you're beautiful

lately i've been listening to phil wickham's beautiful on repeat.  his entire singalong album is incredible, nearly every hymn he sings chokes me up.  but beautiful is one of the ones he's written and the imagery in it pertaining to christ and the beauty of his creation is so wonderful. the final verse is my favorite because it references one of my favorite metaphors in scripture and that's the church as the bride of christ:

when we arrive at eternity's shore

where death is just a memory and tears are no more

we'll enter in as the wedding bells ring

your bride will come together and we'll sing

you're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're beautiful

then thursday night whilst everyone was shaking their booties at viking cocktail a group of people gathered together and watched return of the king. now i'm going to geek out on you for a minute here.  but there's a pivotal scene in the battle of pelennor fields where eowyn, who is a woman, kills the king of the nazgûl.  right before she slays him there's this fantastic dialogue, and it's better in the book than in the movie so it's what i've included here: 

"a cold voice answered, 'come not between the nazgûl and his prey! or he will not slay thee in thy turn.  he will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shriveled mind be left naked to the lidless eye.'

a sword rang as it was drawn, 'do what you will; but i will hinder it, if i may.' 

'hinder me? thou fool. no living man may hinder me!'

then merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. it seemed that the dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. 'but no living man am i! you look upon a woman. eowyn i am, eodmund's daughter, you stand between me and my lord and kin.  begone if you be not deathless! for living or dark undead, i will smite you if you touch him.'"

- the return of the king, the battle of pelennor fields

to tie that in, shane explained that here eowyn represents the bride of christ, or the church, and she is overcoming the great darkness of earth.  i just love that image.  the church slaying this embodiment of evil.  

i totes understand if nobody understood this post. i considered deleting it because i'm afraid i'm the only one who would like it. but i did just transcribe half a page of tolkien at two in the morning. so i decided not to.