Like A Fire In My Bones

Hello everyone!
For those of you who are unaware, I am a teacher at Christian high school. I teach four different subjects at VCS; The Life of Christ According to the Gospel of John, Chapel Leadership (Worship band for chapel), Choir, and Drama. This is right in line with what I studied in school, and since I spend so many years in youth ministry before going back to college, it really is the perfect job for me. Every single day is a true adventure.

Yesterday I took a survey in my bible classes to find out where they were at with Chapel and how they thought it could be better. It broke my heart. While they did come up with some really good objective things that we could change, and we came to a resolution to make chapel better, my students said they felt condemned, not redeemed. I have have never felt that way about Chapel, but it was clear that they were hearing something different than what I was hearing. One student actually said "The God you talk about in class and the God in they talk about in Chapel are not the same. The God in Chapel just sounds so angry." 

Oh my precious students. This is not how God feels about you.

I couldn't and cannot shake the words from my heart. And while it made me sad to hear the frustration of my students, it also gave me an overwhelming sense of purpose and protectiveness (if that's even a word). It reminded me what my job truly is. Not as a teacher, but as a Christian.  

The God in chapel and the God in Bible 10, and the God at my church are all the same God. The entire Bible being about Jesus from cover to cover means that God is about forgiveness, The Word is to point us to Hope! The Word points out that Jesus has come so that we don't have to live up to the pressure of perfection. The Word points to grace! The Word is love. The Word IS Jesus. 

Everything Is Worth It's Weight In Time

Hello everyone! Nate and I took a little day trip to the beach for Valentine's Day. Despite the fact that we already live in a place that happens to be very romantic, we needed a little getaway. Here are a few pics of the day. 

Here's to our 6th Valentine's Day together, and infinity more.

Every couple has their place they love to go, Santa Cruz is definitely ours. We've made a little tradition of going Santa Cruz for Presidents' Day weekend, it just happened to be the same weekend!

This guy. I really couldn't ask for a more wonderful husband. We have endured through a lot, and more is coming, I know it. Our day was filled with great food, grat weather, great shopping, and great first conversation about our future and our family and all sorts of great stuff. God is so good, and his timeline is perfect. Can't wait to see what these next few years have in store for us! See you soon :)

Saturday's and Succulents

It's a no makeup kind of Saturday. Nathan's away recording vocals for the kingdom album that's coming out this spring, so I'm just kinda hanging out at the house. We only have one car on the weekends, typically, so it's a good oppertunity for Bible reading, music playing, Friends DVD watching, and chore doing... The first three were already checked off the list, so the chores are all that are left. Oh yeah, I can check off one of my New Years resolutions... I chopped off my hair. 

And I Thought To Myself, "I Can Do That!"

When I was in high school, I was told by a Choir Director in passing conversation that he never gave solos to anyone who asked for one, because it meant their heart wasn't in the right place. He also said if you were good enough, you would just get asked to be in leadership/get a solo/get to lead worship. At the time I agreed, and acted in accordance with what I thought was a really righteous way of selecting leaders. This eventually formed me into a person so scared of looking prideful, I never ever put myself out there musically. This lead to me to being overlooked (not in a mean-spirited, or poor-leadership kind of way), wondering why I wasn't moving forward, then ultimately wondering if I was good enough.  I was at the point where I was thinking that maybe I had been fooling myself my entire life. My senior year of college was a time of questioning, and a lot of soul searching. 

The point of that weird anecdote is this: I was holding on to a lie, and it grew in my heart into debilitating fear. It wasn't until very recently that I began to pray in earnest for the Lord to change my heart and my thinking on this. 

Music comes very naturally to me. My piano is an extension of my arms. I can't not sing a song I know while riding in the car. God doesn't give us gifts and talents, so we can hide it away. I had a little light and I was hiding it (under a bushel...no!).

It was being at Desperation conference in CO where God really broke the chains in my heart. I had honestly thought that song "Break every chain" was silly emotional crap until then. It was watching people doing what they were obviously called to do, and doing it confidently and unapologetically. 

My stream of thought went a little like this, "Oh my gosh, Lord please forgive me, I have been so wrong. I have been so resistant, and so falsely humble.... I can do that, Lord, I'm gonna do it....(tons of crying)." 

So, here I am now. I'm not doing it on a huge stage with thousands of people. I'm not writing instant hits with viral Youtube videos. But I'm doing it. Nathan and I are writing for real for the first time. We are leading together for real for the first time. We are as poor as we were in the beginning and there is fear in stepping out...but there is provision. I guess the ultimate point of this blog is this:

There is peace in obedience, and no money can buy that.

Find You When I'm At My End

Hi Everyone!

If you follow me on the social medias, you've seen that I participated in 3-day fast with my church. I've done fasts before, and for much longer, but I've never fasted all food before. If you've never done a fast, read the Word and see what it says. God actually tells us to. Now I know why!

What a sweet thing it is to be desperate for the Lord.

That's what I took away from this fast. Besides the fact that I am in prayer for some very specific things (I'm praying about being ready to share them with you here, I should probably tell Nathan first!), the biggest take away, and the most important lesson I learned was absolute dependence on God. Depending on him to help me resist temptation; depending on Him to be my physical and emotional strength, depending on Him to help me keep going. Fasting is hard (who knew!).

I was hungry sure, but really, for the very first time, actually hungry to be near to God, and to hear from Him and really obey. I've never wanted to just read and rest in the Word like I do now. I can't say it enough, it such a sweet, sweet thing.

Could all that is lost really be found? Spiritual Resolutions.

Hello there!
Happy Friday to you! My last post was on my New Year's Resolutions, so I thought I would share  my Spiritual Resolution. I only have one, because I feel like everything starts there, and over the years, I've kind of forgotten.

Worship for real. Sunday morning worship isn't my time to intimately worship God. That sounds really awful at face value, but being on stage it's not really my job to lead myself, it's my job to lead others. So my spiritual resolution is worship God by myself. Not with our worship band, not even with Nathan. Just me, my instrument, Jesus, and my Bible. Everything starts with worship. It's not that I dont worship when I lead on Sundays, or Fridays, but there's so much more going on in my mind. Can I hear the monitors? What is the congegation doing? Are they engaged? Am I being consious not manipulate? What are Nate and Jordan doing? Who is doing announcements? Whats the song order? Whats going on with the other harmonies? When I worship by myself, all of those things go away. I know that if I start with worship, for real, for me, for Jesus, the rest of whatever it is that the Lord has will come, and whatever that is, it's what I want.

see you soon! have a fabulous weekend!

Countless Second Chances We've Been Given

Hello there everyone!! It's been way way way too long since I've updated my blog, I realize this. It's also been a very crazy time of transition life change. I kinda kept my blog up over the summer, so it's not really news that Nate and I are no longer in the Sacramento area. We now live in Napa CA. We moved in June, so we experienced the earthquake. If you saw the news on the quake you saw a lot of damage. Nate and I were spared...big time. We didn't have to move, we didn't lose anything expensive or special, and most importantly we were completely safe. It was scary, but we survived.

With the new year already in full swing, I actually have thought of a few goals I'd like to accomplish to this year! Here they are:


1. Write more songs. In my former life I was a singer/songwriter and did a significant amount traveling/performing. I'd like to do more of that. Nate suprised me by getting me the ukulele of my dreams for Christmas. I had bought a cheap one online so I could learn to play, but the one Nate got me is so beautiful and sounds so much better. They're also a lot easier to travel with than a Piano; which is my primary instrument. I've been playing for about a month now... I'm okay. I'd really like to get super good. As you can see, Oscar is way impressed with my rendition of "Rainbow Connection".

Nate an I did some recording this year. This has been an awesome addition to our married life. Being creative together has helped us learn stuff about each other we didn't know before. It's been really fun, and challenging writing and playing together. I've never wanted to punch someone I loved in the face before :)

2. Take more pictures!
I found an old Polaroid land camera in my Grandma's stuff after she passed away this past year in November. I also found this little green camera at an antique store. I wasn't sure if it worked or not, so I did a research and bought some film for it. Turns out this little camera is broken, but it sparked a new interest/hobby in vintage cameras and film photography. Don't expect any "Parrish the Thought Photography" instagram account or anything, but I do need to get better at taking pictures of stuff that matters,

3. Get a hair cut. A real one.

This is a screenshot of my iPad. It has taken me 5 years to grow my hair to this length from a close-cut pixie cut. I've endured the shaggy Justin Beiber phase (featured here). I venteured away from my very trusted hairstylist and received one of the WORST haircuts ever, and recovered. 

Sometimes my long hair looks awesome, like this:

but usually it's really dirty and gross and looks like this:

The truth is, I really just don't have the time necessary to have long hair. Not to mention that my hair just isn't healthy, and it needs to start over. I'm thinking bob with baby bangs.  It would be easy and still way stylish. I dont know. But my goal is to get a significant cut. I like this one... we'll see...maybe not so short. See, there I go.

4. Blog more. This has been my goal for a long time. I love Parrish The Thought. I know it doesn't really seem like it. But I do. I don't have a lap top or the internet, so finding time and resources is hard. But I think if I were to have a lap top it might be easier to get this kind of thing done.

Anyways, lots of new things on the horizon. New music, new hair, new... everything! I have spiritual goals as well, but that is post all it's own. See you soon!