Moon Safari!

2010-06-09T00:28:00.000-07:00

A lot of hearts victim of being treated carelessly have been winding up in my arms, forcing me to see how awful it is to be treated poorly.

Making lunch with the nuns and going out to feed and talk to the beach dwellers in Wai'anae is the most beautiful/heartbreaking part of my week.

I have come face to face with the beautiful truth that Jesus' blood makes every little thing new, even the ugliest and most devastating things.

I am inordinately sensitive, preoccupied with aesthetics, and concerned with what people whose opinions should not matter think of me.

I have been passionately using the word 'bastard' frequently.

Photographers are mostly snobs, this depresses me.

The woman I most look to for guidance is gone, and I am really missing having someone to keep me in line. I know it is just time for me to keep myself in line.

Being a part of birth changed me. It is the most amazing, powerful, awe-inspiring thing I have ever seen.

I have no idea how I came to date the boy I am dating. He is, on paper, my polar opposite. There is, however, no one I like praying, singing Kenny Chesney songs, or dancing on balconies more with.

I wish everyone knew everything I knew about the human body. It makes God a lot harder to ignore.

I am learning a lot about real purity, unconditional love, honoring my parents, and a lot of other important lessons I skipped in my youth.

I love, love beer. All of it. But I am prayerfully considering ceasing to drink it. As my fave Saint Augustine says: Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

I am so tired of anyone faking anything. It makes my skin crawl. But especially in this, I am learning to love.

I think going to Africa, if nothing else, will make me a better studier. I will know that my knowledge can change peoples lives if I pass it on.

I have no idea what I'm doing come January, and I am happy about it.

More and more, I have a serious desire to spend my life among the poor.

KA, I felt a deep sadness after reading both of your posts. Not even for any particular reason. Maybe just that I feel very removed from both of you, from us, KLANzz as a whole, and it is strange. It is unfortunate to me that I do not share life with any of you. But I will just have to cope, I s'pose. Or maybe you should just talk to me again. Either or. :)

I feel very strange ending with this point, in light of both of your posts, but it is the biggest, most profound, and most relevant discovery in my life recently. So I must:

The people I spend large amounts of time with include a pageant queen, an iphone using, collared shirt wearing reader-type, girls obsessed with fashion and make-up, a buff, Mexican, motorcycle riding sailor, intense mokies, educated snobby rich girls, wannabe gangsters and artsy ragamuffins. If two people just GET IT, get that life is beautiful, wonderful and lived because of the Gospel, they can spend the rest of their lives working to change the world, in ardent conversation, laughing and crying together.

I love you so much, always, even if we never share another word. I love you I love you I love you.

REJOICE

2010-04-19T01:47:00.000-07:00

I am thankful for sleepless weekends such as these where I truly begin to grasp concepts like 'peace beyond understanding' and 'Jehovah Jireh'. God provides. Remain in His will and way and He is faithful to fill any circumstance with joy, peace, and contentment. There have been many moments over the past three days where I felt as if nothing could get worse. Bewilderment, disappointment, and heartbreak were plentiful, and yet God provided a magical and absolutely incomprehensible peace. He is my husband, my partner, and His wonderful providence abounds, He adores me. What else do I need?

Forgiveness

2010-04-07T02:40:00.001-07:00

My parents, while undoubtedly quirky and flawed, made me feel like a loved and accepted girl. Most of my classes involve me exploring how my personality developed. I write about my parents praising and affirming me, causing me to have a healthy self-image. I read my classmates papers with stories full of their moms being beaten by boyfriends, their fathers doing unspeakable things to them at night, and constantly being made feel worthless by their caretakers. But not I, I was raised in Love. And this is true. I am a pretty together individual for the most part. And I really am thankful for it.

However, something has been revealed to me lately that undermines this notion that because I had a pleasant childhood everything is peachy.

I have trouble with forgiveness.

There, I said it.

A bit of forgiving, but mostly being forgiven. I am comfortable with people being angry with me, and often assume and announce it. Someone hating me makes more sense than them forgiving me.

Upon making this realization I immediately made the connection to the spiritual: I really have yet to grasp Christ's forgiveness. The foolish things I've done haunt me. Through my joy, laughter, and exuberance I carry those millstones. And it is unhealthy to say the least. Whenever I cringe at the thought of something I've done, I hear in my head "Life Abundantly". When Christ died for our sins, He died for my sins specifically. He knew I was going to lie to my parents and gossip to hurt people and fool around with boys. And He did it anyway. Because His love is that expansive. So for me to hold on to all these things that I've done is really telling Jesus His love just can't cover it.

I feel embarrassed to admit this, because whenever someone says "but you just don't know what I've done", I assure them that Love conquers, it always wins. I have not let this truth that easily slips off my tongue penetrate my soul. I know of this Grace but have yet to truly embrace it, yet to let it wash me and set me free.

2010-03-24T02:29:00.000-07:00

Wednesday is my favorite day.

All week I go to school and write and read and take tests. All sorts of wonderful and tragic, true and false information enters my brain. I must process it all, use it for my benefit, make good grades, disregard the false, and hold the truth. I talk to lots of moms-to-be too, I tell them how their bodies can give birth and what their placenta is and if they can eat spicy food or not.

But on Wednesdays I just listen and eat.

I learn how to slice a mango, be a hippie married to a military man, to value correction, love the poor and still eat well, and to trust, love, depend on, and know Jesus more.

All this to say:

The more God shows me how He loves me, how He will always provide, make a way, give grace, and surround me with folks who say exactly what I need to hear, the more I am in awe. I was dead in my transgressions, completely weighed down by wickedness, and He brought me to life. I can't comprehend how it gets better than that, how His love goes deeper. Why He would ever bless me and bring me joy and show me mercy. But He does, every single day.

It makes me want to live with the poor and love sick children and be dirty and sweaty and hungry and help babies be born and build houses and love the unlovely, even the bastards that don't care about the poor, and respect my parents and be nice to my brother and keep secrets and listen to your silly dreams and cry with you all to bring Him glory.

2010-03-01T19:05:00.000-08:00

In the midst of it all, my friends, I urge to you remember: Salt + light.

2010-02-10T21:27:00.000-08:00

Hey all three of you,

I am sorry for the lack of writing. This is an update blog! Life has certainly been a whirlwind. I just got back from CA where I learned lots of doula magic, saw old friends, and met some new ones. School has been a mixture of ridiculously simple and unimaginably difficult. While overwhelmed, I am at last learning practical science things that will actually help people. The team and I are conjuring ideas up for fund raising to Uganda. I am thinking car wash, community garage sale, maybe doing a few really cheap family portraits. Do any of your guys have ideas?

For the first time in my life I feel completely out of control, incapable. And it is a good thing. Truly relying on the only Thing I can ever truly rely on. With this newfound knowledge, I can plunge forward. Summer will not be any sort of break. I take the NLN (Nursing test) in July, have summer school for six weeks, the tougher part of Anatomy and Physiology (which I currently can't even fathom) which I must get an A in to get into nursing school, and then immediately leave for Uganda. I have to somewhere in there send in my nursing application, and need to get DONA certified before I leave, which means lots of books a few more classes.

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

2010-01-07T03:18:00.000-08:00

The following paragraphs are a series of thoughts I mostly wrote on separate occasions. Thus the lack of continuity. Sorry!

This really exciting thing has been happening where I am anywhere, in the midst of all kinds of people, and I get this amazing sense that God is right there. Right then. He is in the laughter and dancing and photos and hugs and I know it.

This is new for me, and it feels kind of like getting flowers. Unexpected and totally extraordinary feeling; you know you don’t exactly deserve it but you are so grateful for it.
And while in the midst of this new adventure, no matter how much I attempt to combat feelings of worthlessness with truth, I still carry this awful weight of inadequacy and fear. But I was recently released by something I read.

“The man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter death of his feelings and desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, “Thou art my refuge.”

I am often a defender of bizarre and unconventional ideas. For years I told people that reading the bible everyday was not really important, as long as your carried it in your heart. Ugh. Waking up and spending time reading the bible directly and hugely effects the way I treat people, feel about my day, approach problems, take rejection. When I begin my day with Gods words, life is better.

The beginning of new years always bring reflection, people claiming that this year was one of the best or worst of their lives, that this or that will change entirely. However, this season, more than any previous, I have felt detached from all things traditional. So I had not put much thought at all into how my year went. But a little late reflection revealed this to be a sincerely tough year. I think we all had a hard year. Lots of things to figure out, big and little relationships collapsing, the reality of becoming adults. But through all the dirt, flowers come.

And I can tell you now, through all of this fucking shit, that I feel completely exhilarated, absolutely free. Old hurts are gone. I truly am done, not with people, but with bad logic and foolish emotions. I see it for what it is, at last. After feeling for so long like I was lacking something, it is clear I’m not missing much. And life is really good.

Standing on the roof at midnight, the sky full of amazing illegal sparks, with Leslie’s arms wrapped around me, I realized how unencumbered I feel by anything. Not in a reckless sense, but rather a deep understanding that I am whole.

Boys don’t judge me for doing this, because I know this is how insane checklists start. But I have been thinking about what would be really important in a mate. Maybe I am being an idiot even thinking of this with my talk of forever singleness (which I am SERIOUS! about), but so many people have been pushing romantic ideas on me that I feel I need a solid scope.

Okay. If I ever get married: My husband will have to make me laugh. He will play some kind of instrument, and he will sing no matter how bad he is. Bandit Queen will be a semi-accurate description of our relationship. He will be really brainy, and love to learn. He will be good with children. He will think what I want to do is cool and brave maybe, and he will be supportive of it. He will want to travel with me and love people. He will be dirty, not really dirty, but kind of dirty. He will give premium head kisses. He will be confident and affectionate and always kind. He will be a leader. He will be okay with my quirkiness but always push me to be better. Mostly, he will know what matters and keep it just that, and he will have a big free soul.

I guess if he is not dirty that’s okay, but that would be a plus.

2009-07-01T03:04:00.000-07:00

Hiatus!

(Be back soon)