wild melody

it was a blessed day. God was kind. I'm grateful I took pictures. (except the pic of us w/ nana is from yesterday but I didn't have a photo of today's visit) bc right now the silence is whispering & I am desperately trying to fill my mind with lovely to keep it out.  I'm not good with silence  right now because all the quiet reminds me death is waiting.  I can't help picturing the book thief character...waiting. watching us.  knowing what we don't, being surprised at how unaware we seem. wondering at the foolish way hope sneaks in on days things seem so much better. its not like that. i know the gospel.  damn it. i don't want to mourn the living! i will not grieve while she is yet here for me to hug. pray for. sit with, speak to, laugh with-at... this is why i avoid silence right now. quiet has a voice, I can hear the wrecked days whispering at the edge of my consciousness. it knows how scared ...

what do you do, when you know it in your head...but your heart is unresponsive? I don't need preaching-I can probably tell you which book of the bible your fix-it bandaid or your sledgehammer conviction came from. yeah, I've to said it all. i thought hope wouldn't leave me. in all my darkness before, I've had small {sometimes painfully faint} existence of hope within. this time. nada. i fight to believe God is good. a rescuer, restorer of wasted time & making faithful the weary. but my heart stopped. & i never noticed. don't tell me to just believe. I know it's real intellectually...but deeper? I feel like God has done nothing. I KNOW its my perspective! but i can.not open my eyes of faith. so desperately want to remake the choice to always believe His Words no matter what my eyes see. i'd relive the hell of 2012 where I knew He was enough & I knew I treasured Him most over this apathy. my heart is so dead. what good is mental assent?  something...

this is not going to be well written bc I'm brain fried. just call it a rough draft, & sometime when I'm out of school I will write a much better version. I told Abi I'd blog about why I love flashpoint... it follows the strategic response unit (SRU) team 1 as they respond to 911 calls that are above everyday police ability. its got a psychological analysis angle, a human interest/personal story angle, sweet equipment, damn fine shooting, & a female sniper named Julianna O'Callahan. what's not to love?! ;)  now i should say, I'm not a tv person. I'll watch shows if they're on to be with people. but I get bored of tv quick. ive only ever followed Sherlock...& maybe Psych a bit bc i laugh out loud...sidetrack. anyway. one of my good friends family's can watch tv all day long, & I alway ended up doing dishes bc I'd think "I can't take anymore watching other people do things while I'm still!!" just to show how NOT a ...

i'm not editing this (not like i ever "edit" this writing) but i'm not even mentally pre-forming my words. sometimes i'm really sneaky at lying to myself. i don't like feelings so i'm not always in touch with my own. a silly thing for an introvert to say. sure i can over-think & psycho-analyze toooo death. _but_ it doesn't follow that i analyze my emotions. what i think is far more important, right? ;) when real things are happening i tend to shove it down. don't think don't go there don't feel. so i'm gonna spill my guts & maybe get a handle on what's really going on this lil person. i need honesty with myself and the Lord. i want so much to be brave & beautiful (on a deep character level). right now it doesn't look like i'll get there. that takes faith in Jesus, since both spring from vital, unshakable hope. i don't have hope right now. some days God fills me with it. but then i wonder later if it w...

here's the deal. spiritually, i ain't so hot. just sizzling. in a will-there-ever-be-water-again way. i'm in a desert something fierce, since Oct 2011. that's when i think it began. i noticed a distance, a parching. something was less-feeling in my walk with God. i thought maybe it was the boyfriend, but that ended and the heat didn't. i thought it was all in my head; "maybe i'm just hyped on experiences" or "i'm not listening enough". i thought it was depression, but God brought me through that with no renewal of the vibrant, living-waterness. there's been terrain change... pits, different sand, sometimes rocks underfoot. a few mirages, but no rain. no oasis. i tried to dissect where i went wrong. what sin is trapping me here. what mistake did i make...i tried getting out. i started faking. i've started to doubt if i ever even loved God. if God really ever conquered my heart. but in the past few months diff words have been sneak...

rough week. but last thursday, mum & i didn't think nana would live through the night and here she is doing better! praise Jesus for small miracles. there's been light, good moments. I want to focus on the beauty. so here are things I learned from spending every spare moment in Apopka with my dads family: 1) family means everything.  i didn't know how tight we really were. tragedy tears apart or brings together; we're together. of course, 4 sons with strong & different personalities plus 4 necessarily strong wives; there are bound to be a few small explosions... but. after the smoke clears, we pull together. division is not the lasting note. underneath it all there is strength & loyalty. I've been so impressed, encouraged, & grateful at the way my uncles & aunts & cousins dropped everything. they put their lives in wyoming & texas on pause. they've taken care of Nana and worked through rough days. everybody wants Nana to be happy. we ...

theme song: what Sarah said. I never thought I'd be living this song again so soon. I guess 5 years isn't that soon; but it feels that way.   goodbyes never get easier. watching someone die never gets easier, it's line a character in a tv show said recently: "normal? no. I see this all the time & it's the job; but it's never normal."  I don't have anything coherent to say. I just thought maybe a few words would release some of the ache.  I've seen every one of my aunts cry. ((& the daughters-in-law are not wimpy; only strong woman can marry my dad & his brothers)) but seeing my uncles cry kills me most. their hurt compounds my own heartbreak. these boys are not criers. they're hunters who drive big ole trucks, strong personalities & drinkers & tough & storytellers & crazy embelleshers & goofballs & dads. but not criers.  the way my oldest uncle, who has to be hurting even more than t...

hey you, yeah, you with the clear green eyes, crazy hair, and scarred hands that can't take off that ring even though it holds no meaning and i swear it burns you just sitting there. i know you don't get why i keep denying you. i don't get why you keep trying? i mean, i guess i know but i don't want to admit it? that this magnetic draw might be a mutual thing. it's never happened to me before. the room went electric when you walked into it and looked straight at me, like you expected me to be sitting in the back left corner. is that part of my "i just lost my mind for a bit and it still plays sensory tricks on me" or is that what attraction always feels like to other people? i'm the wrong girl to answer that one...dear lord, here i am 24 and you're the first man on gods green earth to make me feel things outside my ability to shut off. this goes against all of me. like that doesn't make it hard enough to work with you. then you gotta go ...

Hey. This is a little weird, but here's a letter from me. Or you... the 25-year-old self. I know at 19 you're trying really hard to put on a brave face. Trying to live up to expectations. But would you admit cancer sucks? You don't have to add "God is good & faithful" as a tagline anytime what you're actually walking through starts to come through in your words. cut all the "happy and you know it" crap. YES God is good & faithful; but ya gotta be a little more honest. It's k that you're bleeding & angry some days. There isn't a single good reason for all the suffering of cancer on this earth. its only going to get worse; so you need to get it straight right now: it's ok to not know. And people who make you feel like admissions of doubt or fear or hurt are questioning God? The ones who stifle you? Well they won't be in your life in 4 years. You'll benefit from gut-level honesty now vs. waiting til your mid 20s. Rea...

two theme songs today. one is the way i feel i've been acting towards God. and the other is how i feel He actually is towards me. horrendous theology implications aside... first one: ooohh so me!! i live functionally as if God is my part-time authority. i'm a part-time lover, running to Him when i'm in need and wandering away when i see something else i want. i've never been a full time man. sooo often i think "i've been faithful and God hasn't come through" and i stop. quit. give up. um. word to the girl, you've never STUCK IT OUT! the definition of faithful means *not* giving up when it gets rough. when it looks pointless. i'm willing to admit i'm spiritual Hosea's wife; that's not a new realization. but that my character itself is unfaithful? that something deep in me is a giver-upper? mmm. not me! i'm supposed to be the loyal one, the faithful one. i'm that girl who still thinks about people who walked out of my life i...

“When we compare ourselves to other people; what we are doing is not simply lying to ourselves, we are telling God that He got us wrong. Did you know that before you were even knit inside your mother, God knew you. That means that He knew that you were you before the world did. Since when did we decide to listen to the world instead of God? The world wants to end you before you even exist. The world wants you to think you were an accident. The world wants you to think that beauty comes from letting your “cover girl” out. The world wants you to find value in the arms of another. The world wants you to be your own god knowing full well that it will rip you apart. The world wants you dead, it has been trying to do that ever since your birth. God wants you. It is plain and simple, but it is truth. Find your worth in the one who knew you before any of us, the one who desired you before you were even someone to be desired. Stop listening to a liar and start listening to God. Our ...

this woman. how she has carried me. how richly she paints the Gospel for me! I don't know how to explain the comradeship God has built between us. the way He built passions into our hearts that we had no idea were similar until later. ah. words fail.  [^^^]

❝ Celebration when your plan is working? Anyone can do that. But when you realize that the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it over and over as a tragedy, but you choose to call it an epic, that’s when you start to learn what celebration is. When what you see in front of you is so far outside of what you dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it beautiful instead of calling it wrong, that’s celebration. — Shauna Niequist This quote has sparked a lot of thought the past hour...it won't be a logical progression but here's my attempt to put mind-heart muddle into words: Oh look, its that familiar place again... condemning thoughts lie so well, i make myself sick before i realize i've fought all these and i know all the answers: "i'm a waste of space" + "the timeline of my plans is past so why bother" + "why dream?" + "why didn't i do________" ...

(photocred: beks) A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand, The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land With the old murmur, long and musical; The windy waves mount up and curve and fall, And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,— Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know, For I was born the sea's eternal thrall. I would that I were there and over me The cold insistence of the tide would roll, Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,— Then with the ebbing I should drift and be Less than the smallest shell along the shoal, Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea. Sara Teasedale: Sea Longing

I just read this article  http://natepyle.com/confronting-the-lie-god-wont-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle/ I agree. wholeheartedly! the verse taken out of context has always bothered me. isn't the whole point of life that we can't handle it alone? it's where I am. I have questions I need to ask. not bc I need answers, but bc admitting them bringing them into the light will expose the lies I'm believing. I need to be gut-level honest with God about all the doubts I've been trying not to think.  I know I won't get answers. it's not all going to get from head to heart in one night. but. there will be peace. and God can fill my unbelieving terrified aching heart with hope. he can get me to the place of expectant waiting, the one the article ends with & where I, quite frankly, am sick of being. right now I don't want to go there. but bitterness is a pair of glasses that blocks all the good & beauty in life. all the quietly redemptive works. psalm 3...

sometimes, people say i'm strong. ha. i'm not. really. it confuses me when my close friends say it, bc they see more of my frailty than anybody else!  now, when i was a little girl, i wanted to be "strong" so much. i had a faulty definition. i thought "strong" meant "unaffected", as if i were strong enough i wouldn't hurt or feel or be vulnerable. strong people were protectors & safe themselves. but my definition has since changed...drastically. that process spanned almost 15 years. short story version: i molded myself into my idea of "strong" only to find that i was actually killing my heart. i locked myself into a fortress that not only failed to protect me, but also held me prisoner in her own walls. much of this blog the past 3 yrs has been written from those varying places; as God shattered & remade me.  I define strength as the ability to l et go, from trust not despair. it's refusing to believe God is anything but w...

You call me out upon the waters The great unknown where feet may fail And there I find You in the mystery In oceans deep My faith will stand And I will call upon Your name And keep my eyes above the waves When oceans rise My soul will rest in Your embrace For I am Yours and You are mine Your grace abounds in deepest waters Your sovereign hand Will be my guide Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me You've never failed and You won't start now Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders Let me walk upon the waters Wherever You would call me Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander And my faith will be made stronger   In the presence of my Savior   ((hillsong united)) i thought this song was a picture of where I was going. but it just looks like transition to gray. an empty, grayscale season of life is all I see stretching before me.  time to suck it up, knuckle down & get through it. wildernesses happen. 25 looks to me like those 20 minute warm summer sprin...

 " my heart, is my keep; and you are threatening me...oh myyy you're the one, I've been holding out for; for so damn long..."  (empires// jukebox the ghost) oh Ukraine. i don't understand. i don't know what to think about you. logic cannot explain how i feel, or even what i think. i'm not sure what i truly think --haven't made time to *really* sort it out. i'm scared. why this crazy magnetic pull? even with your harsh abrasiveness, coldness, the vast depth of language/thought pattern barrier, the ways you make my strengths look disadvantageous & don't value some of the deepest things God created in me; i adore you. there are ways you hurt me. but it drives me to Jesus. oh you make me laugh! my lack of ability to cross those culture walls? at times frustrating as hell. but it drives me to honest self-assessment of what is truly good vs desired, what is biblical vs cultural. you're not easy to love, but i never have been either...