~*~
well…i have not blogged since last year, i believe. life has been busy and i haven’t been writing. there is A LOT going on in my head… and it isn’t clear enough to be pretty yet (or make any sense whatsoever). so… for now i choose to finish reading over all of my old writings. some of them very immature, some very lovely…all snapshots of my heart and mind on the journey of stepping closer to where i am today.
man oh man. i remember this time in my life (as in the time that i wrote what your about to read). little did i know how pivotal that summer would be to the rest of my life. i remember that God told me i needed to live above reproach, which is something i’d never done before. my support group that i had grown up with my whole life literally fell apart all at once. and i was truly heart-broken for the first time in my life (and no, it wasn’t over a boy). it was my church, my home town, my college group, my friends… everything was falling apart.
…i was praying and seeking and seriously being as close to flawless i could muster. and i felt like i was having the rug pulled out from underneath me and the breath knocked out of my lungs with every turn. it was hard. …and God used that horrible and vulnerable time in my life to rock my world (in a very good way). i left UAB, decided to move to Louisville, was literally spending about 5 hours a day with God (and very little time with ANYONE else in my town)… and also in that summer He literally placed (DIRECTLY in my path) three of my very best friends, my future sister (and best friend), and my future husband in my life. …and i thought that my life was ending. 
His plans are so much better than ours.
i am so thankful that i can look back and laugh with Him now. that i can sit with Him in total comfort and joy…my old Friend. i value that valley, and those battles with the highest regard… knowing what Beauty and Adventure lay just beyond the tip of that Canyon.
real life updates soon. promise.
~*~
july 26, 2006
…i have tasted of a love so wide, that it stops all my time
hmmmm. i know that there has been a few of these senseless blogs lately. and not much depth. there’s some deep thought going on in my mind, but i have a lot of sorting through to do…and i need to go into deeper waters…before i can put any of it into words that surpass jumble. actually, this is going to be jumble too 
whatever comes to mind. if there’s a space in between paragraphs… it probably means that it has nothing to do with the previous thoughts. so i’m sorry that there will be no flow to this.
i’ll be fine just like the last time…
so, last week, was probably the worst of my life thus far. things seemed to pile on top of each other. yes, it could have been worse…but it was still hard. God gave me strength, and for the first time i truly understood the phrase ‘peace that passes understanding.’
i’ve lived the longest days, thinking my heart was so bad. too scared to look You in the face…oh if only i had. is it alright, if i stay here all night by the shoreline?
my life is just kind of hanging there (‘where is there?’ you ask…i’d like to know that myself), i haven’t heard from boyce yet. every single member of my family seems to be in the biggest fight of their lives. and almost all of the people who i need assurance from are at least an hour away. but after a long, hard week… my heart had strength that seemed unreal. this is what was going on in my head during those days:
~the battle lines have been drawn, i look around and i’m standing alone… the warm wind blows and draws the dust up from the ground…it slowly rises, almost dancing above my head. the dust grows thicker and soon i can’t even see the haunting battle line. i sink into my heart and ask God why He isn’t beside me…and at that moment i feel His Breath at my side and i start to rise, slowly. soon i’m above the valley where the battle will soon commence, but for now i’m out of the dust and i realize that He wasn’t beside me because He was holding me. there had been no ground beneath me… sometimes His hands are so big that i just don’t notice them there, guiding me, holding me when the bottom just drops out. be near me when i’ve given up, God…with that Reckless Love~
*i just found this verse and i had to come back and add it*
awake, awake, o zion, clothe yourself with strength…shake off your dust; rise up… God said that in isaiah 52.1-2
*wow… that blew me out of the proverbial water. i wrote that before i found this verse. God is so amazingly wonderful. *
the best love is the kind that awakens the soul. and makes us reach for more… that plants fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds.
some things that made my heart dance…reminded me that my soul was still alive over the past few days:
worship in the dark, with a disco light (heh heh), beside a girl that knows real passion. and that it’s found in God
laughing so hard i cried, i think i’m so funny sometimes… (thanks for laughing with me mandie)
seth in girl glasses… um and watching him get into my car. holy mess.
shawn mcdonald with the windows down and a ridiculously chipper angie beside me
a sweet old lady in the choir at angie’s church. she was wearing old lady shoes, pearl earrings, and a bracelet that dangled when she clapped, you could hear it all over the church. and she was an alto
cutting cantilope to make it look like flowers with my angielove (aka my honeybun bubble queen)
a nap on a trampoline in the shade
a man praying with blind passion and genuine faith in a dying church
thought processes
accents with angie and merdie (i love you girls to pieces. *french* ah hau)
a really really big slide
sense of community
pouring out my heart to my taraskylove without walls or reservations
cracker barrel with tara and singing her my songs that i made up when i was 5
hearing megan lee tell me about how jeff propsed
two hours in my favorite park with my favorite tara (my only tara, but still) only to result in amazing God conversation that i know He delighted in *like woah*
being serenaded by the cute guy (just one, laura. well the other guy had a mustache so it made it okay.) with becca and laura while wearing huge sombraros in the mexican resturaunt
john beck telling me that i sound like lori clayton on the phone
getting locked out of my house, which resulted in home cooked food at the mim’s and quality time with dan’s mom whom i love more than life (and who i pray that my mother-in-law will be a lot like)
putting captivating in another girls hands (well, she’s a woman…but she has the heart of a little girl)
running, under the stars, with narnia soundtrack playing and crickets chirping
pouring my heart out into words. …it’s like i just connected with someone, they caught my drift.
i’ll be looking at the moon…but i’ll be seeing you
is it alright, if i stay here all night by the shoreline?
