Pipoka’s blog

Forrest Gump

Sep 27, 2009
Post a comment

...is officially my favorite movie. I just finished watching it and it is the most intensive movie that I have ever seen. It touched me in the deepest parts of my life. It's amazing to see life through the eyes of an innocent but not so innocent man. It inspired me to be inspired by my life. To carry forth my destiny and what I was created to be. To not be afraid to be who I am. And that it doesn't matter what people say or want from you. You just have to do what you have to do.

God has blessed me greatly through this movie. It's amazing.

There is this amazing video done by some Switchfoot fans with Jon Foreman's song on this movie. It's awesome so watch it. Also watch the trailer of course.

Forrest Gump - "I Am Still Running"

Forrest Gump Trailer

Mess Of Me

Sep 8, 2009
Post a comment

The best band ever.
The best upcoming album of this year.
The best single of this year.
Three words: Switchfoot. Mess Of Me. Hello Hurricane.

Go. Now. Share. Spread. The. Word. Now. Goooo!

Here are a few words by Jon explaining the song and then watch the video to hear the song!

Lyrically the song is yearning for abundant life to spring from past mistakes. The song attempts to explore the darkest parts of the human animal and transcend them, rising above these gloomy moments to find true life. If you're Freud, you call these darker urges the death drive. If you're St. Paul, you talk about doing the things you don't want to do. Whatever you call them, these dark places destroy us if we leave them unchecked. I feel that tension everyday, between the right and the wrong, between life and death. And yet there is no easy path to freedom from self. It’s a narrow road and few find it. We've all thought about the quick fix: that special something/someone that could take the pain away. Yet the problems in my life are much bigger than any temporary solution. We die a little everyday- physically, spiritually; we are in sorry shape. Ain't no drug to make me well. Ain't no drug that can relieve me from the monster of myself. Ain't no one to blame. But my decision is made. I want to follow this through... I want to spend the rest of my life alive.

This tune has lived several lives all revolving around the guitar hook. It started out as a song called "I Saw Satan (Fall Like Lightning)" I wrote it a couple years back when I was stealing heavily from scripture. We dragged it into the studio with Charlie Peacock for a week of recording at Big Fish Studios and came out with a really great bridge. Then we wrote a new chorus, called the song "There Ain't No Drug" and built the verse lyrics around the new chorus. We made the bridge the chorus after that. (And at this point I was about as lost as you, dear reader. These are the limitations of having no limitations!) So we stepped away from this song. We knew it was a great one, we were just too inside it. When we came back to it we realized that we were really close... we just needed the final push- so we re-tracked everything at Mike's place. Tim was the champion of this tune: lifting it from one phase to the next, never giving up on the riff. I'm really proud of Tim for pushing through till the final version that ended up on the record. [source]

"Mess Of Me" by Switchfoot, new single from new album "Hello Hurricane", out November 10

Fear

Sep 6, 2009
Post a comment

Fear or anxiety. Fearing what comes next. Fearing what may or may not happen. It's very real and it's all around us. Fear can keep us from achieving what we were truly meant to achieve. The comfort that we experience within our shell is deceiving. The need that we get to always stay happy, always feel good, leads us astray. It keeps us from finding true beauty. From living truly and with more life.

72ToH94hbon0evmaug92oEVto1_r1_400

Be fierce. Be brave!

School is just around the corner...

Sep 2, 2009
Post a comment

So school starts on the 7th for me and I am in a bit of rut lol. Freedom is over which brings a bit of a depression state. But I'm determined to enjoy the last few days I have left and to enjoy the school year of course!

SO LET'S GEAR UP FOR SCHOOL! ;)

I will exalt you...

Sep 1, 2009
Post a comment

05 I Will Exalt you

Hillsong

Verse 1:
I will exalt You
I will exalt You
I will exalt You
You are my God

Chorus:
My hiding place My safe refuge
My treasure Lord You are
My friend and King Anointed One
Most Holy.

Verse 2:
Because You’re with me
Because You’re with me
Because You’re with me
I will not fear

Chorus

Verse 1

This song really spoke to me yesterday. To be able to proclaim all those things to God gives us a sense of privilige to know a God like Him. And it helps us know that because He is with us, we will not fear.

And all I really want to do is love you, a kind much different then friends use...

Aug 29, 2009
Post a comment

If It Kills Me - Jason Mraz

Hello, tell me you know

Yeah, you figured me out

Something gave it away

It would be such a beautiful moment

To see the look on your face

To know that I know that you know now

And baby that’s a case of my wishful thinking

You know nothing

Cause you and I

Why, we go carrying on for hours, on and

We get along much better

Than you and your boyfriend

Well all I really wanna do is a love you

A kind much closer than friends use

But I still can’t say it after all we’ve been through

And all I really want from you is to feel me

As the feeling inside keeps building

And I will find a way to you if it kills me

If it kills me

Well how long, can I go on like this,

Wishing to kiss you,

Before I rightly explode?

This double life I lead isn’t healthy for me

In fact it makes me nervous

If I get caught I could be risking it all

Baby there’s a lot that I miss

In case I’m wrong

Well all I really wanna do is love you

A kind much closer than friends use

But I still can’t say it after all we’ve been through

And all I really want from you is to feel me

As the feeling inside keeps building

And I will find a way to you if it kills me

If it kills me

If I should be so bold

I’d ask you to hold my heart in your hand

Tell you from the start how I’ve longed to be your man

But I never said I would

I guess I’m gonna miss my chance again

All I really wanna do is love you

A kind much closer than friends use

But I still can’t say it after all we’ve been through

And all I really want from you is to feel me

As the feeling inside keeps building

And I will find a way to you if it kills me

If it kills me

I think it might kill me

And all I really want from you is to feel me

It’s a feeling inside that keeps building

And I will find a way to you if it kills me

If it kills me

It might kill me

Even darkness must pass....may contain spoilers to Lord Of The Rings saga

Jul 11, 2009
2 comments

The past 5 years have definitely been challenging for me. The maturing process is a difficult one. Nothing guarantees that times will get better but in the midst of the hard times there is always that strength and that hope. Today I watched the second half of the extended cut of Lord Of the Rings: The Two Towers and in it Samwise Gamgee gave a great little speech that touched me very much. The scene is set when Frodo almost kills Sam because of the ring.

I transcribed it and it goes like this:

Don’t you know your Sam?”

“I can’t do this, Sam”

“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights, we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you that meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. The folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.”

“What are we holding on to, Sam?”

“That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”

I also decided to include a video. :)

Two Towers The Tales that Really Mattered

Love

Jul 9, 2009
Post a comment

Romans 12:9

^9-10Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply;

Philippians 1:9

^9-11So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of:

Ephesians 5

^1-2Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

My dream is to achieve this level of perfection. ;)

Boundaries

Jul 5, 2009
Post a comment

Today I heard an interview with William P. Young that touched me just as much as the other times that I listened to it. But I don't think I've blogged about it. Through his book (The Shack) and the interview where he talks about his life, I learned a lot about myself and could finally identify with someone.

William Young had a difficult childhood. He had issues of abandonment with his missionary parents and went through sexual abuse. All of this caused a pain so strong that he didn't know how to deal with it. Certain people go to drugs, alcohol or sex. He went to survival skills. He created a persona that was perfect on the outside. It was the only way to convince himself that he wasn't messed up. He thought he was so unfixable that he might as well just ignore it and try to be as perfect as much as he could. A series of terrible things happened in his life that shed him of his persona, very violent emotional stuff. But in the end he rose through it all and has no addictive behaviors today. Within his pain, he had no boundaries. He lived by other people's boundaries. He didn't think for himself, he just lived according to what other people expected of him. But as I said, he was able to come out of that.

I'm going through the same situation. I'm not healed yet. But our stories are similar, without the sexual abuse. I have naturally been a happy child. Hopeful. I've always questioned things and have been bizarre and happy. But many times this personality was rejected within my family. I was constantly corrected or told to be something else. My mother's unhappiness caused her to want to shield me from everything. I was stuck inside this moral box that I couldn't get out of. I wasn't aloud to explore or to know the why of things and that trapped me. The more difficult days came when I moved churches. I moved from the church I loved with all my best friends to a church that I barely connected with. Around the same time, I moved schools. All of this proved to be a major shock for my life. I felt lonelier than ever.

In the midst of the pain, I found an outlet. To fake it. I started doing things that my mother wouldn't let me do. They weren't dangerous things, but the act of hiding things from my mom was part of the façade. I needed to survive. The only way that I could was to hide who I really was from everyone. I found relief online and in music. I was myself online and when I was doing music but at school and church it was a complete façade. I suffered through ups and downs for 4 years and fell into a depression starting last summer. I was tired of playing the part of someone that I was not. Being pushed into positions that were worthy in the eyes of man but felt empty to me. And this wasn't your normal kind of depression mind you. I couldn't kill myself or think of killing myself because doing that would kill the façade that I was a perfect young girl who did everything right. So I punished myself in any way I could. I didn't like myself at all even though I faked that I did. I didn't grant myself good things. I didn't think anything was worth it in my life. I felt I wasn't worthy of anything.

God pulled me out of the depression when I realized that life doesn't revolve around me. That just because I go through bad things doesn't mean I can't live, that I can't overcome them. Some things done to me are not my problem. The pain that my parents brought to my life is not my pain, its theirs. So what do I have to do with it? I have to live my life. I have to create my own boundaries. Decide what I would do, how I would live. Not how others would want me to live.

I thank God that He has been a constant in my life. And that some of the things that I did that were tangled with survival skills are truly characteristics worthy of praise to God. Things that I have learned and will continue to practice, but this time for the right reasons. I'm still growing and learning. And its so hard. It's so hard to forgive all the pain commited against me. I can't seem to look through the pain and see the damaged person who hurt me. To see them like Jesus does. But I will continue to try.

I'm scared of being myself. I'm scared of exposing myself because I'm afraid that I will have nothing left. That all will be stripped away from me. I've been safe all my life, that's all I know. What do I do to free myself?

The best that I can do is hand my life to God. There is nothing I can DO to change my situation. I have to trust God to bring about the right experiences in my life to free me. It will take a lot of pain and a lot of mistakes. I will have to face my fears of rejection. I will have to face my family and people who have pushed so much crap and special positions and expectations into my life. I'll have to show the world who God wants me to be. Not who they want me to be.

God has been giving me the image of a meadow. Whenever I feel upset or scared, I imagine that I am a child again in a meadow, with God by my side. We walk and nothing else matters in the world but us. That's where I feel safe and where I know I can be myself. No matter how many mistakes I make, I know God will still love me for me. He won't reject me for having my personality or for having my height. He won't reject me because I didn't do the "right" thing. He just spends time with me and focuses on who I am not on what I do. I thank God that He has given me some great friends this summer through camp. People I can trust and that are helping me free myself.

God is the only sure thing in my life and I know that one day I'll be able to say "There are no boundaries! I can decide to be who I am in this crazy world! I can decide to be who God wants me to be!"

God can be that person for you. He can help free you from the world's expectations. Nothing is worse than feeling trapped in a sea of people. To feel the loneliness like a cut from a knife. Take the time to get to know who you really are and deliver that person to God. Not to your family, not to the church, not to your friends, to God. He will decide what to do with it. And believe me, what He wants will fulfill you more than what anyone else wants for you.

A cool song that kind of talks about this is a song by American Idol Season 8 winner Kris Allen.

"No Boundaries."

Kris Allen No Boundaries HQ Studio Version High Quality

Seconds hours so many days

You know what you want but how long can you wait
Every moment last forever if you feel you’ve lost your way
What if your chances are already gone
Started believing that I could be wrong
But you give me one good reason
to fight and never walk away

Coz here I am - still holding on!

Every step you climb another mountain
Every breathe its harder to believe

You’ll make it through the pain (or through all your aches and pains)
Weather the hurricane
To get to that one thing

When you think the road is going nowhere
Just when you’ve almost gave up on your dreams
Then take it by the hand and show you that you can
There are no boundaries x2

I fought to the end to stand on the edge
What if today is as good it gets
Don’t know where the future’s headed
Nothings gonna bring me down

I’ve jumped every bridge and I’ve run every line
I’ve risked being saved but I always knew why
I always knew why

[ Kris Allen Lyrics are found on www.songlyrics.com ]
So here I am still holding on
Every step you climb another mountain
Every breathe its harder to believe

You’ll make it through the pain
Weather the hurricane
To get to that one thing

When you think the road is going nowhere
Just when you’ve almost gave up on your dreams
Then take it by the hand and show you that you can

You can go higher
You can go deeper
There are no boundaries
Above and beneath you
Break every rule coz there’s nothing between you
and your dreams

Every step you climb another mountain
Every breathe its harder to believe
Yeah…

There are no boundaries
Every step you climb another mountain
Every breathe its harder to believe
You’ll make it through the pain
Weather the hurricane
There are no boundaries x3

Restoration

Jul 4, 2009
Post a comment

I just came back from a wonderful children's camp. Even though I worked in the kitchen, I still had plenty of time to bond with the children. Within then was the representation of innocence, the innocence that touched my heart and helped me grow. A lot has happened in the past few months for me that have signified defeat and trials. But through all a glint of hope comes as each day I feel more and more restored. Sometimes I feel more broken then healed but that is part of life and I know that things will get better.

I learned that though pain comes, I don't know the future so I can't claim it will always be this way. That is why I should never stop myself from doing what my heart calls me to do just because pain may be a possibility in the end.

That's how to truly live life. To live not worrying about tomorrow but living for the moment under God's protection and grace. It's harder said than done that's for sure.

Hopefully my actions will be able to equal my words.