wild melody

is all we are to you just near lost causes? do you see the things that are happening? or is the compounded cries of the suffering so heavy that you turned away your face from us? have you given up on your plan of redemption? is there even a way to restore things this broken? is there anything that can heal a mind and heart so shattered they are not living, not even surviving; only existing because the medical profession took a pledge to do no harm and is therefore committed to keeping one alive? what are we to do when the mind is sick, when it cannot be healed by medicine or therapy? didn't you promise to be our healer? didn't you die and rise and take on our demons to set us free from them? // hope is believing in things unseen // the Lord is near to the brokenhearted & He restores the broken // He is making all things new // even the creation groans in waiting for restoration to appear // over those in great darkness, a light has dawned // I came to set the capt

the first thanksgiving without Nana. 1)  i've been doing she reads truth, & thanksgiving i went back to  this devo  b/c it so richly and beautifully freed me to be authentic yet hopeful.  2) little man shared my quiet space {heart melt} 3) chasing "auntie b" and "auntie m" 4) Nana's thanksgiving plates --in the words of grandpa "she would be just tickled to see them used!" 5) Isaiah 9:2 i was dreading this day. ya know, the kind of dread that sits in your stomach like nausea. the kind of headache that comes from refusing to be human & cry. last thanksgiving was strange enough...we had a smaller feast at her house, even though she was too sick to eat anything. because that's what she wanted. there was an ache behind all of it--but also a gratitude for every moment spent with her. for every breath without pain, every wakeful moment of memories & jokes & the many ways we found to say "i love you".

"so, where is she?" the voice drew her out of her head, up and out of memories tinged sepia. ones with the dust of years around the edges, locked for so long in a box she thought had been destroyed. she couldn't remember where the conversation had been when she left it. "what girl?" "the one who stood up for justice. the one who pushed back, who said how she was being treated was wrong. the one who would have called it injustice if she saw it happening to anybody else. where is she?" "15" the answer came immediately. startled, she stopped to think for a moment and realized this was true. it's a funny thing, memories. awaken one and a whole series comes to life. it turns out she was good at hiding things from herself. after six-ish weeks of not really knowing, of being blurry there was clarity too surprising to be painful. at first. "she's 15, locked in a closet somewhere. duct tape over her mouth. because how else wou

(Nuvole Bianchi by Ludovico Einaudi) I have a minor obsession with the classical composer Ludovico Enaudi. If famous Italian pianists came to my state, I would pay a lot of money to see him. He writes brilliance & depth & beauty. Certain albums are study music, other albums help me battle insomnia. Certain songs ("Melodia Africana III", "Divenire", "I Giorni") are songs I put on when I desperately need to be still, when it's a struggle to stop and breathe. Others ("Fly", "Una Mattina") make my imagination come alive. I wonder what did he see when he wrote them? Are there stories, colors, moments that inspired them? I see fantastic things when I listen to them, they transport me to my own Narnia. My favorite will always be Nuvole Bianchi. It's the first song I ever heard of his, years ago (which prompted me to find his music asap) It was played by a fellow student at my sister's piano recital. The entire room

dear current (panicky, feeling-like-a-spastic-failure) me, f ight the overwhelm! a year from now-- actually 5 weeks from now when you finish med-surg rotation-- you’ll look back & laugh at all the times (aka now) you thought you  couldn't  make it. you’ll also laugh at what you thought was difficult. this is the easy part, kiddo. so hang in there. don’t give up on me k? cause I’m excited about psych rotation. I really want to make it there with good grades & good clinical reports intact. we can’t get there if you waste time being scared. so make yet another glass of iced coffee, get those tunes louder, & hit it like it's an adventure. that’s all. your future self ((ps.  know how people always surprise you by thinking you're strong? maybe you've a little more grit than you can see right now ))

how we do battle. because sometimes the best thing for the soul is skipping church to have one on one Jesus time at the ocean. sometimes my eyes need to see the expanse. my heart needs a physical vastness to truly believe how big. deep. wide. God's love. grace. mercy is. grateful i live in a state with a coastline. grateful for the sea. grateful for the best friend, the comrade in arms being home for a season from across the pond. grateful for the maturity & wisdom & deepening of her spirit that God has done. grateful He offers the same for me. grateful that all is  b e i n g  set to right. maybe not completely set to rights here. but there is constant motion in that direction. there is not a day God forgets about His promise of Kingdom Come.

this isn't some intelligent exploratory essay mind you. just some ramblish to fill that empty space that lingers after finishing a good book. yep, I am one of those people...I devour books. I don't just read them, I tend to enter them like most people enter a different room. (maybe that is how people who love movies watch films? personally I find it takes a lot to get truly lost & involved in a movie) I get involved in what I'm reading. not all to the same extant, but it takes shallow writing + pretty lame plot for me to not care at all or --horrors, the very worst books get the unforgivable sin of not being finished. [*cough*  twilight]  the ones that captures my intellect and my heart? they're like magic, firing up my imagination something fierce! those ones are rare, and dangerous. I'm more dead to my surroundings than when I'm sleeping! it's as if I actually transport into the book...sometimes it's superb writing AND plot [ book thief, ]  som

so i started a 365 project a last week.  not because my life is super fantastic and i have all the time in the world. not because i’m a skilled photographer. but because my canon has a lot of dust. & because my creative side needs an outlet. i love science, but i also love colour. i find studying the human body to be elegant and beautiful. it combines my logic with my artistic side nicely... but it doesn't initiate creativity so i still feel a little starved. but mostly because i forget how beautiful my life is. & because i want to become aware of how  r i c h  the outrageous  g r a c e that covers my life truly is.

{Kiev, Ukraine. 2012} I don’t remember the name of the cathedral where I took this crooked picture. I was on a twisty stone staircase & stuck my canon out the window slot hoping it would focus decently in 15 seconds. I do remember the 25 minute walk south back to my apartment. & the Ukrainians, strangers to me but friends of my companion, who joined us. Especially Serge. He jumped into the deep end and began a conversation about culture & its impact on identity. I remember grasping some and wondering how much was lost in translation: he saying that Ukrainians are a giant slightly-fractured family, connected by language & history; me explaining how regions and states greatly influence our identities as Americans & how strange it feels to be from such a young country. I remember sweat making my sandals slippery. I remember statues of men who made history before my nation’s continent was even discovered. I remember passing a former KGB building, a testimony to

my thought are as wild as a sea before hurricanes, but much less cohesive.  i ache for Ukraine.  so many thoughts & fears for their future. can't believe I won't be going this summer. that's where I belong, how can I stay here when everybody else is? don't i need to go NOW more than ever?! i want to prove my loyalty & love for these fierce beautiful people. but I shouldn't need too. it's not about me. it's about serving & spreading Gospel. God doesn't need me to do that. HFO doesn't need me; I know. but I feel...I need to be there.  I want  to be there. I want precious stinky orphan hugs. I want to play games that break language barriers. I want to be surrounded in Ukrainian & Russian until even my own voice speaks broken English.  I want to see my dear Liliya, hug her & take care of her & talk all night. i want to absorb Nicoli's patience & peace, Jenya's vision, Dana's self-sacrifice, Yulia's energy, Mash

this is Finian. aka the shamrock plant i came home to one day after school, the week before st patrick i think. mum knows how obsessed i am with all things Irish. (also how i secretly want to be a gardener, because i like dirt and color and fresh air and hard work) i named him because he's lived somehow for almost a month now. i thought an irish name was fitting, yeah? it brings me a smallish smile in my heart to see greenery and life in my bedroom every day. its a reminder that i'm still growing. that God is still in the business of planting, watering, feeding, renewing souls. it's also a spark of distracting thought trains that never reach a logical conclusion. sometimes i get lost in thinking about aerobic respiration and what's going on in the miniscule cells of that little plant; not unlike (yet so different) what's going in on my own miniscule cells. but i have God's breath of life that creates (soul). pretty much the biggest difference in the definitio

rained all day. drizzling damp or fierce drenching, water fell from the sky like a proper Irish thursday. I made soda bread, as if the rubbing & kneading of the dough could smooth out my tightness. but knots of the soul are not so easily released.  should have, could have, why-didn't-I's, & only-if-I-had's dance around the edge of my consciousness. I can't let them in. I'm already as tense as a rubber band stretched much too tight. snappish & harsh to the unfortunate innocents who bump into me. it's not that i'm angry. don't mean to lash out but this knotted-ness from deep down spills forth. tense heart leads to tense tone, tense body & a person miserable. can't say why exactly. don't really want to know why or i would've sorted it out already.  g r a c e. allows me to slam the door on regrets & if-onlys. says its never too late to start fresh. even if there's 45 minutes left in a day. maybe that can't be redeemed,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooiwXyo4N9s  oh my dear Ukraine. my heart is breaking as Kyev burns. i know Independence Square well, I've walked those streets and sat on the curb exhausted with coffee from Coffee House in my hand. I've been in St Michael's. how i love this country... if i had any medical training i would be on a plane to Kyev now. literally,  i'd be on my way: here  . i'm ashamed at the way our government has let others maneuver the political field in this situation, how we have not made any counter offers or helped negotiations move toward the people being heard. i never thought i would see the day when we only cared for a "democracy" of name only, when it was in our own interests. how can we the free not help those who know what it's like to live oppressed? God forgive us. this is my theme song today, shared with me by a good friend who loves Ukraine as well. (i see fire by ed sheeran)

Kiev from a hill above Independence Square, taken in 2012 I found this article from an Israeli paper to give refreshing a non-american, non-bbc (read: not afraid to take a strong stand on the side of an argument) view on the protests in Kiev. You can find it here:   http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.573142 i want to DO something for my heart country, but i cannot. i'm powerless. all i can do is pray pray pray and talk to my friends in Kiev. please join me in praying for their safety.  also pray for this resilient nation that has already suffered oppression and violence under other nations for longer than we as Americans can fathom. pray for peace, pray that democracy will win, pray against civil war and against Ukraine becoming a pawn on the stage of international politics.

i'm fascinated by space. it terrifies me. but i always wanted to experience it at least once. it's constant, logical, beautiful. vaster and deeper than i can fathom. a burning stillness. tonight it's comforting (not "comfort" for when one is sad, more like cozy & enjoyable to dwell on). stars & galaxies & planets all spinning through the still ink of our universe... constant. yet always changing. stars die, things shift & alter, planet systems break down. | yet | not one.single.atom fails to an extant that would disrupt the fragile balance of earth. our solar system remains stable. it is continually being upheld by Christ. no matter what happens in my small world, the "real" world is safe. Jesus maintains the world of matter with all its laws & orderly mathematic precision so it can remain unshaken. steady.  hearts and minds falter. nations fail. moments of felt (or actual) weakness is a sure common experience acros

I had a realization while in Wyoming. i saw my heart in the land, and it gave fresh perspective. My writing skills are rusty as hey. but i'ma try to write it down at least for myself. it's been a few weeks, & I need to remember.  the day before the funeral was freezing--literally, around 17f-- but I needed physical space to work my mental knots out. so Nate & I went for a walk in my aunt & uncle's neighborhood. it's the kind you'd expect to find on a prairie outside Cheyenne, Wyoming. no streetlights. no sidewalks. long driveways. acres of land between houses, usually with a barn & or round pens. the street signs seem out of place. as if the houses are there by permission of the prairie, but the street signs are intrusive. the land can be inhabited; but street signs bring a sense of taming & ownership that can never be truly believed. the prairie is not tame-able. that tangent probably doesn't make sense to anybody but me (which is w