Inge Thinks...

I guess I could write on and on about how you should think of Jesus at Christmas, but this YouTube video will say more than I could say using a thousand words. So please, just watch.

‘There shines an everlasting light
for the King has left His throne
and is sleeping in a manger tonight.’

Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone! It’s been quite a while since I’ve been on here due to serious studying because of the test week. That’s all over and done now, and in a week the holidays will be here – yay! So since test week is over the weekends don’t exist of doing homework, but creativity and music get some time too. As for creativity: check my Flickr page. I’ve been spending an entire afternoon building this gigantic heart/christmas/thing-ish and I took some cool shots, you’ll see more of them. And for music: this blog is the result.

You all must have heard of OneRepublic (if you’ve never heard the song Apologize before you must live in a cage or something) but did you also know that they are a Christian band? I believe this to be very cool, because they also write awesome songs about it. In my opinion, one of the most beautiful songs they wrote is Prodigal.

We all know the story of the Prodigal Son. In short: the son receives a big amount of money from his father, spends it all on everything that’s wrong and then returns, on his knees, to his father, who takes him back again. The story has been told so many times, so many songs have been written and so many plays have been seen. But yes this song struck me more than any other song that I have heard about it. The lyrics:

Run away, run away
Like a prodigal
Don’t You wait for me
So ashamed, so ashamed
But I need You so
And You wait for me

These words outline perfectly how I feel at times. I do so many things wrong, over and over and over and over again, and each time I’m so ashamed. Each time I run away so hard from God, I spend all my money on things that are so wrong, and each time I don’t dare to return. I’m so ashamed. God, my Father, let Jesus come down to earth for my horribleness, for everything I do wrong. Jesus was crucified because of the fact that I can’t control myself. And yet, each time, I run away, I run away.

But each time I have to come back. Each time I have to walk the way back home to my Father, fall on my knees, so ashamed, and ask for forgiveness. And no matter how many times, no matter how much money I’ve spent, no matter how much I’ve sinned – I can come back. And each time the Father is there, waiting for me. At the end of that dark road, He stands, looking for me. He calls my name, hoping I’ll return. Each and every time He waits for me.

It is not about the son, it’s not about me. Yes, I am prodigal – I am lost. But no matter how lost I am, how deep I sank this time, how black the night is – there is Someone who is waiting for my return. My Father. No matter how many times I ran away or will run away, He will be there – waiting for me. Always. Forever. He’ll wait for me.

Hello!

I actually should be writing my application letter for the Roosevelt Academy right now, but I couldn’t help but to write a blog about my most recent addiction: Glass Pear. The Welsh Yestyn Griffiths is the wonderful creature that came up with these marvelous melodies, glorious piano riddles, stunning lyrics and so on. I stumbled across his music when I was watching Bones last weekend and I fell in love with it right away.

The song I heard back then was called My Ghost, and you can listen to it here (The video is pretty awesome too, by the way!) Of course it was played at the sweetest and most emotional scene of Bones and every girl who would have seen that scene would have fallen in love with the song straight away. But usually when I listen to songs like that for the second time, they have lost their magic and they’re just an ordinary ballad. But this time, with Glass Pear, it was different. When I searched the video at YouTube and listened to it again, I loved it even more!

I got caught up in school business for a while and I forgot about my latest invention. Yet, tonight, I stumbled across a piece of paper on which I scribbled Glass Pear. I suddenly remembered the wonderful music of Yestyn and looked it up again. This time I also listened to a lot of other songs and it was pretty clear: Yestyn has entered the list of coolness.

His CD, ‘Streets of Love’, is available on iTunes but you can also listen to the entire album at Yestyn’s YouTube channel. Describing his music is hard but I’ll give it a try. The young singer songwriter could be placed in the indie-corner but also the pop one. His uptempo songs are quite catchy but also just a tad different from the normal pop song. Listening to his catchy Vultures makes it impossible to not move your head, the sweet piano makes your hand tick up and down and your feet won’t stop moving from side to side. There’s also the lovely Listen to the music in which Yestyn manages to get some wonderful chords and harmonies out of the piano, guitar and his wonderful voice. This last song reminded me a bit of the dutch Bertolf, another lovely singer-songwriter.

The song that really made Glass Pear known by a wider audience was Last day of your life, which appeared on a Grey’s Anatomy episode earlier this year. But you all know that I love ballads more than anything and therefore the last song to which I will give my love is the beautiful Colours:

Can’t sleep because everything is changing,
You don’t want to leave things behind.
Tears in your eyes – sweet goodbyes.

I know how you feel right now,
losing dreams you’ve come to care about.
I know what you need right now,
you need to come on home
so I can hold you tight –
I’ll get you through the night.

This is beautiful song by Krezip. My good friend Wouter told me about it, last year at the end of his highschoolyears. He used the song for his speech back then and I think I understand how he felt, now.

I mean – I’m so happy that highschool is over and I can go to university. I’m so excited about these changes, I’m so excited about these new things and new challenges. I can’t wait for the finals to be done and to go to a new school. I want the new stuff, I do.

Yet a dark cloud is there. I don’t want to say goodbye to all those years of highschool. I had, and have, the time of my life, exactly where I am. I’m in the best place with my friends and Josh and I’m so blessed. I don’t want to leave the laughs and the fun behind, I don’t want to say goodbye to all those years just yet. Those friends have been my friends for five years, they know me better than anyone else does. I can be me with them, without having to change a single thing. I’m so happy now – I’m so blessed.

And sometimes, when I’m at school, it just strikes me. Next year things will be different. And somehow I feel sad about all those times that will never come back again. I love to grow up, but why does it have to go so fast? Time falls down like water floats through a river – too fast. It’s just too fast. I’m not ready for changes, I’m not ready for saying goodbye. I’m not ready just yet.

Yet the song is titled Sweet Goodbyes. And I know that, next summer, I will say sweet goodbyes. Goodbyes full of love and full of memories of times that I will never forget. I will say thankful goodbyes to all of the blessings, friends and love. I will say goodbyes that will always be locked in a little room in my heart which is called highschool. Goodbyes to the friends that will always be friends, even if they live 300 miles away from me.

Tears in my eyes – sweet goodbyes. But just not yet.

Grace be with you all
and may great sheperd of the sheep
equip you with good things
for doing His will
and grace be with you all.

Beautiful, beautiful song. Have a blessed sunday!

Hello everyone!
I’m really sorry for the massive amount of no-blogs lately.. Prepare for the worst but yet most common excuse ever: I’ve been so busy. Good-busy though, but still busy. So therefore a little update on things that have been part of my life last week.

Well first, of course, Joshua. I’ve spent another lovely Joshua&Inge afternoon together with him, enjoying the sunshine on a bench outside whilst eating lovely sandwiches. Our recent addiction is the song ‘Hallelujah’ by.. well, Jeff Buckley, Leonard Cohen and tons of other artists. We heard somebody sing it a while back and we loved it straight away! So ‘I heard there was a secret chord..’ has been heard quite a lot around us, this past week.

Next to that I’ve been really busy studying maths. You all know that I’m seriously considering going to The Roosevelt Academy next year, but they require a level of maths that I don’t have. So basically I have to catch up on two years of math in ONE year, and next to that keep up with my normal maths homework! That is, of course, crazy, but also surprisingly fun! I’ve discovered that maths is actually quite calming, once you understand what it’s all about it is just like solving puzzles. My biggest mainstay are the cool maths and sciences students that help me with the work.

Last week was also surprisingly cold and autumn-ish! The cold part was fine with me: with a little layer of extra clothes and some mittens and scarfs that shouldn’t be a problem – it’s the autumn part that I didn’t like. We had days which were very cold but also had gorgeous blue skies that lit up the leaves in the most incredible hues which made my mouth drop open. But these days were in strong contrast with the other days that consisted of horrible rain, hard winds that blow leaves into your face and dark, grey skies. I love the first autumn, but the second – ew.

I spent the rest of the time studying Chinese history, writing songs for my music class, finding stuff about authors for my literature list and tons of other school stuff like that. Seriously dude, senior year is tough! I also spent a lovely evening at the band, rehearsing for our next enormous show that will be somewhere in .. February, I think? I tried to make some cool photos (I failed), reorganized my music collection (goodbye Switchfoot, hellooo 10 versions of Hallelujah!) and watched the new episodes of Bones (hilarious!) and Gossip Girl (oohh, I’m so addicted!).

Yet all this business is good business. It’s all the result of amazing blessings that I received and I’m still more than grateful for that. But there’s a time for being busy and there’s a time for resting – I’m glad that the last time arrived. Until next week I’ll be enjoying the fall-holidays, jeej! The kick of was great today: I spent it with my mum at the read&listen festival in Ede, watching tons of cool artists (including the incredible Sons of Korah!) and buying cool books. Tonight will be on the couch, watching a movie with my family and I’ll spend tomorrow at Joshua.

Hello holidays!

Switchfoot.

but I’m no pair of dancing shoes.

How much of a genious are you when you are able to come up with lyrics like that? Well, apparently, Gavin DeGraw is! Using the amazing Spotify program I was listening to some of his cool songs (no, not the ones that you see on MTV) and I bumped into Dancing Shoes. Lovely, listen!

Hmm (:

Yesterday, I was at my amazing boyfriend’s church. It was a beautiful sermon and the songs were really amazing. But one of the things that struck me most that service was a song that was played during the Lord’s Supper. The song is called Broken and Beautiful, written by Brian Doerksen. You can listen to it here. (music fans: official chords here!) I love this song because it really gave me a different and fresh view on the Lord’s Supper. It’s different, but yet exactly what I feel.

As we break this bread, as we drink this cup – Lord we remember
how you gave your life, on a brutal cross – Lord we remember.
This is the way you’ve chosen to save, this is the way you make all things new.

Broken and beautiful – extravagant love, prodigal grace.
Broken and beautiful – God’s perfect justice, mercy’s embrace.

Next to it’s poetic beauty this is also a song that makes you look at God’s grace in a different way. At least, that’s what it did to me. The one thing that just jumped out was the part where he sings ‘This is the way, You’ve chosen to save. This is the way, You make all things new.’ Did you ever think about the way that God chose to save our lives? I mean, He could have easily started a war against the devil and He would have won. He could have easily let us take the blame ourselves. God could have done so many things, but he chose this way.

He chose the way where somebody else took the blame for us. But who would, willingly, take that blame? Who would give up his life for the lives of other people? People that keep on making the same mistakes over and over again? Exactly. No-one would. The only one that would willingly choose that way was God Himself – Jesus.

And yet Jesus didn’t choose a way of war, or fear. Jesus didn’t choose a way of laws or commandments, no, Jesus chose the way of love. The way to make everything new was through His never failing, unconditional and divine love. He chose a way of love, a beautiful love. Yet this love had to be broken to be beautiful. Jesus broke on a cross one day, so that you would never have to break. Undescribable extravagant love – that’s the way He chose.

This song changed my way of thinking – I know now what to remember. I will remember the way that God chose to save, the way He chose to make me new. God’s perfect justice, mercy’s embrace – broken and beautiful.