I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt; open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! With honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.

once in a very, very long while, sitting at home wrapped in a blanket alone with your Bible, a journal, and a pen is better than trotting off to church — especially when that Bible hasn’t been cracked open since last Sunday, and the journal hasn’t been written in since August.

that is going to change. a humble thank-you to kyleigh, eddie, and matt, for unfailingly (and sometimes unconsciously) pointing me to Christ.

For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee.

it’s been a long weekend. friday brought much (sober!) singing and dancing at fibbers followed by a sleepy powwow in claire’s room during which i showed aodh how we mysterious females actually manage to wrap our wet hair up in towels. (he’d always wondered.) on saturday, we had quite the adventure, clambering up five flights of spiral wooden stairs to metalworks, where, wide-eyed and giggling, we signed our lives away and trooped into the immaculate, mirrored piercing room. i wriggled back onto the bed and gordon answered all my many questions before swabbing my skin and proceeding to make one of my more clandestine life goals a reality. the best part was telling the horrified angie that it didn’t hurt a bit … while having a two-inch-long needle stuck through my lip. next, she was in the hot seat bravely getting a much more painful piercing – on both ears! minutes later we ran out to show claire our new babies: lower right labret (to be replaced by a thin ring) and right and left tragus, respectively. her adventure got postponed ’til monday because the shop closed before she could get her tattoo, but we celebrated anyway by watching one of angie’s cheesy horror flicks and consuming vast amounts of haribo starmix gummies. aodh came over to tell us we were smelly, and stayed to propose to claire with one of the haribo rings (they’re going to marry each other when they’re 40 if they haven’t met anybody else by then.)

and today has been filled with reading, praying, writing postcards, listening to josh groban, and cleaning the bathroom. which i am thoroughly prepared to defend — along with washing dishes — as a suitable sabbath activity.

earlier i was struck by psalm 82:5, “all the foundations of the earth are out of course.” after hearing about the earthquake in pakistan, it seems all the more true. our world is broken — and lately, it seems to be breaking more, and more quickly. sometimes it’s hard to trust that God really does have everything in control. especially hard, i think, to sit here saying “praise the Lord” when i haven’t actually been affected by the disasters. but i say it, regardless: praise the Lord, for He does know, and He does care, and He will work through all this seeming madness. i’ve used the word “seem” three times in this paragraph; praise Him for knowing the reality.

Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of Thy countenance. For Thou art the glory of their strength; and in Thy righteousness shall they be exalted.