I have you in mind specifically as I write this.

I want to carry your burden, I want to make things better for you.

My heart is breaking for your heart.

Pain, sickness, brokenness, abandonment, confusion

It's just not fair.

I want to tell you tomorrow will be easier.

I want you to know that you are being made stronger.

I want to take every pain away.

I want to save you.

But I'm just a girl. I can't save anyone.

And, honestly, I've never felt so powerless.

But know my love. Know I am here

Keep talking to me, keep letting me in.

Let me share the weight.

Let me cover you in prayer, daily <3

I believe he will redeem you.

I believe he will kiss your body and your life with his love.

I'm begging you to lean on him.

Baby, find rest.

Sitting there with you.

That quiet place, so much left to tell you.

Your grin, your voice.

My mind's a wreck.

Your picture stays to remind me.

You helped me through so much.

You made my life better. You taught me.

And you're gone.

I don't see how that's fair.

And how I threw away the last year with you.

It must have seemed I didn't care all.

But Sweetheart, I did.

I'll remember you fondly

I'll live to return the gift I found in your words.

Still now.

Listen.

Quietness.

Listen.

I'm sorry I was gone.

I'm so sorry you'll never be back.

Wow. This is brilliant.

Solace

Vision cast through two panes of glass

Takes my semi-rational off track

Thank God for all these barriers here

Keeps me from seeing the past,

My heart in a place where it can’t look back.

.

On rainy mornings on wet streets

Reflections of reality, delusionally sweet

Maybe I’ll throw this out

Rush through the end just to wait

Breaking down only to find freedom in chains

.

In a moment of comfort, too fleeting catch.

And a pair of good intentions to match.

The roads seems to lead to a dead end

Leaving the traveler a choice to make

Surrendering comfort for uncertainty to take.

.

I fear and feel, I crave to learn.

Buried in all your best bets, you burn.

So search the ashes for something to hold.

Warm air deceives and the storm is near.

But what can be honest when the world’s insincere?

.

We run to escapes, we harbor a crutch

Aware of our unfaithfulness in settling for such

Unfulfilling satisfaction of our daily dose

Of things that should nourish and sustain

Still, in all of this, the desperation remains.

Love is the Movement

Today is To Write Love on Her Arms day. If anyone doesn't know, TWLOHA is an incredible organization to raise awareness/provide support for victims of addiction, depression, self-injury, and the sort. Every year there is a national day where supporters of the organization are asked to literally write "LOVE" on their arms in order to raise awareness.Here is the link to the website if you want to know more. http://www.twloha.com/index.php

I love and support this organization and their desire to make known that hope is ever present. Today in class, I went back and was re-reading the story about the beginnings of the organization and the young girl who inspired its name, vision, and cause. I was absolutely struck by the beautiful writing of the author in the story. I want to share a few excerpts from the story, but I would encourage all of you to go to http://www.twloha.com/vision/ and read the whole story if you want to be blessed!

Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her. Renee is 19... She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms. She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes...I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes...

We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.

This speaks to me. I hope it speaks to you.

Be inspired.

Today's Listening Pleasure

Butch Walker singing one of the most brilliant songs of all time. ATL. This is one of those songs that you have to keep turning up louder and louder in the car. Then you get frustrated because your stereo won't go up any louder. The last chorus, when the piano stops....AHHHHHH. Phenomenal.

I love this man.

Rainy days and Coffee

Stop and think of the ways God loves on you.

Not how He loves you, but how He loves ON you.

How He created you to feel and receive His love.

How He made you to respond to His love.

A few minutes ago, I was driving down a small street painted red with leaves that had fallen from the trees on each side. The rain was perfecting that patter on my windshield that I have always found so comforting since my childhood. And then- just the right song began to play in my car. I reached down to turn up the volume in anticipation of Regina's voice cracking with passion as she erupted in the next few words of the song, and I was overwhelmed by a presence of the Lord's love being poured over me.

This made me stop and think- why do I feel connected to the Lord so much in this moment? I'm not reading scripture, praying, or listening to worship music. I really wasn't even thinking about him, but rather about how hungry I was and what I was planning to do this afternoon. But in the presence of that moment, a moment that deeply touched who I am, I felt the Lord actively loving on me.

Romans 11:36 in the NLT says, "For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory." Everything. The rain. The leaves. The music. The color. I began to reflect on how the Lord has created passions and desires in our hearts to respond to things in the ways we do. When the woman sings the opera at the end of Damien Rice's Eskimo, everything I'm thinking or feeling stills for a moment. The Lord created that response in me. Sometimes when I see a painting, I immediately get trapped into pondering the artist's intent and vision. That response is of the Lord. And it is an act of worship for me to enjoy and respond to such things. It's how he loves on me. Everything comes from him and exists for his power and is intended for his glory. He wants for us to find joy in the things he created us to love. And he wants us to recognize that it's all from him. For HIS glory.

So as I sit here in this coffee shop on a rainy day, looking at the window, drinking my coffee, I know the Lord is being glorified through the delight my heart is resting in today. If you don't have peace and delight, He can be glorified in your fears and your doubts. Just give it to Him. Let him carry you. Give him whatever you have today. And give him Glory.

So if we're sticking with the simplicity of a child-like faith, this is it:

As a Christian, bring glory to the Lord with everything and anything you have to offer.

Be inspired.

Insomnia

When I can't sleep, I do one of two things.

1) Lie in bed furiously, staring at the wall until I eventually force a sleep state upon myself.

2) Create.

Well, the first option usually results in my insomnia departing more rapidly, but the second option always results in my heart being lifted to a higher place. I struggle with insomnia often. I'm not sure if this is due to a busy mind or an unsettled heart. But if I am supposed to be awake to learn something, I am more than willing to sacrifice a few hours of sleep that I will no doubtably make up for in a lazy afternoon in the very near future.

So as far as creating goes, I'll write about the fact of the day: People are worth investing in. Yes, of course they are. We all know this. "It's good to love." "Look at what you can give instead of what you can receive." "Love others more than you love yourself." Yes. Of course. All these thoughts and sentiments are good and true and right. But strip all that down to look at the pure root of our humanity and our overly self-centered, abundantly self-satisfying core of existence, and an entirely separate truth prevails. And that truth is that investing in others is the quickest, most effective way to satisfy our own needs of fulfillment of earthly love, support, and community.

So basically, I'm saying, when you give, you get. We you love, you receive. When you bless, you walk away blessed beyond imagination. This seems elementary. I know. But everything doesn't have to be so complicated. I'm working my way back to a child-like faith and a child-like view of life and love.

So the cycle goes-

I am found in the Lord, and his Love is my purpose.

I show the love of the Lord to people I come in contact with.

Love is showered back upon me in infinite ways, pointing me back to the love of the Lord.

I am found in the Lord, and his Love is my purpose.

BEAUTY.

I could tell stories about tonight, but we'll just let it suffice to say this truth was written on my heart multiple times throughout the night.

So here it is.

Be inspired.

What's on my mind today:

1. Braille by Regina Spektor. Wow, what a song.

2. 2 Corinthians 5:17- "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." >>A verse I've heard a million times. But take a minute to let the reality of this settle upon you.

3. Sushi. And Edamame. Tonight.

Blog Beginnings

So it's a blog. I can honestly say I thought highschool was the last of my blogging days. But I guess I was wrong. I've been learning so much lately- so much insight into the world and into others. How we can really discover who we are. How we can love better. How we can learn more. So I wanted to write them down, for memory, for inspiration. For me. Maybe for you. And I believe if I can sort past the melodramas and the monotonies that tendencies usually allow, I can write about the things in life that are real. I hope you are encouraged. Or even better- inspired.

Earlier this week, I was walking out of class and I passed a bench that I used to sit on and draw during my very first semester of college. I remembered everything I used to experience from the vantage point of that singular spot, and I began to reflect on the girl that I was three years ago.

At first, I was satisfied with how I have grown and matured during college. I am much less emotional than I was in those days. I am much more secure in who I am. And I know I have collected wisdom from everywhere I have been, everyone I have encountered, and every trial I have endured. But as this satisfaction settled about me, another thought rushed into my head. This one much more unsettling. I do not have the naivety or the innocence that I had three Octobers and lots of tears ago.

I used to be a dreamer; now I'm a realist. I used to be a giver; now I'm a protector. I used to be trusting; now I'm just skeptical. I used to be passionate; now I'm numb. Then I look around, and I realize I'm not the only one who has changed in these ways. See? We're trading truth for lies. We're trading hope for safety. And it's not a fair trade. I know I'm cheating myself of the potential fullness of character and heart.

As of today, I'm going to try to get my old heart back. Proclaim the lies that you are choosing to believe, and let truth be spoken to your heart.

Easier said than done? Yes. I know. That's why we should probably just go ahead and ask for some help.