What it had to be

"This life has shown me how we're mended and how we're torn 

How it's okay to be lonely as long as you're free 

Sometimes my ground was stoney 

And sometimes covered up with thorns 

And only You could make it what it had to be."

~Rich Mullins

Be with you

And may the joy of Jesus be in you

And may the joy of Jesus be with you

And may you know the joy of Jesus

And may the joys of Jesus be in you

May the grace of my God be with you

May the grace of my God be with you

May you know the grace of my God

And may the grace of my God be with you

May the love of my Lord be with you

May the love of my Lord be with you

And may you know the love of my Lord

And may the love of my Lord be with you

And may you dance and laugh and sing

May you know the warmth of His embrace

May you feel the brush of angel wings

Like the wind upon your face

May the joy of Jesus be with you

May you know the joy of Jesus

And may the joy of Jesus be with you

~Rich Mullins

At the door of God's mercy

"A ragamuffin knows he's only a beggar at the door of God's mercy."

~Brennan Manning

If God was cultured

"If God was cultured, as most Christian people wish He was,

He would be useless to Christianity.. But God is a Wìld Man. Thànk God"

~Rich Mullins

Only You could make it

Beara Peninsula, Ireland

"This life has shown me how we're mended and how we're torn 

How it's okay to be lonely as long as you're free 

Sometimes my ground was stoney 

And sometimes covered up with thorns 

And only You could make it what it had to be"

~Rich Mullins

Come to love it

Hulshorst, Holland

"Nobody tells you, when you get born here,

how much you'll come to love it but how you'll never belong here." 

~Rich Mullins

Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken

The Burren, county Clare, Ireland. With the Atlantic ocean. June 2015

My favorite landschape in the world.

"Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where
you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house
where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. 

Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor
and Jesus loved the broken."
~Rich Mullins

Our hells and our heavens

Rijskmuseum - Amsterdam
X
X
X

"We are frail, we are fearfully and wonderfully made 
Forged in the fires of human passion 
Choking on the fumes of selfish rage 
And with these our hells and our heavens 
So few inches apart 
We must be awfully small 
And not as strong as we think we are."
~Rich Mullins

Their bullets can't stop the prayers we pray

10 september 2004, 'Ground Zero', NYC

"Why do the nations rage?

Why do they plot and scheme?

Their bullets can't stop the prayers we pray

In the name of the Prince of Peace

We walk in faith and remember long ago

How they killed Him and then how on the third day He arose

Well, things may look bad

And things may look grim

But all these things must pass except the things that are of Him."

~Rich Mullins

You'll get beat up real bad

"So go out and live real good and I promise you'll get beat up real bad. 
But, in a little while after you're dead, you'll be rotted away anyway.
It's not gonna matter if you have a few scars.
It will matter if you didn't LIVE."
~Rich Mullins

Another place where you're a stranger

"And ain't it funny what people say 

And ain't it funny what people write 

And ain't it funny how it hits you so hard 

In the middle of the night 

And if your home is just another place where you're a stranger 

And far away is just somewhere you've never been 

I hope that you'll remember, I was your friend 

I hope you'll have the strength to just remember 

I'm still your friend."

~Rich Mullins

Being open to somebody

"Loving isn't about filling a void. Loving is being open to somebody,

being receiving of them, allowing what's going to happen to happen."

~Rich Mullins

You, who live in radiance

You who live in heaven
Hear the prayers of those of us who live on earth
Who are afraid of being left by those we love
And who get hardened by the hurt

Did You ever know loneliness
Did You ever know need
Do You remember just how long a night can get?
When You were barely holding on
And Your friends fall asleep
And don't see the blood that's running in Your sweat

Will those who mourn be left uncomforted
While You're up there just playing hard to get?

I can't see how You're leading me unless You've led me here
Where I'm lost enough to let myself be Led

And I know you bore our sorrows
And I know you feel our pain
And I know it would not hurt any less
Even if it could be explained

And I know that I am only lashing out
At the One who loves me most

~Rich Mullins

Truth that goes beyond

"The Bible is not a book for the faint of heart -- it is a book full of all the greed and glory and violence

and tenderness and sex and betrayal that benefits mankind.

It is not the collection of pretty little anecdotes mouthed by pious little church mice --

it does not so much nibble at our shoe leather as it cuts to the heart and splits the marrow from the bone.

It does not give us answers fitted to our small-minded questions,

but truth that goes beyond what we even know to ask."

~Rich Mullins

Different kind of tear now

"There's a different kind of tear now 
In my eye 
A response to a freer wind 
That's blowing in a bigger sky."

~Rich Mullins 

Never take lightly what it cost Him

"Never forget what Jesus did for you. Never take lightly what it cost Him. 
And never assume that if it cost Him His very life, that it won't also cost you yours."
~Rich Mullins

They have nothing that you want

"But the nice thing about getting older is that it bothers you less and less 

how stupid you are.

Because you hang out with smart people long enough and you see that  they have

nothing that you want.

It's more important to be alive than it is to be smart.

Better a living dog than a dead lion, I guess."

~Rich Mullins

It's like falling in love

Whitestrand, Ierland

"C.S. Lewis talks about how we don't really want to see beauty.

We want to participate in it. He says joy hurts kind of like an ache, that there's a

sense of longing in every kind of joy.

The closer I get to something, the more I realize how far I am. It's like falling in love -

I am more miserable and lonely for it."

~Rich Mullins

Three things that will remain ( Joyful 2016 )

2015  2016 --- Blíjf geloven, blíjf hopen, en blíjf liefhebben.

Want ons resten geloof, hoop en liefde; maar de grootste daarvan is de liefde.

(1 Kor. 13:13)

"If you try to have faith, you will be attacked by doubts you never knew you were capable of.

But you keep on believing, even if you fall, even if you struggle with doubts, you keep on believing.

And if you live a life that is marked by hope, by the belief that God is good, and there is goodness in the world that awaits us, you'll be disappointed. You'll be crushed, even, sometimes.

But you keep on hoping.

And if you choose to love, you will be misunderstood, you will be betrayed, you will be rejected by the people who most desperately need the love you have to offer.

We are blemished people, and in order to love anybody,
in any way, we have to expose that part of us that we'd rather keep hidden.

Our own selfishness, our own fears, our own hangups, and it's embarrassing. So humiliating.

But you keep on loving.

Many of us are obsessed with becoming rich, many of us are obsessed with becoming smart.

But all of our wisdom, all of our great insights; we see in part and we prophesy in part..

But when that which is perfect comes, that which is in part is done away with.

But There are three things that will remain: faith, and hope, and love.

Make sure you live in those."

―Rich Mullins

Never forget what Jesus did for you

"Never forget what Jesus did for you. Never take lightly what it cost Him.

And never assume that if it cost Him His very life,

that it won't also cost you yours."

~Rich Mullins