a shove mistaken for a push.

at this point in time, the majority of my friends are either in semi-serious relationships or are engaged.

my sister is having a baby.

my friends' sisters are having babies.

people are moving away permanently.

people are graduating college.

some, if not all, of these things will most likely come my way in time, and this is not a "what about me?" pity party blog. but for awhile i did indeed feel like i was waiting for a delayed flight at the airport of life while others were happily boarding their planes. i knew God assigned every flight with intricate intentions and for so long it was a daily difficulty to swallow the reality of waiting for the desires God has gardened in my soul; such things as genuine and fierce love, purposeful travel, and accomplishing hard-reaching [academic] goals.

but then this weekend happened, and it happened in a strange way with strange people. i probably shouldn't talk about Friday too much, but there were a few experiences that incorporated my past and my future in a humorous way.

Saturday started out with a great wedding, and the Blair, Missy, and i found ourselves at the Biltmore Fashion Center afterward. as we were walking around, Missy and i both started getting some serious aches in our knees since it was humid and we'd hurt them in the past. my knee felt like it was going to collapse on itself if i put too much pressure on it. at one point we were about to use stairs to get to the second story of Borders and i had genuine fear about doing so because of my knee. that's when i realized...I AM GETTING OLD!! only older people are scared of using stairs for such reasons!! and i sort of flipped out on the inside and wondered how much worse it is going to be when i am legitimately older. sure, after not walking on my knee so much and using my knee brace, it didn't hurt so bad. but still...i am twenty-years-old...i should be able to run and bend and fly without hurting or breaking, right? oh how mortal the body becomes. then while changing in a dressing room i realized that i am not as skinny as i used to be, which says a lot about where my metabolism is going. whoopee.

okay, so Sunday [yesterday] is the day of this past weekend that really stood out to me the most. church happened, which did what it seems to be doing more and more lately; point me in a different direction than it is heading as a whole. not to say that they are on a wrong path, but their focuses in ministry are no longer mine, and it would be a disservice to them and to God for me to force myself into what they are trying to do. so that dealt with my thoughts of the future some.
and then the same thing happened when i was hanging out after church and just so happened to look over at the group of people i spent the majority of my life in high school with. seriously, when i wasn't at school, i was with these guys. i probably got four hours of sleep on average a night because these crazy kids would stay up and live off of QT drinks and video games. i loved each of them dearly in unique and special ways and i would not be who i am today without the love and the frustration and the hard times i have been through with them. they will always have a special place in my heart. so i looked over at them and realized...with a WHACK feeling...that they are still the same as they were six years ago, whereas i would not consider myself anywhere near who i was back then. they are also still friends with one another and no one [except significant others] has entered that circle, whereas the entirety of my social circle has flipped upside down and will never be the same as it was even two years ago. how did this make me feel? it made me feel like i am swimming with the current of time and of life while others seem to ignore it or stick close to the shore where it is safe. sometimes it is not pleasant and i feel like i have no roots or plans or distinct destinations, but good grief, i'm GOING somewhere! and on purpose! again, thoughts that showed me where i have come and where my future leads.
after church was a leadership appreciation party that was at a house in Litchfield Park, where i grew up. before i went there i drove around my elementary school neighborhood for the first time and couldn't keep a smile off of my face. i used to ride my bike anywhere and everywhere from my house...to school, to the park, and to the cool lake right beside the park. my friends all lived in the same neighborhood so i was rarely ever alone without wanting to be. i was so free. my childhood was sort of awesome for a time. there has been a lot of development in that area since the ten years ago that i moved away, but "Old Litchfield Road" still has most of its charm left in my eyes. as i was driving around and thinking about all that has happened to my life to bring me to where i am today, the first thing that came to my mind was "God, what in the world are You doing?" because there was so much drastic change in so many odd ways in my life and it didn't seem to point in one specific direction. the immediate answer He seemed to give was along the lines of "I can't tell you that, but trust Me when i say that it is something." and that was enough for me. as long as He is using my life with purpose, i don't care to know the reasons behind my memories. after the leadership party, i went back to that lake with Blair and Missy and we each had our own memories of going there as a kid.

like i said, in so many ways my past and my future found each other this weekend through my eyes being opened to my present. and that is what i mean when i write that such a mental journey revealed to me how i had mistaken the forceful and purposeful rapid of time to be a gentle push into the vagueness of nowhere-in-particular. and it gave me hope that i needed.

it gave me hope to think that one day i can look back on feeling this way and praise God for such a feeling, because only in feeling this way could i get to where i will be at that point.

it gave me hope to think that every tear that i cry only adds to the waters of joy that will shower me when all is said and done and i am finally called Home.

it gave me hope to think that even in the hardest of times, my God can hold me with the warmth of faith, because He knows how He Himself has written the end of my story.

it gave me hope to think that there was hope to be had.

in some ways, i am not sure how blessed i really am in being given the eyes to see such Light, but i pray that i have been given the gift of words to relay such Light to the blind and to the numb. having said that, i pray that today's joy will whisper His name into your ear, and that you feel the penetration of Heaven's excitement for what is next in your journey.

farewell for now.

hectic days.

the majority of my free time has lately been dedicated to choosing and formatting songs that i'll be singing for worship for ASU West YoungLife's summer club. sounds easy, but it truly is not!

and then last night i went to see Flight of the Conchords with Blair for her birthday. it was phenomenal!

the first comedian ended up being a guy that is always on their show as a guy named Dave...in real life he's Arj Barker. his material was pretty funny, i suppose. but i decided i would post a video of one of my favorite clips of their show with him in it. for the more sensitive readers of mine, just know that it starts out a bit crude:



and then Bret and Jemaine went on. they talked between songs...or at least they tried to...and people kept yelling stuff at them from the audience. that part was annoying, but their responses to what they heard were actually really funny. here are a few that i distinctly remember:

some girl: take off your shirt!
Jemaine: whoa whoa...i'm pretty sure the description of this concert online where you probably purchased your tickets said something about, you know, two guys singing and telling jokes and what not...i'm not sure how you implied stripping in that description...i'm sorry to disappoint you. maybe, maybe we could get some jackets brought out to us? and then take those off?
Bret: yeah i think i could be comfortable with that.

so they got a guy to bring them jackets from their tour bus. they then proceeded to manually make this techno beat on one of the many silly instruments they had on stage and each took turns awkwardly and hilariously taking off their jacket.

and then...

some guy: David Bowie! [it's a song of their's]
Jemaine: [not hearing him correctly] did you just ask to bring out Murray? our manager on our show? you really think he's our manager?
Bret: yeah, see, the show is not a documentary. one thing that could have clued you in on that was the fact that the show features us randomly bursting into song. these sorts of things simply don't happen in reality. i don't really know why...i mean i guess we could start doing that sort of thing...but we haven't yet, and so the show still remains rather fictional.

and i might as well post one of my favorite clips of Murray on their show:



and then...

some guy: Free Bird!
Jemaine: oh that's...that's really not one of our songs...*starts playing/singing it*

he and Bret ended up doing the whole song...minus the crazy guitar solo at the end. it was way fun. there were a few times that they messed up their songs by singing the wrong verse or not remembering what comes next and that made the night even funnier. i realized that up until that night, i hadn't ever really seen them smile or laugh...not genuinely at least. it was really cool seeing that for the first time and knowing that they were probably enjoying themselves as well as the audience.

anyway, that is a very brief re-telling of last night. i should probably go practice the songs i'm planning on playing tonight for club.

have yourself a merry little Wednesday.

my people.

Tuesday was my last day of finals, so i am officially on summer break. :)

i have spent the last few days with both friends and family, making them days that i have thoroughly cherished. through such people, i have been assured by the grace and warmth of God that i have never been as alone as i have previously allowed myself to believe.

my mom and i share a very similar personality and thought process. the other night at dinner, she was mentioning something to my sister about her upcoming baby shower, and since i told my mom that i would meet with her to help plan it once i could [and hadn't done so yet], i gave her a pointed glance. right when i looked at her, she looked at me with the same exact facial expression for the same exact reason. we both burst out laughing and ended up explaining the entire thing to everyone at the table. then, when we were picking up my aunt from the airport the other night and waiting at the gate, we kept making the same people-watching observations. all i had to say was something like "hmm...that's twice now" or "you appreciating that circling effect?" and she would know exactly what i was talking about and have her own thoughts about it. the best one was when she leaned over and said "we should have worn our hats" and i looked over and saw that an old lady was hanging out by the gate with a ridiculous foam hat that looked like a cockatoo bird on her head. it was amazing/out of control/wonderful and i did my best to handle myself.

then tonight was my small group. we made and ate dinner together and shared a few stories. at one point i realized that Blair and Missy and I all had our arms and hands placed in exactly the same way; our heads were resting on our right hands while our left arms were lying flat on the table with our fingers falling over the edge. i smiled to myself and thanked God for them right then and there.

my family has a funny story about me when i was young...we were either in Alabama or Florida and we were visiting an open house at a beach house that was for sale. it was furnished and had pictures everywhere. the pictures were meant to be family photos but clearly they were of another family. so i turned to my mom and my aunt with a concerned look on my face and said quite seriously "these are NOT our people..." and it has been a story told ever since. even to this day, my family uses the term "our people" to refer to the family as a whole.

as i have grown into myself the past few years, i have begun finding my place not only in this world but in my people as well. i extend that term to include my friends along with my family. in fact, i think i can extend that term out to mean any- and everyone that seems to hear the music that i hear in this world...the echoes of its Creator. the people who have my eyes and my thoughts and my words, and yet see and think and say what i cannot myself. the people whose hearts seem to be made of the same matter as mine. i have found such people in all ages, in both genders, and with different beliefs than myself. i really do consider them to be my people and i feel especially called to serve them with my time here.

that's all for now.

short. brief. to the point. and...some other word with a similar definition.

i've been twenty for six days. they have been pleasant ones for the most part.

i recently just finished getting through the bulk of my stressful finals while simultaneously trying to plan the last YoungLife club of the semester. it was a worship night that i was both playing in and partially in charge of. bahhh it was stressful, and i ended up having to apologize to a few people for being quite impatient and snippy at them. when all was said and done though, it was an amazing night AND i felt confident about my school work. God is good.

at the moment, it is the early afternoon on a Saturday. i'm in the living room of my home sharing the couch with the beloved Cathi. she's playing mewithoutYou's Catch For Us the Foxes album on her laptop and i'm remembering what it was like to listen to them for the first time. they ignite a fire inside me that i don't feel is my own. it feels like a shared vision...a community's cry...a people's song. and i am clearly okay with it.

i have things i want to write about, but i think bringing them to God first would be wise to do before sharing them with anyone else. so it's off to my journal for now.

may today bring you the warmth that only His light provides.

on sleeplessness and misunderstanding.

...on second thought, i don't think i'll add anymore to my previous blog. i think i said all that i needed to say.

it's 2:30am and i can't sleep. i blame that partially on the fact that a song on my iPod came up on shuffle mode that i hadn't really heard before and i wanted to look up the lyrics.

i have lately been making some interesting observations on how/if/when people understand each other. it is easy to sigh and say "oh well, i'm just misunderstood" and go about finding someone to hang out with who makes you feel better about yourself. but i'm beginning to wonder if i feel misunderstood sometimes because i'm the one failing to understand the person who misunderstands me.

here's a good example of what i mean: love languages. the more you evaluate yourself in relation to them, the more you see that you give and receive love in different languages. if i felt loved most through words of affirmation and my husband expressed love best through quality time, i would feel misunderstood in that aspect unless i understood him in that aspect. i could say he doesn't understand how to love me when really i am the one misunderstanding how he loves.

clearly i am not married, so i am not speaking from experience through that example. but lately i've had talks with friends about feeling misunderstood by people. one particular friend felt like the advice she got from someone about an issue in her life was not what she needed to hear at all and it made her feel unheard and misunderstood. as a third party, i could see that the person's advice was out of concern and an attempt to help my friend out, but it was obviously done in the wrong way. and though my friend had a right to feel the way she did, she maybe could have tried to understand the way that person communicated and how it was different than her and therefore most likely misunderstood on her end as well.

this new development of thought and perspective has really enlightened the concept of mercy for me. i am beginning to see that mercy is only possible when a sense of understanding has been found...whether that is understanding the person who wronged me or understanding my God who loves them. pretty cool stuff.

i hope the month of flowers brings blossoms into your life.

because He first loved us.

We love because He first loved us.

1 John 4:19

i generally hear people throw in a "Him" between the words "love" and "because" in that verse and that becomes their response to the question "why should i/you love God?"

i'm sorry, but i have never in my life loved someone just because they loved me. their love for me may have let me see their heart in a vulnerable state which then allowed me to love them, but that makes their love only an avenue to the heart of theirs that i love, not the reason i love them. so then i loved their heart, not their love.

and at least for me, God's incomprehensible vastness and power does not automatically evoke love from me. fear? sure. but not love.

and if i were to be completely honest, Christ dying on the cross for me did not automatically evoke love from me either. it evoked a very deep and life-changing curiosity about a mystery i have been sensing my entire life, but i cannot honestly say that as a stranger to Him, what He did for me made me love Him for who He is. and i say that because i WAS a stranger to Him and therefore i could NOT love Him for who He was at that point.

if i found out a stranger somehow saved my life without my knowledge and i later found out that it was because he loved me, i would not automatically think "woe is me, i have no choice but to love him back!" i would rather think "who IS this guy??" and put in a significant effort to discover who he was. and that is what i believe what Christ did on the cross is meant to bring about in us. we are meant to feel called to a journey of discovering who He is, and that will inevitably become a love story.

well i had more that i wanted to talk about on this topic, but it may have to wait because i need some sleep for tomorrow morning. i'm going to get to see Madelyn for the first time. :)

goodnight friends.

oh so finally...moved in!

alright so i just finished putting away all my books and clothes and i bought groceries earlier this evening, so i feel like i can officially relax and call this my home. :)

not to say that i ever thought that sharing a room with Missy would be a challenge, but i have been pleasantly surprised by how well our temperaments and lifestyles coincide. i think i'll keep this room cleaner than i did my room in my parents' house because i'm sharing it with someone else that i care about and whom i know to be quite fond of cleanliness. i'm always more motivated when someone else is involved, it seems...except group projects for school.

anyway, that's that. it's been a pretty big step for me that i will probably feel more of the weight of as time goes by. for now, it's rather great. :)

love you all.

a NON-philosophical update. relax.

i'm officially moving in with Missy! i'm going over there to chat with her and Sarah and possibly Cathi about some general house stuff and then i'm planning on getting most [if not all] of my stuff over there by the end of Sunday. our small group is meeting over there tonight so i'm going right after class to get there early so me and Missy can coordinate where furniture can go and what not. one fun fact is that we both now have bedspreads from Target's DwellStudio line, so they go together really well and we can color coordinate like crazy! we'll have quite the time with it.

here is mine:



and here is Missy's:



we'll probably do a lot of brown accents and work with the green and orange somehow. we may even paint some canvases for our walls. yes...we are girls.

anyway, all i have left in my classes are my final papers and projects, it seems. and i'm okay with that. it hasn't really hit me that summer is approaching. last year i was pushing forward to it like no other, but this year i think i really am going to miss my classes. i picked some good ones. speaking of which, i need to go get ready for the ones i have today.

love you all.

Psychology ramblings.

if you know me pretty well at all, you know that i am studying psychology, and that it is almost as intrinsic to my thinking as my love for music is.

in the specific classes i'm taking, i'm beginning to realize that Abraham Maslow was right in saying, "when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." every issue is one that is psychological, according to the psychologist. every issue is one that is biological, according to the doctor. every issue is one that is spiritual, according to the pastor.

that's not necessarily something that i'm learning directly from my professors, it's just something i'm beginning to pick up on more and more. but aside from that, i really am learning about how incredible the human brain is and how much it directly influences our lives. that sounds rather obvious, but i have been around Christians my entire life who considered every thought, feeling, "random" emotional response, etc. to be utterly supernatural and "obviously" from the Lord. and they weren't old ladies who have a pin-sized view of the world, either.

so much...so incredibly much...of what you think, feel, believe, say, and desire depends on how your brain has developed up until now. a balance of genetics and environment have created synapses that you reflect as your personality and all that you consider your "self." even how you react to what i just said depends on all of this.

speaking of how you may react, i know plenty of people who would read all of the above and proceed to question my faith or consider all that i am learning to be misconceptions and lies that i am buying into. so i guess i should explain where my faith comes into this and how learning all of this has actually brought me closer to God than i ever thought possible.

it's the same process i went through when i started learning about other religions and seeing similarities between them and Christianity. at first, i felt like Christianity could just be put in the list of world religions with no distinctions or significance among the rest. i also met people who had knowledge, passion, and devotion to those other religions that i had only ever seen in the Christian community if at all. so it got me thinking...if what i believe is true, then what aspects of it make it distinctly the truth? it can't be JUST the history behind it, because other religions lean on history as well...it can't be JUST the passion and emotion it evokes, because other religions evoke just as much or even more passion from people...it can't be JUST how devoted its followers are, because that can be seen in other beliefs as well. so what IS Christianity?

i came to the conclusion that Christianity, stripped of all that humans dress it up in, is embracing the Love of God and the Person of Christ. everything else simply follows from that [you may think i am leaving important aspects out of that description, but i probably have a broader definition of "embracing" than you do]. and those things that follow from that are things that other belief-systems technically can stand behind as well, because we are all humans and have a fairly general range of reaction as a species.

so in the same way, after learning all that i have about the brain and the mind, i had to sit down and ask some really tough questions. it was a difficult process because i was beginning to see that so much of what has been deemed supernatural by the Christian community is actually quite physical in its psychological nature. so i started with that concept; supernatural. if i randomly feel something or think that i know something is going to happen and i cannot explain how or why that is, are such feelings and thoughts supernatural? not necessarily. that would mean that we have no true subconscious state of mind [which we do] and everything we are unaware of is from something outside of ourselves. can some of these feelings and thoughts be supernatural? sure, but to lean on that automatically is unintelligent because of what i just explained. i even wonder whether that is important to know or not, because either way, it's worth investigating the significance of that feeling.

i would even go as far as questioning whether or not there really is a dichotomy between something mentally created and something God-given. if God speaks to me through the complex and innumerable intricacies of synapses in my brain, as if He'd spent my entire life span weaving them together for this moment [which will bring me to the next and then to the next and so on], i feel that something that can completely be explained on a physiopsychological level such as that does not take away from the power and sovereignty of God in it all. i'm not saying that i believe God has intentions for absolutely everything coming out of one's subconscious, but that there's no reason why that couldn't be the vessel through which He works for those personal revelations people feel. so then is anything supernatural? a better way to ask my true question would be...does anything need to be supernatural in order for it to be from God? is that a concept that could technically be false?

i could go on about this, but this blog has gotten long enough and i need to go enjoy the rain while it lasts.

here's an early Happy Easter to ya.

Light of the world.

in Matthew chapter five, it talks about how the body of Christ is meant to be the light of the world.

i have heard more than once the metaphor of being a lighthouse, so that all who are lost in darkness may find their way to the light we shine.

as of late, this has not sat with me well.

is it really believed that the body of Christ is meant to plant itself somewhere permanent and establish a culture and lifestyle and lingo that secludes itself from the outside world, with the mindset of "God will bring the lost to us"? are we to shine light afar from our comfortable bubble, leaving the journey up to the outsiders? and those who don't come, what of them? are they the wicked we are meant to stay away from anyway? are we to praise God for how thick our walls are, for now no one can influence us without our consent?

...what?!

Isaiah chapter sixty-two talks about Jerusalem's salvation being like a burning torch. are torches permanent? do they assume comfort and convenience? those who carry torches do not consider themselves physically at rest, and they are generally not alone. torches do not provide an ethereal or romantic light that is easy or simple or formulaic. it is fire. fire that is real and applicable and passionate and warming to all that go near it. fire that can only be tamed for so long. a torch-bearer relies on the fellowship of fire burning around them, so that their own fire may be fueled by that of others' through discipleship.

we are not meant to be a city on a hill, but we are meant to be just as spiritually visible and welcoming as one. and we are definitely not meant to be a weighty, stubborn lighthouse that distantly shoves "light" in people's faces and considers it their loss when they turn away in disgust.

we are meant to be a people on the move. we are meant to be a people who PERSONALLY love others, no matter where they have been or even where they are going. we are meant to be a people who own no walls, who allow ourselves to be haunted by the questions and burdens of the world to the point of questioning the very torches we hold. and how much stronger of a people we will be after such journeys, after such love, after such struggles and questions! only then can we consider ourselves to be living IN this world the way that Christ allowed Himself to live.

i can only faintly praise the Lord my God for such a calling to action, to vulnerability, to brokenness. for such things are the traits of a life in its fullest.

amen. with all of my heart, amen.