Playlist For the Week: Going to the Nordic Countries

This week, since I watched Vikings on History Sunday night, I have been PUMPED about my Scandinavian heritage and my calling to Sweden and the Nordic countries!  So this week, I comprised a specific playlist that contains mainly music from the different Nordic countries - most of the music is not traditional, but more or less popular in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Greenland, and maybe the Faeroe Islands...  I have also added a few non-Nordic songs that are more reminiscent of Norway and Sweden and the history they have in the world.  First, this is a minute long, it's the intro to the Vikings series on history, it is so... indescribable how awesome this intro is:

So here is my playlist for the week:

1. Sail by AWOLNATION
2. Radioactive by Imagine Dragons
3. Riverside by Agnes Obel
4. Do You Remember by Ane Brun
5. Tidens Gång by Taken By Trees
6. Heartbeats by The Knife
7. Kill Your Heroes by AWOLNATION
8. If I Had a Heart by Fever Ray*
9. What Have I Done by Anna Ternheim
10. I Follow Rivers by Lykke Li
11. Everybody Else by kill your darlings
12. Reaching Forward by Those Dancing Days
13. Wapas Karna by Taken By Trees
14. Brother Sparrow by Agnes Obel
15. Black White & Blue by Ladyhawke
16. All Saints Day by The Silent Comedy
17. Remain Nameless by Florence + the Machine
18. Keep the Streets Empty For Me by Fever Ray
19. Hang Me Up To Dry by Cold War Kids
20. Youth Knows No Pain by Lykke Li
21. Wolf & I by Oh Land
22. No Light, No Light by Florence + the Machine

*Theme song from series

Enjoy this playlist and I hope you're able to catch the second episode of the series on History this Sunday night at 10/9c!  I love my Scandinavian roots!

Vikings: History Channel Series

  Last night, Sunday March 3, Frank and I sat down to watch the premiere of Vikings, a History Channel series about the vikings of Scandinavia before the voyaged west.  The time period is 793(?) A.D. and through the lens of a family system, we see how vikings actually conducted themselves in day-to-day life.  Most people see vikings in their minds as brutal people who raped and pillaged and that was all they ever did.  However, the vikings were not the ones who wrote that history; monks of the churches in England wrote these things so that the paganized Scandinavians were in history never to be followed until all the Scandinavian countries were Christianized. So the vikings we think about are not entirely the ones that were real.

Click HERE for videos on History about the series.

  In this series, it is interesting to learn about the family and how close the family bond was.  Family was important and, while each member had his or her own job to play, every member was seen as equal.  Men and women could fight alongside each other.  Everyone learn how to use a sword, defend themselves, fish, hunt, and so on.  The women stayed at home most times and watched the children, the men went to their own men meetings every year and did most of the dirty work.  However, both men and women in a household could go to war and defend their family - that's how tough they were.  They defended their family.  Finally some rebels decided to move west, towards England, because food and land were growing short in the Scandinavian country.  Frank notably pointed out that Rollo, the brother of the main character, was a real historic figure: he was the ancestor of the Normans in France who later led the Norman conquest of 1066 and took the throne of England.  Cool right?

  Something personal for me to witness is the fact that I have Scandinavian in my lineage.  While my maiden name (Greve) is German, I have many parts to my ancestral heritage.  My Granddaddy Alborg was complete Scandinavian.  Mostly Swedish, but most likely a bit of Danish (and maybe some Norwegian) to add to the mix; all of Scandinavia once ran together as one nation at one point.  It's fascinating to see how the people I am descended from lived and worked out problems.  It's one thing for me to watch something Celtic, or that took place in Ireland or Scotland where I have little or no ancestry, but to watch something I know I have thick in my blood is pretty neat. It's also cool to know that Sweden, part of Scandinavia, is where I am called together with Frank to minister to someday.  I love everything about Scandinavian history and culture and I am so excited to go there.  But in the moment, I love seeing what life was like for my very own ancestors (and I wonder if any of them were true voyaging vikings!)  Sometimes I wish I had more Scandinavian blood in me...

  Over all, Frank and I are highly captivated by this series and we really want more!! Next Sunday on History at 10pm!

I Cut My Hair Again!

Frank is having man-time with one of his friends tonight and I've already cleaned the whole house... so I decided to award myself with writing a post or two! :)  So...

I always had nice long hair:

(like my plastic cannabis plant hanging out of my bag?)

The longest it ever got was the summer after this picture was taken when it fell below the middle of my back.  Then I really looked like a hippie...

Until I graduated from high school when my hair went from below the middle of my back to right below my ears.  I got a symmetrical haircut that I do not know the name of and these are some samples of that hair:

                                

As freshman year of college went on, I experimented for the first time with color.  I went through black white and red highlights on one side, completely black, black on bottom white on top, purple highlights, bright red, dark red, after freshman year I went to dark brown:

                                   

As Frank and I started talking about marriage awhile ago, I decided to grow my hair out and color it closer to my natural color, which is where the dark brown came in.  Dark brown wasn't that bad ;)  As time went on, my hair grew back out and I began to play with it some more.  My hair is naturally very curly with medium spirals and it's really frizzy unless I put some sort of mousse or curl enhancer in it:

                        

Well wedding day came and I styled my hair close to how I wanted it for the day I got married:

   

Well literally five days after the wedding, we had been back from the honey moon for only one day and I looked in the mirror and said, "ENOUGH!" I had been waiting for almost two years to get my hair cut again!! And so I did:

That was my favorite hairstyle, it was an asymmetrical cut and I thought it worked really well for me!  However, last Saturday one of my friends and I made plans to go to the hair-cutting place to shape up our hairdo's.  Before we left, I found a picture of the hairstyle I wanted!  And after leaving the hair place, this is my hair now:

What do you think!?

It's definitely different, and I've never parted my hair on the left side of my head.  It's been parted on the right since I was 9 years old.  (Just so it's known: when you take a picture of yourself with a YouCam, it turns the picture backward...)  This is THE shortest I have ever gone before and this is such a strange new way to style my hair! I'm still experimenting withe styling it, and I think I might go blonde... I guess we'll see!

Taking a Short Bloggy Break

I have been feeling the urge to blog a LOT lately...  In the past 13 days, I have posted 14 blog posts.  This one is the #15 in 13 days.  I have gotten to the point where I sit in front of my computer for a few minutes at a time waiting for an idea to come to my mind for a blog.  I sit in class and write down blog ideas as I listen to the prof, and so on.  I love blogging... I love writing new posts and sharing my view of the world with the world.  This is surely one of my favorite past-times, but when you spend so much time focused on it even when you're not around it... you need to take it easy.

I decided that I will not blog this weekend, and I will probably allow myself to get back on Blogger by Monday.  It is a short break, but I think even a short break will help regulate my life so that I constantly don't   sit around waiting to blog and whatnot.  It ain't healthy.  A few days gives me a break from the Blogger world and allows me and encourages me to get things done around the house, hang out more with my husband, focus on my studies.  The weekends are the best time for these things and so I will start again next week.  However, I might possibly even wait longer than just Monday depending on how much air I can breathe between now and then.  In the meantime, here are the blogs I run and operate and write for:

The Brightest Lights
- This is my main blog which you will always see more of.  I write about everything on this one and there are blogs about spirituality, politics, and even enormous mushrooms.
The Craft Room
- This is my craft blog; I post on here between 2 and 4 times a month with ideas for crafts and documented crafts that I have completed.  Some of them include tutorials.
the trend setter
- This is my most recent blog that I created, actually, earlier in this week.  This talks about my day-to-day fashions and likes and hobbies because I seem to always find the next trend before it becomes the big trend...

So even in my absence, please feel free to enjoy what I have been writing about or learn something new... Get what you can from my blogs :)

One more thing: thank you to all of you who read my blogs for prayer, thank you for your prayers to Our Father asking Him to help me.  I received the most amount of pageviews in my blogging history for those two posts.  It's not so much the numbers there that mattered to me, it was the fact that I asked for prayer and so many of you took the time to look and see how you could intercede in prayer for me.  I truly appreciate that.

Until sometime next week!
-Jessica

I Feel For Poor Wylie

  Since the start of this new semester, Frank and I have been noticing with full regard how tiring it is to work, go to class, do homework, hang out with a friend or two, and work on the beginning of a marriage!  It's a blessing and a challenge, but it's definitely a challenge worth working through.  One of the ways that we make time for each other (because there are quite a few things we have decided to do with each other regularly!) is have what we like to call: Looney Tunes Lunch!  Every day around 11 or 11:30, we come home from classes and make lunch.  We then sit down to watch the classics of Looney Tunes.

  Through this time we have together throughout the week, we have bonded over one thing: poor Wylie Coyote.  The poor fellow tries everything - everything - and never gets a chance to win :(  He really tries...

Poor guy...

            All he wants to do is catch the Road Runner.  That bird is a jerk.... And something interesting I learned from somewhere recently is that in reality, coyotes are faster than road runners by tens of miles!  Why can't he catch that darn bird!?

Point is, rent is too darn high for that poor dog.  I feel for him, he needs a break.  And think: all the money he spends on the Acme stuff that always gets him blown up could be going towards a nice fancy road runner dinner at a nice restaurant.

Really Big Mushroom!

You guys! Look at this really big mushroom!

Do you remember the time I posted about that beautiful rusted chair swing from my mom's house last summer?  This is from that same photo shoot!  This mushroom was out near the road at my mom's house, again I found it while we were doing yard work there over the summer.  I could not believe the size of this things! it was easily a foot across and about 9" wide! That's huge! It looks like there are two or three mushrooms, yes, but in actuality you're looking at three heads coming out of the same stem that's as big as my wrist!

So maybe this isn't that fascinating to most of you... but I thought it was so cool!  It's a huge mushroom!

Up-and-Coming Artist To Know: King Charles (not the real one)

  Something I love to do in my spare time is find new undiscovered-by-the-mainstream music.  It's not something I do to uphold some self-prophetic 'hipster' front which I don't have, but because I have always enjoyed music that only I know about.  So... often in my explorations, I come across some really cool people who deserve some sort of limelight, even if it's not the limelight.

  Recently, I discovered a creative English-man who goes by the pseudonym "King Charles."  His real name is Charles Costa and after studying sociology, he returned to London, his home, where he began to pursue music.  Since then, in short, he came to the States and landed himself a record deal!  He's a talented musician, playing the cello, piano, and the guitar.  He has toured with the likes of Laura Marling and Noah and the Whale - both great music groups!  One thing leads to another and tada!

He's definitely a strange character, but an earnest one at that.  Notice, you may recognize some of the folks in his video above; he's in good cahoots with Mumford & Sons and have actually collaborated with them in a song called "Brightest Lights" - which just happens to be one of my favorite songs right now, and the reason for the name of this blog!  They toured together in this past year.

So basically, this is a guy I recommend to get to knowing!  I have a feeling that, even in some small way, we'll be hearing more of him if we aren't already ;)

The Dead Church

  It scares me how lonely I can feel at church...

This is how it feels when I'm at certain churches,
and I know I'm not alone in this feeling...

Not just one or two churches, but any given church.  I don't care what message you believe your church to have, there will always be someone who does not belong.  Someone who feels alone.  Someone who is truly there to worship, but all they see are plastic souls around them.

What brought this on?  I have attended quite a few churches in my life time.  Starting in the Midwest, I have seen the best and worst of the Lutheran church, the Episcopalian church, the United Methodist Church, the Anglican Church, and now an Evangelical contemporary church.  I have visited Baptist churches, Presbyterian churches, non-denominational churches, Pentecostal churches, AME churches, among others, and the same facade is with each of them.

Children don't need to be pacified, but encouraged to
experience God on their own.

While I was in church yesterday, I sat at a different place than normal, near the back.  My church has over a thousand people in it, it's contemporary, it's evangelical and mission-minded.  All great things to accommodate the growing Church world-wide.  However, I got a glimpse of what too many people are like in every church I have ever attended: they look dead.  I can almost smell the decay on their souls as they stand, hold the bulletin, look at the preacher, look at the words on the screen, go through the motions, and never once appear to be moved by any of it.  They open their Bibles with the help of the index and never even follow along with the Scripture as it's being read.  These same people leave immediately after the sermon ends, slipping out the back as the rest of the church sings a song and prays, but they leave so they don't have to wait for the crowd that's about to swarm out.

These same people are in the church I was a part of before I got married.  There were great people there, but there were fathers who made their children go to church because it's what you do on Sunday morning.  They would open the hymnal to whatever song was to be sung, but looked directly at the front, not paying attention to anything the song was saying.  Same thing with the mothers, they would supply their children with crayons and things to color (or even their iPhones) so they would stay content while they listened to the sermon.  Again, these same people would get up right before the end of the service so they wouldn't have to beat the traffic out in the parking lot.

Good grief! What is more important!?!?!  A relationship with God? Or getting back home asap!  Getting to know our Christ and Savior even more than we think we already do? Or keeping our kids content, not showing them the true value in opening your heart and mind to what God might say to you?

I feel sometimes like there are people who keep looking
forward at the church and the finances, but very few
members of the Church look to God for any real reason.

Sometimes I even feel like the churches I have been to are more focused on the finances and keeping a budget and using their money wisely, and they'll let others do the "reaching out" part for them.  I started a college ministry out of one of my old churches.  I started it, organized events, lead Bible studies and so on.  When others would say anything about it, it would be "good job! we're glad someone has stepped up to take that position!" But when I'd ask for help or for someone to take over and continue it, everyone would just smile and say, "God will provide someone."  True, He would, but if God provides someone who refuses to listen... what's going to happen?

I came close to tears yesterday as I stood behind people like this who stood emotionless while songs of utmost praise were being sung to the Lord.  They looked directly at the pastor during his sermon and never flinched until it was time for them to exit the church discreetly so they could beat the crowd out of the parking lot.  Even in a church that feels so much more alive than the others I've been to has so many dead people in it!  What is wrong with our Church!?  Why do we have so many people like this??  Is it because of the fathers and mothers who, for decades, have been pacifying their children, never really implementing how Jesus saved us from an eternity of death??  So the trend continues? It's more important to beat the crowd out of the parking lot and get home quickly so you can eat and watch a game than it is to spend only a few extra well-spent minutes in prayer asking God to forgive you for all you've done to hurt Him?

I have heard the argument before that, "everybody worships in their own way," and I have never doubted that.  I agree with that and recognize it.  But there's a difference between "worshiping in your own way," and "not worshiping at all."  Whatever is going on in one's soul is between them and God, but for goodness sakes, if the power of the Holy Spirit was actually moving through you, we'd be able to tell!  It's not something you can just hide!

Maybe I'm just ranting passionately about something that has truly been bothering me, but I felt so alone yesterday as I stood there, praising God for all He has done, and I look around and there's no movement - not even any lips moving or a recognition for the beat of the music, nothing.  Every time there was an important part in the sermon, I saw phones being looked at for the time, and little chatting and whispers every few minutes.  If it wasn't one thing, it was another, and it broke my heart.

That boy will make a difference for the Kingdom
of God.

I can say, there was one boy in the first service I went to.  He sat two rows in front of me, he was there with his mom and he wasn't more than maybe 16 years old.  I could feel how God was molding him just by watching the way He recognized God on his own.  He wasn't flailing his arms around and shouting louder than everyone, he wasn't dancing along to the worship songs, he wasn't doing any of those stereotypical things that people think of when they hear "truly worshiping." He was giving his solemn recognition to God by talking to Him.  He was using the words of the song as his song to God.  He was praying and his hands were open, offering himself to God.  And he was different from everyone else around him.

In that moment, I felt that there was hope for the future of our Church - the Body of Christ.  I felt that God was still working in us and through us, and He is bringing His Body to life one person at a time.  I remembered that, in one way I am supposed to worry about the dead souls around me - even in church.  I remembered that, in another way, I was supposed to worship the God I feel so hurt for and let Him handle the rest.

The reason I started this whole rant today is because it's something that consistently bothers me.  Everyone feels differently about it, but for me, I can't stand it.  I want to see the Chruch awakened completely!  I feel like the Body of Christ is still sleeping.  Think: when you're body sleeps, certain functions shut down until you wake up again in the morning.  Well the Body of Christ has not experienced the morning yet!  So many are alive and active, while most of the Body's counterparts are still asleep, waiting for the pons to wake them up.  Pray for our Church, for the world-wide Church, every denomination, every perosn and every Seeker to come awakened to the life Christ has to offer for the Body!  Let His presence reign over all the earth and let His work in the world truly start through us - a not-dead Church.

He Reigns by The Newsboys

Some Updates To My Blogs!

For those of you who have been reading through the blogs I post (as often as I can) I have started reaching out in need for a change of scenery.  I have been able able to locate a neat little site online that builds customized blog backgrounds, headers, buttons, post things, you name it - they've made it.  I started looking through, thinking that I already liked the way my blogs looked, until I cam upon two or three that I really liked!  So tada!  Here it is!  Check out the new faces of my blogs:

The Brightest Lights
The Craft Room

The content is still the same, but I think I might mess around a little and change it up from time-to-time ;) However, for the time being, what you see is what I like so I hope you enjoy the new Jessica-customized blog faces when you do stop by to read!

It's My 21st Birthday!

  Well I'm officially 21! Legal drinking age, I'm married, I have the blessing of a wonderful job and a healthy young family, I have all the necessities, everything I need and a little bit of what I want.  Everything is well with me and my soul.

We're getting ready for my birthday dinner!  And he's
being an absolute goof ball!

  Over the past year, I have grown a lot in the way that I see things.  I have learned the importance of my family and how much I truly love and appreciate them and where we came from.  I have grown closer to each member of my immediate family and I have also added a member to make our own family unit.

  I have learned how to communicate more effectively to people, but also how to really come to the same level of understanding my peers who feel the same hurt I do.  I have watched God move in and work through me to bring others into His comfort and give me peace in the process.

  I have truly learned even greater what it means to trust the Lord.  I have sought Him for provision and had faith that He would be faithful.  Sure enough, He provided - everything I needed and more and He continues to bless me with His overwhelming grace and mercy.

  I have received, yet again, a more specified version of my calling.  Since I have come to college, I know I wanted to serve in the mission field and work with youth.  Over the past few years, the place of mission work has been whispered to me, and the age group I will be working with has been revealed through the strengths God has blessed me with.  Now, the area of youth ministry I am called to is even more specific: counseling youth (and at-risk youth) and their families of crisis.  I have had such a growing heart of passion towards teens and young adults who need the wisdom of God to enter their life and encourage them towards the One who is the Great Physician, the Healer who has love like an ocean, and we are merely trees being caught in the welling flood of His grace.

  I have gotten married in the past year, acquired and started running a new household, gone out on my own and have been trusting God the whole way.

  I have had the best school grades since I was a sophomore in high school, and my age-old lack of self-confidence has grown - ever so slightly - over the past few months.  Even a little bit of growth is a good amount of growth.

  I have wonderful friends whom I love to surround and surround myself with.  I have forgiven even still more people from my past, and I am continuing to learn how to forgive.

  I have acquired skills from God-could-only-have-provided-this jobs in the past year and I have been able to apply these skills to all areas of my life.

  I have learned so much, done so much, grown so much, given so much, loved so much, helped so much, stayed patient so much, learned so much in the past year of my life and I am so thankful for the witness and testimony He has given me through the life He wants me to lead.  Life is still hard, I still mess up and make mistakes, I make decisions that I think are good and may not be in the end, I learn from these things, and I allow God to continue molding me into the person He needs me to be to bring Him glory.  I am the Clay and He is the Potter, and I am thrilled to see all He has in store for me this year.

  Please pray for me to face this next year of my life with a heart of open willingness to grow, with a heart softened to learn from other and grow in the Lord's Wisdom, that I have a mind open to what the Lord has to teach me and that I will trust God even more in the hard times.  Pray that I will always give credit where credit is due, learn from my experiences, good and bad.  Pray that I will never lose sight of who I am and where I came from, that the person I have become will be a witness to the people God intends for me to seek.  Pray that, as I lead my household as the wife, I would be a wise and God-fearing wife, making the best decisions I can for my family, and a good support to my husband.  Pray that I will continue growing in the ways that I have been and that the legacy I leave is not one that is shameful and shady but one that points to God and gives Him glory and honor.  Thanks for being with me and walking through life with me, and I pray that I can be an encouragement to all who know me.

In Christ Alone,
Jessica