simple smiles

guilty 

guilty of coveting the girl on my media 

her hair, her clothes, her smile

her quirky little captions and the places she goes

i throw myself into her cute shoes

pretend that her friends are mine and wonder what it'd be like to be her

to live a day in her seemingly picture perfect world

...

but then i wonder

how many girls

look at me

and say the same things?

do we have an unending circle

of wanting to be each other?

what if we learned to love our own lives?

the off-camera moments of

the loud car rides

the undocumented laughter and love

do we take those moments for granted

just because they're not cropped and edited?

we plaster ourselves with a 'melancholy' label

because we didn't go see that band

or capture the right angle

but the truth is: life is messy

your life deserves to be enjoyed

not filtered

take pictures

but take them of sunsets going 80 down the freeway

of yourself, laughing over a stupid joke

 of your friends and your family

so what if your life is simple?

it's simply beautiful

no one except you gets to experience your life

so turn off the screen

and smile a little wider

cut loose and dance

but most importantly

don't forget that you are the only you

and no one can take you away

----------------------------------------------------------

just some thoughts i've had on my mind! love you all! <3

-jacyrayn

he holds me

i woke up with voices in my head

telling me to go back to sleep

telling me i wasn't worth the fight

telling me i was falling to pieces

'you're never going to be any better than you are now' they said

'you're too far gone for Him to make anything out of you' they said 

but when i figured out 

that they were just voices in my head 

i heard you said 

'i have you in the palms of My hands' 

fighting our battles

{P.S. I'm not dead!}

There I was: ice cream pouring down my hand in what felt like slow motion as my eyes were glued to the screen in my mom's typical white mini van. I was captivated by Narnia, the movie I had seen a thousand times over but this time, held meaning for me. This time, I saw something I had never seen before, and the tears were unknowingly rolling down my face.

Peter, the eldest boy of the Pevensie family, heard wolves. 

Aslan and His men were standing right beside Peter the whole time, and Peter had just been taught that he needed to fight with his new found courage.

So then, the wolves came.

Peter quickly rushed into the woods, the army right behind him, sword drawn and ready for battle.  As he goes to fight, Aslan does something incredible. He holds back His army and says "keep your weapons, this is Peter's battle."

The king and his army were right there, watching His every move. Aslan had even put down one of the wolves for him, but still He held back and let him fight his own battle to learn a lesson.

Now that I've rambled on about Narnia, what does this mean? 

I saw the movie when I watched the scene, but at the same time, I saw me.

I was looking face to face with my own life. 

I'm sitting there holding my sword looking at my life battles and trying to fight them, but sometimes I falter. Sometimes I get overwhelmed; my sword feels heavy and my feet are tired and I don't feel like I can quite push on. I feel alone in my constant struggles and battles. It feels like wolves, my struggles, just might overcome me. I feel like one misstep and I will lose, the wolf will win, and I'll be lost. 

But what I don't see, is my mighty lion of Judah, King Jesus, standing right behind me with an army of angels watching out for me. Even typing those words brings so much hope to my bones. 

The fact that there is a God who is right there all the time, waiting to fight for me anytime the battle gets to hot is so relieving.

In that though I have to trust through the hard times. I have to realize that a rough patch could be God letting me fend for myself do that I can grow stronger and keep in touch with my faith! 

Hold that close to your heart, dears.

Your Creator is there ready to fight your every battle when you can't seem to move on.

When you can't seem to hold on, He'll pick up and fight for you.

When you feel like you're falling apart, He will hold you together.

I love you guys.

-jacyrayn xo

seasons of change

change, changing, changed.

A junior in high school and those three simple words in different forms still seem foreign.

They crawl around the back of my mind, pulling on the what ifs. 

I push off the thoughts and cling to what I know, but I know that the change, the impact, is coming for me. 

"I don't want to move to Georgia"

"I don't want to quit dance"

"I'm not ready to grow up and have relationships"

"I don't want to leave my friends"

All this change, these possible life moments and unknowns looming around my conscious.

When did I tie my own wings to the ground and say I wasn't allowed to fly further than the leash I put around my own neck?

Fearful of the grass I can't see because I limited myself to a four by four patch.

I put up a wall around my heart, my 'comfort zone' wall. It's filled with the same places, faces, and smells. It hardly ever changes and if there's a bump, I jump over it and keep going.

When I reach the wall I silently note, 'no need to go further, JacyRayn, you are doing just fine right here'.

So I don't.

I stay right there in the same place around the same people in the same places.

---

What I never noted though, was with this exile of change in my life, my heart grows cold and numb. It can no longer help the new people who need the warmth and love of Jesus to fill their holes to the very brim. The wall does not allow for me to overflow on to bare soil and wait for the new to grow.

When you limit yourself to the same grass, it stops growing eventually, and withers.

"There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:
    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
    a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
    a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
    a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
    a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
    a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. "  

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8;11

There's a reason that the farmer moves his cows and horses from one field to another.

It's not because he wants them to be shocked by the change of atmosphere or because he just feels that they got too comfortable in the other one; it's because he's taking care of them and wants them to be well fed. He cares about their well being! 

God does not bring change out of hate or 'because He feels like it', He does it out of love, my friends. 

I am learning that while change can be unnerving and reckless, when you take yourself off the lead rope you receive freedom. Freedom comes with responsibilities, but wouldn't you rather be free to experience life from every point aside from just one? 

Keep your love, amigos.

-jr xx