and I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Today
I woke up
thought it must be around three
realized I'd slept all night
and actually felt just fine

ate breackfast with my beautiful children
well, they're mine for the weekend
(which isn't enough, but.)
mmm, apple jacks
walked to the park
braving even the scary part of the road
where the guard rail forces you to walk
outside the white line

explored the great unknown
over and under trees
across the mud
(OH NO! we'll have to go through it...)
between sticker bushes
avoiding three-leaves-let-it-be at every turn

climbed aboard the coil-animal express
shot off to texas
didn't really enjoy the scenery
(the slides here are much too slow!)
flew to africa
climbed rope ladders and went on a safari
took some bark home in the little wooden hinges
as suvoneirs
flew to oregon
slid down the great pole of portland

trecked all the way back home
(back through the mud
back through the wind
back through the grass
back through the door)

ate lunch and learned the unspeakable joy
which a bag of puffy, cheesy, finger-staining snacks
can bring
learned about a man who stole a rubber duckie
and paid dearly for his crimes
that bastard!

went adventuring
two miles down the highway
to a classy shopping center
where, I am informed
people pay as much as one hundred
(one HUNDRED!)
dollars for a single purse

walk into a dinner
with coca-cola advertisments
(she's pretty! says julia)
plastered all over the walls
sit down at the barstools
and eat single scoops of vanilla ice cream
while trying to make the juke box work for a nickle
which it won't accept
much to fallen faces and sighs

outside we find a fountain
that you can walk in without getting wet
("not THAT wet, anyway")
so we get absolutely soaked
flinging water at each other
people smile at us
in the freezing cold
and we don't feel a thing

we buy a mocha
from a girl who wants to steal my kids
about as much as I do
and I don't get a chance to drink it
because when we get home
it's time to see the horses

they are tall and graceful and curious
pax runs out into the pasture
even when they toss their fearful heads
and neigh their fearful neighs
while julia hides behind
and alexi takes lessons from the groomer

we come home exausted
eat dinner
pile onto the couch
and watch a movie
followed by stories
of samson and gideon and hannah
until it's bedtime
for three routy kids
who arn't tired in the least
and who don't last five minutes
after the lights are out.

now, I ask you, could there possibly have been a better day than that?

till I try, I'll never know

I'm thinking about setting some goals for myself. Mainly, I want to set one major goal for my life and start running towards it with everything in me.

See, one of Kacy's recent posts had a quote from Crazy Love about how it's really just laziness that makes us wait around to discover God's will for our lives. I'm realizing this is shockingly true of me. I'm beginning to think it's not so much that God's will for me is a secret passage through a jungle which I have to find, taking each step with fear and trembling lest I leave the invisible trail. Rather, He's handed me a compas and a survival guide, and now He expects me to find a way through the jungle by my own inginuity, although He knows exactly how I can best accomplish this task and He will help me every step of the way.

This being the case, I don't think I want to waste any more time waiting for a road map. I think it's far more Biblical to just choose a direction and start walking in it. Instead of praying for a magical yellow brick road to appear in front of me, I should be praying for wisdom, for a clear head, and for courage and energy to fight against the obsticals. Of course God does have a plan for my life, but I'm only going to find it through hard work. As Beth mentioned at a Bible Study on Friday, nothing good comes without hard work- but hard work can accomplish almost anything. If circumstances are absolutely against me, I'll try another path and run down that one as hard as I can until I can't run any furthur there either.

Thinking about all these things, today I picked up a book by Elisabeth Elliot that had been on my shelf for forever called God's Guidence. And listen to this: "There were occasions when Paul attempted to do things he wanted to do but was 'prevented by the Holy Spirit.' He does not mention special guidence in the decision to do the thing- it was what he wanted to do, so he decided to do it- but he certainly had special guidence to stop, and it came in time, before he strayed off the path of righteousness. It is, we may properly say, natural to trust God to do this for us once we have made up our minds to follow, and we need not be forever halting and backing up, paralyzed by fear of our own desires."

There you have it. I'm not the only one thinking this way.

So... I would like to tentatively set the goal for myself of being in a foreign country helping with some mission or another by this time next year. This seems like the right goal for me now mostly because it's the only thing I really want to do. I could finish school or move out or get a really good job, but I have neither the resources nor the ambition for any of these things at the moment. So mission trip it is.

I think it will take about a year, since I have to pay off my debts, buy a car, and raise the money for the trip. Not to mention actually finding a mission group and getting hooked up with them, doing whatever training is required, and maybe even learning a little about the language of wherever I end up going. Also, I'd like to pray about this ever single day. That's a lot of work. But I'm excited to get down to it, and really excited to see where I'm at on April 26, 2011!

decadent extravagance//neverending providence

Ug, the whole purpose of starting a new blog was to appear sophisticated and pulled together- to have a place to articulate my most polished, entertaining and intellectual thoughts. Instead I find myself needing the outlet of my old whinny, teenage-girl blog more than ever. I'm realizing there are a lot of different kinds of people out there, and I have a hard time finding my place among them. There are people who act happy all the time and are really miserable inside. There are people who act grumpy all the time and really have nothing to complain about. And then there are people who are always completely honest about how they are feeling, like they can't hide it even if they tried. I think the third kind is me, but I'm constantly trying to be the first, because I feel myself slipping closer and closer to the second all the time... If that makes any sense.

This leaves me constantly fighting the urge to tell everyone in sight everything on my mind. Unfortunutly, I hate the things on my mind. They are so me-centered, so foolish and insignificant. I hate it when other people get to see these things about me, even though it is authentic and honest.

For those of you who were part of Village Square, remember when we took turns confessing all of our faults on our blogs? It's funny, because I used to think we were being so humble and self-depracating, but in retrospect, I think we were using it to clear our names. As though confessing something you've done wrong eradicates it completely from the past. We all think that all the time. That we can pay a one-time fee for our mistakes and be done with them. And I'm also shocked at how much I just want to clear my name in front of my fellow man. How my sin looks in front of a holy and perfect God doesn't really scare me, but a jurry of my peers does.

Here's one thing I do know about myself, I am not the kind of person who doesn't care what others think. I wish so much that I was. But I'm not. I sit around and judge myself by every one else's standards all day long, and it is absolutely wearing me out. I don't think I should do this anymore. But I'm afraid that if I stop carring, I'll become so annoying and obnoxious nobody will ever want to be my friend. Ugly is a scary word. And that's what so many people are- I'm not talking about being sinful or unattractive or anything like that. Just ugly, like there's nothing there to love.

Love is such a shallow thing, when you get down to it. We'd like to think it's because we relate to people or because we admire good things about them or even that it's some mystical otherly thing we can't understand. But in truth we're just human beings who respond almost without being able to help it to pretty faces and charisma. Some of us have it, some of us don't. Those who don't will get their reward in heaven. It's just depressing, though. Life is not fair.

See, it's those kinds of thoughts in my head that I HATE allowing out. But I feel much better for having said it.

And the truth is- see, there's always a ballancing thought that is at least a little redeeming- the truth is, I'm not all that upset about the unfairness of life or the fact that love seems so disapointing. I mean, I really do believe that there are bigger and better things out there than any of this, and I'm really and trully content to live that way until I die. I just think it's interesting that even though I know how stupid the whole system is, I'm still obsessed with getting a good score in the arena of human competition... like it matters at all.

So it doesn't matter. I will focus on the things that do, and focus on God, and I suppose that ideally through doing that, the things that make a person trully, deeply beautiful will come naturally. Things like focusing on others enough to not need to reflect my own troubles or joys in my attitudes, or knowing when to say something and when to shut up. So then in the end of the day, I guess the spiritual and the secular merge yet again. We must be created to appriciate the grace God can give to people for a reason- it must be a part of the process of sanctification. And this is an incredibly hopeful thought.

That makes me think of a Bible verse: "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 5:16) So we are called to be the BEST that we can be, it actually brings glory to Christ. It's not a shallow or pointless mission. So long as you're going about it in the right way and for the right reasons. I like that.

See, now I feel ten times better than I did at the beginning of this post. This is why I will never, ever be polished or sophisticated, but I will at least always know exactly where I am inside my own head. That's always a plus. :-)

all the vain things that charm me most

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy goooooooooooooooooooooooodness. There are some days too full for words to describe. I feel like I could fly into a million pieces right now and still not have enough of me to go around to all the things I want to be doing and thinking about. And yet not one of these things is completely satisfying- in the end of the day, being human is so intrinsically unfufilling. Even our relationship with God is muted and far away, in some ways- compared to the ultimate consumation of that relationship in heaven. We barely even know Him now.

It's just downright mistifying, because I'm dying to do something of significance, something that will last beyond the limited life of my body and mind. But in the end of the day, not even that will matter- only Christ will matter. I'm thinking about these things and thinking about the fact that Easter is tomorrow and most of the world is going to be celebrating a holiday they know next to nothing about while they push ever on in their drive for significance. And in the end of the day, I'm glad that everything significant about me has been done by someone else, and that it was done perfectly and completely. I'm such an empty shell in that sense- we all are.

But hum, now that I think about it more, we are also called to a GREAT deal of responsibility when we accept Christ as our Savior. So it's yet another paradox that will constantly be streatching its self in two directions- the call to action off-setting the knowledge that nothing we could possibly do on this earth could really be significant. I guess if it wern't so mysterious, it wouldn't be half so interesting.