February 2012
1 post
Rediscovered this old, poor recording of mine, of...
January 2012
1 post
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known...”
– Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (via thatkindofwoman)
December 2011
2 posts
Who are You? How do you see? and what can be...
November 2011
2 posts
6 tags
“Bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured. And by the way, that is very important. Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in...
Jesus has been hidden deep within me. He has made His home in my heart - I understand what this means finally because I understand how this feels finally.
He has chosen the paint colour for the walls on the underside of my skin, hung His curtains from the windows of my eyes and moved his bed into my veins. His shoes lay by the door and His scent is down every hallway. Dusting off the...
October 2011
5 posts
4 tags
(Just some foolin around!)
Upside down. Bound....
5 tags
We really treat grace as a scarce commodity… I really treat grace as a scarce commodity… I just wondered why we’re all so distant and suspicious and fearful… I wondered why I am still so distant and suspicious and fearful. Still. After 22 years of teachers insisting I have a God I can trust, after laying alone on bedroom floors and feeling Love roll over me like ocean...
At times I’ve felt like I better worry Like...
4 tags
“You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily...
4 tags
Big Trees
colourless above me now to forget when the sky was blue within rich enough and bold as such to embarrass any brazen king
pregnant drops of rain patient as their mothers hands to suspend and wait beneath cedar trees for the sun’s warming demands
who knows about a robins nest bent twigs wound in a gutter yet there contains more life in shell than my 22 years put together
the...
September 2011
5 posts
6 tags
A Word that Unlearns & Compliments From a Father
Matthew 10:34 Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.
Romans 12:2...
“Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between “things”...”
– Thomas Merton “Everything that Is, Is Holy”
4 tags
““Jesus did not commit Himself to them … , for He knew what was in...”
– Oswald Chambers “The Teaching of Disillusionment”
Our entire life is just a series of exercises&exams on our ability to receive the Love&affirmation of God. Be aware in every situation, every encounter, the Lord exemplifying His love to you and through you - sometimes it’s all He wants to do, with no agenda, no prerequisite, no performance, no pointing out your sin, just pure and transformative love. Will you receive it in...
God
Who is more merciful? Is there anyone you have met more kind? Both gentle and powerful at once? Who is as courageous? Who takes greater risks for your love? Who else truly understands the struggles and injustices that have shaped you? Who was the first to see your young heart break between your ribcage and grieve it more than you did? And Who has given up more of Himself just to mend it - just...
August 2011
3 posts
Rumors of Hope (Psalm 116 & Matthew 5)
I can’t tell you why some people seem to coast through their life while others hit every bump in the road. I don’t know how some never break stride with their clear eyes, wide smiles and good posture, while others can’t seem to run from a plauging reality of injustices - hypersensitive to the deep rooted brokenness that started...
I spend so much time not being here. I spend so much energy being where I have not been placed.
I am convinced that sometimes all God wants from us is for us to enjoy what we have, to do nothing else but take unashamed delight in the innumerable gifts He opens for us daily. To pull your car to the side of the road and appreciate a sunset, to walk your dog along a shoreline, to eat berries right...
July 2011
1 post
A thought on FORGIVENESS.
I hope to write about this topic knowledgeably and experientially, not because I am well versed in forgiving others at all but because I have been forgiven to the highest degree. If there is anyone who is in the need of 490 7-times-a-day forgiveness, it is I. Me. Stephanie Diaz-Schumm. I hope we have all experienced the beautiful relief of Jesus’...
June 2011
2 posts
The sun is setting behind me now. The last rays of brightness hang onto the backs of leaves and drip down the sides of these duplicated houses. In the last moments of their day the sparrows skip and dive from rooftop to power line as if unaware these are in fact the last moments of their day. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds...
An anxious heart is always a divided heart. Our souls grow anxious when we seek anything other than God’s Kingdom or when we attempt to have the Kingdom and… the Kingdom plus… the Kingdom with…
“NO ONE CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS FOR HE WILL HATE ONE AND LOVE THE OTHER.” Matthew 6:24
This speaks of the strain, worry and hate that comes from divided loyalties. It...
May 2011
4 posts
“Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die. The wind blows, and we are gone — as though we had never been here. But the love of the Lord remains forever with those who fear him” Psalm 103: 15-17
“But it is wrong to say God doesn’t listen, to say the Almighty isn’t concerned. You say you cannot see Him, but He will bring justice if you will...
Evidences of Everything. Psalm 19 Matthew 18:3-4
I awoke this morning, lungs still expanding and contracting in this ribcage. Knees that bent and lifted me out of bed. Eyelids raised to reveal these irises.
The structure of a tree outside my window, tall and thick, unending in twisted branches, holding the promise of new life in its fingertips. Never taking, always giving; in relieving shade...
every thought a thought of You no more thought i...
Daniel broke the king’s decree. Peter...
April 2011
5 posts
{To preface this, I must state a Truth: God is Good and He loves us. Everything is less difficult when we get that.}
—-
Matthew 8:19-20. Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
My comforts are my...
“Isn’t God supposed to be good? Isn’t He supposed to love us? Does God want us to...”
– C. S. Lewis (via marchingtheskies)
March 2011
8 posts
“There comes an hour in the afternoon when the child is tired of pretending; when...”
– G. K. Chesterton
I always feel homesick.
In from the oceans...
“But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all...”
– Romans 13:11-14 [MSG]
“Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.” /Joel 2:12_13
This world can be overwhelming. ...
“May there be no happiness to you but Christ; no hunting for anything but Christ;...”
– Samuel Rutherford
I’ve been coming back to the book of Hosea in the Bible for the past couple weeks now, specifically Hosea 2&3; the heart-wrenching description of an unfaithful lover/unrepentant city. I wrote this as the chapter sat heavily and personally with my heart.
Gomer
Straight unlocked but crooked feet where I walked Sun, hot, all I’ve got, one hundred men in my pocket Midday beats her drum on...
Yes, I feel it too.
There is something in our culture beginning to BREAK.
I hear it stirring,
Churning,
just below the surface;
I feel its subtle pulse in the marrow of my bones.
And I see the rising tide
behind the irises of your eyes.
From this I know you’re AWAKE,
I can scrape frustration off your skin.
A cold heart missing something it’s never known?
Yes, I’m sensing it...
“Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord!” Psalm/150/6
Is it stretching to say we should not let a single breath that does not glorify His name escape our lungs? How much wasted air have I allowed to slide loosely past my lips? When will we grow tired of tainting His promise for us by inhaling the particles of this world’s lust-cloaked atmosphere?
Where I choose to breathe my own...
February 2011
5 posts
Where do words begin? Where does each letter,...
Anonymous asked: your writing is good but i liked it better when you just posted pictures of your art...
polarjelly asked: What are 3 things you would like to accomplish before you leave this earth?
“As Christians we throw around this concept...
January 2011
1 post
Where Jonah ran from the Lord - I am keeping pace behind him, when Adam and Eve covered themselves with leaves and hid under bushes - I am crouching there too.
I am a hider, I am scared and I think a lot of us tragically are. The way we hide our hearts and ourselves may be less obvious than a geographical move or a physical concealing, but it remains just as treacherous. I run to my fortress...
December 2010
3 posts
“The mind that is the prisoner of conventional ideas, and the will that is the...”
– Thomas Merton “The New Seeds of Contemplation”
I was leafing through old journals awhile back, I found this poem & scripture scrawled in one from the summer of 2005, I was 15. I think I wrote it more out of hope than out of the reality I was living at the time. I feel like I could re-write these exact words today…
—-
i watched a life, while You whispered about maps and lights into my ear. it was only after i crossed that...
Watch this video… and then watch it again. Three, even four times… it’s a lot to take in...
I have been made thankful for His persistence and constancy in my life. Where I break promises, go back on commitments or become weary and easily distracted from Him, I know His patience with me still endures. He still rises the sun for me.
We do not have to be alive in this world for long...
November 2010
3 posts
© Stephanie Diaz-Schumm
Song: Lockstep -...
Be the honey and heat in my tea
Sweetness and warmth
Supplementing me
Open my mouth, pour Yourself on in
Burning through my chest
In the best drink there has ever been
And when a coolness settles onto my cup
Bottom porcelain revealed
Light the kettle, God fill me up
© Stephanie Diaz-Schumm