practice

I cannot wait to braid our little girl's hair one day.
I imagine threading, turning, and twisting each little piece of hair on their heads to form perfect little french braids. I imagine their inevitable brown head little selves all lined up on Easter morning, in their matching dresses. I imagine an especially adorable little one with jet black hair, snuggled up close to her oldest sister, inseparable best friends. I imagine little brown and black haired boys, with permanent dirt stains on their knees, rushing clumsily around from the backyard to line up with their sisters, the littlest one lagging behind and his daddy scoops him and carries him over on his shoulders...I imagine braids and my heart trails off into the bigger, better, fuller dreams of family, of future. I dream and my heart swells.

But until that day comes I will continue to practice with all my might, perfecting the braid that will one day adore the greatest blessing we have yet to experience.

"you are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.
Selah"
Psalms 32:7

 "I Dreamed a Dream" - Glee

The musings of a joyful girl (who often thinks a little too much)

 "Keep Breathing" - Ingrid Michaelson

I do believe, and I hope you'd agree that our minds are the strongest of our assets.
They decide and determine each of our movements from birth to our very last breath.
They are the means by which we conclude just who we dream to be, and through which these dreams are originally devised.
They are where we formulate the first syllables of the words we've heard;
where we've spent the first year stumbling through the muddled mess of baby speak to find expression, in ourselves.
This mushy mess of mater is where we hide our darkest secrets, where we go to pray, and somehow we manage to keep in there a memory of each and every other we've ever been, or seen, or wished to know.
The most incredible thing, to me, is that sometimes a memory, a want, or a yearning can come on suddenly...so powerfully as if out of thin air and overtake every single cell that might have been just moments before consumed in something else. How a scent, a sight, or a single note of a single song can elicit such an immediate and seemingly intuitive response that we have little choice but to acknowledge and...if we close our eyes long enough, relive it. Our simple minds also have the incredible ability to overcome the hardest of hardships; to shut down if it becomes too much for our meager bodies to handle; to protect us from the ignorance of others or better yet from ourselves.
It is our most precious container. A place where sometime things get a little jumbled up in there and a cloud of confusion is sensed amidst the normalcy of life. We sense that things are just a little bit askew.
In there we suddenly become violently aware of our bodies ability to live, and the beat of our heart, the pacemaker of thought, starts to race and likewise our thoughts do the same. And sometimes it decides that we are suddenly afraid of breath, because with it comes the reality of world that just does not seem to correlate with what we've thought of as right. Because inside our minds is ingrained the truth of how things ought to be.
Inside the mess of gray there are clearly written blacks and whites (the wrongs and the rights) and although we were taught from an early age to share and use kind words; there is some things deeper within our synapses that causes such an uncomfortable churning in our stomach, such a twinge in the muscle fibers of our heart that we know that we were meant for something so much more than this. And that even when all is right within the world, that it is still unwell.
Somehow, even when we cannot see or hear or speak of the uneasiness. Somehow, somewhere inside these brains of ours we know that this beautiful Earth was intended for something much more than it's current use.

We have the power to engage in life in such a way as God intended. To really give of ourselves completely, to everyone else. To really imprint permanently, positively in a way that those who come after us will be unable to ignore. To use our greatest assets in such a way that those around us know exactly what that uneasiness inside themselves in. So that they may not be lacking in the truth of Love in all of its capacities. Because we have an infinite ability to give Love and spread Love because His Love itself is infinite.

Mission Statement

I will do this.
"Secrets" - One Republic

I will fulfilled, for once, a desire laid deep inside that I've yet to push myself towards.
"Don't Rain On My Parade" - Glee Cast

I will accomplish this, through every drop of sweat, every stitch in my side, & every cramp in my lung.
"Don't Stop Me Now" - Queen

I will prove this to myself.
"I Want Something To Live For" - The Rocket Summer

I will prove the breadth of my strength.
"Pride" - Syntax

I will do this for her. Because she never had the chance; her joy has permanently infected my soul.
"Street Lights" - Kayne West

I will banish all laziness and self-deprecating thoughts; I will embrace the beauty of me.
"Do Better" - Say Anything
 
I will accomplish all that is set before me with a renewed zest for life.
"Soldier" - Ingrid Michaelson

I will become the woman I would hope for my children to have.
"Psalm 145" - Shane & Shane

I am going to thrive on the blessing of each and every breath. Starting now.
"Hills and Valleys" - The Rocket Summer

big picture

"Do You Know The Way You Move Me"  - Cory Asbury

sometimes things go unnoticed until you take a step back and put the "big picture" into focus. once you can step away from all of the world and its constant buzz of activity and just take a look at the snapshots and moments in life you've captured. sometimes you'll realize that there were serendipitous moments left their for you that weren't meant to be discovered until you took a second glance. sometimes there are things we just cannot get until we've had a little more experience. a little more time to acknowledge the true importance of those little pauses in life that you felt compelled to stop and appreciate something you didn't even know was there.

sometimes, even still, we are taken by surprised and brought to a moment of complete transformation and revelation; even by something as simple as a hike, on a trail, on a random day, nothing particularly life changing...sometimes it can really make you stop and suddenly everything, everything and everyone really important comes sharply into focus.

Psalms 77:3 "I remember you, O God, and I groaned; I mused and my spirit grew faint. Selah"

good mornin'

The innate ability of our hearts to forgive.
The sensitivity, the leaning towards compassion that is undeniable.
How we cannot bare to think upon the reality of suffering, and yet we fight it head on daily
How empathy's second nature,
and the heartaches of our youth turn into cherished memories and pivotal lessons learned
How He has always taken even the worst of my life's situations, and turned it into something beautiful.

These are just a few examples of His whisperings of truth in my life.

Gregory Alan Isakov - "San Francisco"

Mine: Sunday Snapshots

James Taylor - "Carolina In My Mind"

My family is my life. Plain and simple. 
They are the ones who made me who I am.
I do not want to use any fancy words to try and concoct some sort explanation for what they mean to me.

My mom is my best girlfriend and my daddy, is well, my daddy. He was the litmus test to which all other men where compared.

And of course only one passed.

I am thankful for the faith they instilled in my along with the freedom to find my own way (however shaking and skewed that way may've been from time to time).

I pray, in my heart and from time to time aloud, that I might learn to be half of what they have been to me to my own one day.

I am thankful that I do not resent my parents and understand why He told us to "honor our father and mother", because I've caught a glimpse of just what the gravity of doing the opposite means.

Sometimes I wish it were still common place for all of the family to live under one roof. To have my husband, both sets of our parents, our siblings, nieces, nephews, and my future children (along with any other miscellaneous family that might want to join in) living together under one roof, that sounds pretty much like heaven to me. Anytime we talk about the political/economical woes of the day we always talk about our eventual commune we would escape to, and I secretly wish these times would hurry up and get here. I would give nothing more than to move away deep into the forest with those closest to me, grow our own crops, raise our own animals, even sew our own clothes and just live. Free of all the insanity of the world, free of the exposure, just free (as those before us truly intended). That, without a doubt, would be heaven...I really do pray that maybe one day it will come down to this. To start all over and rely completely on one another.

I know I have alot of growing up to do. In so many ways I am still a child. Still dreaming of my "Little House on the Prairie" promised life. But these past three years of life have been the most insightfully aging ones yet. And I know there are plenty more to come. And I am excited, scared, & most of all so very ready.

I am filled with Joy and a good chunk of hope. 

home, sweet home.

We moved into our humble abode on the same day I began the Doctoral Physical Therapy program...no big deal right? (Pssssssh....) So thankful to my daddy for moving ALL of our stuff with Jason in a single trip. So thankful to Jason's parents for coming to stay with us on our first night in the new home, and extra thankful for them staying to help begin the unpacking process. Thankful to my Moma for basically sterilizing and and organizing both my sanity and the house as a whole, not once but twice this month. And most importantly to Jason for allowing me to sit still amongst the mess and absorb the copious amount of anatomical information I am expected to learn in a 10 week span of time. I am thankful for little reminders of how he should never be taken for granted:

And especially thankful for good friends who came to share in my first official attempts at hospitality. Thankful for sharing in good food, good wine, homemade apple pie, and a night filled with music and good conversation.

This morning in class I was reminded by my incredible professor of what Independence Day is really all about. His sincerity was revealing of how God puts people in your life for times such as this. When you are reminded to be overwhelmed with thanks to those who gave their lives so that we could walk with our heads held proud. I am especially grateful for the undertones of faith as he spoke of our Freedom...

"It is for freedom He set us free."

"For Freedom" - Jimmy Needham

Screaming Inside

"This Close" - Flyleaf

And it's okay that sometimes we do not have a clear understanding of who we are anymore. It means we are alive, it means we are being challenged to remove ourselves from the comfort of, well, ourselves. When He is screaming from inside to bring you alive, truly, how can you ignore it? It is hard, decimating, mind-altering, and raw to realize it is time to make some changes. Changes that will last forever and that will forever change who you are to those around and more important to the one who loves you most. The Lord will forever weigh on our hearts the truth which we want to refuse with all of our worldly might. We are fighters, it's true, and he wants to strengthen our fight; just not necessarily in the humbling, quiet, repentant way we wish that He would. Sometimes, it's going to be brutal, it's going to be glaring, and it's going to be loud.

Pressing on, faithfully & determined

"And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears. And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears. Get over your hill and see what you find there, With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair."

"After the Storm" - Mumford & Sons

Recently I have come to realize that people, places, and life is not always what it seems. People. will. let. you. down. The actions of one affect a multitude.


And marriage takes hard work, two determined souls, and a ton of open, honest, often brutally honest communication--and love, lots and lots of it.


I am a goofy girl with often lofty dreams, this much is true, but I can tell you one thing right now; through hell, high water and every imaginable or unimaginable demon there is--my marriage will last until the day I die. I promised it over 8 months ago, and I promise it now. Because that's what it is, after all, the ultimate and only promise that really matters between two people on this earth. To love as and because He first loved us.


It wasn't a suggestion, it was a declaration. A sacrificial proclamation, life is not about ME anymore, it's about US...and that us will only get bigger and more real with time.

Some while ago I came upon this realization rather suddenly, albeit seemingly a no brainer, that we have the capacity to love an infinite number of individuals. I have become convinced of this more and more the older I get. I am surprised at how my experience with living love increases the depth of my ability to feel it. I have experienced the unconditional love of my parents. The gripping, obsessive love of a teenage heart. The ebb and flow of predetermined sibling love. The daily choice to love in my marriage. The love that fills your heart when you share a laugh. The soul soaring love we as adults are able to feel for the innocence of a child. The love that's felt churning down deep for whats yet to come. The guttural love that can be kept silent, the kind that makes you sing.
It isn't so much the moments when this love is felt, rather, how a simple memory can bring back that exact feeling when the moment is long gone. When the person is long gone. I am mesmerized, at the moment, by how our soul can so easily recapture those feelings. I am captivated at how love's trust can be broken and how the joy of forgiveness is learned. Immersed in the reality that our love is limitless, that this is the greatest gift we have been given. The He is the perfect example of what we, as imperfect people, are capable of being. We are capable of unconditional love, we will feel unconditional love. We have sinned, we have been broken, we have lost & often found--but we can forgive because we are forgiven; and we can always, always love.

wrinkles

...dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency
not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face
and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body...
- Walt Whitman

Such a true argument for why plastic surgery is completely unnecessary. I have always welcomed scars eagerly, battle wounds to be proud of. I look forward to having "laugh lines" and wrinkles around my smile. I look forward to ever increasing the number of furrow wrinkles on my forehead from many an intense, intentional conversation. I cannot wait for the wrinkles to deepen in the corners of my eyes from the facial explosions that my life will bring.
I cannot wait to grow in love, grow my family, responsibilities. I cannot wait to grow my faith & my trust.
I cannot wait to grow old and live.

I do believe...

that giving yourself away, completely, to the Lord is a lot like when you are so passionately compelled, so fully engaged in life that you have spoken an entire Christ-minded monologue without even so much as stopping to take a breath. When leave marriage counseling and dinner out with your pastor feeling more alive than you've felt all week. As we sat with our pastor and his wife at dinner we discussed their trip to Africa. She spoke on how her heart broke for the little boy in his tattered clothes completely content with nothing more than a stick to entertain himself. She said she was worried that he was not happy, her husband however assured her that he was. After all, he did not know the difference. He did not WANT anything more than a simple stick to stimulate his imagination.

This lead me on a completely revolutionary thought process. It all makes sense. Jason has a friend at work who moved from Nigeria last year because God had called him to minister to the young people in America...Yes, God had called this humble Nigerian to minister to our young...Mindblowing if you really think about it. He told us stories of waking up early in the morning back home and just getting up, walking outside to streets of his neighborhood, and vehemently praising and preaching God's word, out loud. Not quietly on his front porch or meditating in his front yard, no. Loudly proclaiming the Love of God up and down his streets every morning.

Our pastors' wife reaffirmed this nature with the story of her son's experience with a young boy he befriended while they were their. He awoke one morning to find his friend leaving earlier than usual for school. The young boy explained that he and his friends met early every morning to pray on the hillside. Not because they are made to but because they understand. They are and continue to dive ever deeper in a continuously living, breathing, pulsing, DAILY LIVING with God.

And I came to the realization that we are the ones who are truly hungry. They are being filled with the joy, grace, faithfulness, and mercy of the Lord; starved as they are physically. While we spend our days stuffing boxes and bags, sugars and salts into our empty shells...hoping if we eat, drink, or stimulate ourselves enough with all our worldly concoctions then maybe one day we can escape from the hell of our depression-filled holes. We are so empty in comparison to these starving believers. We are fat, lazy slobs in the eyes of these prayerful angels. And yet we feel a since of pride, of accomplishment when we are able to send one shoe box of random odds and ends to a child. We should feel so content to just do the bare minimum, if even that.

And so now as I ramble I look at myself, and I shutter. Where am I and where, especially, are our capabilities to give ourselves away, to give our stuffs away, to fill to mouths of those who physical hunger is gnawing away so that maybe....maybe....they could save our souls.

And this is no small task that can just be written away to the government, no. It is a personal decision to take hold of the reigns and BE. WORK. ACT. LIVE as if you actually want to save a life, as if someone else's life is just as much worth living as your own.

a poem and a prayer

I have been hateful, I've hated in a world filled with loath--I've spit filled with spite at those that disgust. When really its me whose disgusting that's all. And the pitiful pride that lured me deep down inside is a ruthless deterrent my ignorance ignores. Yet somehow I'd imagined that each of your faces could heal me or fill me as I tried to endure. There's an evil in each of us if you choose to dig deep enough--instead I will pray to find the good in us all. Speak words unspoken fresh quivering lips spill death and resurrection of love and free willing--hope. and. then. Still seeking redemption I return open palmed and empty--You. You. YOU filling, feeling. You fill me. Dear Lord...

Where to begin, again. You lead me, Love.

Jonah's Plea

I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, And He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried And You heard my voice. For You cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the floods surrounded me; All Your billows and Your waves passed over me. Then I said, 'I have been cast out of Your sight; Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.' The waters surrounded me, even to my soul; The deep closed around me; weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to the moorings of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord. And my prayer went up to You, Into Your holy temple. Those who regard worthless idols Forsake their own Mercy. But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.

Jonah 2: 2-10

It is passages like this...in my quiet times that I realize we have all suffered...we are all striving for a reason to believe, to live for something more....to be Saved. And it's right here in front of us but we have got to want it. You have got to want to realize that you have no control...you are not meant to control yourself. There is simply something so much more than the hate and depression of superficial living...and it's hard not to be angry and not to hate the oftentimes sickening life of humanity...but it is necessary to realize that if we want to accept our purpose...if we want to breath his Life into others. We have got to find patience...self control....self sacrifice rather...and silence in our moments of discontent and anger. We too are sinners....we were not meant to simply shove ourselves carelessly into the lives of others and thrust an accusing finger into their eye....we are just as if not more deplorable then the act of sin we are condemning. We Know better. And still we want more...we want immediate 110% comprehension and perfection from those "beneath" us....those "behind" us....those "below" us. And I say we because oftentimes I want the same thing.....I cannot understand how someone continues to live in such a destructive, disgusting manner when I do not even bother to look at the pitfalls of my own existence. Jonahs' plea to the Lord was not one of a hope for salvation from the belly of the whale, he knew this was the place he was meant to be....It was a plea for an acceptance of his seeming understand....and mere days later he would forget himself again. He would forget the Mercy the Lord had shown to him, forget that that Mercy was not just for him it was for EVERYONE! No matter how many times you fail....no matter how many times you falter...He knows the truth of your heart....the truth of your intentions.

So be true to Him. Be true to yourself. Take a good long hard look in the mirror before lashing out at all of humanity around you. Look at the Good before the Bad....even when it is hard to find.

Prayer

I know I have not updated in awhile (not that anyone reads this aside from Maggie but we will just pretend like millions of people are patiently anticipating my next update) BUT I have been extremely busy with finishing up my FINAL YEAR of my UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE! One more month entirely of Milledgeville, however, let me not stray to far from the point of this entry. I will write more once this week has come to its completion. Jason and I just got back from Prepared to Last at Winshape....so much, SO MUCH to say about that :).

But for now. I would very much appreciate PRAYER for the certification exam I am taking TOMORROW and patience as I continue to wait to find out about my fate in so far as GA State is concerned.....Thank you!

Here is a picture (of many) to leave you with from our amazing weekend. (I photoshopped jason's lipoma scar right on out of there :)).

LOVE.

faith is a miraculous thing

One night several months ago I was sleeping in my bed in my room in Milledgeville. Nothing particularly interesting had occurred on that day I am sure. I am a pretty regularly restless sleeper so it is nothing for me to wake up several times in the night. This night, however, was very much different from the others. I was actually fully and completely awakened and so I glanced at the clock. 4:49 it said and I so I decided to open my Bible and read. I am a very skeptical person, which was not always the case. Someone so used to living on emotions alone finds it hard to realize that emotional living can only drive one insane. This growing up thing sure is hard. :) I digress....anyhow I opened my Bible to Phillipians and read Chapter 4: 4-9

...Summing it all up, friends. I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditation on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious--the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from Me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into His most Excellent Harmonies.

I believe in this, "to practice what you learned from Me," I believe...I know that we all have our demons. Demons and pitfalls and evils in the middle of the night that few want to admit, even fewer want to realize, conceptualize, answer to themselves to whatever you choose to believe. He tells His people clearly here to focus on the BEST, not the worst....and that is not just in yourself but in the entire world around you. If you believe and choose to see that we were all created by this one Almighty God then you must read every SINGLE word he's left for you. Too often I am bombarded with the hatred of lifestyles those who claim to be his own have conveniently pinpointed as the EPITOME OF EVIL. I get requests to join groups speaking out against these lifestyles and it hurts my heart. What is beautiful, what is worthy of praise when those who are taught to love, taught to pray, taught to worry about the thorn in their own eye, taught to be amongst those you might not understand, taught NOT TO JUDGE LEST YOU BE JUDGE---when these people, His People, are quick to cast the first stone.

There has got to be something else we could be doing, there has got to be another approach than this. It tears up my heart to read the hatred written by those who claim to love, claim to pray and preach and understand his word. Maybe I am naive, maybe I do not understand the True Purpose of his Endless Love, but if this is the truth...then maybe I just don't want to get it.

I want to love and love fully, honestly, and without judgment of the demons we all contain. I want to pray for a better day, a more perfect world, a deeper, more clear understanding of a Personal Relationship that does not have to be put under the microscope. Where the only person, the Only One we have to answer to is He Himself; not the self righteous voice of fellow man. I want to yelling to stop, indignation to cease, I want to share His Love without those around me tainting the purity of that. His Love is Pure, I refuse to believe that it Hates. You know what you are doing is wrong, everyone knows when something is wrong; it is infecting. No one needs to hear the wrath of another sinner to understand his own sin, so stop it. Please.

Sundays

"Ágætis Byrjun" - Sigur Ros

And when my mind is spinning, when thoughts are trailing reason feebly attempting to catch a breath, to breathe, my mind, my heart, my voice it falls to you. Lord.
What am I, alone. Who am I, with all my self, my trails, I fail you. again.
Reverence. Silence. Stillness. I would love to write a story telling enough to inspire...someone other than myself but then I fear it would be with the hopes of satisfaction, to the glory of them, and then I question, myself. How can I? Question that which is so. Is Everything.
As contrary to popular belief as this might be, I see you
in his eyes. In sincerity of a love, never needing, ever seeking, in prayer
in his and mine, family.
In a friend, Faith, of mine, depends, so near to my own, on, Dear Lord how could we, that which, they not See, is all over around IN.
The trees. the air rushing by as I run down, up, around the hills of a place I've been several times before. And it never ceases to amaze, me.
If I sang to you? If I danced all night, day, from the moment I rose til' you put me to sleep--from exhaustion, exultation, Dear Lord to scream your Name in declaration from, to every single inch of this world. This world you created.
Comprehension is really so incomprehensible I can do nothing more, I can do all the more to sing, a song, with words written, on knees bent, face down,
To praise you, Lord, my Father you are.
The reality of this, scares the cynic in me
Lord, I am a child at your feet.

crosswords

there is something to be said,
for the way that the mind tosses about these thoughts
and how they seem to mix with the sounds, the words, the music that escapes
how we've each chosen to believe, been chosen to receive
receive love?
give love?
grace delicately placed, in a saucer on a rainy day
a sip of warmth from a coffee cup, tinged with the hope of indulgence
as it slides down the throat, once clinched with indecision, discerned
straining hearts of those in an attempt to impress
upon
the general public, people pleasers pleasure never felt so
good as a sip of coffee on a cold spring day.
when you expect nothing more than what it is you receive.
expect the unexpected. which is?
could you ride the wave of love if it took you, swept you
suddenly up one day. could you trust the clear, screaming, sudsy water
by faith alone we stand.

Faith alone, as if that were a bad thing.
Faith
alone we are, truly, without-- It.
The belief in something more than the water that runs between
fingers flexing because we tell them so, We
hold the power? To blot out the sun with a mere breath in its direction.
Silly to believe you are It. You, individual, are all in all...
I am nothing without something more, something original
something unseen, because that which is seen is never
enough. Never suffice
to pray, to cry on knees
that bleed, twisted, turned in opposite directions;
to find Faith
to patch the bloody wound and Know;
and Live free of Knowledge consumed, against our better judgementless selves
by Faith we survive
by Faith unseen we thrive
by Faith we are forgiven, for that which I've never, forever felt guilt
For the guiltless devolve to spiritless then heartless eternal faithlessness.

I pray, all the days, for the Faith to walk on water without ever opening my eyes.