Strawberry Swing

"More and more groups of people at this 'level' are real with one another, but nobody is changing. Nobody is growing. Nobody is maturing. We've almost made the end goal of friendship to be authenticity instead of transformation. What good is a friend to [just] be open and honest? That's not the whole goal. The goal is to be in relationship with people who would challenge you and inspire you to not stay the same." - Josh Loveless

I have really been thinking about the deep meaning of friendship lately. I have been thinking about the reasons and the importance behind friendship. As I type this, there is a woman who is hysterically laughing with her girl friends in a coffee shop. There are six of them gathered around a table, giving the attention each deserve, sharing stories and that infectious laughter between one another. It really is encouraging to see this in older women, because I come to the conclusion that friendship is unceasing and does not get old as you get older. On the contrary, it would seem that it increases as one gets older.

It is friendship like this that ignites the very thing within you that is either hidden or stale due to life. Friendship comes along and shoves it out of you; to bring you either to tears or to pure laughter. Both equally healthy. And I think (know, actually) that the healthiest types of friendship are those between Christian's. True Christ followers who would so humbly lay down their best cardigan or favorite jacket in order for you to cross the puddle. This doesn't just happen between boyfriends and girlfriends, it is completely, 100% applicable in friendships. I truly believe that you are taught a portion of how to be humble and how to be selfless through friendships before marriage. I also believe that the greatest quality a friend can hold is one that is challenges the other friend; always pushing them outside of their comfort zone when it comes to their relationship with God.

In this, I have been seeing that God is making such a beautiful opening for friendships in my life. From the friends that I have in Florida - who, ultimately, gave me a standard for real friendship - to my newfound friends in Illinois. They are so wonderful, encouraging and more than anything, true friends through Christ. I am challenged by them and through them, I see how much I still have to work on. My amazing friend Eva portrayed just this last night. She just flew back from a five week missions trip in New Zealand and last night, she sat down with our group and was so blunt in wanting us to get out of our comfort zones. She encouraged us to get out and evangelize and connect with people we don't even know. We then had a time of praying and fellowship. This girl challenges me so much without even realizing it. I see the spark in her eye to strive to be the person that God calls her to be, whether it's quitting both of her jobs and taking off to another country for five weeks or her literal way of being the connection between every single person in our group - she makes it happen.  She was the first person to come up to me and make that connection. I don't know what kind of friendships I would have if God did not introduce me to her on the first night of college group.

And it is funny, too, that my best friend Chelsea was the first person to make the connection with me one night at church. From there, the friendships between amazing people and myself grew. So many times those same groups of people had to hold my hand above water and they helped me up to the surface through their humility, challenging and love. Friendship is such a beautiful, beautiful thing and God had every right and noble intention with it, and it is such a shame when we couple ourselves with the wrong crowds that aren't helping us grow spiritually.  It's crippling, actually. Through God and friendships, we recognize our broken bones and through these relationships, we get back to the health He has intended.

Who knows how these women in front of me have met, they're making their friendship work in such a beautiful way. It is friendship like this that can bring light to a room and a smile to the soul.

His work is good.

Oh, the road with its marvelous spectacles - like that of a circus - it is always so appealing to the eye. So we say, "Forget the soul! Heart, lead the way. Mere mind, you may only think when the decisions are in agreement with this heart."

We begin the path, feeling its grooves and its beats. We decide that this is right where we belong, because the craving for such an adventure has gone on for far too long. The craving must be met, and since the lights and the beats reach for our attention, we assume this must be the missing puzzle piece. It is not long afterwards that we've reached the road, where the lights are fading and the music seems distant. Forgetful we were in the beginning; the road always leads downward.

Oh, oh, but that's right... we've held onto that rope "just in case", and we have also left bread crumbs along the trail. So we tug, He pulls and we begin the journey up. Becoming distracted by the attractions again, remembering the fun we had, we let go. Forgetful again, the road ends and no longer do we have the rope to grab and pull. So we follow those bread crumbs we dropped along the way last time.

Along the path, we find the friends we traveled the road with. Too far gone to even see us and our call to travel this new path, they reach for us, but we refuse... we know the bottom, its freezing temperatures and its echos of desperation. The breadcrumbs are the only thing left to help us get back this time, so we say goodbye to the people we brought down with us, knowing we cannot face the bottom again. The wind seems battering closer to the top, but we push through.

Once to the top, we begin to see the scars and the bruises we acquired along the way down. The weight of our decisions sets in and just as we feel them overpowering, the slightest whisper has them flee. "You are mine." we hear. The soul begins its awakening. The Sewer begins His work. While painful, we know it cannot happen any other way. The scars have faded and the bruises brushed away, there is a newness; a freedom felt. Our longing to belong, the adventure we craved, this is where we begin.

One day we will be made into perfection; one day His work will be done. The thread will feed through one last time and He will place us down, and He will say His work is good.

"I've got a hunger twisting my stomach into knots."

Distractions can be so incredibly deadly. Whether it is Facebook, a relationship or my personal time, my distractions have become so burdensome that I recently pulled the cords. Facebook had to go. My relationship had to be put on hold. My personal time needed to be reevaluated and managed correctly. My relationship with God was teetering and I felt the weight of a thunderstorm looming. In moving to a new city, I fear that I have taken on new challenges. At every end, my mind is in constant battle with these new, yet-to-be-surveyed surroundings. I can feel the cracks of so many foundations right now that my relationship with even myself is at risk. I am beginning to wonder what road I chose to take or even when the decision to take a different road was given to me.

When I am saying that these cracks are forming, it's nothing massive. I'm not partying and drinking or even remotely touching that side of the 'cracked foundation' spectrum. Instead, I am beginning to discover that my previously fought battles are starting up again. The soldiers were never dead; the darkness only went away for a mere vacation. I suppose I began to think that because a battle was won, the war was over, but that is never the case. It is a lie, to be honest.

It seems that the only easy thing to repeat right now is: "I know that I am here for a reason" - but to feel the weight of this reason is becoming greatly exasperating. The Director of this film called "My Life" has already told me to expect this season to be a "season of change", but to charge head on is like walking on raging waters. I sometimes still feel on top, but then sometimes I feel like I'm sinking (I don't think one could understand how hard it was to write that sentence - it was like chopping the head of Pride off).

My season of change has resurrected old battles, and I know it is done in order to make me a stronger fighter and more aware of what my weaknesses really are. In this awareness, I have, have, have to understand that while I am saying one thing, my heart and mind can still be elsewhere; thus proving my weakness and my speechless longing to have Him understand my weaknesses and compensate with His strength. He is the stand to my frame, after all.

In realizing that I cannot fight these battles alone is making itself clear. Somedays I feel filled and ready to take on the soldiers. Then the battle begins, they fire and I am down and drained. Fighting out of pride in thinking "I've done this one before" is keeping me in a stale, unmoved place. To take it as a lesson learned and to have God take the lead in these battles needs to register in my heart, my soul and my mind. Here we go.

We Remain

the daydreaming mind

what a dangerous thing

bringing us to tangents and forks

in the already twisted roads

forced to a decision:

good or bad

chosen is the one

that points to fulfillment

all the while

its curves get sharp and wide

"dreadful, dreadful" we say

"how did i mistake this?" we ask

lonely and unaccompanied we began

and as lonely and unaccompanied

we begin to leave

the road seems longer than taken

but the distance feels lighter

we know only that the trek must be made

soles rubbed thin

souls feeling the last drip of water

we arrive

moonlit shadows fading

contradicting air we begin to breath

the new soul begins to gasp

spared we feel

lonely and unaccompanied we began

wholly filled and guided we remain

Chris showed me this band and their video on Vimeo the other day. Quite creative and toe tapping. I hope you enjoy it as much as I loved it.


Mt Desolation - Departure from BABANUKI films on Vimeo.

Coffee shops and unpurchased books

It is still in the chaos of absolute nothing-ness that I find myself sitting in a Borders and reading one of their books that I have not purchased, and I do not plan on purchasing, drinking a cup of coffee and enjoying the silence of their coffee shop. Though, I have had better coffee. My unpurchased book and I share a world together for about two hours and I finish in order to go home to a dinner. I return the next day to finish the same unpurchased book. I find it in its place and begin where I left off.

The Fates Will Find Their Way truly was a great novel. Quite raunchy at some parts, but great writing nonetheless. The review I did read on the novel revealed its similarity to The Virgin Suicides, which now ignites my curiosity of this novel. However, I have already started the 700 page The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb... but it seems to be losing me in the first one hundred pages. I read his two other novels, which were strange, yet nice, so I suppose I can't give up on him too soon.

As one can see, my "free" time (which is all the time at this point) is wrapped warmly into novels that take me to other worlds and charge the battery of my imagination. Great novels give my mind something new to think about, and it refreshes me. The novel, if written well, makes me think in metaphors and makes me articulate my words and sentences even better. It is the strangest of things. I begin to look at clouds and make up stories of how the weather man lied and now we are sitting here with clouds that tease their audience.

What the heck is wrong with me? I'm not Mary Shelley. But maybe there are some days that I wish I was. I wish I was this writer who wrote out of experience from passing street signs and from the beauty of what is around me. I wish I wrote pages and pages of these things, and these pages turned into novels and these novels would end up in someones hand at a bookstore, at a table with coffee and classical music, and it is being felt and it is being read. Purchased or unpurchased, it is read.

This dream is full of spandex, such a stretch, so until then, I will continue to be the reader; the other mover to this dance and live in other worlds of fictionalized characters.

Habba... no.. Habakuk.. no... Habakkuk.

"I am jobless and in 22 days, I will be 22. Wait, is it 22? I don't know. I hate the subject of Math and, well, I haven't been in school in two semesters, so two semesters without Math is almost the equivalent of a year to doing nothing, zero, nada in relation to Math. I should get back into school. Elgin Community College. I still need to research it. Guess I'm taking summer classes. But first, a job... continue to submit my resume like it is on fire in my hands and in my hard drive."

This seems to be my mindset on, at least, an every-other-daily basis. I mean, it is this mindset that is driving more and more of my Bible reading, talking and listening to God more, so I guess it is not so bad. It is the mindset that leads me to different coffee shops around the area of my house and makes me realize that Starbucks is not all it is cracked up to be - Caribou Coffee blows them out of the water - and that "[i]roning out faithless creases is toilsome." (Quote taken from Donald Miller's "Through Painted Deserts").

I am coming to see the reason why this season is taking place. God is speaking and He is ever-moving around me and in me. Just the other day, I had this feeling that I just needed to spend time with Him, because it had been a neglect on my part. I got off of the phone with Chris, turned on worship music and let the darkness of my room envelope me. I closed my eyes and just listened... something I had not done in a long time, and by the grace of God, it came through Olivia as a reminder.

So I sat there and then Kim Walker's version of "How He Loves" came on. I almost got up to turn it, when God said, "No. I need to to hear this. I need you to understand how much I love you." So I closed my eyes again, quite afraid of what would happen and the next thing I knew, I was crying. I felt like a child. I felt all of the holes that had been making their way inside of me start to peel away and heal again. I felt Him loving me. It was the most beautiful, most amazing feeling one could ever encounter and He was letting me, the impatient, imperfect human being feel just a part of His heart for me.

Slowly, there were a lot of things that were starting to make perfect sense. I understood why He told me "Not yet" for missions in this season and why He took me away from everyone I love. I won't go into great detail, but I will say that I know for sure that this is a season of change and I am so excited for what He has in store along the way. I kept thinking of this great revelation I had and the word "revelation" kept replaying in my head. I wrote down the things He told me and tacked them to my board to serve as reminders. I then wanted to open the Bible for a second to get a scripture when it just fell open to Habakkuk. Now, I have never actually read the book of Habakkuk and I don't even know how to pronounce it. In fact, I just spelled it wrong until I Googled the correct spelling. But I was drawn to chapter 2. I then read these words:

"Then the LORD replied:

“Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay."

"UM!" That was my initial reaction. I felt myself finally breathe and it felt like the wall of guilt and shame was broken down. He truly loves us and wants to see us succeed in this life under His will. What a beautiful, kind and loving God He is, and what a season of change this will be. Who knows what he is up to now. I have seen what He has done thus far in my almost 22 years of life -through my own redemption and through my high schoolers own redemptions.

I know that I have written a lot, so kudos to the one who actually reads this or any of my blogging rants. I truly hope you know and come to realize how much you're loved, how much listening is just as important to reading your Bible or praying, and how Caribou Coffee is so much better than Starbucks.