more wild joy & some breathing

hi guys. good news! i am still here. bad news! i haven't had time to write out the how-God-drastically-changed-this-heart-and-why-i-now-have-a-tatt post. i really do intend to...i actually NEED to make the time. hopefuls for tonight? because i am one of those people who has to process her life. ya know, taking time out of it, thinking & compartmentalizing & doing the whole what is the big picture/story here that i don't see? kinda deal. (oh look. horrendously constructed, ultra confusing sentence for the day? done!)

but what i do have time for is to slap up some pictures. i actually had this fantastical post written the night i did this (i think it was 3 weeks ago?) but i did it on my phone and cash deleted it. :(
so this is the scrambled version but it beats nothing. i smile everytime i remembered this day so i thought i'd share the happy.
a few weeks ago, i got off work around 2.30 in winter park and as i was driving by the I-4 ramp toward home, this little thought process went off in my brain:
LOVELY perfect beach day dang it!
too bad i'm broke.
hey. wait, i have a full tank of gas...and i'm halfway to NSB from here...
i have a change of clothes...
sorry to whoever i cut off as i suddenly jumped onto the I-4 East at the last minute.
CHECK out that OCEAN!!

it was so fun. i stopped and returned some school things i hadn't needed after all and with that money, got a hideous $2 bikini top & a $3 hello-sunshine-yellow towel. plus susan wilcox had given me a starbucks giftcard, so i even splurged and had hazelnut added to my iced coffee. when i got there, it was empty. except for a few older tourists from Canada in sweats. a young mum & her little boy were the only other ones in bathing suits. i ran screaming into the ocean like i'm 6, and that is my favorite. when it's so cold your skin goes numb & tingly...it's so fresh feeling. like even my soul gets scrubbed clean & i'm invigorated in a way the summer waves just can't quite match. then i laid in the sun on the wind-scraped beach feeling cold-how often does that happen? listening to driscoll.

and i just...breathed. inhale/exhale. i looked & smelled & listened & delighted in all the joyful beauty God has infused this sin-soaked broken world with. i didn't think or sort or process anything. i was just there. resting. it was heaven. pure, wild JOY!!! a little like being in love. i felt giddy & couldn't stop smiling and laughing at how amazing God is that not only am i free to do silly things like this but i'm free from sin and free from having to earn anything. i CAN rest. not every hour of my life has to be serving or productive. so wonderful. just doing something totally spontaneous, crazy and very much single-without-kids 24 year old instead of responsible-ness. which i'm told i need so i need so hey. i'll take it.

i had the cutest little pic of an old couple walking in sweats but i deleted it.

that was my breathing day. i did something kind of selfish just for myself. i drove the same amount of time that i had at the beach. i still made it to caregroup on time too, which was stellar. :) it was good.
the end.