So Many Things

"Where will you go when your wildfire all burns out

and no one cares anymore."

I've been struggling so much the past few weeks, more like months, now...

with a lack of feeling hungry, but intense mood changes instead;

with a lack of true conversation with someone other than my man;

with a lack of communication with the people I thought who cared enough to keep in contact;

with a feeling of un-appreciation and being burnt out on everything I've ever done.

And all of it has crowded down on top of me with such a ferocity that at least once a week I find myself crying desperate tears and experiencing heaves of shortness of breath.

I just feel totally alone and I don't know how to fix it or how to move on. 

I feel like my wildfire has all burnt out, and the only thing I have left is an empty heart--not even full of the poetry that used to spill forth from my soul with every aching breath.

How times have changed for this girl. From sitting in a sun-soaked bedroom shared with my sister, staring out the window and going on walks, to a married woman preparing to buy a house within the next year.

I find myself caught up in a world that is moving too fast, changes happening all around me, and so much of the world devoid of any hope, or love, or peace.

I cry out to my God and try to mediate on His unending and boundless love for me, but more often than not I get sucked into the trap of self-pity and thanklessness, completely ignoring all the good that surrounds me and instead dwelling on the darkness.

I don't want to be that kind of person. 

I must remind myself to give thanks in all circumstances, just as I am commanded--beloved child of God.

Teach Me to Surrender

I always come back to the knowledge that it's in the moments that I'm the happiest,

the most contented--

that I fall.

Scripture even says

"Be careful if you think you stand, lest you fall."

And how little I heed that warning.

How often I go my own way

and allow my head to be turned by pretty things or kind words or even my own fleshly heart.

And how it makes me ache,

knowing that the only person who causes this is me--

me.

Oh God,

how I need You!

Every hour I need You.

Teach me to surrender my desires,

my emotions,

my plans,

my dreams,

my heart,

my intentions,

my affections--

all of me--

To only You.

You are my God--

please teach me to live that way instead of stumbling around in the darkness

groping for the path beneath my feet.

Shine a light into my heart and make me new again--

pure again.

Oh God,

I can't do it on my own,

and I need You.

Hear my prayer, Lord Jesus,

please.

Grateful

Tonight I'm so infinitely grateful.

For you.

For what God is doing in and through us,

for bringing us together--

for giving us a future and a hope.

I'm thankful for warm beds and midnight movie-watching

I'm thankful for the way you make me laugh and the way you hold my hand

I'm thankful for the way you pry the thoughts out of my head

and the way you gently correct me when I'm wrong

I'm thankful for your goofy moments and for reminding me that life's too short to be serious

I'm thankful for the people who love you and who have embraced me

I'm thankful for your thrill about diesel trucks and turbo-boosts and hunting birds and Taco Bell

And that grin that spreads across your freckled cheeks and lights up your blue eyes

Never in all my days could I express the amount of love I have for you, my friend

You are a God-send and a friend,

and I love you.

Thank you for taking a chance with me.

Dark Memories

An uncomfortable heat has welled up in my throat.

So many things--memories--keep coming to my mind.

It's been so long since I thought of these things,

so long since I tried to remember stories or things from my childhood.

It's all been eaten up--

consumed by the people I thought I could trust.

I feel so dusty and old,

so diluted.

You left home when I was 17.

He came into my life when I was 18.

And eight months went by & I was left heart-broken, sickened by the world,

& forever different.

You have no idea how much you tore me up inside, both of you.

And then you came along,

when I thought I was done with foolish relationships.

And instead of wanting to marry me,

you just wanted a recreational relationship.

And I fell for it.

Just like I fell for everything else.

It's no wonder to me how so many women hate men.

Some "love" you just to have you, possess you, control you.

Some "adore" you just to have a "someone"--just to make themselves feel important and wanted.

And still others just hold you at arms length but somehow still strip you of everything. No commitments, no scars. Or so they say.

But every once in awhile you can find a gem.

Someone humble,

funny,

adventurous,

caring,

hard-working,

& God-fearing.

Once in a blue moon,

  as my momma would say.

Talking to you has made me realize just how much pain I haven't dealt with--

just how much I've always craved,

  and been willing to give everything for,

that affection.

I wonder how different my life would have been if my daddy had been the kind of man he should have been.

You wouldn't have taken so much of my heart,

& other parts of me as well.

And you, well, you maybe wouldn't have thought it so easy to take so much from me without even a fake "I love you."

Life hurts

  like hell.

But I have a God who redeems me out of my troubles and somehow uses all this brokenness for good.

How, I'm still not even sure,

but He does.

And for all my impurity,

& wandering,

He still calls me by my name--

beloved.

And He whispers,

You are mine.

How can I ever repay Him,

  how can I ever love Him enough!

Oh my God,

how You have changed me!

How You have cleansed and redeemed and loved me!

So as I reflect upon all the memories, most of which only come from the distant past,

and try to keep on forgetting all the dark and evil times from 16-20,

hopefully somewhere I'll find,

deep in the recesses of my mind,

some beautiful things to remember.

But He said to me,

"My grace is sufficient for you,

  for My power is made perfect in weakness."

Wilted, but Alive

It's been so long since I've been here--
  so long since it's mattered.

These past two days have been the most horrendous struggle for me.
It seems to me that the past always has this habit of sneaking back up on you when you least expect it;
it waits to jump out at you until it knows that it will illicit a scream.

I saw his face--
  a face I once trusted,
and I can't even describe the feelings that ripped through my body and heart.

It was like I was torn open by bullets--
  like I was ripped apart like something devoured.

A wave of nauseating heat poured over me,
  and it was all I could do to keep my heart inside my chest.
Even now it is beating fast--too fast.

I'm feeling faint.

My stomach churned,
  I felt the bile rise in my throat.

I don't know how just one person can make you feel so much like you're on the brink of dying.
Even as I poured out my heart & concerns to my best friend today,
  the hot tears poured down my face.

When it ended,
  I couldn't cry;
I had no tears,
  and all I felt was emptiness and like I was worthless & used.

It ended in bitter tears
  that kept themselves lodged deep within my chest,
unable to rise to the surface.

But as I struggle with the pictures in my head and the nightmares that stalk my heart,
  I know that I'm not that person from three years ago.

I'm broken still,
  but I'm redeemed.
Bought back.

What a wonderful thing,
  to be bought back.
What a wonderful thing is the love of Christ,
  forgiving even the dirtiest wench.

I'm not who I was three years ago,
  and I'm sorry for all the things we did.
You tried to make me into who you wanted,
  I tried to make you desire me to the point that you would never let go.

You broke my heart,
  and I probably broke yours.
I'm not really sure about that last part though.

Maybe you're alone,
  and maybe you're not,
But you've long since been gone from my life,
  even though your face has stalked my heart.

Oh my God,
  how I need You.
In these little hours that my mind beats me,
  I know You're still there.
You keep me, You guide me,
  You love me, You never leave me..

It is You, Oh God, that I truly love.
  You loved me when I was the most unlovable.

I am redeemed.
I am loved.
I am pursued.
I am sought after.
I am pure.
I am holy.
I am HIS.

He is GOOD.

Two Minute's Worth of Thought, A Year's Worth of Learning

I came home from camp this weekend so thankful--for all that I have, where I am, and for just how much He loves me. I've been so wrapped up in who I am, what I've done, where I've been, and where I'm going, but no matter how much I think about, pamper, and live for, myself, it will  never make me happy. It has taken me so long to really truly understand the meaning and the importance of humility. It really is thinking less about yourself...not thinking bad about yourself or beating yourself up, but rather being content where God has placed you and thinking constantly about how you can serve other people.
This weekend taught me a lot about that. I've become so insecure and timid lately, and while I think about being confident and adventurous, really ready to take on the hard stuff, I shrink away when the opportunities are presented to me. It might seem juvenile to you, but it's a struggle I face every day.
But I don't need to be afraid, I don't need to be alone, because He is always there, and if He is always there, what do I have to worry about?
Nothing.
Nothing.
I have a quote written on the inside cover of my Bible that says "Don't ask God to use you if you're not willing to move your feet."
It's taken me a long time,
but I'm willing.

With All My Heart

Have you ever thought about how shallow life can be? We fill our days with so many little meaningless things in hopes that someday it will add up to something. We eat three meals a day (well some of us), drive to work, drive home, go to school, sleep, stare at our phones, edit pictures for Instagram, gossip with friends and family about other people's lives.. But what does all that really do? I slip so often into a cycle of getting up late, filling my days with inconsequential tasks, staying up into the wee hours of the morning, and repeating the process. And then I wonder why my spirit feels so dry and thirsty. I wonder why my heart is shrouded in a thick cloud of depression and why I can't seem to see anything good in life. I've heard and read so many times that the only sanity in a world of insanity is Christ--and my heart knows the truth of it. When I content myself to merely wade through the shallows of His love and my relationship with Him, the rest of me dries up and my soul aches as it begins to return to the dust from which He made me. I read so many articles about the church and Christians, not to mention society, rejecting absolute truth, the Biblical definition of marriage, supporting abortion and homosexual rights, and my heart breaks. My heart breaks because in every single case it is people trying to rediscover themselves and fill the void inside their hearts with things that never last and never truly satisfy. My heart aches almost to the point that I don't even care to live because life seems hopeless and all that is good lost. But He created me for a life of joy and fullness, to bring Him glory and spread His fame--how can I live that way if I am shrouded in eternal sadness?
I can't.
Not in my own strength.
He tells me that I cannot be comfortable in the world and that I will be hated because I proclaim His name--He tells me that I am an alien, and I know it to be true. So why then do I deny my destiny, my homeland, my first Love? Why do I content myself with living a shallow life, wading in the warm waters near the sandy shores? Do I not want to get my hair wet, have to wear myself out struggling to swim against the waves? Or is it simply because living in the shallows is much easier than swimming out to sea? My beloved, you and I will never be satisfied if we are not willing to give our all. He whispers to my heart You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart. I'm not sure I've ever done anything in my entire life with all my heart. I'm not even sure I know what that means.
But I crave Him and I long for Him like I could never long for another. I've tasted, but I have not drunk deeply enough of Him, and my heart shall never be satisfied. If I ever learn to do anything with all my heart, it shall be to seek His face, for He is my heart's ambition--my soul's destination.
And He has done so much.
Oh so much-- for me.

Giving Thanks

I've spent far too long thinking about myself--my dreams, my whims, my wishes, my brokenness, my struggles.. Everything about me and what is going on in my heart and life. It's a paradox, really, if you think about it long enough. I try to figure myself out and work through all my struggles by both writing and thinking, but the fullest healing comes when I forget about myself and think instead of other people and how I can bless their lives. My contentment blooms when my heart is thankful--not just to and for those who love and care for me, but also when I learn to say thank you for the hard things, because those things are what mold me into becoming truly beautiful.
Life and living is such a mystery and enigma to me. Whenever I think that I've got something all worked out inside my mind my perspective is shattered and my dreams either broken or enlarged. There is a passage in the Bible, I can't think of where it is at the moment, that likens people to lumps of clay being worked by the potter's hands. God is the potter, and I am the clay.
God can't make me into a beautiful vessel unless I am soft to His touch and His will, and when I become hard, sometimes He has to break me. And then I fall into those lowest ebbs of tide and into the deepest darkest valleys and I have to choke out His name. I choke out His name and He brings me light. God, in His infinite wisdom, has given each and every one of us a free will to choose to either be soft to His touch and love, or to turn away in defiance and self-love. And for me, Thanksgiving is a call to return to His arms and His love in reverent thankfulness, remembering not only what He has done for us on the cross, but also what He continues to do each and every moment of our lives. Though my sin and selfishness blinds me to His grace and all His gifts, He has made a way for me to be renewed and made whole again.
For His mercies are new every morning.
And though my stubborn and foolish heart may turn its back on His face day after day, His arms never stop reaching out to me. For though I am faithless, He is faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

I need to take more time to be thankful.

Becoming New

I'm a bad-weather writer.
It seems as if words will only spill from my heart when I feel some pain, or sadness, or loneliness. Makes for a depressing read, I know. It's hard to look happy when you're always sad. Something I've learned over my few years is that the more I do for myself the sadder I become, just like the longer I think about the things that I don't have, the more what I do have becomes ugly to my heart. Have you ever thought that, or is it just me?
I'm battling a strange emotion tonight--that of loss and disappointment so deep that I hardly know what to do with myself. I've had this feeling a few times before, but that doesn't make it any easier. There's a reason some of the most beautiful poetry written is about loss and loneliness--it just melds so easily in with the crashing of waves and dark nights, with empty beds and candlelight. Last year this time I was battling with losing my childhood home and the birthplace of everything good in me. Last spring marked a year since my "first love," in reality very foolish, buried a chunk of my heart in the warming earth, and this year, well, that's a story for another time.
I just can't talk about it now.
I go between phases of writing bad poetry that would make a proper English teacher cringe, to vomiting out raw emotions through my fingertips. And through it all I'm not quite sure I really know how to live with myself anymore. I'm not sure I've ever really dealt with any of my pain or my broken dreams... It's more like I've folded them all neatly and tucked them away in a box in the top of my closet, labeled warning: open at your own risk. So they stay there, and I try to forget them, but they never really ever go away. I can't burn them up, I can't send them away, and I can't ever completely forget them. I think the part that bothers me the most is that no one can have me without having all my boxes come along too.
I wish life wasn't this way. But I probably wouldn't be the person I am today without all those boxes hidden away. I wouldn't have the wisdom that comes with making mistakes, and I wouldn't have the marks that set my life apart from yours. Just because my world is different than yours doesn't mean that you are better than me, or I better than you. We were all born for a different purpose, and tonight I'm trying to find comfort in the fact that maybe I couldn't fulfill my purpose without all these scars that shape my heart and mold my path. Maybe, just maybe, it's just simply the process burning away the layers of dross to reveal that beautiful, pure gold that every man wishes he had--becoming something new and utterly precious with every heartache and every pang.

Ensnaring Apathy

I never in all my life thought that I'd feel this alone--this lonely. It's like I have no purpose, no plans, no future, no prospects. I suppose if I'm honest these are just feelings talking and in reality they're rubbish, but still, they're here, inside my heart. I can't even begin to describe the way it eats at my heart and mind until I realize that my hands are trembling and my stomach is sick even while my face is stoic and I try to keep myself from crying. Some people say it's just the 20s stage and that everyone goes through it, but instead of bringing me comfort that knowledge just makes me feel more and more like I'm drowning--alone. And not just drowning, but drowning in water that is so cold that it has paralyzed me to the point that I can no longer struggle, but just let it come.
Without hope.
I wish I didn't have these feelings, these emotions.
I wish that I could wake up with a still heart instead of feeling like I'm missing something somewhere--someone. In this house alone so many days I rush around doing things that seem so important to my tired mind all the while knowing deep inside that nothing I do really makes any difference at all.
Instead of enjoying a cup of coffee in the cool fall air I find myself chugging a cup of coffee gone cold and I stay inside the house tinkering with things that don't matter, or searching for diy projects on Pinterest that I know deep down I really have no intention of doing. I spend too much time curling my hair or planning my outfit when I know that I'm not going to leave the house. I look at my face in the mirror and find myself despairing over a little acne or a few scars. I look at an unread book that is begging to be read but instead I flit around the house doing nothing that nourishes my soul.
What is this strange apathy that has crept into my heart and into the deepest recesses of my mind? My ability to retain knowledge or the memory of what happened last week is slipping away, and I feel it. I'm not being stretched. I'm not learning. I'm not writing. I'm not working. I'm not reading.
All I am is fading.
It's no wonder I feel so empty.
I feel so tired, and yet--I have no energy or ambition to do anything.
Even as I write these words my eyes are struggling to keep themselves open and my once-hot cup of Earl Grey tea is poised lukewarm in my hand.
What can I do to break this cycle? There must be a way--there must.

Wish No More for Forgetfulness

I think I've forgotten what it is to live.
Today I put away my laptop, phone, and iPod and I sat outside in the cool breeze. It's not often anymore that I let that silence wash over me. Somehow it just drags up all my insecurities, all my doubts, and all the memories I wish so deeply to forget. But I think that maybe I've forgotten too much. I've read countless times that you should forget the pain but remember the lesson. How is it that I can never seem to separate the two? Actions are never as simple as words make them out to be, but somehow, in my trying so hard to forget, I have also forgotten the beautiful, and the memories that once gave me strength and hope have slipped away into the darkness of a blank mind. And that is where I find myself now--with a mind unwilling to trust and a heart unwilling to let myself love.

Enchantment Somehow Never Lasts

The wind is so gently gusting through my window, carrying in it's arms the scent of rain. I hear through the darkness the symphony of leaves as they are whipped by the promise of a storm--to and fro--and it feels just like my heart. Whipped. Tattered. In darkness. Torn. Who is this sad person that I've become, always craving, always longing, and never completely satisfied? It does not matter who I am with or what I am doing-- I'm lonely. But I wonder, does anyone ever feel completely not alone?
I crave this solitude like I crave the air that I breathe, but at the same time it sickens me to my core because I want to know that someone, somewhere truly cares. But maybe the only one who truly cares I've grown into the habit of ignoring simply because I'd rather live with the person I think I am, than who I truly am.
The wind has stopped now, and that enchanting scent of rain is fading away, slowly. I think of all that I think I am, all that I've done, all that I've lived and learned, whether good or bad. I think of the crickets chirping outside my window, as they call for a mate to carry on the line of crickets in the neighborhood. Then, when the winter season comes, they die, decompose, and return to the dust from which they came, just like I shall one day. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, man will return from whence he came... and what will I have accomplished in my few and troublesome days? More pain, more sin, more heartache and disease? What will I have brought to the world, or more importantly, to God?
I feel so horridly useless, alone, and, quiet honestly, tarnished and ruined. You can scrub the oxidation off silver, and you can cut a raw stone into a priceless gem, but what can you do with a piece of broken pottery except scrape your open wounds like Job did. Tonight my heart's cry is that of Paul, for he said I do the things I do not wish to do, and the things I want to do I do not do. Why does it always have to be this way? I'm so tired of failing, of not quite living up to who I want--and who I should be.
I'm just so tired. Tired of trying.

Raw

I wish that I could just go back to who I was before.
I hate the feeling of being watched--of having others see me. I just want to slink away, hide in a corner, and be angry--all the time.

No One Knocking

Am I really back to a valley already? I shouldn't be surprised at this--I do know better, I really do. Loneliness. That ever-present feeling of wishing to let someone into the room of your heart, and yet there is no one there knocking at the door wanting to enter. I don't know what to do. I can't force anyone to care like that, but yet I crave to show someone a glimpse of my crumbled, crying form. But would an action born of that be merely pity? So after weighing my options I shall do what I always do: write, pray, and wait. Some people eat their feelings in an attempt to feel better, but I just write mine. I spill them out like ugly blots of ink upon a white sheet of paper, and then I wait. Other moments I just simply shove this loneliness to the back of my mind and go about my business like I never had the feeling.
Is it such a crime to want?

Take a Deep Breath

I don't know what it is about coming home, but I feel like I morph into an entirely different person every time the pressure in my head adjusts from the higher elevation of the mountains to down here in the city where the smog is thick and the heat makes the pavement boil. Suddenly the patience that I strive so hard to let control me vanishes, and all my determination and ambition fades away like the end of a flower's life. Maybe it's just that it's hard to transition from a fast-paced, high-expectation situation to one that doesn't have a schedule, and you don't have responsibility or activity except what you make. I don't like this person that I become. I've never thought of myself as someone who works better under stress, but maybe that's who I am after all. I think of those days when I would cram in the endings of projects and write papers in the dead of night as I struggled to finish school, and the nights when I fall asleep as one who has the responsibility of 4-10 little ones. Those are the days that I look back on with fondness--those are the days that I actually remember, while all the others just simply fade away as if they never were really there at all.
I feel so confused and alone inside. Will there ever be a time that I feel like I belong somewhere? Or is that just a curse I have to live with? It seems so foreign to me now, the thought that I'll ever belong with someone or doing something special with my life. I'm just stuck here doing what I've always done, restless in heart, mind, and body but too scared to move on...or to move at all. My parched heart croaks the word why again and again and some moments it's all I can do to not scream at the world and dig a hole to bury myself in. Some days these feelings rush upon me as depression, other times as resentment, others as anger, but what really is it? Insecurity? Lack of purpose? Loneliness? I don't understand, I really don't. But whatever this is, it makes me upset inside, and it drives me toward being a person that I don't want to be--a person that I've been before--a person that scares me.
"Hold My hand, and walk joyously with Me through this day... I am your Guide, as well as your constant companion. I know every step of the journey ahead of you... You don't have to choose between staying close to Me and staying on course. Since I am the Way, staying close to Me is staying on the course."
As I sat in my room this morning, I read those words, and a cool breeze washed over me. They may not be out of the Book itself, but the words portray the Heart of the One I call my Savior. I've tried to be patient where I am, and I've tried to be quote-on-quote good, but I fail every time because such things aren't part of my natural self. I can't do it in my own strength because my own strength is frail. When I was little I thought that there were some things that I would just never have a problem with because it wasn't me, but now that I'm older I realize that we all face the same things, and no one is exempt, even me. But it still hurts, and I still can't tough it out on my own, no matter how hard I try. But is that my problem? Is that the root of my insecurity, my not-belonging-ness, my failures? Have I been fooling myself into believing that I trust Him fully, when I really don't?
Jesus, help me understand.

At the Well of Beer-lahai-roi

Once upon a time there was a girl who grew up loving the mountains and the fresh air. She made mud "cakes" with her little brother and was fascinated by baby frogs and snakes. This little girl poured over her King James version of the Bible and never went a night without reading that precious book. But childhood days and rumpled braids never seem to last. As the days flew by, myriads of things changed in that life--and heart. And now here I sit, now only 27 days from 20 years old, and I wonder what happened to that little girl. I wish that somehow I could bring her back.

But time doesn't work that way.

Today I struggle. Every moment I struggle, whether it be to live the faith I claim, or to flee the wrong that my baser nature craves. No one will ever be able to convince me that the battle between wrong and right does not exist--I've been cut too deeply to believe that the knife isn't real. But despite all my struggle and all my pain, the One who demands all of my heart and all my devotion walks with me through each day. It is so easy to focus on a part of who God is, say for example, His justice, and forget that He is also a God of love. This God that demands my all made the tiny blooms of the plant that was waiting inside it's seed, waiting for me to give it water to grow. He made that beauty--a flower so small that we deemed it appropriate to name it a forget-me-not. And yet God sees even its tiniest bloom.

It reminds me of the story of Hagar in Genesis chapter 16. Hagar was a slave of Sarai, the wife of Abram (later called Abraham, who was the father of the nation of Israel). Now Sarai and Abram could not have any children, and they had been given a promise by God that a great nation would come from them. But they were old, and though they had believed God once, His words became less real to them every passing day. In those days, it was acceptable in the people's eyes to have children by their servants, so, Sarai gave Abram her slave Hagar to have a child by.

I can't even imagine what that would have been like. Here Hagar is, serving her mistress, living comfortably in her master's house, and then she is told she will be used to give Abram children. If I had been her I would have protested vehemently, but, as the story goes, Hagar became pregnant. When she realized that she was pregnant, she "looked in contempt" on her mistress Sarai, and Sarai was angered. I don't know about you, but when I am angry I lash out, and that is exactly what Sarai did. Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. And the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. I wonder if at this point Hagar is just wishing that she could die. Here she is, first a servant taken from her homeland of Egypt, then given to her master, now pregnant, oppressed enough to run away, and, as a cherry to top the cake, what every runaway servant dreads--she's found.

But the angel of the Lord tells her to go back to her mistress and to submit to her. He also tells Hagar that she will indeed have a son, and that his name should be Ishmael. From him would come offspring without number, just as the Lord had promised to Abram, and even though Abram and Sarai had felt the need to take God's work into their own hands, God would be faithful to His promise. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction... So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, "You are a God of seeing," for she said, "Truly here I have seen him who looks after me." Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

God is truly a God of seeing. If I was a seminary student or a pastor I might delve a little more into depth about the implications of this story and all the things we can learn from it, but my little mind would just like to think on how my God is a God of seeing.

He sees all my pain and all the injustices of my life. He notices the tiny flowers that bloom and every hair that falls from my head. You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book? (Psalm 56:8) The Lord saw all of Hagar's secret pains, all of her problems, and her mistakes, but yet He had a plan to bring nations from her womb. God must have a plan for my pain as well--a plan for my moment by moment struggles. I can take comfort in the fact that no matter what happens, He sees--even if I am in the wilderness, alone and hiding at a well named Beer-lahai-roi.

I'd Rather be a Rock than a Wave

It's the first night I've been home in seven weeks, and I have a craving for coffee and pretzels. I've missed this house and my own bed, but at the same time I haven't. Isn't it strange how you can miss something but yet at the same time be relieved that it isn't there anymore? I'm not even sure I understand how that works.
Camp always has a way of changing me, whether it be my attitude, or my heart, or just simply my outlook on life. It's that spiritual "mountain" that lasts just enough to make you forget what a valley feels like. And I come home and think, "This time it will be different..." But I know deep inside that I'll see those valleys again. It took me a long time this summer to really latch onto the swing of hard work and making genuine time for God. More often than not I find myself depending upon what I feel about God, and letting that determine my relationship with Him rather than what I know to be true. One of my favorite quotes is from a beautiful lady named Elisabeth Elliot: Don't dig up in doubt what you planted in faith. I have to ask myself, is what I believe based upon what I feel, or the Word of God? If I wait to pray because I do not feel the Spirit moving, will I ever pray, or will I ever feel the presence of God? If I wait to study the life-giving words until I feel inspired will I ever open the Book at all? I know from past experience that I won't. I'll just simply let it be, and then I'll slip away until one day I have a reality check and realize that I've been groping around in darkness and not moving anywhere. If I never try, I'll never be able to succeed. It's easier to steer something that is moving forward rather than something that is standing still. If I love God, I'll make time for Him, but unless I make time for Him, how can I learn to love Him? Tonight I want to make a commitment to strengthen my determination to seek His face even in the times that I cannot see His hand.

The Tired Behind My Eyes

How often I apologize for my words, and yet, at times, they are the only things that calm my own heart.  I feel a bitter churning in my stomach tonight. My head wants to tell me that it is because of the large glass of tangy homemade lemonade that I drank, but my heart knows better. But then again, who can trust their own heart to tell them the honest truth? I know I can't. I find myself trusting my heart time and time again, only to have it lead me down the wrong path, and how it makes me ache. My eyes feel tight and hot and dry, my hands swollen, and veins bulged. My back aches and I long for sleep and yet it evades me. Once again my mere feelings are poured out upon white sheets of paper and spelled out for hearts to see. I lie here in my bed and I feel so used. By friends who I thought were real, by the very people who are supposed to protect me, and even by my self. It's moments like these that I find living so excruciatingly hard, and I hate myself for it. I hate this weakness of a caring heart; I hate that the very things that give me life only kill me in the end.

But what truly matters?

In the end, all you'll have is God. I know that deep inside those words beat true, and yet my heart tries to resist the thought and the strange emotion that stirs inside my chest when I think of them. I want to cling to this earthy life and all that it offers, the many things that grace my arms and walls, all my dreams that consist of only these familiar rocks and dirt--and yet I know deep down that none of these will last when I close my eyes in eternal sleep. I'll wake to see my knees upon the floor of heaven, standing before the One Who was the orchestrator of all my life, and Who I more often than not pretended wasn't there. Will I be able to lift my chin, and my eyes to that face that no man can see and live? Or will I only be able to tremble and praise my God for granting me life when all I have ever deserved is death? The soft melody beating inside my heart tells me that I was made for God, and yet when following God tells me that what I want to do I shouldn't, I turn my head away like I'm not denying the deepest part of myself when I walk away from Him. My soul and heart and mind and dreams were all crafted by the One who sits upon that throne, and when I deny Him, am I not denying myself also? Denying all that I truly am, denying all that I want and strive to be? I can never achieve the best of myself when I deny myself the sweetest romance any human being can ever experience. And why? Because I do not want to condition my soul and tell myself no to things that, deep down, I know will only hurt me in the end? Why do I seek to major in my own destruction?
I try to make it so much more than simply coming to His throne. I try to make it a list of do's and don'ts when it was never meant to be that way. My God desires my heart, my allegiance--He desires to be my truest friend, and to teach me how to truly live, and not just this life, but the next. The next being the one what truly matters. How often I forget and cleave to that which will only dissolve in my arms. How can those things be so precious that I gain the whole word and yet lose the deepest, most inward part of myself--my very soul? My eyes are trained upon the ground I walk on, when instead I need to reach out and take the hand of the One who already knows the path and let His feet guide me. How often I leave the One that loves me more than all the other souls of the world put together. How often I forget that all I truly have is God.

Pressed Flowers

I don't understand this sickening sadness that descends upon my heart so often anymore. I know life can't be as bad as it seems, but still here I am believing that it is not worth living. I know I'm not the only one who has had pain and spoiled dreams, and yet, I feel all alone in my sadness, and no one but myself can bear those burdensome memories. Only God knows what churns deep inside my heart, and though I wish to spill all my emotions, I know that vulnerability has a habit of breeding fear and dependence. And I do not want either. How is it that in one breath I can be okay and in the next I feel as if a knife was plunged between my ribs. I wish to wake up and realize that I have something amazing to live for. I had something that made my eyes sparkle once, but now I hardly believe that they ever did--or that they ever can again.
I hold it all inside and I let no one see. Words are so unbelievable to so many people that I can spill my heart with no one ever taking me seriously. It's a protection--and yet it hurts, for though they are but words scrawled upon a sheet of paper, they last forever. Thoughts, never written, only last as long as the memory of the thinker. Words, never taken down, only last as long as the hearers remember. Of course, my simple written words are just as easily destroyed, but yet, to me, they seem more tangible. They are like driving a stake into the ground and saying these are my emotions preserved like pressed flowers, and somehow it clears away the fog and makes me see clearly again. For my lips will never speak that which my fingertips pour out. Though my lips pour out laughter, my fingers scrawl pain; I am neither one, nor the other, but a strange undrinkable mixture of both. And my soul feels like nothing more than a tune of the violin passionately but mournfully played.