"it's not my fault I'm such an awful mess and more."

Why does everything in my life seem like such a battle? I don't think there is one thing going on in my life right now that doesn't require me to fight with all of my might. I do not ask out of complaint, but I ask out of pure wonder. It's not all bad I suppose, but it is tiring! I know very well that the life of a follower of Christ comes with risks, persecution, and hardship. It is not something you choose to live your life by if you want life to be easy. I don't want my life to be EASY. But shouldn't some things be a little easy...? Because it seems like nothing is easy anymore, nothing. Not one bit. I'm fighting for friendship and humanity, I'm fighting for love, I'm fighting for the principles and the people, I'm fighting for morals and ethics, I'm fighting for trust and respect. I'm fighting against consumerism, against hate and torture and murder and doubt, I'm fighting against lies and disease and emotion. Everything I'm fighting for and everything I'm fighting against leads me to one very weary road of exhaustion. But I won't stop, I swear. Nothing will ever make me stop. Maybe. Maybe except death... that would probably make me stop..... only probably, though.

It's funny how someone who really hates dissent and arguing and battles and war pretty much deals with it all on a daily basis. I never really feel the peace and harmony and love that I believe in so much. Sometimes I get glimpses of them. But they never last long. I guess that's why true faith is believing in the unseen.

I want a gentle revolution. I want a worldwide transformation. I want to disturb the order of society and infect the world with God's love. I want pop culture to suck it. I want a lifetime of love for others and ourselves. I want to give and not receive and be satisfied with that. I want unity and interdependence to outshine survival of the fittest. I want to love the hard people, the child molesters and the physically deformed and the Hitlers and the Osama Bin Ladens of the world. I want to know what makes the USA the best country in the world and why people are so proud to wear red, white, and blue while we murder and torture humans just like us. Sometimes I lie in bed in the middle of the night and get the urge to purge my entire wardrobe and live in the same outfit every day if it will help clothe people who have nothing. Other times I think I would miss my pretty dresses, though. I want to be pure in thought and body and soul. Sometimes I wonder if that is possible. I want people to come first, not profit. I want to never sell anyone anything ever again. I want one man to show me the way God says men should treat women and to stick around. I want to honor my husband someday and never stray from the sanctity of marriage. I want reconciliation to overcome all the brokenness. I want people to know that no one is beyond redemption. I want to get inside your head and rearrange all your doubts and perceptions so that things would make sense and this would work out between us. I want to close my eyes and not be afraid to open them up to see what is in front of me. I want to love people until the sun dies.

I don't feel like I fit into this lifetime, this world. I feel like a circle that is supposed to be a square. I don't want to live the American Way. Sometimes I think capitalism makes sense, and other times it makes me cringe. I wonder how some people have so much while other people have so little. Sometimes I cry about it, thinking about the weight of the world on my shoulders like I somehow manage to do way too much of the time. I'm no Jesus, but sometimes I feel like your suffering is my suffering along with my own suffering, and then I feel that all of that suffering doesn't even come close to the amount of suffering that's going on all over the world. Maybe I don't belong in America. America is eating me alive along with all the fried food it can produce. I feel like my body is here on earth, but my soul is somewhere very distant. My soul faints and cries out for heaven. I am really feeling the weight of the part in the Bible (if I had my Bible in front of me I could say where exactly it says it, but I don't), where God says this is not our home, we are foreigners in this world because our real home is with Him. So we should feel strange living here. Oh, please bring me home, Lord.

it's true I failed, but Your love covers me.

I write with love
and I write for free
this way is death
please come with me
my words are true
and my eyes are soft
this is your chance
come with and see

thy worth is great
thy heart is pure
my arms stay open
so please be sure
I wait for you always
and offer you my love
but the only love you know
left you pain to endure

this world is death
this world is black
you choose your way
and never turn back

your heart is empty
your soul is dark
you see the light
and ignore the spark.
----------------------------

A mother that loves her own
but she cannot plainly see
the death in her mouth
rotting root and tree

of sky and earth
so spreads the dark
it leaks from her face
always finding its mark

oh mother, oh mother
your love is like no other
it slaps the face of who you love
it takes and takes and takes and takes

oh mother, sweet woman
do you know what you do
your arm a fine lover
your hand waiting to smother

oh mother, my mother
it was me you were loving
it was me you were loving.

------------------------------

Love until it HURTS.

Some of the best stuff I've read in a long time, highlights from the book "Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne.

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian Scholarship. Christian Scholarship is the church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament." -Soren Kierkegaard.

"We are not a voice for the voiceless. The truth is that there is a lot of noise out there drowning out quiet voices, and many people have stopped listening to the cries of their neighbors. Lots of folks have put their hands over their ears to drown out the suffering." -Shane

"It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just a missions project but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream, and struggle." -Shane

"Charity wins awards and applause, but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world." -Shane

-I want to live out a love that disrupts the social order. And there is never a better time to start doing so than right now. :)

..."But today people crave the spectacular. People are drawn to lights and celebrities, to arenas and megachurches. In the desert, Jesus was tempted by the spectacular, to do big, miraculous things so people might believe, but Jesus has called us to littleness and compares our revolution to the little mustard seed, to yeast making its way through dough, SLOWLY INFECTING THIS DARK WORLD WITH LOVE." -Shane

-I love using disgusting words to illustrate something beautiful. What would the world look like if everybody woke up every morning and thought, "how can I infect this dark world with love today?" I think it'd be pretty amazing.

"...We've just fallen in love with God and our neighbors, and that is transforming our lives." -Shane

"We are the richest and most miserable people in the world." -Shane

-we have the highest suicide rates and depression and yet we keep our misery around our wrists like handcuffs, this is probably the most true thing I've thought about it a long time. And we love staying miserable. Time to break the cycle, America. Time to break hearts, followers of Jesus.

"I feel sorry that so many of us have settled for a lonely world of independence and riches when we could all experience the fullness of life in community and interdependence. Why would I want a fancy car when I can ride a bike, or a TV when I can play outside with sidewalk chalk? Ok, sometimes I still want the hottub on the roof, but the rest I can live without. And I mean LIVE without." -Shane

-This is the epitome of what I think about on a daily basis, haha.

[Referencing Matthew 11:28-30] "...One of the things I think Jesus is doing is setting us free from the heavy yoke of an oppressive way of life. I know plenty of people, both rich and poor, who are suffocating from the weight of the "American Dream", who find themselves heavily burdened by the lifeless toil and consumption we put upon ourselves. This is the yoke we are being SET FREE FROM." -Shane

-Matthew 11:28-30 is my "life verse"... for so many reasons. But it's interesting how the deeper reasons are becoming more and more apparent to me the older I get and the more I keep coming back to what Jesus tells us in this passage.

Mother Theresa: "Following Jesus is simple, but not easy. Love until it hurts, and then love more."

Dorothy Day: "Love is a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, but it is the only answer."

"This love is not sentimental but heart-wrenching, the most difficult and the most beautiful thing in the world." -Shane

"There are plenty of people who are miserable in their jobs, for they have not listened to God's call. And I would add there are many Christians who are not fulfilled in their spiritual lives because they have no sense of their gifts or purpose, and they just run to the mission field to save souls rather than transform lives and communities using their gifts and those of the people they live among. Both lead to EMPTINESS and BURNOUT." -Shane

"Some may leave their jobs. Others will redefine them. Many of us feel an inner collision between the old life and the new one." -Shane

In relation to the fuller awareness of notorious human rights abusers (Coca-Cola, Nestle, Disney, Gap, etc)... "Not everyone responds in the same way, BUT WE MUST RESPOND."

Over 20,000 children die each *day* from curable water-borne disease because of the problem for access to clean water.

"Jesus was crucified not for helping poor people, but for joining them. That is the Jesus we follow." -Shane

"We've got to unite ourselves as one body. Because Jesus is coming back, and he's coming back for a bride, not a harem." -a gospel preacher.

My mind is spinning, kids.

The lion lays down with the lamb.

What if we all realized what this toiling and consuming is doing to our world? It won't ever happen unless we stop covering our ears to drown out the screams of our neighbors, and it won't happen unless we open up our eyes, and I mean really open them. We all see what we want to see. People don't want to see people suffering. Because it might make us feel really guilty and it might make us have to change the way we live our lives. People don't want to see death and they don't want to see poverty, they don't want to see people naked and hungry and crying.

Maybe love doesn't mean happiness. Maybe it means you're going to hurt. There is so much more to happiness than just feeling good. More than not feeling bad. What if happiness isn't all there is to strive for on this earth? What if it isn't about making it to the next and higher level of happiness. What if we all stopped trying to become higher. Higher in our statuses, our wealth, our contentment, our security, our jobs, our place in society, everything. Haha, what if happiness really is a warm gun? ...kidding.

so I'll stand, my soul Lord to You surrendered-- All I am is Yours!

what if we all believed in a God that could make our spirits dance and sing the way we do when we go to our worship services, when we're just sitting alone in a room... no band leading us, no friends next to us, just us and a chair. you know the worship services I'm talking about, the ones that rock us and make us scream and shout and wave our arms around for Jesus. the ones with the most talented guitar players that play our favorite worship tunes from Hillsong and Chris Tomlin and all the other Christian music resources. Cause I gotta tell you, I think when we do that every week, soemtimes we get into this rhythm. A rhythm where we NEED that amazing band, with the drums and the violin and the guitars and the piano and singers, in order to get really into the music and then into the spirit of worship with the Lord. Because as humans in these physical bodies we have, and our natural instincts, and just the way we are in our flesh... we associate things all the time with our feelings and our sentiments and emotions and experiences. And I think a lot of Christians walk away from these worship experiences so many times that it begins to feel like that's the standard- that's the way our worship time should be, at the least, to feel connected to God and glorify Him with our songs and our dancing.

And that leads us to a lot of disappointment, and unrest in our souls. What if we played that song from our laptops when we're sitting on the computer in a room all by ourselves, with no "introduction" of worship songs to get us into "the mood", or a youth pastor to pray and get our attention set on God for us. What if we just sat there doing our thing, and turned on a worship song through youtube. and what if that's all we needed to set our heart to dancing and make our souls sing for Jesus, and wave our arms around, and have an extreme physical reaction to the music we hear, and the words that we're singing. Because our God is just THAT amazing. He doesn't need lights and he doesnt need any of that extra stuff. It's just Him and us. Him and me. in a room, dancing. singing with all of my lungs.

that's the kind of God I believe in.

And having all of that "stuff"- the amazingly talented worship band, all the musical instruments, the sound system, the lights- that stuff is all good. It's GOOD. It's wonderful. People who were given great gifts get to use their musical talents to lead other people in worship to glorify God, that is good. and it is good to appreciate them and love the music they make.

but be careful not to fall into that motion, the one where you need THEM and all of that "stuff" to worship God. None of that really matters, except your heart, when it really comes down to it. And I believe that our God doesn't need anything to make Him look better than He already looks, and make His worship songs sound better than they already are. He is perfection. and He is all I need. I just wonder sometimes if anyone else falls into that rhythm, the one I described above, cause I know I have. I love music so much and I get really into it, but I gotta confess sometimes if that stuff isn't all there, it's hard for me to connect and worship. but you just have to remember it's about God, and nothing else.

I wonder how awesome it would be if we ALL believed in a God that didn't need anything but Himself to worship with all of our might. just sitting in a room with a computer and a chair and yourself- dancing and singing and worshipping Him. <3

I picture you in the sun.

I think a lot about how things have changed. Not in a bad or good way, but just that there has been change. I see bits and pieces of the person I was one year ago, but thinking of everything together in one whole person is something I cannot remember or recall very well. I've forgotten, because I am so far away from that person in that body and mind. But I'll always remember the way I felt. I'm reminded of that when I walk by people, sometimes, and there eyes look like mine did when I looked at myself in the mirror. But I saw the mirror broken up in razor sharp pieces and none of the pieces fit together no matter how hard I tried to imagine them back together and whole. I couldn't even dream my life back together. I was so far away from now.

Whole. Beautiful. Radiant. Strong.

I don't want to experience the kinds of things I have gone through over the past year again, but if they did happen again, I'd be able to get through it. I know that. I know that now.

Sometimes I see faces of people that hurt so bad just to catch a glimpse of their pain, I wonder how horrible they feel in all their suffering. And I wonder how much of our suffering is caused by ourselves, and how much is caused by forces outside of our control, and how to deal with the two and how they differ and why they exist.

I think love sets us free. And anything that doesn't, probably isn't real love. It's probably just our own deceiving of ourselves, and confusing our hopes and desires and needs together in one big heap. That means I've been chained for a very long time, and I've been living disillusioned to knowing love and receiving it and giving it back. the only true love I've ever felt is the love of God that rains down on me when I sit in a quiet room all by myself and open up my heart to my Maker. And the love from my friends, the ones that walk in when the rest of the world walks out-those friends. All the rest is just pretend. And actually, thinking about this doesn't make me feel like I've missed out on experiencing real love other ways, it makes me feel special and chosen and significant, knowing that God loves ME for me. and if nobody else in this world loved me, God's love would be more than enough to live with forever. My cup runeth over, eh?

Yes, it does.

More.

I said there would be more, and here it is...

-And then I started thinking about my own life, how I need people to love me and like me and how, if they don't, I feel miserable and sad and how I am tempted to believe what they are saying about me is true. It is as though the voice God used to have has been taken up by less credible voices. And when I think about this I know that Genesis 3 is true; I know without a doubt I am a person who is wired so that something outside myself tells me who I am.

-The thing is, if people are in a lifeboat, the reason they feel passionately about being a good person and all is because if they aren't, they are going to be thrown overboard; they are going to be killed. I realize that sounds grim, but I kept comparing, in my mind, the conversation that might take place in a lifeboat with the conversations I heard at Palio or at Horse Brass. Because when you really think about it, these wants we have, like wanting to be right, wanting to be good, wanting to be perceived as humble, wanting to be important to people and wanting to be loved, feel perilous, as though by not getting them something terrible is going to happen.

-...and if we don't get that love and respect, we feel very sad or angry because we know that our glory is at stake.... we'll be dead inside, like a little light will go out and our souls will feel dark, like nothing can grow there. We'll feel that there is a penalty, by default, for being removed from love.

-The most selfless thing God could do, that is, the most selfless thing a perfect Being who is perfectly loving could do, would be to create other beings to enjoy Himself.

-I feel like I am in a lifeboat trying to get other people to say I am important and valued and even when they do, it feels as though their opinion isn't strong enough to give me the feeling I need, the feeling that quit at the Fall.

-But what we really need is God. What we really need is somebody who loves us so much we don't worry about death, about our hair thinning, about other drivers pulling in front of us on the road, about whether people are poor or rich, good-looking or ugly, about whether we feel lonely or about whether or not we are wearing clothes. We need thisl we need this so we can love other people purely and not for selfish gain, we need this so we can see everybody as equals, we need this so our relationships can be sincere, we need this so we can stop kicking ourselves around, we need this so we can lose all self-awareness and find ourselves for the first time, not by realizing some dream, but by being told who we are by the only Being who has the authority to know, by that I mean the Creator.

-It seems to me that many of us just chose a team years ago and are unwilling to concede that their team isn't right. So often decisions aren't being made based on whether or not the ideas of a political party are good ideas; decisions are based on associations and dissociations in the lifeboat. It becomes very dangerous.

-It is no coincidence that Jesus talks endlessly about love. Free love. Unconditional love.

-Logic is thrown out the window, or worse, used as a tool to validate our prejudices. Philosophies, ideals, and even religious convictions become weapons for slaughter.

*********-I was asking myself while I was reading whether or not Jesus had many of the personality traits we have here on earth. And the truth is, He didn't. He had hunger and thirst and He slept and rested, but He had no regard for the lifeboat politics you and I live within every day. He believed a great deal of absurd ideas, such as we should turn the other cheek if somebody hits us, we should give somebody our coat even if they just ask for our shirt, we should be willing to give up all our money and follow Him, we should try out hardest to make peace, we should treat poor people the same as we treat the rich, we should lay down our lives for our friends, and so on and so on. It seemed He believed we should take every opportunity to fail in the lifeboat game, not for the sake of failing, but because there wasn't anything to win in the first place. It was as if He didn't believe the economy we live within had validity. No part of Him was deceived by its power. ********

-Several years ago I was getting to the point that the enormous, entangling religion of Christianity, with its many divisions, its multiple theologies, its fondness for war rhetoric, and its quirky, lumbering personality, was such a nuisance I hardly wanted anything to do with it.

-my gut tells me the key to life is relational, not propositional.

-To exchange heaven for a place, and to exchange eternity for time, was an act of humility I don't think any of us can understand.

****-I started thinking about how, if God is a perfect and loving Being, the most selfless thing He could do would be to create other beings to enjoy Him. And then I started thinking that if those creatures fell away from Him, the most selfless thing a perfect and loving Being could do would be to go and get them, to try to save them from the death that would take place in His absence. ****

woah.

The things I took away the most from the book "Searching for God Knows What" by Donald Miller....

...And that makes me wonder if what we really want from the formulas are the wishes, not God. It makes me wonder if what we really want is control, not a relationship.

The very scary thing about religion, to me, is that people actually believe God is who they think He is. By that I mean they have Him all figured out, mapped out, and as my pastor, Rick, says, "dissected and put into jars on a shelf." You've got a bunch of Catholics in Rome who think one way about God, and a bunch of Baptists in Texas who think another, and that isn't even the beginning. It goes on and on and on like this, and it makes me wonder if God created us in His image or if we created Him in ours.

...i realized there was this other part of me, and it was a big part of me, that needed something outside of myself to tell me who I was. And the thing that had been designed to tell me who I was, was gone. And so the second idea became obvious: I was very concerned with getting other people to say I was good or valuable or important because the thing that was supposed to make me feel this way was gone.

Jesus was always, and I mean always, talking about love, about people, about relationship, and He never once broke anything into steps or formulas. I began to wonder if becoming a Christian did not work more like falling in love than agreeing with a list of true principles. I had met a lot of people who agreed with all those true principles, and they were jerks, and a lot of other people who believed in those principles, but also claimed to love Jesus, who were not jerks. It seems like something else has to take place in the heart for somebody to become a believer, for somebody to understand the gospel of Jesus.

But if the gospel of Jesus is relational; that is, if our brokenness will be fixed, not by our understanding of theology, but by God telling us who we are, then this would require a kind of intimacy of which only heaven knows. Imagine, a Being with a mind as great as God's, with feet like trees and a voice like rushing wind, telling you that you are His cherished creation. It's kind of exciting if you think about it. Earthly love, I mean the stuff I was trying to get by sounding smart, is temporal and slight so that it has to be given again and again in order for us to feel any sense of security; but God's love, God's voice and presence, would instill our souls with such affirmation we would need nothing more and would cause us to love other people so much we would be willing to die for them.

I like Paul the best because he said the hard stuff about women in ministry and homosexuality and you get to thinking he was pretty severe, and all of a sudden he starts getting vulnerable as though he is feeling lonely, needing to share personal stuff with somebody.

If a writer is going to sit down with a big important voice and try to get me motivated about something, I pretty much don't want to read anymore because it makes me feel tired, as though life were just about getting a lot of things done. Paul never did this. He was terribly personal.
The books I like are the ones that get you feeling like you are with a person, hanging out with a person who is being quite vulnerable, telling you all sorts of stuff that is personal. And that's the thing Paul did that makes me like him. The other thing is, the guy was passionate, like he actually believed this stuff was true, always going off about heaven and hell because he KNEW life has extremes. One minute he talked about how disgusting sin is and how it hurts God in His heart, and the next minute he said he would go to hell for people if he could, how he would die for them and go to hell if they would just trust Christ. It's really hard to read that stuff because it gets you feeling guilty about not loving people very much, and then you feel very thankful for people like Paul because it means that *if a person knows Christ, they become the sort of man who says difficult truths with his mouth and yet feels things with his heart that make him want to go around and die for people. It's quite beautiful, really.*

A community like that might sound far-fetched, but when you read through John's other books, the short ones, all he talks about is IF YOU KNOW JESUS, YOU WILL LOVE YOUR BROTHER AND SISTER, and anybody who talked that much about loving your brother and sister was probably the most beloved person in their community, and when he died people would have felt a certain pain about it for a long, long time.

Considering this couple, and what Adam went through to appreciate Eve to the utmost, I wondered at how beautiful it is that you and I were created to need each other. The romantic need is just the beginning, because we need our families and we need our friends. In this way, we are made in God's image. Certainly God does not need people in the way you and I do, but He feels a joy at being loved, and He feels a joy at delivering love. It is a striking thought to realize that, in paradise, a human is incomplete without a host of other people. We are relational indeed. And this book, the Bible, with all its understanding of the relational needs of humans, was becoming more meaningful to me as I turned the pages. God made me, He knows me, He understand me, and He wants community.

I believe we are in the wreckage of a war, a kind of Hiroshima, a kind of Mount Saint Helens, with souls distorted like the children of Chernobyl. As terrible as it is to think about these things, as ugly as it is to face them, I have the see the world this way in order for it to make sense. I have to believe something happened, and we are walking around holding our wounds. That said, we are mistaken to believe this is a war between people with flesh and people with flesh. The only appropriate war rhetoric is war rhetoric that calls our enemies spirits, and people with flesh the victims of this war. Satan wants us to fight with one another, and I understand that sometimes evil must be restrained, but our war, the war of the ones who believe in Jesus, is a war unseen.

more to come...

"Oh the only one I come undone for is you-u-u-u-u..."

After saying goodnight to each other, I was ready to fall asleep and have wonderful dreams. But just as I reached to turn off the light, my phone rang again and it was him. I wondered what could possibly be the reason, seeing as we had been on the phone for hours and had talked about everything that two people can talk about. "Yes?" I said. And then he said those words. Those words we always long to hear in the deepest threads of our heart. Those words that change everything in an instant. The ones that our softest, sweetest dreams are created from. And he said them to me.

I feel that if I had heard this from him a year ago or some other previous year, my reaction would be predictable and assumed. But my life has changed so much in the past year. So many things are different. I'M different. I couldn't answer the same way I would have back then.

My heartbeat was suddenly beating out of my chest and I could hear it as if someone was playing a base drum in my ear. My eyes searched the room to look for some assurance that this was indeed reality and not just a dream. My mouth was moving, but no words were coming out, they were stuck in my throat. I was a deer stuck in the headlights. I felt so many things all at once that I couldn't possibly choose just one of them to express, so my brain opted to give up and express nothing. I wanted so badly to say the words back to him, that was absolutely clear. But I was frozen. I sputtered out a few words of explanation, but mostly left him hanging there in his vulnerability.

My heart was yelling, "Say it Say it Say it!!" but my head was screaming back, "No, I can't!" and it was then I realized how utterly frightened I was of what had just been said to me. Not because I didn't feel the same way. Not because I didn't want this to happen. But because I knew how strongly I felt the same way, and how devastating it would be if this didn't work out someday. Right when he said those words to me, I was afraid he was going to vanish in an instant and be gone forever and I would be left alone. I was horribly scared to lose him. Because I know how hard this will be. Once we admit this, there's no going back. And I'm not completely sure that I have it in me to go all the way. That's what scares me the most. And that's why I couldn't say the words back to him. I am 100% stupid and 100% chicken.

Changes.

There is a lot going on in my life right now. It's crazy! I'm proud of myself for managing everything the way I have.... even though I wish I could manage it all better, I know I'm still learning. Always learning. That never changes.

In the past couple months, a lot has changed. I've leaned a lot less on some people that are in my life, and leaned a lot more on others. I've become a die-hard Scrubs fan, nay- FANATIC, pretty much, and watch every season over and over again. I've even begun to apply certain episodes to what's going on in my own life and thinking about how J.D. and the rest of the hospital gang get through the tough times of life. Though it is just a tv show, it is a lot more to it underneath all the quirky jokes. I've had a variety of sicknesses, including the current one that is starting to go away finally- my lovely bronchitus/asthma. I attended the 2008 Snowball with Salt Company, which reminded me how much I miss high school homecoming and prom dances and refueled my love for the art of dance.

I have shied away from any and all opportunities to get anywhere NEAR dating a new boy. Literally I have kept it from even entering the door to my mind... and the few times someone has tried to creep in there, I get so scared about just THINKING about being in a relationship I absolutely FREAK out and try to remind myself to keep breathing steady, deep breaths...otherwise I'd probably faint. Yeah. That's new for me. I was always miss boy crazy, miss always-wanting-to-be-in-a-relationship. Ya not so much.... not since, well, we'll just say not since what happened last year with a certain boy. Speaking of which, is in a new relationship which totally confuses me and creeps me out actually....it's just really weird to me, not in a i-still-care kind of way, just a how-can-you-not-notice way. best of luck to them.

There is, however, a boy that is always on my mind, of course. The one that lives 1200 miles away from me and always has! Apparently no guy in Iowa deserves me. I'm going to be on a plane in exactly 7 days flying to the beautiful state of North Carolina to spend 10 days with him, his friends, and his family. I don't think I've ever been MORE excited to see someone in my entire life. And for once... we are oddly both single. We talk.... preeetty much every single day, sometimes twice, sometimes three times on the phone. I am still in shock that I am actually going to be in his presence after 2 years and 5 months. That's a long time people! in March, it will be 7 years since that fateful day we met on the cruise ship. Unbelievable. I have imagined the moment we see each other at the Raleigh-Durham airport in my head, over, and over, and over again. Every time is different. But every time is the same. I am always happy in every dream that I have, always euphorically....happy.

I met and started hanging out with a new friend named Blake, that's actually on the ISU track team with all my other guy friends. We became buds really fast. I'm so comfortable around him and there's no "tension" with him regarding that always-there feeling guys and girls have around each other when they first become friends that makes them wonder if they'll ever be more than friends. It's nice. Very odd, but really nice. I can always count on him to pick me up from right outside my dorm and take me home at a second's notice, to be playing gangsta rap and hip hop whenever we drive somewhere, and to do something spontaneous with me at ridiculous hours of the night. It's awesome!

I've had interesting sleep patterns in the past month. It's been horrible, but at the same time, enlightening. With all my sicknesses, medicines, side effects of medicines, and trying to keep up with school and work which is exhausting when you're already sick and tired anyway.....well, my body clock has been WAY off. So there have been many times I would be asleep during the day and wide awake at night. Or sleep extra long, like for 15 hours. Or be wide awake and unable to fall asleep for 32 hours straight. All I can say is that it's been... quite an experience.

I'm glad to announce I have finally found my calling in my Fashion Design major here at Iowa State. However, it has not been an easy semester. Somehow I couldn't escape the clutches of sickness again, and it has caused a bunch of problems for me.... again.... right at the end of the semester... it's been quite the struggle. I hope things work out. That's really all I can say at this point.

Love always.

"DECODE" - Paramore.

How can I decide what's right?
When you're clouding up my mind
I can't win your losing fight all the time
Not gonna ever own what's mine
When you're always taking sides
But you won't take away my pride
No not this time
Not this time

How did we get here?
When I use to know you so well
How did we get here?
Well, I think I know

The truth is hiding in your eyes
And it's hanging on your tongue
Just boiling in my blood,
But you think that I can't see
What kind of man that you are
If you're a man at all
Well, I will figure this one out on my own
On my own ("I'm screaming I love you so")
On my own (My thoughts you can't decode)

How did we get here?
When I use to know you so well, yeah.
How did we get here?
Well, I think I know

Do you see what we've done?
We've gone and made such fools of ourselves
Do you see what we've done?
We've gone and made such fools of ourselves

Yeah
How did we get here?
When I use to know you so well, yeah yeah
How did we get here?
Well, I use to know you so well

I think I know
I think I know
There is something I see in you
It might kill me I want it to be true.

this is what I pray.

In my life, be lifted high
in my world, be lifted high
in my love, be lifted high
higher, higher

i call, You answer
and You came to my rescue
and i want to be where You are.
-------------------------------

show me Your heart
show me Your way
show me Your glory

Your fire fall down
fire fall down
on us, we pray
we'll never be the same again
fire fall down
fire fall down
on us, we pray
as we seek You, Lord.

------------------------

I am once again quite ill. I have an infection that spread to both my kidneys and now I have a nasty kidney infection. I'm very scared it won't get better from the medicine I was put on, because then I will have to be hospitalized and I really don't need the stress of all of that. I'm already stressed and down as it is. I got to go to Salt tonight though, which gave me a little boost in my spirit and my emotional/mental state. I am praying so hard that my infection clears up. I know God will take care of me, no matter what happens.

Loosening the grip.

It's sad that one day can unravel months, even years, of growth in a friendship. There are some disappointments in life you just can't ever be prepared for, and seeing someone for who they really are is one of them. Especially when you see them in a light you wish had never been turned on... because it's ugly.

One thing I have learned about living is that you can't fix your friends. Along with that, you have to weigh the mistakes and the consequences and their impact on you, and figure out what's best for yourself- not them. Otherwise, it's just not healthy.

All people have patterns. Most of life contains cycles that we fall in and out of. When you start seeing a bad pattern in someone you have always held in high opinion, things can get a little difficult and complicated. You have an attachment to the past of this person, but you have a "detach button" ready to be hit for the present, because you look out into your future and you see them continuing their patterns over and over and over again, and it's just too much to ask yourself to overlook all the hurt and all the problems it's going to cause you later on... not to mention what it's already caused you at the present moment.

I never used to be able to detach myself from anybody. Even the most destructive of relationships. But I can now. The question now is, how do I know which function to practice, and to what extent? I am at a loss for words at this point.

"I don't really miss it all that much..."

I've decided to begin every train of thought with the word "As." Because I can.


As I sit here alone, with no roommate to quietly whisper a goodnight to just across the room from where I lie, I sort of wish I wasn't such a people person. Like life would be so much easier if I was totally ok with being an introvert all the time..... because I find myself alone for a large portion of my life. Or, rather, those periods of time just stick out... because I do really love being around people that much. Either way, since my roommate had to move out because of her health issues with the mold in our room, I am still upset about getting all familiar with living with another person and making a new friend, then having it all ripped away from me in a matter of 2 days. The ironic part is that I know exactly what it feels like to be her and have to choose your health over what you wish you could do. That's really why we made such a strong bond so quickly.... and it's still there, but I can't wake up with it there or go to bed knowing it's there either.

As I think about the person I'm avoiding currently, I wonder if they're starting to wonder if I'm avoiding them. It's not that I'm immature and don't want to own up to something I did. I really have not had 30 minutes to myself the past 2 days. All of my time and energy goes to my schoolwork and classes, or work these days. To be honest, I don't think a lot of people who know me pretty well actually get how busy I actually am and how demanding my major actually is.......they're probably used to me being the girl that always had time for everyone else, but that was before I got my life in order and figured out I have to stop giving away all my time to other people and other things.... and finally give myself the time of day to do what I want and what I need. And what I want and need right now is to succeed in school and get my GPA up and focus on learning everything I need to learn to practice my passion for fashion one day... and be happy with what I do and who I am. That's the ultimate goal. And the only way I'll get there is by being a little selfish. Note: I use the term selfish in a way you probably won't really understand. It's a little complicated. And I'm not going to elaborate.

As I recall going to work last night, I was very much dreading it... as usual. Sunday nights are usually so bland at the C-store. I have to be in the back cooler, stocking all the milk and drinks and frozen snacks in the 40 degree temperature. Granted, I get to look like an eskimo (eskimos are cool) with multiple big puffy coats covering my little frame as I grab more crates of Powerade and Mountain Dew and stumble into the freezing cold death chamber (I just came up with that name for it!!). Anyway, the thing is it's the people I work with on said night that usually give me no reason to look forward to it. However, last night my team was all in such good moods that everyone had a lot of fun practically the entire time. I let my charming personality and silly humor get me in with the 2 cool black dudes I work with, and made the cheese dish for the deli look so pretty my supervisor said she'd write about it and put it in the comment box. BAM!!! But the icing on the cake is that my boss (who I was full and ready to walk up to and rant for 10 minutes about how smiling is good for the soul if the opportunity came), spoke more than 2 sentences to me (first surprise), AND (second surprise), said aforementioned sentences in a kind tone of voice. BAHH!! I sensed a hint of a smile on her face too...... incredible. So I didn't get to say my awesome speech about smiling and laughter and how being a nice person in general is a good thing.....and how if she wanted to work in the food industry she probably should have realized it's about dealing with people, both employees and customers, ALL THE DANG TIME, and brushed up on her people skills and maybe gotten some counseling on how to JUST BE A NICE PERSON.... but if I would have gotten to give my whole rant, I probably would have gotten fired. so. I guess my own boss kinda saved my butt in an ironic twist. :)

As I was typing up my resume down in the good ol' Friley computer lab just about 45 minutes ago, I couldn't help but get a little down on myself. The education section that I needed to list out made me ponder my life more than I would have liked to at the moment. My instructor gave us a little outline that basically wrote our resume for ourselves, but it was supposed to be a guide, and prompted us to list academic awards, honors, art show awards, scholarships, our GPA, and other such things. After getting out the major things like what my major is and my emphasis and that I am a Hixson Scholarship Recipient........I realized that is my only pride and joy that matters to the outside world and the academic world of Iowa State University. The fact that I have yet to graduate with anything official from this lovely university, and I am a member of a scholarship group (which is very honorable, but... that's all). As far as anyone is concerned, I am about as valuable of a potential employee as a homeless man off the street........ well, you know what I mean. My GPA is sub-par after all the crappy health problems and personal situations that have interfered with my past semesters. I have never made the Dean's List. I have not won any awards in my 2 and a half years of attending, I have not even been put in any leadership positions in any clubs, groups, or activities, and my main activity within this university is a Christian Youth Group. Wow. I sound just AMAZING to an designer who needs an intern to come help design and work in their store. Note: Sarcastic tone.

As I continued sitting in the Friley computer lab thinking about how pathetic and troublesome my college years have been, I began to feel my blood temperature rise a little bit... as I questioned, 'how about in the Experience section i include that i've passed probably 10 kidney stones known to date?' or perhaps, 'for one of my many Key Skills, what about putting down- 'should have died from car accident but has great skills in not dying even though all odds are against me''.....better yet, 'activities: telling myself that i love myself and i'm worth living, every day. because if i dont, i might not believe it.' eh? do those things matter on frickin Resumes?! no. no they dont. all the life experiences I have that matter in my heart and my soul.... don't matter at ALL to the world outside of my college shelter. they dont care that i've overcome pain after pain after pain and learned how to cope with immense stress and become a strong, stable woman. But they do care that my GPA is not a 3.0 or a 4.0. And they do care that I've never been on the Dean's List and I'm a junior in college at major university. Awesome. I am just set, aren't I? :(

Resumes suck.

when it rains...

Life is hard.

some people just let you down, all the time, and you should probably get used to it.

Fear is a trap. Don't fall into it.

there are just some things that you can't fix.

brokenness is a lonely tunnel with no light at the end.

if you don't show someone that you care, how do they know that you care?

if you get the opportunity to let someone know you care, don't pass it up. if enough opportunities go by unnoticed, eventually you send a very clear message that is very hurtful.

oblivious is not an excuse.

if you don't have time for me, i'm not going to give you my time.

when it rains on this side of town, it touches EVERYTHING.

There are some people I never want to be like.

So I recently had an experience with some people, in particular some people of the female species. And as most people know, I shy away from hanging out with girls unless they are my very good friends or are truly great people that do not belong in the general stereotype of the female population. We all know girls like this. They are almost everywhere. You just can't seem to get away from them. I do not think of myself to be better than these girls in any way, shape, or form. However, I have very strong beliefs when it comes to how I act and how I represent my gender when I act a certain way. This being said, I just want it to be clear that I am not saying I am better than anybody, but I am saying I do not think of myself as the stereotypical girl of Generation Y. And that is very important to me.

A lot of these girls actually think of themselves the same way I think of myself. Not like "them." But I assure you, they are sadly mistaken. It is a sad thing that we even have this stereotype about being a young female that has presented itself as something girls must fight against for much of their young lives. But the reality of things is that it exists. So deal with it. You can only pretend so long.

I have been thinking a lot about this over the weekend, because of what happened a couple nights ago when I was out and about. I remember retelling the story of events that night to my lovely roommate just the other day, and she was listening to my every word as if she were watching a suspenseful movie just about to reach its climax and change the world we know forever. Dripping with drama.

I arrive at my really good guy friend's place. I found him and we hugged and said salutations, the usual. Then he told me to go set up for a game we were going to play and he'd be there in a minute to join me. So I'm waiting. Then I look over and I see this random girl walk up to him and start doing what can only be described as a desperate attempt to get a guy's attention and somehow fulfill her slutty quota for the night. Ew. The only thing is, he's not stopping it. Cool. A girl that I only assume is a friend of said desperate girl comes over to me and asks me, "hey are you and that guy together?" I look at her. I make up my mind very quickly to not be THAT GIRL that thinks she possesses something that she really doesnt. I say, "no we are not together. I don't want her dancing with him though." I felt it was a good representation of my complicated thoughts at the moment. She walks away. My guy friend finally snaps out of it and walks over to join me at our game. We're getting things ready, when all the sudden said desperate dancing girl pushes me out of the way and stands inbetween me and my guy friend so that we can't stand next to each other. I kindly say, "excuse me, this is my friend, we're playing right now." She turns to me and shoves me further away and goes, "He's MY partner. GO AWAY." She literally shoved me. I want to explode, but I try to kindly tell her to move away so we can play our game and she can play next, and she grabs my guy friend and nuzzles close to him as she forcefully tells me that she is playing with him, not me. My guy friend says and does nothing.

This does not make me feel good. I hold back tears, and walk into my friend's room and shut the door so I can be alone because I feel like I'm about to cry. A second later, all the sudden the door is flung open and in walks in another girl. She stands very close to me and yells, "HEY, what's the problem?!" I tell her very calmly, "there's no problem, a girl was not being very nice to me and shoved me and it was very rude." The girl then explains to me that that's her best friend and somehow felt the need to assure me several times that she's "NOT A SLUT" and that I need to keep my mouth shut(uhh?). This is perplexing, stupid, and annoying to me. I tell her calmly, "That's fine. But your friend shoved me out of the way and it was just really uncalled for and unnecessary." Apparently that just set her off. Apparently she doesn't respond well to calm, chill, laid-back, nice girls. Because, next thing I know, this girl GRABS my chin and pulls me close to her face (what?!), yells some garbage at me about being a b*tch, then PULLS MY PONYTAIL HAIRBAND OUT OF MY HAIR and THROWS IT ON THE GROUND. I look at her and I'm like, "excuse me?! get away from me!" and I walk out of the room and back to where everyone else is. I pull my guy friend aside and try to explain to him what just happened, and I'm holding back tears again, and he is completely belligerent and just looks at me and goes, "Emily. You need to leave. Just leave." I grab my purse and I am out of that place faster than you can say "Unbelievable."

The worst part is when I am walking out of the door, I turn back as it opens again and the mean girl who pulled my hair out is standing at the door, waving at me, and says, "Bye!!!"

I wrote about this because this is something I have never experienced before. I have never felt what I felt on this night after having these random, slutty, disrespectful, gross, b*tchy girls attack me when I did absolutely nothing to provoke them, nothing wrong, and pretty much nothing at all but come over to MY friends of 2 and a half years and hang out.

So I stand strong on what I put as the title of this blog: There are some people I never want to be like. And those girls are those people. Unbelievable. UNBELIEVABLE.

crown me nothing.

What constitutes a validated meltdown exactly?

where is my God and Savior in these dark times?

I choose not to respond to the prodding questions and condescending remarks.

this year, I have a backbone.

when did marriage become a fad?

every day I live, I gain a deeper understanding of the expensive world we live in, and every day I hate it even more than the day before.

What makes money the god of this underworld and how do we stop it?

who decided money is enough to destroy lives of beautiful people?

I say, hell no.

No, I do not want to leave my home here and go where you are and where you now are calling "home", because it is not MY home and it never will be. It will always be the place you now stay, just a place, nothing more nothing less. Never home.

bye.

"you caught me off guard, now i'm running and screaming."

this is the point where I have to re-group, evaluate, and re-strategize... using all the tools I became equipped with over this past summer. Life is moving very fast, and has been for a while now. The constant high speed has been manageable, but I'm running out of gas. So now I need to fill back up, before I get to empty and hit rock bottom again. I never want to hit rock bottom again! That's why I have preventative measures up my sleeves that I will now pull out and use.

I will never get used to taking all of my medicines and pills. Especially my kidney stone disease medicine. I absolutely hate having to take 6 pills every single day, knowing that if I don't, it could cost me a lot of pain and a lot of problems I definitely don't need on my already full plate right now. And it's worse, because I faithfully take my medicine, but I still already have been passing several stones over the past couple weeks. Last night was the worst... I thought I was going to have to go to the ER, but I just toughed it out for 3 hours total of constant pain. It forced me to take my prescribed pain medication, which I hate doing because it knocks me out so I am like a vegetable pretty much and can't do a thing. But I really couldn't take any more pain... it was just draining me and draining me. The pain med knocked me out so much I did have to miss my early morning class, but I tried with all my might to get out of bed and move on with my day and go to my other 3 classes. It was so hard walking to class, when I just wanted to fall over and sleep for like an entire DAY, but I reached deep inside myself and pulled out the strength that God fills me up with when I am so weak and frail. He is my everything. I couldn't get through these days without Him and without the strength he lets flow through my fragile human body.

I'm just starting to feel really weary from moving at such a fast pace for a while now.... I want things to slow down, but I can't change what happens around me. All I can do is change how I react to them and how I manage it all.

So that's exactly what I'm going to do. And no one can bring me down. I'm doing my best and I'm doing all I can to stay on top of things, and that's all I can ask of myself and all anyone else can ask of me. I'm not worried about what other people think and what other people say about me-- that's their problem. I can only control my own behavior and speech. Otherwise, you end up being controlled by everyone and everything around you.... and that is not a good thing- trust me I know this.

that's the update as of right now. Rock on.

"You are the strength that keeps me walking."

things going on in my life are still just as hard and just as bad. but you know what? my life is great right now. it's great because i'm learning that the stuff that happens to us is not what defines how we live our lives. it's how we manage the bad stuff. you can have tons of crappy circumstances and situations hitting you hard all at once for year and year after year until the day you die, but the second you begin to know how to manage it, even though the situations and problems themselves do not go away or change, suddenly life is so much better!

divorced parents? check
losing the house i grew up in? check
therapy? check
depression? check
addictive tendencies? check
chronic kidney stone disease? check
broken relationships? check
best friend moving away? checkkk
co-dependency issues? check

it's all there, it's all going to be there, it all sucks and it's painful, it lasts a long time, it all happens at once, it's crushing! but the Lord never gives us more than we can handle. He has given me so much strength! I feel so, so strong. I feel strong and confident as I move back to Ames and begin a tough semester of school and work and all the stress that comes with it.

:) and most of all, I am happy.

to live is to learn.

"Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same."

Sometimes the best thing to do about something is to do nothing.

"You don't know me, and you don't wear my chains."

Sometimes people will just never understand what you're going through. After all, we are a flawed human race, and if we understood EVERYTHING then we'd by just like God.

"There are certain people you just keep coming back to."

It's ok to keep caring for someone, but removing them from your life at the same time.

"I would've stayed up with you all night, had I known how to save a life."

We can't save the people around us. We can only influence. The rest is God's job.

Some people get to a point where they literally cannot go on caring and watching someone they love go through painful things. I think these people are people that have not experienced extremely painful things themselves. That's why there are other people to lean on that do know what it's like.

"and when it rains on this side of town, it touches everything."

some people go through storms all their lives. some people will only feel a light sprinkle their whole lives.



--just things i've found to be true.