I'd lean back from my anotomical perch over my 1283 page text book, breathless.
"Is this even real?" I'd ask, after studying anatomy and physiology. I'd look down at my hand, take a deep breath, check the pulse at my wrist, just to make sure that I wasn't kidding myself.
I'm alive.
I can't believe I get to have a body and to be alive.
It's breathtaking, God's design of the body. Our bodies are perfused with His name and it is beautiful.

God is beautiful.

And he's really, really real. He's not real as an idea is real, he's really real. Like my hand is real. Except even more so, and in a different, better way. And he's making me real.

Below are a smattering of photos from class and beyond.
Keep it real.

"All my bones shall say, “O Lord, who is like you..?” Ps.35

A motley group of new emergency-esque friends? Check.
Love this life.

Variations on a Theme: Death VI / or / Beginnings, Glory

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

(John 1:4-5 ESV)

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We are sorrowful, yet rejoicing for Grandpa Tom Clawson, an honorable man. 
The door on which he knocked his whole life opened at last:1931-2013

"For anyone who says yes to Jesus, For anyone who believes what Jesus said

For anyone who will just each out and take it, then God will give them this wonderful gift: 

To be born into 

a whole new Life

To be who they really are

Who God always made them to be-

Their own true selves

God's Sons and Daughters" -JSBB

"We have good fathers, you and I" (Painter Alfred Manessier to his friend the actor Charles Laughton. Chartres Cathedral, 1959)