Last FIRST Kiss

Do you remember when we were just kids ~ And cardboard boxes took us miles from what we would miss ~ Schoolyard conversations taken to heart ~ And laughter took the place of everything we knew we were not.

I wanna break every clock ~ The hands of time could never move again ~ We could stay in this moment (stay in this moment) For the rest of our lives.

Is it over now hey, is it over now. I wanna be your last, first kiss ~ That you'll ever have. I wanna be your last, first kiss.

Amazing how life turns out the way that it does ~ We end up hurting the ones, the only ones we really love. I wanna break every clock ~ The hands of time could never move again.

We could stay in this moment (stay in this moment) For the rest of our lives.

Is it over now hey, is it over now. I wanna be your last, first kiss ~ That you'll ever have. I wanna be your last, first kiss.

Is it over now hey, it's over now. Is it over how hey, it's not over now. I wanna be your last, first kiss ~ That you'll ever have (that you'll ever have). I wanna be your last, first love (that you'll ever have) ~ Till you're lying here beside me with arms and eyes open wide ~I wanna be your last, first kiss for all time.

Inevitable - Anberlin

(a must listen-to song...)

PURITY.


Many years ago when I wrote an art curriculum for my young students, the first lesson I presented was all about color - and the perfect order of color. Our Creator set everything in place and His order is perfect. I am not saying we live in perfection - oh no, we have screwed it up.
God never changes. We change. We readjust and mess up. He is constant.

White is white. Black is black. Count on it.

The Creator is revealed in His creation. Even in the layout of color - we see His order: Red is always the opposite of Green. Purple is always opposite of Yellow... Orange to Blue... and all the tertiary colors in between ... all opposite of ONE divinely placed partner on the Color Wheel. One mistake in recreating a color wheel - and it won't work. You can count on it.

My young students were directed to paint a gray scale - pure white on one end, and the blackest black on the other end - with as many gradients in between as they could mix.
They quickly understood that white was WHITE and any black added at all (even though imperceivable to the eye) was still a pollution to that PURE white.

White is white.

Black is black.

Anything else- is someting else ... not white ... not black.

Purity.

It is REAL.

Tangible.

Attainable.

Preservable.

Protectable.

Holy.

There are a select population in our youth culture who have chosen to keep themselves PURE (some say "until marriage" but I personally find that an incorrect phrase - why would someone be pure, get married and decide they could/would be impure afterwards? Purity is a lifelong committment- even inside marriage).

Command and teach these things. Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. (1 Timothy 4:11-13)

These young ones make a choice early on that they will keep their bodies (and heart) for ONE person - their spouse.
Of course, when joined to that ONE spouse (whom they would also want to be pure) - they enter into a pure marriage - and seek to remain pure together for life.

It isn't a matter just for marriage. It applies to all relationships.

Purity is larger than our bodies, therefore, it applies to brothers and sisters and parents and friends...

It is an act of worship to keep our emotions, thoughts, and actions pure before God (not an easy act I confess) so that we may relate to Him and then to others in the way in which He has ordered.

So then, how much more valuable are we to Him than the color wheel?

Our purity can be defiled in so many ways.

The obvious ways (which need not even be discussed they are so obvious) - but also in ways perhaps not so clear to the weary traveller...

anger...unforgiveness... disrespect...jealousy...selfishness...and so many other polluted emotions can destroy purity and destroy open communion with God and with others...even with ones we love deeply.

Once we are washed by His forgiveness, we can never blame anyone else for that drop of dark paint that we invite into our own hearts of purest white paint ...

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless indeed you fail the test? (2 Corinthians 13:5)

We must continually renew and refresh ourselves ... seeking purity in all ways, always.

"Last First Kiss" Mixed Media on Wood

BUY THIS PIECE OF ART DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTIST - Me, on ETSY

(more art to come! please check the link often)

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. (Romans 12:1-3)

~~