Currently Listening: The Soft Bulletin
By : The Flaming Lips

I guess this is what I meant, when I mentioned the beauty in pain. I read this awhile ago, and it's been an echo in my thinking ever since.

"The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way. All my life I have been changing. I changed from baby to child, from soft toys to play daggers. I changed into a teenager to drive a car, into a worker to spend some money. I will change into a husband to love a woman, into a father to love a child, change houses so we are near water, and again so we are near mountains, and again so we are near friends, keep changing with my wife, getting our love so it dies and gets born again and again, like a garden, fed by four seasons, a cycle of change. Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons. " - Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

I feel the need to expound...but I think I'd just keep saying what I quoted already. I suppose I shouldn't really let that keep me from writing, but...but...I don't know. Change makes me feel sad and I am hurt when something I liked changes into something I don't like. I think it is upon this reflection that I am fearful to change myself. Change doesn't always go unnoticed, and someone is usually disappointed by it...and being the people pleaser that I am, that must never happen in the life that I lead. Riiiiiggggghhhht.

When I left home yesterday, my parents followed me to the gas station, where we changed the oil and and put air in the tires of my classy lady. I felt slightly frazzled as the last minute fixes were for sure taking me off the schedule I had set for the day. When all had been completed, I hugged my parents and drove away with Isaiah in the back seat. I realized I was actually not behind in my schedule at all as I looked at the digits on my dash. My fingers warmed on the chilled steering wheel, and I felt thankful...I felt thankful that my dad had showed me how to read the pressure gage on my tires, and that I had new oil in my car....love spilled over, and I was happy to have been inconvenienced. Because I took the time to realize that I hadn't been inconvenienced.

So the hurt, the pain, the stretch in such experience, is good, and beautiful. Because it's right to change. It is actually necessity. How lovely is the thought of such things. I never will move anywhere that has summer last eight months out of the year....nor to alaska where winter is really long...I will suck it up...and live in the extremes of four seasons, just so that I'll be reminded

God bless the Holt's.










Home again, home again. It's a lovely thing.....lemonjello's tonight for a cup of healthful tea. My nose drains, whilst I reminisce about good times left behind.

I am quite certain that the best form of entertainment, comes while sitting on the couch watching wild winds shake spikey palm tops. Of course you have to turn all the lights off...It's my last day in Florida with the Holts and in Haly's words..."Wilma's a bitch." We're not in a bad area, but daylight is dark today, and the punk rocker trees are losing their hair. Clinic appointments have been cancelled for today...and well we're just sitting around. I can't express how much of a blessing being here has been. Getting here was a blessing, I knew something was up when dear friends gave me a ticket to fly here (I only have to pay the taxes)...being here has been restful, and challenging, I haven't had much schedule to run by...but the conversations have been more than beneficial. In talking to Haly, hanging out with beautiful Braedon boy, and watching Topher ask for carry out at a grocery store when he only had one bag...I've realized how beautiful pain is. I wish I could be more specific in why I realize this, but it's like all my thoughts are freshly picked produce, waiting to be washed and prepared for a meal. So I guess I'll settle for the vagueness, as I let the water run, and peel the potatoes. If there's one thing that I've learned from befriending the Holts it's that life is a process. I need to stop asking how to live, and think about why to live. Not in a suicidal way (I don't know if I made it sound like that's what I meant), a way that brings focus...and ultimately a future. Oh how I long for the day, when my self conscience and self containment will healthily vanish, and I can talk about things concerning others. To be all together frugal in self thought...and receive revelations on the life outside. God has me walking through the land psyche and crisis, so I can face the giants...Someone said once I think...that, love is never far from danger. A thought that is giving me a little pep in my step.

I drove a BMW today. I was pressured to peel out once...and so I did. (shhhhhh....)Where did I go in the BMW? I went to a thrift store, and had a granny sweater purchased for me. Then we went to Reggae Cowboy, then to K-mart...oh what a day. I'd feel like crap except for having fun. My ears are plugged, and my throat is raw. I'm so lame...I can't even type good. But I love, oh so deeply. Hey, keep it real...or don't keep it at all. You know what I'm saying?

"We've got the church pegged as a corporation. When we think of it that way, it's a lot easier to be cynical of it. It's hard to remember that the church really is Christ's bride...I think about how mad Topher would be, if people were as openly cynical about me, as they are about the church. He'd be in so many fights." - Heather Holt
This is what Haly said to me smiling, as I whined about my confliction with going to church...yeah I went to church today, what's more, it was a church I looked up on Relevant Magazine's website. Yeah.
We arrived kind of early, and I smiled placidly at everyone who came up to us, introducing themselves. Expressing their delight at us visiting them amongst their young project, and the Lord's good work. I felt victorious as I humored them, and Haly tended to Braedon. I say humored, because that's how I feel...I feel okay without anyone talking to me at churches, but I figure I should show them a bit of good will for coming out of their way. (you don't have to tell me how ridiculous that is, I know, oh I know) In between welcoming hand shakes, I kept asking Haly if she was okay, until she finally shot me an annoyed look "why? is there a reason I shouldn't be?" I just told her that I was probably asking because I myself was uncomfortable...i sat through the rest of the service, my innards a squirm, and ocular muscles straining to hold their water. It hit me several times that I was being harsh in my judgement of the people there, that I was being harsh in the judgement of myself as a result...and that I didn't know how to break the habit. I could elaborate on reasonings...things said in the sermon that triggered such behavior, but it's exactly these reasonings I'm trying to get over.
I spilled and smeared my emotions today...and Haly listened, then prayed for me, saying that it was okay I was in this spot. Understanding and relational she was, but she also let me know that she thought I could be in a healthier spot. When she told me that, it was like I was allowed to remove my finger from the hole in the dyke. Maybe I made a hole in the wall, but such relief came in being discovered...guilt released in a spout of realization. I'm not the judge. Of you, of me...especially of Christ's beloved.
I've unloaded so much of my crap on this subject in conversation with friends. on many occasion...I'm sorry for that, but I guess I was just trying to verbally work around my own issue of heart. I also realize that saying all this, writing my relief...won't really change the issue of my disdain, and complaints...it'll be an on going hardship, but at least I know I'm wrong now. And will try to let it go more often...to be humble in more places then on the surface. To realize that the church is not a corporation set out to hurt it's working members. It's not perfect, but who asked it to do anything but try? Apparantly I did. And that just ain't my place.

Sometimes someone else just said it better. Letting others speak for me, isn't so bad when the truth is struck. Perhaps someday, God will give me my own words to sing...my own thoughts to share without people having prod it out of me. Maybe soon I'll look back on this silent process with a smile...and think that leaving home wasn't so hard...smooth edges only come after the sand paper grinds for awhile. Maybe love will be more happy than sorrow filled. Maybe I won't be so jaded.

Changes Come
words: Bergquist/Detweiler
music: Bergquist
recording: OHIO

Changes come
Turn my world around

I have my father's hand
I have my mother's tongue
I look for redemption in everyone

I wanna wear your ring
I have a song to sing
It ain't over babe
In fact it's just begun

Changes come
Turn my world around
Changes come
Bring the whole thing down

I wanna have our baby
Somedays I think that maybe
This ol' world's too fucked up
For any firstborn son

There is all this untouched beauty
The light the dark both running through me
Is there still redemption for anyone

Jesus come
Turn the world around
Lay my burden down
Turn this world around
Bring the whole thing down
Bring it down

Currently Listening: Make Your Troubles Mine By Ellery: see related

Niah saw me making disturbed faces today and asked what was wrong. I said I was cramping up. He laughed and said he thought that was why I had asked him to buy me chocolate earlier. It was in this reasoning that he presented me with a "large-ass candy bar".My brother is awesome, because he buys me 1/2 pound bars of dark chocolate, during my emotional days. Not many boys are that considerate or understanding

Oh my lands.
I'm home today...and Isaiah decided that a good way to spend some time with me, would be watching a movie in the basement. He fell asleep, and I carried him up the steps to his bed. His head rested on my shoulder, and his feet bumped below my knees with each strained step I took. That boy got big along the lines of I don't know when. His limp body started slipping to the floor just as I reached the thresh of his room...I giggled, which worsened the struggle, as I bent my knees to keep us both from falling. I finally reached his low bedside, and rolled him in...oh my, oh my.
It made me feel old...in several ways. Mostly in a physical way; because I knew that if my abs were a little stronger, I wouldn't have had to thrust my hips so far forward, nor arch my back in the opposite direction to hold my balance with him...nor would I have such pain in the after affects. (I also wish I didn't have to know so much about anatomy and muscle structure, so that I wouldn't feel so sad about my current state of body and out of shapeness.) I also realized, that someday Isaiah will be a teenager, and that I'm approaching adulthood hard and fast. Realizations that just make me want to sleep. Sleep until I leave again on Thursday, and he grows even more in the absence of 11 days.
And will someone please remind me, the next time I act like going to Steak 'n Shake is a good idea, that it indeed is the worst idea ever ever? Yes oh please do, even if I glare at you a little...I'll remember to thank you in Heaven. Tonight I feel fat and bloated, because of one chocolate coke, and an order of chedder fries, that didn't even taste that good...Fast Food is darkness...

This little box seems so daunting to me today. I will force myself however, to fill it, if not simply for the sake of interest...I will do it for the sake of discipline. I've not written at all today. A fact that is simply unacceptable. Oh the year of this past week was wonderful. I feel like I'm starting to grasp the concept of God living outside of time. I mean, my perception is still completely humanistic, and I've been convicted on how I've whittled his image down to the cuteness of man in my mind....buttttt....I feel like time is irrelevant to me, or that I'm living in the blink of His eye. Something like that. It's an odd feeling, when really the same emotions exist, but my realization of them is on delay.Kat had to deal with me breaking down in tears last Sunday in a restaurant. All she did was ask how I was doing. I looked at the genuine care in her brown eyes, and said "i'm fine", whilst tears started filling my vision. I can't tell with myself sometimes. I think I was crying mostly, because I had been thinking all day about stuff...and wanted to talk about it, but the topic seemed so hard to just bring up. I was thankful she asked, I wasn't okay, because I needed to talk. She asked again if I really was doing fine, and words fell from my mouth, as quickly as the tears from my face. I told her I felt tired, and that I wasn't really sure why I was crying. She asked me if I missed home, and I answered that I didn't, with great conviction. I miss my family like I do dear friends (only more), I know they are there and they know I'm here, and we'll pick up where we left off again on monday. I know God has me in a new place with purpose and I feel super secure in that. Plus I just like it here. ( I mean I got to see california.) I just can't get over the feeling of uncertainty. The slow process, of waiting, waiting to see what God has planted behind my dreaming muses. I feel like training is on hold, and I'm being told to rest indefinitely...I feel awkward about it. I feel foggy, like I'm copping out, or something. There's no pressure to walk a certain direction. Just to remain consistently in small things. Like maybe, writing everyday, sewing, and calling friends to check up on them. I've been fearful, that my introduction to freedom will lead to self indulgence, but God keeps reminding me that He's bigger than that. He gives freedom so that I can love...with intensity and grace. Not so that I have to look over my shoulder deciding whether or not to run from some imaginary pursuer. I told Kat that I felt like a bad christian, because so much of my heart has changed in the last two years, that I feel so strained about it. She asked me if I still believed in God...and I smiled. "well okay then." she said. She reminded me that they all loved me there, and that she felt it was a good time for me to be there. That my soul isn't wasting away, and shriveling into it's own little cult. It's a season, maybe like fall a little, everything's dying for a purpose. You want to be sad a little bit, for the trees, for the coming winter...but at the same time you're content, and beauty moves to pass in colors rather than fact.

Yonder west.

It's like living life with the beautiful people. I'll write some about this trip later...but for now take a gander.