On Making Sense

I don't understand.

Why is it that one moment something makes perfect sense....and the next I have to tell someone of that something and if suddenly becomes....so difficult to say?

I feel like...I'm standing on some strange precipice in my life.

Not to say I feel like I'm acutally plummetting into an abyss....no...not quite, I'm just standing there.  Staring at the unknown below.  The sky before me stretching beyond the corners of my imagination.  To a place so distant and strange and...intangible.  Below me, the face of the cliff shoots straight down beneath my feet, a frightening sight.  Though, all at once...exciting as well.  Strange.  Behind me....what I already know and love.  Before me, the exciting and the unknown. 

I thought once that I knew what I was going to do.  I feel like I decieved and hurt many hearts....or I guess I should say...am about to hurt them.  Or maybe it's not as big a deal to them as I think...but if it is...how sad I am to disappoint them.  Some of them don't know yet.  But I didn't mean to....my intention was never to harm.  It was to love.  A person can't love too much right?  ....Then why the contradiction of emotions?  I am so sure of what it is I am to do, and happy that I am capable of doing it.  But amidst that happiness comes the contradiction of an excited and sorrowful heart. 

Part of me is happy about this decision.  Another...unexpectedly....sad.  The simplest word to describe it.  My heart has felt in the past few weeks as though it's being slowly torn in two.  Torn only because I've tried to stretch it so there would be room for all those people I care for.  Not that there isn't enough room...that's not the problem.  The problem is that I want to actually be WITH those I love.  But that is not always possible.  They are spread out so far in many directions.  When I take one step closer to one...my heart breaks for the other who I then can only communicate with using indirect resources rather than face to face. 

But that's the way it should be right?  Loving so much it hurts even you when you must let go.  Doing things any other way might be less painful....but isn't it worth more when you DO love? 

Speaking of how love often makes us hurt even though it is most definetely worthwhile...makes me feel like the fox in the book the Little Prince...the story of the fox is one of my absolute favorites in the book....though really the WHOLE book is my favorite....In this part of the story the Little Prince meets a fox who explains to him that he cannot play with him because he is not a tamed fox.  The baffled Prince asks him what the word tamed means.  The fox explains "It's something that's been too often neglected.  It means, 'to create ties'..."

He goes on to say:  "For me you're only a little boy just like a hundred thousand other little boys.  And I have no need of you.  And you have no need of me, either.  For you I'm only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.  But if you tame me, we'll need each other.  You'll be the only boy in the world for me.  I'll be the only fox in the world for you..."  And not long after that he says "...But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine.  I'll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest.  Other footsteps send me back underground.  Yours will call me out of my burrow like music."  ...."I'll discover what it costs to be happy!"

Of course, I won't ruin the book for you, but he learns a valuable lesson in taming this fox and becoming its friend.  Part of it is this (in my own words):  friendship was worth it for the memory and the knowing someone took the time to tame you...but it hurt just as much when they were gone. 

Eventually though, the pain leaves.  And you are left with happy memories triggered by often the strangest of things like the color of a wheat field in passing....or the scent of a friends sweatshirt....or the sound of a song you once heard when you were together...

It's worthwhile to be tamed.  But it can hurt too.

Why do I think noone else can make sense of this?  Everyone will just think I am crazy.  But I don't care.  It's what I feel.  It's noone's fault.  I blame the heart.  How could it be that something so wonderful could create such opposing feelings?  Love, it truly is wonderful.  I love those people in my life that are both near and far.  Yet it hurts so much to see them go...or to even be the one going. 

I am beginning to realize the truth behind "this world is not my home"...I have become far too attatched to the tangible.  It's human, I suppose, to do such.  But why is it that for me it is such a constant battle?  It seems as though noone I have ever known has quite understood or possibly ever will.  My thoughts are so strange and undecipherable...maybe this is the wrong time to type my thoughts.  I should stop now.

Switchfoot

Currently Listening Portable Sounds By Tobymac Feelin' So Fly see related

Feelin' So Fly

I'm pretty sure Spring Break freakin ROCKS MY FACE OFF!!!!

So far my break has started off with hanging with some of the most AMAZING people on earth!!!  I got to go home to Chanute and chill with friends there at the Coffeehouse, see someone I hadn't seen in almost TWO YEARS.....AND even make a NEW FRIEND.  I LOVE IT!!!!

It just feels so nice to be back home.....makes me almost wish I didn't have to leave.

But I'm not gonna think about that now.  After a nice long Friday of school, driving, checking in at the parentals and heading off to the FireEscape I then got up the next morning (saturday) to head to Kansas City with John, Kira, Kayla, Josiah, and Sean.  They were headed up there anyway to drop Sean off at the KC airport and I just tagged along for the heck of it! What a grand adventure it was!  We went to the mall and even though most of us (excluding Kayla) didn't buy a lot of stuff, we each got a little somethin' and then ate Chinese Food before heading off to the aero-puerto.  ;)  I took lots of pictures of course and even some video clips of hilarious moments on my camera that Kira and I took the next day and turned into an insanely random but wonderful video that you can either watch on my facebook or look up on youtube...it's called "KC trip 08".  Pretty frickin hilarious stuff. 

Currently I am at the Fall River Grocery Store.....WHY?...you may ask.  Well, my mom's friend here in town actually owns it and she needed help running it for yesterday and today while she did some other things so mom's getting paid to help with it while I sit around keeping mom company, reading, and playing around on their compy.  Fun times.  It's good down-time I suppose, plus I'm catching up on some reading I needed to do.  Tomorrow and Thursday shall be some hardcore family days....who knows what will happen!  Ami and Josh are staying with mom and dad too this week so that's been interesting.  ;)  Gotta love family time! 

I've rather enjoyed the weather the last couple of days....it never rains in Western Kansas so I thoroughly enjoyed waking up at 6:30am Monday morning to the sound of rain and THUNDER rumbling across the Southeast Kansas skies....the lightning flashing through the windows and the thunder rolling overhead......I know I probably sound crazy but it was SO INCREDIBLY RELAXING!  I LOVE STORMY WEATHER!  I felt safe of course because I was snuggled under my covers at HOME...but it was just so refreshing to hear those familiar sounds that I had so recently realized how much I miss hearing since moving to Hays.  :)

However, I do hope that it will clear up and become sunny and warm for this weekend!  I am SO looking forward to taking Christian and Lennon out to the skate park and skating with them!  I've been needing some time with my Li'l Brudders for quite some time now!  :D  And of course let's not forget the fact that Detour180 is playing at the FireEscape Friday night!!!!  In fact they should be pulling into Chanute sometime TODAY!!!  How exciting!

*sigh*  Anyway, I love life.....I love home...I love breaks....I love SPRING.  I've even seen Daffodils recently....

Praise Jesus....I'm having an awesome time!

Weird...

I don't really like how they revamped xanga...especially when I'm one of the only people who still uses it and it confused the heck out of me!  lol

Anyway, last I just got done bowling with some people from my church here in Hays.  It was fun even though I only bowled a 94 *raises eyebrows*  Oh well....I had fun anyway, but I think our group broke our lanes!  lol...I, know, you would think that's impossible but since we only had an hour and TWO lanes among 12 people someone (aka Brad) after the first game (which took 50 of our 60 minutes) decided that we could "speed bowl" a second game.  Suddenly the MANY bowling balls we had...disappeared into the abyss of the "back room"...yeah, that was in the middle of the THIRD frame.  haha...we're nerds.  :)

Anywho, the real reason I'm on here is to write about LAST weekend...which was AMAZING!!!!

Teagan and I took a trip down to good ole-C-town again, but this time to see DISCIPLE at the FireEscape!  It was awesome, as usual, the band was really nice and I discovered that one of the guys in the band used to be in Kids in the Way which had apparently had their last show at RLRFest last year...and I didn't know it.  Oh well, at least I got to see them!  Teagan and Marilyn and I served the band dinner and the guys were VERY nice, then we went downstairs to get the two merch girls to come up for dinner and Teagan and I ended up working merch for them for awhile before and during the beginning of the show!  :D  AWESOME!!!  Then we rocked out hardcore (of course).  Kevin, the frontman, was super cool....especially for the last half hour of the show when he busted out his sword (aka his Bible) and started giving a message about purity and walking with Christ to the kids.  I'm always so impressed with musicians who get up there and ROCK OUT and then PREACH THE WORD during the same show....now THAT'S ministry.  :)

Afterwards we got our pictures taken with the band, autographs (mine they autographed to DJ Dawn *grins*) and hung out for awhile before heading back to Hays...a long night's drive by the way.  Good thing I took a personal day that Monday.  But we had to leave cuz Teagy had to be at work and school the next day.  Ah well.

All in all it was a grand time, I even got to hang out again with Miah and catch up on life, which was REALLY nice!  We took his dogs out on a walk and discussed many things.  I appreciate his friendship greatly.  AND I got to see Mr. Mike Miller again!  That rocked!  I hadn't seen him since this summer for our RLRFest trip!  We rocked out together too and had a great time just hanging out again.  He gives the best hugs in the world too.  You just don't find hugs like that these days.  ;)

Friends. Hugs. Smiles. Music. Family...who could ask for a more adventurous weekend?

Blessings!

Life

I never seem to have time to update on here anymore...and every time I do I say something like THAT. 

So this time maybe I will take a moment to re-assess some things in my life. 

I am in Hays.

Not always where I want to be, I'll admit.  Not because of the people...the people here are wonderful people.  Not because of my work...I actually quite enjoy my job at the Junior High and it seems to be opening up new opportunities for me, so that's nice.  I think it's because of my tendency to concentrate on the past.

Not to say that my past was ever perfect, in fact it was very much imperfect.  I made many mistakes.  I hurt some people I cared about too, in fact I still care whether they believe that or not.  But I've grown and learned from those mistakes and looking back now I rather enjoyed many things in my past. Many relationships with wonderful people...friendships I will never give up on, experiences that I never thought would ever happen to me in a million years.  Those are all well and good...but I've started realizing something else about myself lately.  I dwell on wonderful past events so much that I forget to live the here and now...and actually enjoy it!

When I look on my life right now I see an amazing series of events that led me to the point I'm at right now.  As I said not all the events were the most pleasant, but they certainly were unique and each taught me a lesson that has caused me to be a better person despite the lack of pleasantries.  I have managed somehow to build some amazing friendships with the most unlikely of personalities, and it astonishes me still how some of them put up with me!  :)  

All in all...I'd say my life has been amazingly blessed! 

And then I look at this past year, and what do I see initially?  If I may be perfectly honest...I see myself going on a downhill slope.  I find it amazing how through this past year I have even survived...at some points it was very difficult just to get out of bed in the morning.  Why?  What is it I miss so much about where I was before that causes me to grieve as though I could never have it again?  ...point of fact I don't know.  I still have those friends and family that I had before...they're just at more of a distance now and our means of communication have changed from "face to face" to "facebook to facebook"...or cell phone to cell phone, you get my drift.  So really I have lost nothing. 

I want to say this right now before anyone from Hays that may be reading this begins to think I do not appreciate them.  You have all been wonderful to me.  I have made some AWESOME friends here, it just took me awhile to realize it.  For that I'm very sorry.  As I said before, my tendency to dwell on past events has caused my eyes to not take in what is right before them, the blessings I have HERE. 

Someone reminded me the other day that the Bible tells us Paul's heart was in Rome.  Now I'm not quoting anything verbatim here, in fact I really need to go back and read more on this and probably will soon, but Paul travelled a lot.  He went where God sent him, despite his heart being in Rome.  ...Maybe...Chanute is my Rome.  As horribly cheesy and outrageous as that sounds...that's the only way I can convey how I feel to you all.  I love Chanute.  I miss the people there dearly.  I miss the FireEscape and everything about that ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL MINISTRY!  But they have moved on...they continue to follow God's Will for their lives and for the ministry.  And I am SO proud of them! 

So....in conclusion to all of these ramblings...I need to move on too.  Not to say that Chanute will never be a part of my future....my heart will always be there no matter what.  But for now, I once again must let go.  I have to focus on the task set before me...though I don't currently know what that is.  Just that I'm here where I'm supposed to be.  And for now that will have to be enough. 

Maybe this is a time in my life that I just need to learn how to surrender my heart to God.  That has been difficult.  I look back at when I recognized the call to move here...and how SURE I was of the decision even though it hurt to see it through...and I wonder, where did that ASSURANCE go?  What did I do to lose that?  What happened to the fire inside me?  How did I let it grow so dim? 

The answer to that I can now see...I've been focused on my own wants.  And not what GOD wants.  I know the Bible says that if we delight ourselves in the Lord He will give us the desires of our hearts, but I also understand that when that happens His desires BECOME our desires.  I haven't been delighting myself in Him.  In fact I've been doing a very dangerous thing...I haven't been speaking with Him as much as I should.  I let myself get to the point where I almost had nothing to say...I didn't know WHAT to say.  But I can't lose Him.  I won't allow myself to be pushed past the point of no return.  I've seen people who have crossed that line.  I don't want to become like them. 

Life is tough sometimes friends, but I am determined that it will not overcome me.  Therefore, from this day on I will focus on God and what He has for my life here and now.  Where ever that may lead me, let it BE.  If it's in God's plan, then I know it HAS to be GREAT.