wild melody

(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

 " 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...

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, th...

sometimes the easiest way to fight for joy, to fight to trust God when it seems He is letting go of His grip on the world is (for me anyway) to completely shift focus. to not think on those things. not sort them out, not try to understand. to let go & admit that my mind is too small. to really grasp His plans anyway. to humble myself--lets be real, if God explained His plans step by step i still would be unable to grasp them. i have not the mental scope. finite meeting infinite. i need to let it go. focus my mind on Christ. its in His hands. so. A Praying Life  by Paul Miller is a book i've been soaking in for almost a year now. haven't quite finished it, but i've reread chapters over n over. its simple. but parts of it have grabbed my heart. thought i'd post some of the underlined sections that convicted/comforted me .  One of the biggest key points of the book is that prayer is about our hearts & relationship with God. "As you develop your rela...

no really. despite the silly angst i spew here, i truly believe life is lovely! cause of Jesus. first and foremost. i don't know how life would be worth living without His death, perfect life & resurrection making fellowship with God possible. i don't know how i'd find silver linings. i don't know how anything could be sweet without the steadiness of His love! He gives so many little blessings. the simplest, everyday joys are sometimes the sweetest. doesn't take much to remind me how loved i am. or to make me smile. some seasons it takes more than others, true...i tend to come here when i'm overwhelmed, burdened by things i don't/can't/shouldn't verbalize to others. it ends up reflecting only the awfulness of me & the struggles of wanting to love Jesus. not so much His goodness or kindness or triumphs. i use the blank pages to sort out my tangles. but i wanted a spot of brightness. so here's a written equivalent of a mason jar filled ...

it seems this has become a travel blog. i like having a place to stick pictures and quotes from trips. i don't journal very well. blogging helps memories stay clearer in my mind, because i re-live them immediately after. mum likes to read about my trips. (probably because i tell stories like abi's fam--only i'm one person interrupting myself and going off on random threads and not quite finishing the original story. i will never be the storyteller of the family!) my latest trip was a week in key marathon spending most days on the splendid blue sea. this captures my sentiments: I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking. I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask i...

I've been re-reading random sections of Trusting God {by Jerry Bridges} lately. A paragraph from the section on physical affliction greatly affected me: "Trusting God in the midst of our pain and heartache means that we accept it from Him. There is a vast difference between acceptance and either resignation or submission. We can resign ourselves to a difficult situation, simply because we see no other alternative. Many people do that all the time. Or we can submit to the sovereignty of God in our circumstances with a certain amount of reluctance. But to truly accept our pain and heartache has the connotation of willingness. An attitude of acceptance says that we trust God, that He loves us, and knows what is best for us..." While I wouldn't consider myself to be dealing with intense physical trial or heartache, I was still provoked by this passage. I was convicted to apply it to my everyday situations. What is my response when I dislike my circumstance? Is it hum...

recap of sczebelness. (amber this is for you, hon.) short version: i kidnapped als & joe friday. swam in the ocean. got sunburned. saturday sutters, sczebels & my fam at seaworld. spent the night at sczebels hotel. went to metro. it was fun, als is funess, the sczebels are fun(ny), joe's shoes are fun. the end. Friday was crazy, my driving was crazy, my phone rang like crazy. my first time being tour guide. i was atrocious. we had fun anyway. We went to the beach. First i took them to publix to get lunch. they laughed. i guess it's unusual? (after the northeast's sketchy grocery stores, i love publix. cause it's not ghetto.) they saw gators "in the wild". Als had the funniest shark theories . I never heard of the-fear-of-sandbars-breaking-up before... A good sport. Joe didn't punch out a shark's tooth. but he has one, without a cool story. We saw teal jellyfish & made important discoveries about "chris evans". he likes puffins. e...

these are some pics i took when my family went to the beach.shore.atlantic ocean. a few wks ago. It was a great day. The water was cool--some of my fam would call it cold. I think it was perfect--the waves were wild. Strong current. If you went out too far you'd be pulled out to where the little sharks live. I love the ocean. I don't care if it's the pacific or atlantic but I couldn't live too far away from it. (6hrs being too far). I've found that I can live without mountains, as i have too; but the ocean...ONLY if God calls me too. Amber--so that's what a shout out is. Never really knew. Umm so sorry to have left you out but see I only posted on what people had commented. now you get one all to yourself. hopefully this isn't too long for ya. haha. (now do you see why i was so excited to walk on the dunes at white rock? we have none).