how fragile hope is...

"It's hard to listen to a hard hard heart
Beating close to mine
Pounding up against the stone and steel
Walls that I won't climb
Sometimes a hurt is so deep deep deep
You think that you're gonna drown
Sometimes all I can do is weep weep weep
With all this rain falling down

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I'm holding on underneath this shroud
Rain

Its hard to know when to give up the fight
Two things you want will just never be right
Its never rained like it has to night before
Now I don't wanna beg you baby
For something maybe you could never give
I'm not looking for the rest of your life
I just want another chance to live

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I'm holding on underneath this shroud
Rain"

dreams

i don't dream much. in fact, you could say i rarely ever dream. i have this problem with sleep - it doesn't like me. when i do sleep it seems dreamless. however, every once in a while i have a dream. they are vivid, they are tactile experiences with real people and emotions, and, when i awake i remember. i had one of those on saturday. i thought on it for two days before i finally penned it at 2:30 in the morning two nights ago. as i wrote it out, the details became more and more clear. as far as dreams go this one was not finished. it was about my life, and things that will be. now some people believe there is significance to dreams, others think they are our subconscious expressing our thoughts, desires and fears. i honestly don't know, i think it is a little of both. this dream swept me away into things i had been considering and choices i will be making; and then, ever so stoically, deposited me back on the very spot i had been before the dream. offering neither insight nor understanding.

so it makes me wonder if there was purpose in this dream or if it was just the leftover thoughts rattling around in my head. either way, it plays out a scenario that i approach with much trepidation and prayer. perhaps it will offer clarity in time. regardless, here i stand and there i will walk.

Ruminations

hmmm, it is interesting how we have been created to experience. All of our lives are lived through experiences that shape and mold who we become. Our character is chiseled into completion by our responses to those same experiences. In that way, we get to choose who we become. sure there are difficulties to overcome in life, but i find it amazing the spiritual lessons that can be learned (especially) in our hardships. i will not mince words, last year was hard for me - a bitter-sweet mix of the most wonderful and most heart-wrenching time of my life. As i look back i find that there are so many things that i haven't even been able to process yet, but in those few that i have, i find amazing revelations about who i am and how my Savior wants to love/be loved by me. i don't say all this to sound spiritual and arrived; i am, in fact, broken and bleeding - but alive. And in that living there is redemption for all the brokenness.

i have experienced [a shadow of that] love, love like i would imagine Jesus desires from our hearts towards Him. The kind of love that melts all worries and fears in its wake. and the tangible nature of that experience showed me how the love of the Father -surpassing our earthly loves - brings patience, kindness, humility, protection, trust, hope and perseverance; and casts out pride, selfishness, anger and unforgiveness (I Corinthians 13). i can only imagine this love growing stronger and stronger through the course of this relationship that we have. An all encompassing love that bring healing in our sorrow and joy in our rejoicing. i am convinced that only the Fathers love is so all encompassing, able to work redemption and the fruits of love in all our circumstances. "I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow." -Jer. 31:13B

i am still learning and growing from this past year, i think i always will be. the deeper the experience the more there is to learn and grow, because we are exposed in all of our unseen parts and forced to choose who we will become and see who we have been. i have seen that where i thought i was selfless i am selfish, where i thought i was forgiving i am bitter, and where i thought i was honest i am ignorant.

through all of this i have come to appreciate the little things again. smiling, so simple and yet it can be life changing. Being silly with people, because life should be as full of levity as it is filled with gravity. And being vulnerable, because nothing worthwhile comes without allowing yourself the possibility of being hurt [i still struggle with this one :)] and that is all i have for now.

grace and peace

this years love

i recently made several resolutions about my life. ones that were not healthy and i knew that when i made them, but i considered them damage control and a stop gap fix. i have been struggling with what i am doing in life and how i am making an impact and growing, if i am at all.

so tonight i finally decided to sit down and read. reading is good. i feel alive when i read and write and grow, and i feel as though i am shrinking and becoming less when i do not. as i was reading from a couple of different books i was faced with God communicating to me- addressing each decision i had made specifically- and rebutting what i had done with his wisdom. i have to admit i was a bit irritated that my new decisions, made in bitterness and resentment, had been swiftly rebuked and all at once.

i want to change but i don't want to go through the fire it takes to get there to be honest. i want meaning and direction on my time but i have to let go. i want to be what i am not; and, in the words of Relient K "what i am hates who i've been". so i went and bought some new kicks and decided to start running again, and i want to start drawing again. i want to read and grow and have deep, real relationships. i want to learn how to interact with people again. i want to love and be loved and understand what that means. i want to commune with my Father and find my comfort in His familiarity. and if that is all the love that is for me, i want for that to be enough.

i feel as if i have been made with certain desires from my Father but before we can embrace and love a thing we must let it go in surrender. i take all that i have been for the past two years, all the longing and desires and let it go. Father is enough and i will learn to make those words real for me. that is all i have... my head is all a jumble but it is a beginning.

"If we're not together in the heart,
what's the point? When body and soul

aren't dancing, there's no pleasure
in colorful clothing. Why have

cooking pans when there's no food in
the house? In this world full of

fresh bread, amber, and musk, so many
different fragrances, what are they

to someone with no sense of smell?
If you stay away from fire, you'll

be sour, doughy, numb, and raw. You
may have lovely, just baked loaves

around you, but those friends cannot
help. You have to feel oven fire."

-Rumi

seasons of pain

In life we all go through seasons of pain. Sometimes there are no supports, there are no friends to assuage the pain. sometimes you are removed from everyone and everything. These times are a test of faith to those of us that ascribe to God and his love for us. In times of pain, God is the only support to hold onto, and sadly enough, most of the time that is the only time we are willing to talk to him. it must grieve the Fathers heart to only be spoken to when a favor is needed or when there is no other person to turn to. I am intimately acquainted with the feeling. I am in pain- it's at times like these when we find out what we are made of. How much faith do we really have? Are our beliefs real or are we just following the motions we have been conditioned to blindly be a part of all of our lives? There is so much going on I don't know how to process it. I find that i am alone in this world. All of the absolutes have been stripped away and I am left with the question of my faith. To press on toward the unseen or to make my own miserable way through this life. I choose my faith, and that is the only step I can take now. I have chosen a direction and now I will follow my fathers voice. away from everything I thought I knew, away from all that has fallen away. I am not well, but life goes on, and one day it will be well. I press on toward that day and in the meantime I lay my life on that faith and on my loving father.

A couple of weeks ago I found this devotional that my father had given me when I moved away. Everyday that I have read it, it was as if my Father were speaking to me, addressing the issues that I have been facing with the foresight only my Father offers. It is a comfort to know that Father cares. So hold me now Father when I am weak. Wrap me in your love when I feel none. I choose You, because you gave me the grace to know you.

Good Tidings

Matt and Lori are officially engaged. Congrats

Catch me when i'm falling

what am i to do?
what am i to say?
i stand (on my knees)
before your greatness, fallen.
i am fallen on my face
and broken before your wonderful greatness.
you are the numinous,
and you are the love.
you are the solid absolute of life
that makes my liquid take form.
so hold me,
and hold me in.
guide my feet in this darkness,
and lead me with the sweet sound of your voice.