“I have taken my good deeds and my bad deeds and thrown them together in a heap. Then I have fled from both of them to Christ, and in Him I have peace.”

I don’t know who this quote is from. I found it on my friend Mark’s Facebook page and I just love it. 

As some of you already know, I joined a softball team a few months ago. I blame it on my genius idea to attend a small group at church. One thing led to another and I met some softballers in need of more girls for their co-ed team. To sum it all up: I didn’t start out a very good player. I have no excuse for this. I mean, I come from athletic greatness, my mom a track star and my dad – there isn’t really a sport he doesn’t play well. But, alas, a few games ago I was told “I finally found my swing” – and I’ve been really (surprisingly) enjoying it ever since! My coach, Kevin, sent us this recap of our 1st tournament game from last night, and I wanted to share it with you.

Great game last night guys! The spectators, umpires and park workers all said it was one of the best games they had every seen.

For those who couldn’t make it, we rallied to tie it up in the last inning and send the game into overtime. In “sudden death” each team starts with two outs and a batter on third. Whoever scores the most win. If you’re interested in how it played out… I wrote a quick summary at the bottom of the message.

The first sudden death inning we held them to zero runs and they did the same to us. In the second extra inning we held them again and they robbed us when patrick hit a great ball between first and second that their first baseman meraculously caught (practically diving). In the third, they scored two runs, but we didn’t flinch getting hits from me, bobbie and jeff scoring two ourselves. Finally in the fourth extra inning we held them again on defense and christopher hit a line drive up the middle to score our runner on third and win the game. Good times.

Our next games will be taking place on Wednesday at Granny White Park in Brentwood at 7pm if anyone is interested in coming out to cheer us on! It’s a double header if we win the first one. It’s do or die time.

a great laugh

Originally uploaded by GREATBIGREVOLUTION

for father’s day i sent my grandpa a card. in it, i wrote down my top 10 most memorable moments with him. i think it went something like this:

1. when he prayed with me to receive Jesus in my heart, i was 5. i was sitting on the toilet when it dawned on me i needed to do it so i yelled for help “GRANDPA!”
2. when i got the part of Annie in an off-broadway play in Seattle, and since he was taking me to all my rehearsals, he became a stage-hand.
3. when he bought me a purple, leather Univ. of Washington Huskies jacket for my 10th birthday.
4. when he’d pick me up for school in the mornings, so i didn’t have to ride the bus, and we’d go to mcdonalds for bacon, egg and cheese.
5. when he’d let me and my friends have sleepovers at his bakery and stay up really late eating all the cookies and donuts and playing hide and go seek in his freezers.
6. when he’d take me on his fishing boat and let me watch him chop the fishes heads off!
7. when he dared for me to go parasailing while we were in hawaii and paid for it when i faced my fears.
8. when he and i sat in roberts western world in nashville, tn listening to his all-time favorite music, bluegrass.
9. when he and grandma got to hear me sing at the GMA festival in estes park, colorado.
10. every hug i’ve ever gotten from him – how they never last long enough because he starts to cry and has to “man up”

I love my grandpa. What’s yours like?

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

From Left to Right: My little brother, Kristian Isaak – My cousin Mandee (in the background) – Me – and My cousin Emily Pearl. When I go home, all the kids want to do is take pictures with me doing “Funny Faces”. I’m pretty sure we were doing this for several hours. I had ran out of funny faces as you can see, but my brother DID NOT. Oh my goodness he is insane.

Okay moving on! It took me a while to come up with a name for my blog. I wanted it to be a simple phrase that would capture what I’m all about. “Great Big Revolution” is a call for complete and marked change that is displayed by a heart radically devoted to Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the most subversive man to have ever walked the earth. He is the great revolutionary. If you follow Jesus, you follow the most radical man who ever existed. He turns everything upside down and calls us to do likewise. Jesus is not vitally committed to our comfort and safety; he is committed to the advancing of his kingdom revolution in the hearts of people everywhere.

The revolution of Jesus isn’t for the faint of heart or the middle-of-the-road. It isn’t safe. It isn’t comfortable. It costs us a great deal to say yes. We take hold of the revolution by abandoning ourselves to Jesus and letting go of everything else.

My name is Erika. I am twenty-something. I love the color green. I live downtown Nashville in the thick of it all. I love trips to Target, silly pop songs, campfires and s’mores, Diet Coke, getting catalogs in the mail, sunday mornings at Crosspoint, text messaging, lazy days at the lake, flying over Seattle on a clear day, cowboy boots, ferry boats, hugs from my baby brother, songwriting, puppy dogs, the cold side of my pillow, mood lighting, big sunglasses, the sound of the rain and finding cash in my pockets. I gave my heart to Jesus on a Wednesday night in September of 1997. My life has never been the same. Jesus Christ was my great big revolution.