August has always held me gently. Soft and strong, it once was a month that held so much pain but now every August quiet reflection and contemplation rises up and washes over me like the gentle breeze. If I could hold on to these sacred days, to the gentleness August brings, I would.
I feel like if August was a person she would be dripping in beads, wearing flowing fabrics and dancing with the puffs of air. Her laugh would sound like wind chimes clinking against one another on the porch long after dark when the air is only slightly rustled.
August, for me, has always felt like coming home, like peeling back the layers and peering into myself and finding things I never really knew I'd left there.
...
He stood with his guitar, singing in such a way that the air hung off the breath of magic and I knew I wanted to write like that. I wanted my not so elegant prose and poetry to drip off the branches of trees like dew drops, to mesmerize and simultaneously awe those around me. I feel the words inside me, and I want to one day reach that glistening shining spot of successful. I wish I knew what that looked like. But as I watched him play, choking on my words, my fingers aching for a pen, I knew I wanted this. Being an artist suddenly sounded like the most magical thing in the world.
I think as an artist there's always that someone better. There's that someone with a publishing deal, a fully completed manuscript that doesn't suck, with a concert venue or a next show or more followers. I call myself an artist but a lot of the time that feels like me out here, just doing my own thing, sometimes writing good things but a lot of the time writing bad things but always creating. And when there's someone else, someone else on this journey of artistry who is further along up the path than you are, who understands the solitary quest of creating, it's an inspiring and terrifying feeling.
As I watched him play, I also watched his girlfriend. My best friend when I was 4 years old, she reminds me of pieces of the past I almost forgot. She's grown now, and beautiful, and it's easier to think she has this life thing more figured out than I do. Maybe somewhere along the line we grew apart and she got the magical answer key and I got a series of questions. And I'm watching her and remembering when we were young, and how it was supposed to be different but she's here in this life I don't fit into effortlessly anymore. Sometimes I wish I did.
I wish my life was beautiful and grandeur instead of this clunky imitation I'm still learning how to stand inside and come home to at night.
There they are, these two, in the life I thought I was supposed to be living, the one I dreamed about. And he's singing about love and apologies, and I look across at the boy holding my hands. He looks up at me and smiles, and I smile, and I feel so in love in this moment I think my heart will burst out of my chest, will finally break free of the cage it's been contained in for so long and exist as its own vessel of love and light. This life, this love, it's not what I had imagined back when I was a little girl. It's messy, and loud, and not very elegant or graceful. But as I look at it, at him, I know it is the best poetry I have ever written to date. It is my proudest creation, what I never knew I needed. This wild and reckless love is more than enough.
"Love was just an empty room until I felt His heart in you."
...
The air smelled like coming home. The mountains stood tall to greet me, ready to breathe life into my lungs once again. As we hiked over rocky trails in sandals, unprepared but not unwilling visitors, my heart beat rapidly inside of my chest in a way that made me realize that these hills could do anything to me and it would not be unwelcomed. I think perhaps its genetic, this deep and true love for the wild unknown.
We ate lunch on the patio of this little vegan restaurant, which I loved and he didn't. The waitress had an Australian accent, and the people who passed by on the street were all kinds of foreign and familiar. When he stayed and ate I knew he loved me.
We walked the streets and I drank rich, strong black coffee. Musicians played on street corners. I was enchanted by this city, the way it extended rivers like veins, the way mountain peaks rose like the confidant gaze of the sure and steady. Even in the face of the unknown, it beckoned me to trust. It tickled the delicate underside of my heart, whispering courage into my bones, giving me strength for the journey.
...
I'm still marveling at how it feels to be accepted into a family not your own. As the girl who grew up with a disjointed illustration of family, the tender process of finding my own is not something I take lightly. The arms outstretched to welcome me, the goodbye hugs that speak of always being welcome here, the opening up of more than a home but a heart, it does not go unnoticed.
And in the final moments when the bags were all packed in the car and hugs were being given, his mother said to me, "You're our girl now too." and I realized what it's like to have homes scattered all around the country. And my heart swells.
...
The car ride home is long, filled with more undistinguishable moans, sighs and laughs than actual words. We listen to others talk and don't talk to each other. I feel the weight as I try to sort out the big topics in my mind, as I work through the matters of faith I began to give some attention to when August's #thisisagoodbody challenge was taking place, as I think about the huge and important blog post I'm writing. We spend the last hour laughing about nothing. We pull into the driveway exhausted and I'm not sure of the long days before me. I wish to hold on to these final, fleeting moments of summer.

For the Creators (Thank you and keep going)

Most days I feel really lucky to be a writer. Being a creator, in any capacity, is a beautiful, heartbreaking, soul filling undertaking. It can often feel like a solitary journey, as I spend most of my time in my room curled up in my chair writing stories that (for now) for the most part nobody will ever read. And sometimes I think I should stop, but my heart beats stories, and poems and lyrics and I can stop writing like I can stop breathing.
A while ago I had the privilege of attending one of the best concerts I've ever been to. This morning as I was curled up with my coffee, a good book and music created by my amazingly talented friend, I was reminded how much I need creative people in my life. The post I wrote then resonates with me now.
This one is for all the creative people, the writers and musicians and painters and anyone who creates in any capacity. Thank you for creating. The world needs you. I need you.

People pay for concert tickets to be entertained. I come to be inspired. I sit before the artist, hands open wide, holding out my heart and saying “Can you open this for me?”

 The best ones can. The best ones take a wild swing and crack open the rough exterior enough for me to feel something for a designated period of time. The ones that can’t allow me to walk away feeling disappointed, clinging to any and all belief that art is like a stripper of the soul.

…

As I sat in that chair, pressed between my mother and a stranger, hot, sticky and sweaty bodies crowding into a stadium the very size of an NHL hockey arena, nothing else mattered. At least that’s what I told myself.

 For the next 90 minutes I let the music flow through me like a drug, let it slip all tension from my veins into its medicating chill.

 I think rock concerts are a little bit like church. I think one of the ways I experience God isn’t when His people are gathered together singing His name, though surely in that too, but when hundreds of strangers come together to drink and laugh and celebrate good music.

 For the next few hours it doesn’t matter that I normally wouldn’t say hello to the woman on my left if I passed her on the street. It doesn’t matter that I’ll never see 99% of these people again. It doesn’t matter that when tomorrow comes the band will move on to inspire a new city of wanna-be-believers and the woman on my left will return to her dead end job she hates and the guy sitting in the aisle below me will still go home alone after breaking up with his girlfriend and the young girl over there with her hand’s in the air will go back to a school where she’s bullied day in and day out for being different, or that when tomorrow rears its head I will march with all the false bravery I can muster into a doctor’s office and pretend I am not scared to death. What matters is that we have tonight.

 Cell phone flashlights lighting up the stage and loud, off key, drunken singing and I want to know what it would be like to be an artist who inspires this many people. I want to make people forget about tomorrow and live in the moment, to truly feel something – maybe for the first time – and to laugh and kiss and make messes and make art and make babies (and how maybe all of these are the same thing).

 Tonight it doesn’t matter who we are before we walked in the door. We’re all united, coming together for one purpose. And I think that’s a lot like church. I think it’s every chapel and cathedral I want to worship in. I think it’s every mind blowing, good song that makes me want to believe in better things that I want to dance to.

 I want to play these songs blasting in the car on my way to work and remember this moment, and how alive I felt, and how nothing else mattered because I had right now.

…

Creative people inspire me.

 Their passion is contagious and their dedication infectious and their excitement makes me delirious. It makes me want to stay up all night crafting something that really matters with my own two hands that I can look at in the morning and whisper in holy reverence, “My God, did I really make that?”

 It makes me want to feel, and to capture that exact feeling on a notebook or a canvas or my kitchen wall.

 Creative people inspire me to create. They inspire me to feel, to be present, to live and laugh and love and not worry about getting hurt along the way because even a few bruises make damn good art.

 Their creative energy passes through them into me like it’s a form of osmosis, like a blood transfusion, and I know to them I’m just another face in the crowd but I want to grab the face of the lead singer and look into his eyes and tell him thank you for daring to create bravely.

 Because the world needs more people to come alive, to truly say what they think and think what they say and to let their thoughts and feelings be the lifeblood that guides them. Because I need them. I need more people awake and alive, daring greatly and failing miserably and then trying again bravely all in the name of good art. I need them standing around me continuing to create and inspiring me with words and pictures and lyrics and beats, because it’s like they are standing around me with hands up, keeping me safe and reminding me to do my thing.

 Us artists, we’re a special breed, one I feel honored to be among. I feel honored to be a part of the movers and shakers of this world who want more beauty and light and unity and feeling. The genuine souls, the ones that create bravely, are the kind of people I want to surround myself with. The intimacy created between you and a few thousand strangers, that’s what I want to witness over and over again, letting it change me.

 I want to be around people who birth beautiful things: even when it’s hard, even when the world says you should quit. It inspires me to keep writing my own birth story, to gently shepherd out this huge story blossoming inside my ribcage.

 I want my life to be this story, this art, this creation. I want every moment I am alive and breathing to bear witness to the fact that I lived and loved and maybe I failed but at least I tried.

 And with every broken bone, I swear I lived

Music is what healing sounds like (The Melodic Caring Project)

I've expressed before how much I love the Melodic Caring Project
I'm proud not only to be a rock star and see what they do first hand, but also to be an ambassador for this amazing organization and help raise awareness
The people at MCP have become like a second family to me. They are so amazing, supporting me and sending me love.
So when I got the email after my 3rd concert with MCP asking if I would write a little bit about my experience, I jumped at the chance
The real problem came when I was forced to sit down in front of the computer screen and try to put into words just what this beautiful organization has meant to me
I managed to write a brief letter, which was recently published on their site.
I hope that it helps you see, just a little bit, how amazing this organization is
I could go on forever about how great this project is, and how amazing the staff is and about all the incredible artists who put on these concerts for sick kids. But instead I will just say I am one of the luckiest girls in the whole world to get to be a part of something so beautiful and life changing.
http://melodiccaringproject.org/music-is-feeling/

'Sometimes Emotions Are Wrapped Up In Music'

This year I kept a playlist all year long, adding to it songs that meant a lot to me through out the year. Looking back, it's something I'm glad I did. There are so many emotions frozen in music and it's good for me to look back over that playlist, and to over some of the writing I did early on in the year, and reflect back on everything that happened.
Tonight is filled with nostalgia, as Christmas always is for me. I took the opportunity to go through my 2013 playlist, and I thought I'd share it. This was my year, in music.

Begin Again - Taylor Swift
The Call - Regina Spektor
Braille - Regina Spektor
Moments - One Direction
It's Time - Imagine Dragons
Would It Matter - Skillet
Goodnight Moon - Go Radio
Iris - GooGoo dolls
Fix You - Coldplay
Ghost - Ingrid Michaelson
A Bird's Song - Ingrid Michaelson
Wherever - Kim Haller
Who I Am - Jessica Andrews
Worn - Tenth Avenue North
When A Heart Breaks - Ben Rector
Wild Horses - Natasha Bedingfield
A Thousand Years - Christina Perri
We Both Know - Colbie Caillat and Gavin DeGraw
Say - John Mayer
Roots Before Branches - Room For Two
You Have More Friends Than You Know - Glee
Everybody Hurts - R.E.M
Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
Paper Doll - John Mayer
Roar - Katy Perry
Young and Beautiful - Lana Del Rey
Reno - Alex Woodard
Breathe (2a.m.) - Anna Nalick
Comeback Kid (That's my dog) - Brett Dennen
Cold Coffee - Ed Sheeran
Here's To The Good Times - Florida Georgia Line
The Struggle - Grizfolk
Wanted - Hunter Hayes
Wildfire - John Mayer
I Still Miss You - Keith Anderson
Blown Away - Carrie Underwood
Taking Chances - Celine Dion
Stupid Boy - Keith Urban
Breakaway - Kelly Clarkson
Payphone - Maroon 5
More Like Her - Miranda Lambert
Far Away - Nickelback
She's 22 - Norah Jones
Story Of My Life - One Direction
Sober - Pink
Playing God - Paramore
Manhattan - Sara Bareilles
Gone To Soon - Simple Plan
Untitled - Simple Plan
Jetlag - Simple Plan
Lucy - Skillet
Purple Sun - Samuel Larsen
State of Grace - Taylor Swift
22 - Taylor Swift
Fast Car - Tracy Chapman
Colder Weather - Zac Brown Band
Love The Way You Lie - Rihanna
Jar Of Hearts - Christina Perri
Elastic Heart - Sia
We Remain - Christina Aguilera
Come Home - One Republic
Saving Amy - Brantley Gilbert
Underneath The Stars - Kate Rusby

Maybe you would learn more about me by getting a list of the books I've read in 2013, or a list of things and people I've written about. But I think there's something to be said for the music that I've related to most over this year. Music that's happy, and heartbreaking. Music that's full of emotion and music that is fun.
Goodnight Moon reminds me of my friend, who stayed up with me into the wee hours of the morning, and then sent me this song. Jessica Andrews reminds me of my childhood, and the people I spent it with, and the time we requested that song on the radio and then sat around the tape player waiting for it to come on so we could record it. Natasha Bedingfield is for those nights when I just wanted to cry, and John Mayer is passing my driving test and lazy Sunday afternoons. Brett Dennen and Grizfolk are the concert that I'll never forget, and Carrie Underwood and Celine Dion are for the concert tickets I got for my sixteenth birthday. Pink was how I felt in July, and Rihanna was how I felt in February. There are songs about heartbreak, about losing people I thought I'd love forever, and for the people who could have loved me better, and the people I could have loved better. There's playlists for loss, and death, because saying goodbye is never as easy as it sounds. There's songs about dreaming and songs about surviving and songs about the state of my heart on any given Tuesday.
I think a lot of emotions can get wrapped up in music. And for me, that happened a lot this year.

Paradise Valley

Sunday morning, the first day of fall. I keep the window open, crawling under blankets to ward off the chill and enjoying the smell of the brisk air.

John Mayer’s music floats through my morning as I pull on and off clothes, trying to figure out something to wear that fits the person I’m supposed to be today.

And I think maybe it’s time to start over.

I was thinking last night about how nobody ever gives you permission not to do something. You get permission to be angry, permission to hold on to all of this stuff. But nobody ever gives you permission to let go of all that. Nobody gives you permission to not hate the person who took everything from you. Nobody ever gives you permission to let go of all of the things you’ve been holding onto.

For a few years I was stuck in a place where I was just gathering up things and holding them close. I really drew into myself and then in a matter of six months or so everything that was inside of me poured out. And it was a hard six months, and it was a time where I had to start over.

The call this year to go out and to go beyond myself hasn’t been an easy one, at all. I get anxiety and these moments where I’m just paralyzed and I sit there and go “I can’t do this. What do I think I’m doing?”

I got my heart broken and I was trying to be this person who I felt like I should be. And at this point in my life, I think I’m learning that I need to give myself permission to do the things that no one gives me permission to do.

I guess in these past few weeks I’m giving myself permission to feel things a lot more than I did before. I’m giving myself permission to not be angry and to drop this and to drop that and to admit when I’m in over my head. And it’s hard, and it’s exhausting, and sometimes there is that paralyzing moment when I have no idea how I’m supposed to do this and I’ve probably cried more in this past little while than I have in a while.

But I’m giving myself permission to feel and to say No, that’s not working for me and to change things and to let go of things and add things and mix and match and mess around with my life. And I think that’s what makes an artist.

I can tell you that in the past few weeks, I’m making a lot more art and writing more and making more music than I have in a really long time, and its stuff that I’m actually happy with. And I’m writing about love and getting your heart broken and I’m answering some of my own questions and I’m getting inside of myself and I’m just feeling. I’m messing around with things and I’ve really been pushed into this place of figuring out what works for me and what doesn’t.

I think I’m more connected with myself than I have been in a while, and I’m also more outside of myself. And I’m figuring out what works for me and what doesn’t and what I need to stay sane and what I don’t need that I thought I did and I’m discovering stories and seeing people and seeing myself in a way that I don’t think I could have before.

I’ve gone through a lot in my life, and I think that for everything there is a price. And I used to think I was broken. I used to think that my heart and soul were broken beyond repair. And I do think that those four or so years of my life did cost me something. Parts of my relationships and my intelligence and control and ideologies that I had. But I’m realizing now that I didn’t lose my soul.

I think right now I’m more content than I have been in a long time. I’m on a bit of a learning curve and I’m dabbling in things and trying this and walking away from that and I’m figuring out what works for me. And it’s hard, but I’m learning what it means to fall in love again.

 And I have a feeling this next little while is going to be one where I figure out who I am and what works for me and what doesn’t and maybe breaking some rules and giving myself permission and just being. And I honestly feel somewhere inside of me that this is where I need to be.

The Lucky One

Then the Lord told him, "Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it." So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed.
Numbers 21: 8-9

I look down at the charm on my wrist - a snake wrapped around a pole. It is to tell the paramedics - if something was wrong - what to do. It is a way of telling the world something is wrong with me before I even open my mouth. I immediately notice if someone else is wearing one. I feel naked without the bracelet around my wrist. It bangs against my other bracelet when I move. It is my theme music, my battle cry.
*****
Someone should tell Jesus. I mean, it's gotta be dangerous storing children with cancer in your heart.

The first time I read that verse, I thought of this quote. I also thought of a conversation I had with my friend. I was curious as to why the symbol of a snake around a pole adorned the bracelet that has become like my battle cry. According to Google it has something to do with Greek Mythology. But I can't help but wonder if someone read that verse as the symbol was engraved into medical history.
I have been bitten. Like Job I have been robbed of something precious by a snake. It seems like the devil and demons are all waiting for me to curse God, to actually give up for real. I have been bitten.
I wear this bracelet not as jewelry but as protection. It is a snake around a pole: healing for those who have been bitten.
It's just a bracelet, one I used to hate because it told my secrets. Now, though, it is a wink from God, a reminder to look and I will be healed, a reminder that I serve a God who is mighty to save, and who is able to perform a miracle in my life. A cure may never come, but healing is promised. The symbol that brands me also sets me free, echoing God's promise to heal and to save. It is a symbol given to adorn the sick. It is a promise, a reminder, a hope. It screams I am different. It screams I am chosen.
A symbol I used to hate carrying around becomes a wink from God - a wink that adorns the wrists of the sick.
So maybe, just maybe, that makes me the lucky one?
God gave some of us chronic illnesses because we're His favorites and He wants us home sooner.

P.S My last blog post Numbers and Stories was recently posted on the Disease On My Sleeve Website. Stop by and check it out, along with some other amazing posts by other amazingly talented people.

Cynicism and Nostalgia

I want to tell you how Tim McGraw is my favorite Taylor Swift song, and I’m not sure why, except it makes me feel nostalgic for a boy I never even knew. I want to tell you about movies, how I can never stay awake through the end, and that one time, in the dark basement, huddled under my favorite zebra blanket, I fell asleep like usual, and my best friend shifted next to me, letting my head fall onto his shoulder. I want you to ask me about adventures and tell me about your adventures, all the nights you stayed out, wished on shooting stars, wishing again and again that the night would never end, swinging high into the air at the elementary school playground in the middle of the night, tipping your head back to gaze at the stars, letting your hair drag across the ground and shrieking with laughter when a boy you’ve just met grabs your waist and, “I shouldn’t have told you I was ticklish!” and he just laughs back at you, and I want to tell you about the time I broke into a church and we ate Popsicles in the back room, ducking down whenever headlights grazed across the window, and I want to tell you about standing outside a boy’s house, everyone with their arms wrapped tight around their bodies to block out the cold, and I want to tell you about his mom inviting everyone in, and shivering on a wooden chair inside his house while you sip hot chocolate in an effort to warm up. Tell me about the way you grip onto memories with white knuckles, refusing to ever let go of them.

Reading this makes me nostalgic for a place I only went to once and a person I don't look like anymore.
Summer turns into Winter and people change and grow up and I know all of these things. I know that never again will things be like they were in that memory that I hold on to with white knuckles.
I'm much more cynical now then I was when I was that girl in the memory - the one who believed in magic. I felt more free then, more alive and bursting within my own skin, more passionate and spontaneous and I loved without questions. It's kind of hard to believe i was that girl once.
Sometimes I ask myself what I would do one thing for myself, one self indulgent moment, one moment of feeling totally spontaneous and alive, what I would do.

I was a lot less cynical once, believe it or not. I believed in the world, I had faith in myself, I had faith in other people, I trusted life a little more.

If I could do one thing, anything, I think I would write a million words that all felt like coming home. None of these words I write are what I think they will be about. Some of them are about desperation and heart ache, but some of them are beautiful, about life in all of it's forms, but mostly, whenever I write these words, they taste hopeful to me.

And so, after a night of fierce desperation and panic and frustration, I whisper the words I wish would be true:
Help me release Cynicism.
Help me let go of bitterness and frustration.
Help me release the cynicism about where I belong and who I am now.
Help me remember I belong here, that I am the girl who dances barefoot to Ed Sheeran love songs on the radio that sound like break up songs.

This week I began writing my story, the birth story, the death story, every minute of this transition from the girl in the memory to this one, and hopefully back again. A year ago writing the words I'm writing now would have felt so far away from the me I thought I was.
But it is my journey, my story, my truth. It is empowering and inspiring and hopeful. And I am working on releasing that cynicism and the bitterness, the unforgiveness and the pain. It's a long, hard road, but I'm working on it.

So I keep writing words that feel like home, and it makes me nostalgic for that girl I don't look like anymore, and for the place I loved once upon a time.

16

I am 16 *
I am what I am
Don't you make me to be
Anything less than the true heart of me
If sixteen is a number
Then what could it mean?
Does it limit my thoughts, my passions, my dreams?
Take me out of your box
I have no place there
I'm too wild for that
It wouldn't be fair
If you say that you know me,
Then look inside me
And ask me the questions you think I'll hide
I'm perfectly willing to open your eyes
Are you too scared to look into mine?
I'm more than a song you've forgotten how to play
I'm more than the words you can't seem to say
If sixteen is a number
Then why do you care?
Does it change who I am
Or all that I've shared?
Don't you tell me the things you want me to be
Who are you to say what you think you should see
If I am what I am
then sixteen is my age
But it's not a number that defines me today


I've spent the morning listening to birthday songs. In the secret society of the sick, birthdays are a big deal. It's another year of life! And I've made it to 16!
Here's some of the birthday songs I've been listening to this morning... a little birthday treat for you

* Adapted from Wake Up Generation by Paige Omartian

Last Night

Soon this space will be too small

I stumbled upon this video by accident tonight.
I'm not sure what it was about this story that made me take notice, but it did.
Soon this space will be too small, soon this life will be too small. Soon the world will be too small to contain, and we will be obliged to start over again.

 

 

Soon this space will be too small ~ Lyrics

Sooner or Later I'm going to make it

Can I tell you how many times I've tried to write this post, and how many times I've erased everything I've written?
As I read back through my blog entries (I went back as far as this Spring) I wanted to cry. I've noticed how things have changed, and looking through my writings I can see how every post fit with the place I was in. Even when my blog entry had no mention to what I was going through in life, I could see it there, hidden between the lines, winking at me.
I've tried writing about my life, and it just wasn't happening. If I try to tell you where I'm heading, that's not going to happen either. But I can write about right now.
Right now, the house is quiet, and I'm sitting alone at the kitchen table, the only sound being that of my fingers hitting the keys.
I feel like I have nothing to write about, like I lost all honesty and boldness and the ability to actually say something worth reading.
I'm going to be ok, though. This long period, of losing my words, it's been good for me. Good, and also very frustrating.
Sooner or later, I am going to make it. I am going to find my voice again, and find out how to say everything that I am holding so tightly up against my chest.
Sooner or later, I am going to figure out this thing. I'm working on it, I am.
Sooner or later, I am going to make it.

His

I haven't felt like blogging much.
I've been writing up a storm... but not here.
I started a novel less then a week ago, and am almost at 15,000 words.
I never planned to write a novel, or I did, but not this one.
And yet, this is the story that so easily flows out of me
It's honest & makes me stop for a minute and figure out who I really am
It's a good book & it's helping me through these times when it feels like there's not enough air for me to breathe
There's so much pain on this earth & my heart is longing for heaven
Maybe someday soon I'll share some of the pieces of this novel, cause it really is beautiful
For today, though, here's a little taste of what I've been working on...


Saturday, August 6

I love you, Lord.
 I believe you when you say nothing can separate us. Though my soul lacks words to pray, I believe you see me here. You see my broken body as it crumples down to the floor. You see my frustration at my inability to fix this situation- and to take away pain.
A while ago, I prayed you would use me, and who am I to take back that offer now? I don’t want my faith to change with the tides, because if it does it simply isn’t good enough.
He’s here, and He see’s every tear I cry and every time a smile crosses my face. He calls me His own, and is fiercely protective of me.
 Just as I am protective of my tiny secret, of my body, He is protective of me. And for a moment I almost have to pause and wonder why, but then His quiet whisper fills me ears, “Because you are mine.”
He loves me with a love that is greater then something I can understand, and even as I walk through this waiting vigil, He wraps His arms around me.
One thing I’ve learned, as I’ve waited and longed, is that the love God has for me is beyond what I can perceive. The plans He has for me are better than I could ever imagine. His plan for me is here still. And I trust Him so completely that there is nowhere else I’d rather be.

I want to... part 2

I want to jump in a lake and swim to the bottom where it is the coldest and stay there until i feel like my lungs will explode

I want to curl up under a pile of blankets- even though we're in the middle of a July heatwave - and sit on the couch, which has become my companion these last few days, and just sit, maybe reading, maybe watching some 'bad' TV, maybe eating, but mostly sitting... and thinking

I want to call up one of my friend's on the phone, and just listen to them breathe

I want to fall asleep listening to Scottish Music (My new love!)

I want to eat things that make me feel good: some changes are just harder to make

I want to wear long flowy dresses without caring how practical they are - if only i could get out of these darn PJ's

I want to be on the missions trip again, where I was this time last year, when everything was more certain and I felt Him there, where i fell in love

I want to talk to Spencer, cause it's his birthday on the 12th. I want to congratulate him, but there's no congratulations to be had. So instead I want to celebrate the life he had, the special gift he was to me - and to everyone he met - and to wish we all got to have one more conversation with the guy that impacted us so greatly

I want to write until my fingers ache and until there's no words left pouring out of my soul. they might not make sense, but at least it's something

I want to read blog entries about things that stirr my heart and make me feel something I can relate to

I want to hide away from the world, sitting on my couch with a cup of tea under a pile of blankets and watch grey's anatomy until my eyes burn... and then i want someone to come and rescue me

i want to stop writing wanting posts, 'cause i think they might be becoming my new thing, and we already know i have enough of those.

Deliver

de·liv·er
v.tr.
1. To bring or transport to the proper place or recipient
2. To surrender (someone or something) to another; hand over
3. To secure (something promised or desired)
a. To give birth to: She delivered a baby boy this morning.

8. To give forth or produce
9. To set free, as from misery, peril, or evil: deliver a captive from slavery. See Synonyms at save1.
v.intr.
1. To produce or achieve what is desired or expected; make good

I don't wanna write.
I want to curl up in bed and watch movies and drink tea.
But this morning, a friend called me as I had agreed to help her with some information she needed from her book. The first thing out of her mouth wasn't one of the questions we had already agreed on, but it was the honest question, "How are you?"
I wanted to cry.
I told her I'm ok, cause I am.
She'd entered in with me to this place, letting me talk when I wanted or not talk when I couldn't.
It reminded me of a time last summer, of borrowing strength.

It doesn't matter how long I've been wandering around in the wilderness. God always keeps His promises, even when you think morning is never going to come. His promise to deliver me, He kept it.
And when God promises a peace that passes all understanding, He really does mean it.

Flickering to life

Today I was at my friend Cairo's. In the afternoon, she had a fiddle gig, so I spent the afternoon hanging out with her amazing family.
I played some piano, even though I have no idea how to play those fancy chords!
And then her mama came home, and she sat down in front of the piano...
I watched her, the way her shoulders were leaning down, as if she was trying to protect this brilliant piece of music that she was birthing.
This, I remember thinking, is what feeling sounds like
And maybe you do have to come back to the beginning before you can start all over again
As the notes echoed out across the house, I thought of this place where beauty is birthed from trial and hope cries out to be noticed from its place among the thorns
I was filled with hope, as I listened
I was struck by the beauty and the passion
I was reminded of the strength that was hiding deep within me
Maybe it was still there. I hope it is
Sitting there, in that room beside this wonderful musician, I felt my heart flicker back to life

Lean into the music, and let it go. Let the pain you've been carrying for so long slide off your shoulders. You've got it in you to make it, to get through this, to awaken this summer that is crouching in the shadows of your soul and scare off this winter. Let your heart feel again, remember what it's like to live bravely, passionately, beautifully.

I wish I could perfectly describe what I felt in those moments: the feeling of my heart flickering back to life, the feeling of feeling something again, the feeling of beauty rising up and of the pain of life being transferred into a song.

This is what feeling sounds like, I whispered to myself. It was the same feeling I got last summer, as I listened to one of my friends playing guitar, the words he sang as if they were being whispered just for me, as hope and strength showered down over my heart and i was flickering back to life. Both of these moments, I was honored to be a part of.
It was the vulnerability and passion I saw wrapped up in these moments, the stirring of my heart.
So I let the sound float down over me, wrapping me in its gentle embrace.
It made my heart flicker back to life, made me remember my very heartbeat is a symphony. There is still life here, still passion and strength and hope hiding out in this heart.

Like a bird singing in the depths of winter, reminding you not to give up, that there is more coming still. Like a candle in the night, reminding you that brighter days are coming, that there is still hope dwelling here because it's not completely dark. Like a flower blooming on the first day of spring, reminding you that life is still alive and hasn't died under the chilling cold of winter. Like the lion's roar sending out a message of strength.

I want to make a mess of a story.

Make a mess of a song.
I want to do whatever it takes to get it out of me.
I want to lean into the lyrics again
and whisper over the words I'm most afraid of.
I want to find my way back.
and sing my way through.
I'll let these words be my map to someplace good.
That's all they've wanted to be all along, I think.

Like a rocksong

Rock songs aren't pretty. They aren't the lullaby melody that is found in soft songs, and they aren't the get up and dance stuff that you find blaring from the headphones of every tween in america. It's eccentric, a little bit sexy and a little bit like broken glass, a little bit rough, like all the sound is being wrung out.
I, for one, am in love with rock music. It actually makes me sleepy (Which I've heard is kind of wierd.) I have this whole playlist on my Ipod called Anger management, and it's full of rock songs. Not like heavy metal, shrieking loud rock songs, just rock songs, a little rough around the edges, a little loud, a little bit like broken glass, a lot eccentric.
Sometimes you have to let the wild thing inside of you grow wings and go be whatever it wants to be.

I think I'm like a rock song. A bit eccentric, a bit wild and untamable, a bit rough around the edges, a bit like broken glass. It's not pretty, not soft spoken lullaby's or dance music blasting through speakers. It's all being wrung out.
 I think it's that tension that makes the song so beautiful.

It's the unbridled emotion that resides within the rock song, the rough around the edges genuine personality and flavor. I think the rock song isn't taming itself to become more graceful like the lullaby or more catchy like the pop song.

Rock songs contain fierceness, so raw and real and strange. In the song there's this story that is dying to be told, an uncontainable mystery.

I'm like a rock song, as these words are being played that are so fierce and raw and like broken glass. Ever notice how, when a musician is playing a song, he leans over the guitar, as if protecting the very notes that come from the most broken places within him, the place where music is born? It's like that, as I am leaning over in an effort to protect this song and to protect my heart.
My song isn't clean cut and all in a row. It's the frantic wail of a rock song, the loud pulsing beat, the thrashing and crying and howling and brokenness.

It's not perfect, or catchy, or easy. It's heart breakingly painful and raw and rough, eccentric like broken glass. It's a rock song, and it's me.

This is my rock song, real and alive, not defined or clean cut, but edgy and raw. It's wild and untamable. I don't want to spend my life holding in this rock song that isn't pretty or neat. I want to find these rock song chords that make up my melody, that hold in them all the passion and emotion, all the fierceness and brokenness that is within me.
I'm going to learn how to play my rocksong, how to let free all this fierceness, this noise that is eccentric like broken glass. Because it's the tension that makes the song so beautiful. It's the raw, real pain that makes it worth listening to.

I'm like a rock song. And I am going to find the chords of this song, and play the notes. I am going to set free this wild thing inside of me and let it find words and notes and let this eccentric broken glass become the echoes of a rock song.

Italics from You're more like a rocksong and lean in again and let it go by Natalie Lloyd

Music on a Monday ~ Dark Side

There are no words to describe finding this song today, and finding out it said the words I never could.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ArpRWcGe0

Filling the hole...

I've been wanting to write for a while, but not ever finding the right words. Some things are hard to write about, some things I just can't find the words to write about the way I want to. Some things don't even make sense in my own mind, so I have no idea how I'm going to write them down on paper. So I'm filling this hole in my chest - this hole where words used to be- with music. I'm playing music and making music and falling in love with beautiful music. Some of these un-word-able things are hopeful things, little tiny things stirring in my heart and making me smile, or wonder, or happy.

There's hopeful things, and there's heartbreaking things, and there's things I can't even wrap my head around yet to try and figure out how to describe. So, on this rainy Wednesday, I'm learning how to fill this hole in my chest where words used to be. I'm learning how to feel, wordlessly, using music.

 

7 quick takes ~ volume 5

1. It's been an exhausting last couple of days. There have been times when I've literally stopped and asked myself "How am I still functioning right now?" I am exhausted. After waking up, all I want to do is crawl back into bed and sleep. I can't think. I'm just... tired.
2. I went to the Johnny Reid concert on Tuesday. It was actually really good. I had an awful headache most of the night, but I was still able to actually enjoy the concert.
3. We're moving tomorrow. My room is mostly done (just little stuff left.) It's... wierd. I'm ready to be done moving. But it seems like even this move comes with an experation date because in 2 years or so I'll be off to college. (Seriously? only 2 more years???) I hate that first night in the new hours too, it makes me cry. ALSO, my room won't be ready until a week or so after we move in, so it looks like I'll be camping out on the floor.
4. I went to youth tonight. I hadn't been there in SO long. I didn't want to go, but it was either go to youth or help move. It was actually really good. I'm glad I went.
5. I've been having a really bad week. It goes in spurts, with a couple of weeks being super good, and I'm feeling great, and then over night everything crashes down around me and I feel bad. This was one of those bad weeks. But, despite all those bad things, there's good things too, and that was enough to keep me going.
6. Link sharing! I like sharing links. It seems like other people can say what I've been trying to say but just can't. I read this one, and it perfectly described my week.
7. I'm writing another novel. I can't tell you what it's about, other then it's the story of a girl, and her experiences with love gone wrong and love that is going right. so it's pretty much a love story. I don't know if anything is going to happen with it (Probably not, since basically it's the words floating around in my head written down on paper) but I had to write. I was going into withdrawl. I HAD to write something. So I wrote down those thoughts in my head... and that's this story.

7 quick takes on a Wednesday

1.Today was a good day. I went to hang out with Paula (Are you seeing now that usually when I hang out with Paula, it makes a good day?) We moped together and laid in the sun together and talked and went to the park with coffee's. It was a good day.

2. I had a good phone conversation with my Manitoba cousin, Jocelyn, today. I think we talked for like an hour, and I'm kinda glad she didn't just hang up on me as I kept rambling on. But apparently I give better advice then I  thought I did.

3. So... I entered a library writing contest back in February. And, if you didn't know, I actually got second place. I know, I was totally shocked! I definatly didn't think my story was good enough to win, let alone be the second best in my age category! So, I'm getting published again, and I also get a cash prize. Can't believe I did that good, because in all honesty I thought my story wasn't that great. It was written in like 20 minutes before a school elive.

4. I've been listening to more Christian music lately, thanks to an online Christian television station for youth. I'm finding that most times I watch, something is on that I need to hear. Since I can't get the Christian radio station here at home, I find I've been listening less and less to Christian music, and I can definatly notice the difference it's making in my life now that I'm listening again. Kinda in love...

5."For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord, "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11. I don't know why, but I'm kind of loving this verse. Usually I don't like verses (Or anything!) that is super popular or is used a lot, but this verse is one I'm really liking right now.

6. Little Miss Ivory (Paula's daughter) decided to draw me a picture today. It was a portrait of me, and of her. She's only 3, so her people weren't incredibly in depth (But what 3 year old's are?) After drawing for a bit, she looked up and made a comment about me being beautiful. Who knew God could speak truth into my life using a 3 year old? I love that girl.

7. I hope no one got tired of my rambling. I figured I haven't posted in so long, so I should update people on what's been going on in my life. This was kinda like a 7 quick takes on a Wednesday...