I biked home from school today, pushed ever onward by the twirl of wind around me. Leaves raced along the tires, tumbling and swirling. I breathed deep and took a quick second breath. There was something different in the air. Something....
It's fallen into autumn now. I wore my sweater all day at school, and for the first time since the beginning of school I wore tennis shoes. The air was chilly, and I rode to school wishing for gloves. But it was overcast... not a sign of this bright glory to come. But on my way back it reminded me of something...
I feel so busy these days. So full of things to do, meetings to make and to maintain, things to prepare for, not to mention my "normal" life. But the "something" in the air today reminded me of days past. Days in which I could take my leisurely time and would feel like spinning among the leaves and joining their autumn dance. Days when I was young, when homework was only something rumored about by highschoolers. Days when there was a crisp, lively, vitality to life.
Memories of school days past. First day impressions, making friends you hope will last. Bringing out the winter clothes, putting summer things away. Why don't I feel that "something" every day?
Okay, enough with the rhyming, but seriously... I've kind of lost sight of the spark that is living and imagining in this downpour of homework... and I want to recapture that "something." To stop and smell the roses once in awhile... to be vibrantly alive.
Showing posts with label alive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alive. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 14
Friday, September 9
Bliss
These past few days have been filled with friends. Other things, too, but friends above all things. It's in this year that I've purposed to spend time with friends and developing relationships more than homework, even though this year is the only one when homework has taken a serious hold of my life.
We met together, us, the three musketeers, dressed up all pretty and eating pizza and doing Chem homework. We sat around that kitchen table, scratching our heads, all the while celebrating the beautiful passing on of another year for one of us. We drove into C-city and went through Bio notes on the way. I think that one of the marks of true friendship is being able to laugh while doing the most boring things in the world, just enjoying being with each other. Stopping and walking above a street in a tunnel of rainbow, heels that hurt, tickets gotten, escalators (escalators!!) {what do you do with escalators? walk? ride?} done with, and sitting in seats, excitement tinging our voices. Pointing out this violin, and that flute. The massive choir that walked in. And then, the joyful sounds of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.
We laughed, we smiled, we absorbed, we mocked, we stifled giggles at the opportune (or should I say inopportune?) sneeze that made the whole performance memorable. Stopping at Timmy's on the way back and being the only customers in the entire store. Being dropped off and falling into bed, content to sleep and sleep. Waking up to a clock that reads an hour later than what I wish it did, scrambling to get to school, still doing well on a Bio quiz. Talking to people, making amigo 1 jump every time I mentioned the choir list being posted, trying not to fall asleep.
And then the moments of uncertainty... of a dear friend that stepped up and helped out in one of the moments when I feel the weakest. I don't like not knowing... at all. I start freaking out and feeling awkward and uncertain. Yay for people with cell phones! Driving in a pick up truck, wind going through my hair, the smell of harvest, blasting country songs accompanied by laughter. Picking camomile by the hour, spending time in a heart to heart with another dear friend. Sharing garbage bags, completing swaths, joking around with the hockey guys, laughing, finding ladybugs. Grass stained hands and shoes, water that tasted wonderful, and driving home.
The suggestion for Subway, the friends we met when we went there. The joy and the laughter, my disheveled appearance and the chocolate milk that followed. The sweet knowing that nothing can stop this moment. That is why I'm alive. That He placed me here for this moment. These moments.
It's been my very own Ode to Joy, really. It's been crazy. I'm half asleep, my clothes are all dusty with walking through fields, my homework is in my backpack, there are things to be done, sleep to be pursued, tomorrow to look forward to. But it's bliss.... pure, clear, ethereal bliss! And it's in these moments that life comes alive. Life is not made in the quiet mundane days that occupy the span of my years, but the bright, the crazy, the happiness that friends bring.
Through this all I can't help imagining how great heaven will be. Honestly, there were times today that I thought, This is as good as it gets! But then I had to stop myself, because it gets way better. He has so much in store for me, and I'm so excited!
We met together, us, the three musketeers, dressed up all pretty and eating pizza and doing Chem homework. We sat around that kitchen table, scratching our heads, all the while celebrating the beautiful passing on of another year for one of us. We drove into C-city and went through Bio notes on the way. I think that one of the marks of true friendship is being able to laugh while doing the most boring things in the world, just enjoying being with each other. Stopping and walking above a street in a tunnel of rainbow, heels that hurt, tickets gotten, escalators (escalators!!) {what do you do with escalators? walk? ride?} done with, and sitting in seats, excitement tinging our voices. Pointing out this violin, and that flute. The massive choir that walked in. And then, the joyful sounds of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.
We laughed, we smiled, we absorbed, we mocked, we stifled giggles at the opportune (or should I say inopportune?) sneeze that made the whole performance memorable. Stopping at Timmy's on the way back and being the only customers in the entire store. Being dropped off and falling into bed, content to sleep and sleep. Waking up to a clock that reads an hour later than what I wish it did, scrambling to get to school, still doing well on a Bio quiz. Talking to people, making amigo 1 jump every time I mentioned the choir list being posted, trying not to fall asleep.
And then the moments of uncertainty... of a dear friend that stepped up and helped out in one of the moments when I feel the weakest. I don't like not knowing... at all. I start freaking out and feeling awkward and uncertain. Yay for people with cell phones! Driving in a pick up truck, wind going through my hair, the smell of harvest, blasting country songs accompanied by laughter. Picking camomile by the hour, spending time in a heart to heart with another dear friend. Sharing garbage bags, completing swaths, joking around with the hockey guys, laughing, finding ladybugs. Grass stained hands and shoes, water that tasted wonderful, and driving home.
The suggestion for Subway, the friends we met when we went there. The joy and the laughter, my disheveled appearance and the chocolate milk that followed. The sweet knowing that nothing can stop this moment. That is why I'm alive. That He placed me here for this moment. These moments.
It's been my very own Ode to Joy, really. It's been crazy. I'm half asleep, my clothes are all dusty with walking through fields, my homework is in my backpack, there are things to be done, sleep to be pursued, tomorrow to look forward to. But it's bliss.... pure, clear, ethereal bliss! And it's in these moments that life comes alive. Life is not made in the quiet mundane days that occupy the span of my years, but the bright, the crazy, the happiness that friends bring.
Through this all I can't help imagining how great heaven will be. Honestly, there were times today that I thought, This is as good as it gets! But then I had to stop myself, because it gets way better. He has so much in store for me, and I'm so excited!
Wednesday, September 7
Weeding
I dug with my fingers, gouging the hard dirt with my nails. Gathering up all the leaves of the plant, I pulled, willing the roots to follow. They didn't. Digging deeper, searching around sight unseen, finding a clump and pulling. Holding the roots of that which would kill my garden. Feeling satisfaction.
Recently, I've been dieting. Now don't panic! Not that kind of dieting. A diet of books.... cutting out a lot of the fluff that I normally read and trying to engage in either classics or Christian Living books. Learning to spend my time wisely and not to waste it. Even as I take this small step in trying to manage my time as well as purifying what enters my mind, my other habits come to mind more clearly.
What in the rest of my day is useless? What am I doing that has no relevance to what my purpose in life is? What needs to be weeded out? Once the question is asked, it's easy to supply answers. But once the answers are spoken, they hang there, like carbon dioxide does on a cold day. I watch them float and don't want to go any further.
Because weeding hurts. That dirt under my fingernails took a long time to get out. I only went out and weeded because I hadn't for weeks... because I felt compassion on the poor plants in my garden. It wasn't a chore that I was jumping up and down to do.
It's necessary though, in order to yield plants that aren't choked, plants that are fresh and alive. And that's what I want to be. Fresh and alive, ready to be used. But I can't if I'm being suffocated by weeds. I don't want to weed.. whether in real life or in my spiritual one, but it has to be done. Like a chore put off until the shadow of consequence looms above me.
Why would I? For love. Because He loved me so much, He did much more than just weed. He was scourged... He died. And it's because He knows how much potential I have that I hope. That I know that I can be that plant that lives, and that He will help me weed, with His hand guiding mine. Showing me the deepest and darkest pits of ugly, slimy weeds that I want to keep hidden from the world. Giving the strength to confront them, to plan to destroy them, and to keep on doing so in the days that follow. To do it completely so that later the roots don't produce new weeds, even stronger this time.
With this hope, why wouldn't I weed?
Recently, I've been dieting. Now don't panic! Not that kind of dieting. A diet of books.... cutting out a lot of the fluff that I normally read and trying to engage in either classics or Christian Living books. Learning to spend my time wisely and not to waste it. Even as I take this small step in trying to manage my time as well as purifying what enters my mind, my other habits come to mind more clearly.
What in the rest of my day is useless? What am I doing that has no relevance to what my purpose in life is? What needs to be weeded out? Once the question is asked, it's easy to supply answers. But once the answers are spoken, they hang there, like carbon dioxide does on a cold day. I watch them float and don't want to go any further.
Because weeding hurts. That dirt under my fingernails took a long time to get out. I only went out and weeded because I hadn't for weeks... because I felt compassion on the poor plants in my garden. It wasn't a chore that I was jumping up and down to do.
It's necessary though, in order to yield plants that aren't choked, plants that are fresh and alive. And that's what I want to be. Fresh and alive, ready to be used. But I can't if I'm being suffocated by weeds. I don't want to weed.. whether in real life or in my spiritual one, but it has to be done. Like a chore put off until the shadow of consequence looms above me.
Why would I? For love. Because He loved me so much, He did much more than just weed. He was scourged... He died. And it's because He knows how much potential I have that I hope. That I know that I can be that plant that lives, and that He will help me weed, with His hand guiding mine. Showing me the deepest and darkest pits of ugly, slimy weeds that I want to keep hidden from the world. Giving the strength to confront them, to plan to destroy them, and to keep on doing so in the days that follow. To do it completely so that later the roots don't produce new weeds, even stronger this time.
With this hope, why wouldn't I weed?
Friday, July 8
Fear
Fear...
The word that embodies everything I feel when I am exposed to be insecure and weak. It's at these times that I wonder what I'm made of. After all, if I can so easily fear, what have I learned in life? It's not as if I've conquered much if the same fear can come back time and time again to make me shrivel up and hide in a corner.
Fear. Fear of being misunderstood, of being seen as incapable, of being untalented, ungodly, a bad example, and everything else that comes with being alive. The fear that sometimes rules my thoughts, actions and words, although it shouldn't. Afraid of what might come, and yet afraid to stay the same.
And yet... what is the antithesis of fear? Most things have an immediate equal and opposite reaction word inside of our heads, and yet.. fear? Is it... could it... maybe be trust? At first glance, it makes me turn away, afraid once again. What is trust after all but the letting down of barriers, of risking all, especially to be disappointed and hurt, but to never fear again?
Because, in some ways, perfect trust casts out all fear, as the saying goes for love. To trust someone is to place in their possession the very things that I am afraid the world might see, the weaknesses, the imperfections, the mistakes. To give them the ability to hurt me in the ways that I am afraid of.
These fears that I hold, these inconsistencies that I hide, these showings of who I really am, a base, evil, sinful human being... aren't easy to share with just anyone. But who is He, but Someone? As I have been struggling to let this thing go, I think back to what has happened in the past with trust issues and find it all the same. I never give up easily, and I never turn right to Him when something comes up. It's discouraging to think that I have never once, really and truly, trusted Him to the completion of a problem.
Oh, sure, I put it into His hands, and was still for awhile, going along with life. But then, I began to murmur, complain, worry, and the stillness was broken. That solid foundation of being still and trusting all the He was and is and has done and will do was being shaken. And I was the one doing it! I grabbed the problem out of His hands, and set to trying to fix it myself, worrying when things wouldn't turn out right.
But time and time again, He's proved me wrong. As I knew He would at the very beginning. It seems that I am destined to repeat the same mistake over and over with no experience gleaned or lessons applied. For this is what life is for. It's so discouraging to think that He's working a work in me and that I'm standing in the way. What would it take for me to be completely still... to be silent... to trust? I fear too much...
The word that embodies everything I feel when I am exposed to be insecure and weak. It's at these times that I wonder what I'm made of. After all, if I can so easily fear, what have I learned in life? It's not as if I've conquered much if the same fear can come back time and time again to make me shrivel up and hide in a corner.
Fear. Fear of being misunderstood, of being seen as incapable, of being untalented, ungodly, a bad example, and everything else that comes with being alive. The fear that sometimes rules my thoughts, actions and words, although it shouldn't. Afraid of what might come, and yet afraid to stay the same.
And yet... what is the antithesis of fear? Most things have an immediate equal and opposite reaction word inside of our heads, and yet.. fear? Is it... could it... maybe be trust? At first glance, it makes me turn away, afraid once again. What is trust after all but the letting down of barriers, of risking all, especially to be disappointed and hurt, but to never fear again?
Because, in some ways, perfect trust casts out all fear, as the saying goes for love. To trust someone is to place in their possession the very things that I am afraid the world might see, the weaknesses, the imperfections, the mistakes. To give them the ability to hurt me in the ways that I am afraid of.
These fears that I hold, these inconsistencies that I hide, these showings of who I really am, a base, evil, sinful human being... aren't easy to share with just anyone. But who is He, but Someone? As I have been struggling to let this thing go, I think back to what has happened in the past with trust issues and find it all the same. I never give up easily, and I never turn right to Him when something comes up. It's discouraging to think that I have never once, really and truly, trusted Him to the completion of a problem.
Oh, sure, I put it into His hands, and was still for awhile, going along with life. But then, I began to murmur, complain, worry, and the stillness was broken. That solid foundation of being still and trusting all the He was and is and has done and will do was being shaken. And I was the one doing it! I grabbed the problem out of His hands, and set to trying to fix it myself, worrying when things wouldn't turn out right.
But time and time again, He's proved me wrong. As I knew He would at the very beginning. It seems that I am destined to repeat the same mistake over and over with no experience gleaned or lessons applied. For this is what life is for. It's so discouraging to think that He's working a work in me and that I'm standing in the way. What would it take for me to be completely still... to be silent... to trust? I fear too much...
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