people are silly

I stumbled upon something earlier in my usual way, by rambling about my philosophies on life and people.  I do this often, with no real sense of direction or foundation; later, I'll take the time to actually think about what I said and realize that it was maybe not so crazy after all, though probably a little rough on the delivery.  Tonight it was a remark about how beautiful it would be if everyone everywhere got up and pointed out each other's faults.  Not in an accusatory way, but more in an acknowledging sort of way.  When asked why I felt that way, I responded that we would no longer waste all of our energy pretending to have it all together.  Of course I wasn't actually thinking about what that really meant when I said it.  But seriously, wouldn't that rock?  I know I am far too concerned with appearances, and the upkeep on those things is ridiculous.  But if someone were to come around and utterly destroy that thing I put on display for everyone else, I would be freed up to do so much more with my life.  If I didn't have to put so much time into creating and maintaining this image that people see, I could spend more time learning how to love people as Christ loved them.  That sounds so ironic as I read it back to myself.  If I didn't have to?  Who's making me?  We are slaves to our appearances.  I like to think that I'm a fairly free and authentic person most of the time, but I think I'm often just fooling myself.  Like an image of the image I've created for myself (Inception reminiscent?  Of course.  A dream within a dream...).  I'm vain and hypocritical and proud; I spend all my time writing about how I should live and love, instead of actually living and loving it out; I get road rage sometimes.  Well, Sarah, you've admitted that you have problems, that's something, right?  No, really, it isn't.  So I've maybe ripped off the band-aid that covered the wound.  But I could spend my whole life staring at the cut and waiting for it to scab up and then for it to become a scar.  It won't happen though, because it's a wound that I'm constantly inflicting on myself.  I've got to do more, be more proactive.  Or, really, I've got to let God do the work in me.  It takes dying to myself every day, and it takes depending on Christ to give me my identity, to grow me into the woman He created me to be.  "He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3:30

bestfriendsistertwinsanity

I have a confession to make.

I have no idea what to write about tonight.

I have no idea what to write about, but I know I need to write.  It's just one of those nights.  I have all these unfinished thoughts running around in my head at lightspeed and they're all looking for their places.  And it's raining - a big, bright Texas thunderstorm.  So I've got great music, the sound of rain, and the occasional flash of lightning.  It's like a dream come true.  So of course I have to write; it would be madness not to.

Like always, my inspiration just hit me in the face, unexpected and sudden.  Here goes.

So I've got this best friend.  Well, best friend isn't quite the term.  More like soul sister, brain twin, sanity, partner in crime, occasional mother, inspiration, teacher... some combination of all of those things, and more.  Anyway, clearly, she is awesome.  It all began a few years ago when we discovered that we didn't quite fit in our group of friends.  Or really that we didn't quite fit in anywhere.  Since then we've gotten a little older, a little wiser, a little sillier; we've read good books and listened to good music; we've discovered what we're really good at, and what we're maybe not so good at; we've had lots of successes and some failures; one of us has fallen in love and been through some of the worst pain, the other has made some silly mistakes; we've seen God at work in each other's lives and in our own; we've learned a lot; we've got scores of inside jokes and we've probably had more fun than should be humanly possible.  And we still don't really fit in.  But it's a good kind of not fitting in.  She's the kind of best friend everyone wants - you know, the kind who knows exactly what you're thinking or feeling without you ever having to utter a single word, the kind who pushes you to do your best and makes you do what know you need to do, the kind who tells you like it is when you're refusing to acknowledge it, the kind who understands everything you say, whether it's a complete thought or not, the kind who sends you good indie music and tells you your writing is good, the kind who laughs at all your jokes, even when they suck.  The kind you have no idea where you would be without.  She is one of the best pieces of evidence that God is here, in my life, and He loves me immensely.  I could write pages upon pages about her and our friendship and all of our jokes and the things God has taught us through each other.  Of course, I can't and won't do that here, so this will have to suffice.  You know what they say - "A picture's worth a thousand words."  So here are a few that give you a pretty good glimpse into our lives.

Dedicated to the bestest friend a girl could possibly ask for. I love you LC!

Also, thanks for some of the pictures. :)



creative bit: dreams

He didn't speak.  He couldn't.  He knew that if he did, she would wake.  And he didn't want that; he didn't know what he wanted.  So he watched her sleep, watched her breath rise and fall, watched the scenes of her dreams unfold.  He let her imagination take him captive, her dreams became his.  He lingered there, in the space they shared, watched his character act out his role in the life of her's. 

Realization brought him back.  He was back in that room with the sunlight beginning to pour in through the window.  She was asleep; he was awake.  And he didn't know what he wanted. 

He turned away from her and began studying the aging wood that made up the window frame, and thinking.  What would life look like with her in it?  Was he even capable of including another character in it?  Could he be faithful?  What was love?  How many children did he want?  The answers came as a flood, not as particular answers to particular questions but as one big answer to an even bigger, all-encompassing question.  Beautiful; yes; she was the only one he wanted; work; four. 

He knew what he wanted.  He was more sure of it than anything in his whole life.  He turned back to her, the words nearly dripping from his mouth.  They died on his lips.  She was gone; slipped away.  Her spot was still warm, for she had just been there.  But there was no sign of her.  She was gone - for good this time.

He had waited too long.




**This was not intentionally depressing. My apologies.

Just a pondering sort of evening...you know, an evening in which you ponder

Have you ever had the feeling that maybe you were wrong about all the things you thought you wanted in life? That maybe the whole go to school, get married, have kids, go to church on Sunday mornings life isn't what God has planned for you?  I thought I wanted to live that life.  But I don't want to live comfortably anymore.  I don't know what that means yet; I don't know what God means by that yet.  But I don't think I want to get my degree and a job and fall in love with someone cool who is going to make good money and get married and live in the suburbs and have a few kids and a dog and maybe lead a women's group at church or something.  That was the comfortable life I wanted.  And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.  But I have this inexplicable desire for something more, something weirder (I happen to be a rather odd sort of girl, so this logically follows my incredibly illogical personality).  Sure, I'm going to finish school and get a degree.  Of course I'll still marry someone cool (I also have incredibly good taste in people, you know this if you're friends with me, so it's only natural that whomever that sir is will be also odd, but the cool sort).  But do I want a safe job that provides me with a decent income?  Do I want my future husband to work in an office just to make good money to support a comfortable lifestyle?  Maybe that IS the life God has planned for me.  But I don't think He would give me these desires for something different if that was the case.  I don't have any clue what I'll be doing.  Maybe we'll travel the world and love on people; or maybe we'll just love on people right here in the states, right here in our own cities. I don't know what we'll be doing, and I don't want to know.  I'm just here to live and love as Christ lived and loved.

Creative: Childhood in a Box (b-side)

So this is a poem I wrote about a year ago, just for funsies. It has b-side in the title because it was a follow-up to an earlier poem that was really just a list of weird things I found in a shoebox from my childhood that I slapped a cool rhythm on. Anyway, this one is way better just because it's not a list. And it has a rhyme scheme of sorts. Disclaimer: This is, in fact, a fictional poem about a fictional homeless girl. I, of course, did not grow up in a box pent up with my hopes and fears.

Once upon a time
There lived a girl who
Hadn’t a dime.
And she hadn’t a house
And she always wore the same dress
And she always had a streak of dirt upon her brow.
Well since she had no real place to reside,
She lived in a box in an alley between Front Street and 3rd
With an old stuffed bear in whom she did confide.
And every now and then she would upgrade,
But mostly she would just stay the same.
So she passed all of her childhood years
Pent up in a box with all her hopes and fears

Old Bible, Decisions, Prayer (haphazard)

So I got a new Bible last summer.  Right around a year ago.  It was right before I started college, and I had decided that it was high time for a new one for a couple reasons.  One was that I wanted a new translation (ESV is offcially my favorite and will remain so), another that I wanted a prettier Bible, and the main reason was that I wanted something new to explore.  I had marked so many passages in my old Bible that I found myself repeatedly turning to those, and only those, that I had marked.  I figured that if I got a new one, I would find new passages, mark new verses; it would freshen things up.  I've found that in the last year since I got a new Bible, it has seen much less activity.  Tonight I flipped through my old Bible and found that it had been well-loved.  It has water damage from being toted around, lies flat when opened because it was so often used, and has scores of passages hastily marked with anything I could find - pens, markers, even colored pencil.  The condition of the new Bible stands in stark contrast to this.  The binding is still sturdy, the pages unwrinkled because they haven't been touched much, the few marked passages highlighted very precisely.  In the last year I have lost my interest in, my love for, the Word of God.  I have been too busy to earnestly seek my Lord through the words inspired by the Spirit.  It is a tragedy encountered by far too many college students.  My prayer is that I will find my first Love again.

Decisions...I hate them.  Or I've come to hate them at least.  It wouldn't be so bad if decisions were free-standing; you know, if all that mattered was your yes or no.  But so many things go into a decision, there are so many factors, so many possible outcomes, so much potential for someone to get hurt or offended.  If you are a part of any kind of community, family or friends (or both), you cannot make a decision based solely on yourself.  You must always take into account the way it will affect those you love.  And that is where things get complicated.  Sometimes your community won't even allow you to make the decision on your own, which can be a blessing and a curse.  I am currently right in the midst of a (somewhat) big life decision, and I keep finding myself simply wanting it to be over.  No matter which way it goes, I just want the matter to be settled.  I mean of course I have a preference, but the limbo I'm currently in until everything is worked out is making me go crazy.  Here ends my ramble about my beliefs on decisions.  Updates to come.

So I have this notebook that has all manner of random things in it: grocery lists, scores of pro/con lists, a bucket list, prayers and answers.  It was given to me a few years ago by my best friend, and I love going back through it every now and then.  Tonight's find was a page that I had written of things I heard from God during prayer while I was on a mission trip last summer.  You can say God doesn't speak anymore all you want, but our God is a living God, and He speaks.  This is what He said to me that night:
"You are to love.  You love to love people, so do it for Me.  Learn to enjoy loving the hard-to-love, for they are Mine as well.  This is what I have called you to do, this is your mission.  My Love is the light that shines through the cracks in you, it is what brings together the broken pieces of you and glues them together into a beautiful mosaic.  It binds up your wounds, gives you healing and peace, reassures you.  Let it speak to you, take it for yourself and then give it to others.  This is what I have created you for.
Your mind is a beatiful thing.  I know it well - I created it.  My hands molded it together, made it unique, original.  It is vibrant, full of life, incredibly active.  Yet in its activity, do not let it wander to fears of the unknown and uncertain.  Let it not make its life down in the 'misty lowlands' that are not of Me, the places that are full of fear, worry, and self-reliance, the places that hide My face from you.  Instead, lift your mind up to Me and let Me take you to the higher places, where you walk hand-in-hand with Me.  Here you will see life as I meant for it to be, where things are more beautiful because you can see Me in them, where all people deserve to be loved with My love.  Here your mind will be even brighter, more vibrant, active in a good way because you will be thinking of the things of Me, not afraid of the future or what you don't have because you will know that I am providing for you."  I need to read this daily.