Friday, November 30, 2007

terms

these are some of the terms that have been coming up a lot lately for me:
  • preparation
  • beauty
  • raw
  • real
  • restoration
  • intimacy
  • love
  • acceptance
  • honesty
  • hope
i want more of all of them...

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

filet

ok...so i just laid myself bare today... i "filleted" myself. well.. let's start from the beginning...

so last night some people were going to wal*mart to 'pray for people.' it didn't really freak me out...it didn't scare me...i didn't feel like i would be embarrassed... but i didn't think i should go... i felt... nothing. so i stayed..

tonight i went. i wasn't sure how i felt. so i went anyways. maybe just to watch.
but i ended up talking to these two girls...from high school. and i ended up being real honest and open with them. i told them stuff. stuff i guess i wouldn't just tell anybody, but at the same time i guess i would tell anybody. if i felt like it. i'm kind of not worried about what people think about me. i know who i am and where the Lord's taken me from. and i want people to know... because i really have nothing to brag about. i really have nothing to highlight in my life except the fact that whatever is good has been put there by God....or maybe just simply that the only thing good in my life IS God...

you know what i was just thinking? well...first i was wondering if other christians would want to be represented by someone like me....someone who did bad things such a short time ago.... someone who's so stained and broken..... but then i'm reminded... look who Christ picked to represent Him.... Peter...the liar, coward, and failure... and look who God chose to represent Him...David...the greedy adulterer and murderer....

of course, that's no excuse to sin...
...but it sure gives me hope...

i don't want to be complacent ...and i want more good to come from my life...
...but i'm really glad that i'm loved...cherished...adored...and pursued where i'm at....
i'm real glad He sees me.

don't leave me here Lord....

Monday, November 26, 2007

Y

the other night i went with two friends to the woods... to hike...in the night. probably not the most popular thing to be doing on a saturday night... but it was nice. the moon was hidden by clouds...and it was pretty cloudy... but i guess the light from town bouncing off the clouds had something to do with how bright the woods were that night. surprisingly, i wasn't scared at all. of course, it helped that one of my friends was a big, burly mountain man who made habit of walking through the woods at night.

we walked for at least 2 hours that night... the third of us was a genuinely free-spirited playmate...we would often run ahead of the man, tumble in the leaves, or pick up sticks and poke at eachother. sometimes we would leap against and press against dead trees in attempts to fall them...an opportunity to yell "timber" and listen to our echos... it felt so comfortable and safe to just play..and be silly... and it probably wouldn't have felt so easy had we not had his silent, calm, strong presence with us.

midway our trip we stopped at a little inlet of water... we threw rocks at this log and found that skipping rocks is very difficult with two sets of gloves on. at one point i told everyone not to make a sound and they all grew quiet... i was waiting for one of them to say something silly... to make the silence stop...but they never did... so i got into it as well... and God felt really close... i let my imagination run a little... saw myself climbing a lusciously green mountain in Africa with a ragged pack on my back...a little girl ran to me and i swung this emaciation of a child into my arms and ran my hand over her tiny frame... her wounds healed and her health was restored.... another image that crossed my mind was jumping from a towering, glimmering waterfall into the wild abyss of some jungle in South America...

as my eyes adjusted from my dreams i found myself staring into the bare tree limbs of a dry kentucky shoreline... seemingly unusually sharp and illuminated was a fork in a limb...only what stood clear to my eyes wasn't the fact that it was a fork, but that it was the letter "Y." So clear...that i had to remind myself it was a fork in the tree.... i felt in my heart "why not?" ....and i was reminded of the book i've been reading lately Irresistable Revolution and i recalled a place where this man confessed he was afraid to ask the Lord, "why?" about world poverty and such...because he knew that the Lord was going to ask him the same thing.. "why? you're my hands and feet...why do YOU let this happen? or why don't YOU do anything about it?" i think maybe God was letting me know my dreams are fathomable... maybe...

i packed up about a third of my closet to give away to the homeless in louisville... but i keep thinking that if they came to my door i would have even more to give...
i want to touch people... i want to help people.. i don't like thinking there are people starving and dying from it while i sit stuffing my face and abusing it....

i have this image of a fat rich man with possessions great and small all around him and in the next room an emaciated child too sick to beg....

how can i be so selfish as to allow my neighbors to starve...?
the least we could do is care....

Friday, November 23, 2007

beauty...

i hate that when i type 'beauty' into google various sites offering the latest cosmetics and tips on how to be more beautiful...many refer to these things as secrets... one site says: "Beauty is to look more beautiful without losing the essence of what makes you uniquely attractive." (which i think vaguely suggests that one isn't beautiful enough in their naturalness and it's necessary to enhance things if you want to achieve ultimate beauty)....i went to the area of google where it finds images for you...and using 'beauty' once more i came across a variety of fashion shots of thin, perfect women with their peach-painted complexions. sort of makes me sick looking at the whole of their symmetrical inerrancy. there was one picture of a city with an astounding array of colors in the sunset above it...when going to the site it originated from, i found it to be an anti-war site ...against the wars in israel. and another painting found in my search was of sleeping beauty...merely a fairytale....

one site let me to some quotes which i find appealing...

"Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time...." -Albert Camus

"The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself." -Henry Miller

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." -Albert Eintstein

"When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other." -chinese proverb

i want beauty...not the beauty of a symmetrical face or perfect body... i want beauty of life. i want to feel the same intense pleasure and deep satisfaction you get when you look at the most beautiful thing you've ever seen...that feeling that turns your insides up into your heart and almost makes you cry and not one other thought can pass through your mind because your entirety of being is centered on absorbing every and any ounce of the complexities within the simplicities...i want to be whole...i want passion...i want my life to be something i couldn't create on my own... i want healing... i want hope... i don't want to lose the beauty i've found... i don't want the colors to fade... i don't want the dreaming to stop... i want love... i want strength.... i want community...i want to be able to really hug a person...to be honestly vulnerable... i want to lean on someone... i don't want walls around my heart forever.... i don't want to lie...

i don't understand how to... how to be included again... how to get called up for a movie or something... if i didn't have my brother...i'd be really alone... but...i'm afraid i've done that to myself... i'm afraid i've pushed these people away for so long they've forgotten me... it's hard to push through into someone's heart when you're scared to share yourself... scared to give...

it seems like we're all so freaking broken... desperate for acceptance but unwilling to show enough of ourselves to really know if we were ever accepted in the first place....

here's what i want in my life: real raw beauty. i'm tired of putting make-up on. i'm tired of waiting for the latest tips to be beautiful...the next secret to wholeness.

i want to be real
i want to be raw
and i want beauty

please Lord...

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

do i have to wait?

how do you take it from paper and make it live? ...how do you live it out? how do you share? where do you find people to share with? ...how do you make your life real and purposeful? how do you make a difference in the here and now without having to wait until tomorrow or in a year til you graduate? i don't want to wait...i want to see things happen....i want change... i want purpose HERE...where i AM... not where i will BE.... i don't want to spend every season of my life waiting for the next to make a change....i want now to be the moment i am meant for....i want to mean something now... i want to feel necessary...or at least important...or at least used.... for something..something good preferably....

i feel discontent...i feel frustrated...

Saturday, November 17, 2007

tomando

so....i'm just trying to understand things. it's hard to find a balance in life. c.s. lewis (basically) said that if we are set on seeing heaven then how can we keep even a smidgen of hell in our lives. i wouldn't say last night was hell...or even a part of it really.. but the thing is that all our lives we've been taught that drinking is wrong...or maybe just from experience...it's typically used by a person living in darkness...or something... last night nothing happened that was wrong... maybe i drank a little too much...i was excited about seeing my friends... excited about spending time with them.. excited.

...does it mean i don't want the Lord? does it mean i don't want victory and restoration in my life? does it mean that i'm not serious about what's been happening in me these last few months? does it mean i'm not in a good place? does it mean i'm not whole?

i don't think so................................................................

i just want my life to add up, you know? i don't want to say one thing and do another...i want to live a life where it's obvious what i want out of it...

i'm pretty sure i'm okay.. nothing is shattering down in me or anything...my heart was pure last night... my purposes... my desires innocent... it was fun...spending time with my friends and my fantastic brother..

i'm just not sure what good i did...
and i want to do good things...

i'm happy...i'm not guilty or anything... i'm just thinking...

i'm really happy about where i am right now...it's so nice...to feel whole and loved... to feel safe... and desired..fought for...and rescued.... i have that laugh that's hard to keep in your chest...if i don't let it out it somehow turns inward and laughs to my core.... it's warm... colorful... vibrant... alive... and i can't really explain the feeling of knowing that even if i fell...someone would come after me...someone would be there to lift me up....i can't explain knowing i'll never be alone.. knowing there's a passionate God who lived and died so that He might have the opportunity of knowing me.... the opportunity of having me love him...

the other night i was in a worship service and i felt like God wanted me to read jeremiah 33... and when i did i was so encouragaed...it talked about restoration... it said that there were people who looked at the city and saw desolation...and maybe the city was desolate and dead... but God promised restoration...new life...and the opportunity to dream and hope was replanted in the heart of it... it's nice knowing i'm going to be built up...that He's gonna come for me even if i'm surrounded by darkness...

He fought for me...even when i didn't have the ability to cry out for help...
He believed in me..even when i couldn't hope for myself....
He came for me....

Friday, November 09, 2007

isaiah 58...

fasting is hard...honestly i'm not very good at it... today i had like 5 little tootsie rolls...i sucked on them so technically, i didn't eat anything, right? ...riiiight... bad excuse huh? ...i wonder if God honors attempts..

i kinda think that just seeing that I want to know Him more thrills Him... i think seeing me desiring Him sends Him spinning with joy... i think He'd bend over backwards and then some just to meet me as I attempt to detach myself from the necessities of this world in order to open myself up more to Him... and for me...just knowing how forgiving and loving He is makes me want to do my best for Him... knowing His desire to show His affections to me causes my heart to soften and my desire to be vulnerable to Him overwhelms me...

i want to be affected.
i want nothing between us.
i want to know Him intimately...

a relevant poem

i just found this...it just makes so much sense...and it's so true and relevant to what i've gone through...wow...

A note from the author:

The inspiration for this poem is the book Captivating by John and Staci Eldredge. The poem is about the struggles women feel because of their femininity. As women, we want to feel beautiful, act beautiful and show people our Beauty, as God's creation. However, what I learned from Captivating is that far too often, some women tend go about proving their Beauty (femininity) all wrong—mostly to men. That's when we sacrafice our bodies, our temples for men—even those we truly love. It's the daily purity struggle women face but people don't talk about.

This poem is much more powerful in the spoken word and rhythm rather than just read. The voice is strong yet depserate, proud and fearful all at the same time. I have performed it only once at a local poetry reading in Columbus, OH.


My lips breathe the words I read,
and speak so true to the life I lead,
Day by day, night by night, caught in the moment, everything seems right,
I continue on this way, wondering, searching
with my body, my soul, my heart, my Beauty,
There's so much in me that wants to offer my femininity
I wanna use my Beauty to delight him, captivate him and show him how You
made me,
I yearn to feel the Beauty.
I yearn so much that I give too much, too many, too soon, too fast,
I've toyed and manipulated situations in the past,
to feel that intimacy that only You can offer me
But I admit, I gave too much, too soon, too fast,
that I cannot even grasp the past of hurt, confusion, disillusion, I'm
losing ...

And then I awaken, I arise, I won't buy into the lies
I stop in the pain I've been faking
I've betrayed You, disobeyed You, played You,
used the gifts I've been given
to taint the man I love
I've twisted and bended my Beauty
to obtain that false love that I believe will sustain ... the pain
But pain is what I gain in the forbidden game.

And as I spill forth burning tears of sin,
pain lingers within
pain of pleasure, pain of fun,
my desperate soul cries out ...

GOD what have I done?

*sigh*

he touched my arm....


i know i know..i'm a sap....

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

for You...

i'm waiting...
resting...for once...
my eyes not used to focusing
on such an image as You...
i'm waiting...
resting...for once...
my heart not used to trusting
in promises as rich and true...

as filling as eggnog and porridge,
as sweet as honey
as glistening as dew
as calming as wine and lullabies
as strong as steel
nothing quite compares...to You....

i ache...
for justice...
for faithfulness...
for passion...
for purity...
for truth...
for wisdom...
for righteousness...
for guidance...
for reality...
for YOU.

Monday, November 05, 2007

my attempt to cling

how shallow can i become?
i used to have such beautiful depth
pure sweet secrets
enclosed in a heart of pearl
a heart of flesh
and now
cobwebs catch from
stone's edge to stone's edge
and shadows fill the void
-me (june 28, 2007)

this is just an picture of my heart this last year and this summer... it's still so fresh really...so possible....i can still remember the darkness. it scares me. the thought of returning makes me cling to Him... i know the power of deception...the truth of lies.... i know the strength of strongholds... i know the insidious appeal of seduction... i know, if one foothold is given, i can be pulled under.... the life can be sucked out of me just like before....

...and i cringe inside... i would say i refuse but i don't want to be prideful and say it's not possible in me....there's plenty of proof that it's all possible... but i will say that i'll cling tighter to Him in the midst of trials...in the midst of joy...there's really no safe place but in the arms of the Ultimate Lover....

and in those arms is where I know the power of truth.... the devastation of lies... the strength of trust.... the overwhelming passion of God's love...it's only slight comparison being the alluring gaze (and the steel gravity from that) which pulls a bride to her groom... i know what safety feels like. what freedom looks like. what joy sounds like. i know wholeness. and peace.

and when darkness knocks on my door, i'll pull the covers of love close and cling to the chest of my Lord.

expectations...

...it's hard to know what life is supposed to look like... but then it makes me wonder if it's not as difficult as i let it be...
jesus said we're supposed to love....love Him, love others, and love ourselves.... He already said we can show we love Him by obeying His commands.... i guess that means i need to talk with my roommate.... and i'm not really sure what else....sometimes i get stuck wondering what i'm supposed to do...and then i just try to start thanking Him for things... i know there's more tho....
and then to love others...well, we put them above ourselves, right? well... that's hard too....it's hard to have people expect things of you... it's overwhelming... and in a sense sometimes, the more they expect the less you want to give. how did you do it, Jesus? i guess people expected TONS from Him...
to love ourselves... well, sometimes i'm thinking i take this one a bit too seriously ;) ... i feed myself on the convenient satisfactions of the world until i'm bloated to the point of immobility and calloused to the needs of others and the passions of the Lord. Save me from myself and somehow bring me to a point where the Kingdom of God can Come into my every day life.