love, come and save me from the drowning..

I feel like I'm in the ocean and wave upon wave keeps crashing down on me.

It's one thing after another, it's suffocating.

Something happened this past fall that I am still not over..

Then my Grandfather passed away.

Then I lost a friend.

And finally, my Grandmother passed away this morning..

It's too much, and I'm not enough.

I always think in a southern accent..

I like to narrate my life, I want to remember it as a story, not just as bits and pieces.

I like writing about it. I like describing people and places, sometimes I'll even sketch the special ones.

Sometimes, though, I feel like I do it because I am afraid I will forget.

{I am dust}

Words cannot adequately express my love for worship.

It is what my souls thrives on. I savor those thirty minutes on Sunday morning, purely spent worshiping my God. But then the music stops and the talking starts, and I am no longer interested in being there. I despise church, it is a forced appearance on my part every week.

The God in the music, the God I feel, is not the same as the God you are talking about. He is not a financial advisor, He is a healer of hearts.

That is the trouble with church, they all think they know who God is. They make it into a giant production, so that by the time it's over, you feel like you were at a rock concert and a marriage/financial/pillars of success conference. They have made God a person that you do not want to spill your guts to, because He has rules, and steps, and electric guitars.

Give me a room lit with candles. Give me intimacy.

Praise is more than just singing songs and raising your hands, it is the daily discovery that God is good.

Sure, He can help you with the other stuff.. but I just want to live my life praising Him, not finding time in-between to praise Him.

beautiful things.

I have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow.. but I'm writing this instead of going to bed.

I have never liked Valentines day.

February 14th will roll around, and my eyes along with it, because I know that it will hold nothing but empty feelings and desires while I watch dozens upon dozens of couples, decked out in red, holding hands and smiling because they're in "love".

Now granted, the majority of them are indeed in "love", and I watch those in bittersweet amusement because it can often times be a very presh sight and warm even the coldest of hearts. But it is still a reminder of what I do not have.

I did receive a pleasant surprise this morning though.. I had decided to go to church, knowing that it wasn't a good idea considering my feelings for the theme of the day, and for the fact that I really do not like my church, but I hadn't gone last week so I thought that I ought to. I had not been informed (or I missed the memo because I was at home painting) that one of my favourite worship teams was visiting us, The Michael Gungor Band. To my utter joy, I got to listen to them for about 30 min, which made the hour or so afterwards worth it. They sang {what is now my favourite song} 'Beautiful Things'.

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of us

You make me new, You are making me new

It was exactly what I needed to hear, it was God.

I felt Him.

I needed Him.

I needed Him to love me.

I needed Him to make me new.

in all the unholy bathrooms..

{paraphrased Right Away, Great Captain}

I am starving for you
and the music won't do
I'm still empty without you

I can feel the lord move
He is cleaning my dirty wounds
so I'll come back clean for you
and I can see your brown hair
when I close my eyelids
I'm in love with something
and you look just like it

{someone once told me that I am too quiet, he said violence was the answer. He was only joking, but I acted out my vengeance on a stranger}

...

that is how I am feeling at the moment.

I bet you didn't know this.

Why hello there,

Michigan decided to be a doll today and everything is back to normal weather wise.

So I have a secret obsession with couture fashion shows.. I am enthralled by everything from the collections themselves, to the hair and makeup, photography, and the artistry that is involved in every aspect of it. I dress quite modestly compared to that, but I find it interesting non-the-less. Alexander McQueen, who is one of my favourites, passed away today.. it's seems kind of tragic that an artist such as he, would throw away such an amazingly gifted soul.

"This world I live in, this fashion world, is so unrelated to what's going on around the world, so what I try to do is to take parts of the world people in my world don't want to see and bring it to them."

Oh, in the midst of doing nothing earlier, I wrote a piano piece. I've been feeling especially artsy this past week, I have no clue why..

{ttfn}

{five year old boys are my favourite}

Today, I was thinking about a game I played when I was younger.. I used to go out in the woods, or in a field somewhere, and I pretended to be David. I would act out his battle with the Philistines (I was a bit of a tomboy) and return home in glorious victory.

A couple summers ago I played this game with some 1st graders in a field behind our house.

I gathered them together and told them that I was David and we were going to have a battle.

One boy quickly responded with a "but I'M David!!" (his name was indeed, David).

"I know," I replied, "I'm a different David."

I've been longing for that.. I haven't heard (let alone, acted out) a bible story in forever.

{ttfn}

even still, even now..

These have been the longest two months and 26 days of my life..

janktastic.

1) my car slid into a ditch today, I hate Michigan.

2) I have Devil Dressed In Blue by Right Away, Great Captain stuck in my head.

3) I have downloaded recaps of all five seasons of Lost for free from itunes, I don't know why I am excited about this.

4) My room is freezing. I am definitely going to sleep with about 5,000 blankets on me tonight.

5) I am anticipating a snow day tomorrow, therefore I am planning on finishing my painting tonight in peace and quiet.

6) I go to the hsb for two reasons: hugs, and Josiah Gentry. (generally speaking, these things are separate because he forgets to give me one... thief.)

{ttfn}

sea-foam and earth

I have been painting like mad.

It is glorious.

It is one of those things that I myself do not understand.. nor do I try to because that can get messy and complicated, and why not let art speak for itself while you stand by and say: 'I really had nothing at all to do with it'..?

There will be photos soon.. though, it is awfully hard to photograph a painting and have it look exactly as it would if you were standing before it.

I think I've unfortunately become an introvert though, spending the last few days in her room, with a pair of headphones covering her ears and paintbrushes in her hands.

I even stayed home from church. I listened to my favourite worship music and painted. To me, that was a better use of my time then to sit listening to someone talk about the 'Five Pillars of Success'. God is not a five step program, and I do not wish to think of Him in that way. He is the Creator of the universe, the One that makes it possible for me to breathe. I sing to Him and He sings back. THAT is the God I am in love with. Praising Him with my life is far more productive than spending my life listening to someone talk about how to praise Him.

That being said, I need a worship night.. hardcore.

I have musician friends, it's quite ridiculous that we have not done this yet.

{ttfn}

...

I am finding out that my God is not the same as your God..

i will love you as you are..

It's a fight between my heart and mind,

no-one really wins this time..

In the endless fight of grace and pride,

I don't want to win this time..

a sacrifice of praise

God is all around us. He is in the ocean that’s breathing, He is in the sky that awakes and falls asleep.
The words written across the pages are His words, His pulse. In them we are running and He is running after us. They are hope beyond our understanding, a glimmer of light on our unfortunate lives.
He is there in our darkness. In our shame, and in our sorrow. He has felt every mark laid upon our bodies and souls, and He bares them with us.. but He Himself has also placed His own mark upon each heart. We are His. Created in the image of the Creator. A piece of art, more beautiful than we could know, paid for with the highest price imaginable..
Jesus died so that we might have life, and have it to the fullest. So that each breath is a silent gesture of praise to our God, because He is the one that made it possible for us to breathe in the first place.
The holiness of life, the glory of it is so breathtaking..
And so with our lives let us praise the one that made life; for if the ocean is a testament of God's grace and power, and if the lifeless mountains stand firm with God's glory, than how much more so can we praise him with our lives? With our mere existence?
Our lives are but a small offering of praise to the One who gave life it's name.

Speaking Terms

There was a girl with long dark hair, dark eyes, and a not-so-confident veneer.

Today she did something she normally does not do..

She opened her mouth and spoke.