What if I...

...told you I was in love with this? Would you surprise us with a size for all of me? I still know you, and I still like you...




Somehow, the time that seemed so easy to find before Moody, before PCM's and a marriage, before a job and the spring play, before making matza ball soup for a class, before heaviness set in my heart...now, that time that used to be spent on the floor, facedown, in prayer...it is seemingly gone. Dead. I have killed it. Sometimes I feel guilty. Sometimes I ease my conscience by telling myself I have no time for such things anymore. Sometimes I hate myself for it.

What is a relationship, if not to fellowship? What is fellowship, if not to still know and still like someone?

The Lord does still know and still love me, which is so great compared to my measly idea of liking, or even loving.

Lord. I need to still know you and still like you, to still love you.

You see, now I have homework and dishes to do, along with laundry to put away. When we are dead...we'll all have wings. We won't need legs to stand. My homework will mean nothing. But I care what my professor thinks. Should I not care more for God's heart? The dishes and laundry...I want to please my husband, I want to keep up, I want to prove that I can!

I want no more guilt, no more despising myself, no more fear, no more deadness and emptiness inside.

life. please give it to me.

If Ever You Should Die...

...I know I'd shave my head. It's not a morbid thought, I mean it out of love.

What do we do in the end? Do we gasp painfully and bulge our eyes out, arching our backs, screaming and clawing at the bedsheets, hoping to hold on to the last shred of life? This was the way that a missionary described the death of many Muslims he's seen. He spoke of seeing a glimpse of what was to come in those last few moments...and how it affects our last moments on earth.

"Glory!"

Endless screaming.

Peace.

Franticly searching for a rope to hold.

Gentle love.

Torturous destiny.


What does it mean to pass away? I think it means to go to the next life. Why else would it be called passing? Like walking across a bridge. I think that for unbelievers, though, it is the endless agony of a thousand deaths resting on his back and shoulders, beating him and biting him, as he attempts his journey over a precarious tightrope, only to see more agony on the other side of the ravine.

If I saw someone faced with a terrifying tightrope-walk in real life...I would try to save them, or get someone who could.

So why don't we when it's not the body, but the spirit that is in this danger and pain and peril? Why don't we show them the One who can save them then? Why don't we really love people?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10...

...money can't buy you back the love that you had then.

About to interview for Disney Store, and wishing that someone had enough time and energy to follow nicholas and me around for a day, take photos, and then we could see them and plaster them all over our facebooks and blogs like everyone else does.

i also wish i had long hair again.

i wish i was in better shape.

i hope i get this job.

i do not wish to do homework of the systematic theology kind ever again.

i wish my friends lived closer, rather than scattered around the globe.

i wonder if paul wished the same...the wanderer that he was.

the lights are being turned off in the downstairs of the library, because the skylights can take care of it.

time to leave.

au revoir, i say.

boeuf bourguignon and burned crab rangoon.

i already made the boeuf bourguignon, and felt very much like amy adams in julie & julia as i did so...mainly because i shattered my pyrex casserole dish, causing a near meltdown. i loved that casserole. but i wasn't about to let that shattered dish keep me down! no no! a casserole dish couldn't defeat me!

so i started over. this time i used a skillet for the stove-top work. it worked much better, though i do wish i had a cast-iron casserole dish. i think i will have to search out a salvation army. at any rate, around 2 in the morning i had finally and successfully made boeuf bourguignon! i felt like such a success. and then by 1 o'clock the next afternoon, it was gone. we loved it so much that we ate nearly all of it that night. i was supposed to bring some to a friend who had helped me to shatter the pyrex dish, but i was too selfish, and decided to eat it all with my husband instead. julia child, you were an amazing woman.

now tonight, i am very content with my burned crab rangoon. i am running out the door soon to study, and somehow i feel so fulfilled by the thought. studying isn't a chore to me. i enjoy it once again, which is a great relief and a giant "a-ha!" to the last two years of my life, when i thought studying was similar in experience to dying. or at least, i was sure that it must be.

i think of my great-grandmother a lot while i'm cooking. would she have done it this way? i'm not sure. probably not. she was brilliant in the kitchen. every little thing she concocted tasted absolutely amazing.

Still You Forgive.

Today. I am already convicted.

How does a life begin and end so suddenly...how is a life taken so flippantly...how is a death the end of all things?

We take time off of work, we cancel previous engagements, we cry in corners, and hold family members until the devilish sobs that wrack their bodies slowly wear off.

"Everything I need, is You!"

We make cries like that. But so often they're not true of our hearts for very long. We go back to being calloused, hard, uninterested in each other's lives.

Ministry. A sharpened word for Christian career. Not a lifestyle so often. An on-the-clock, paid position. That's what it has turned into in America.

"Abba Father have Your way!"

What is it that makes us weep when people die? It's more than missing them...it's more than their pain...it's more than our pain.

"Let the cross draw men to You!"

I think we cry and hurt so much at funerals because it proves what is next. And we're simply not prepared to deal with it, most of the time. When I watched my Great Grandma pass away, and held her hand as she breathed for the last time, and she looked at me right be fore she died...I knew there was an afterlife. A heaven. And a hell. I knew my Great Grandma was going to be with God...I saw that her life wasn't over...her soul wasn't dead...it had simply MOVED.

"The enemy has been defeated, death couldn't hold you down, we're gonna lift our voice in victory, we're gonna make Your praises loud! Shout out to God with a voice of triumph, shout out to God with a voice of praise! Shout out to God with a voice of triumph, we lift Your name up!"

We must live as we preach...we must act as a result of His death...we must...as a result of His resurrection.

job(s)?

Thoroughly freaking out because I have two job opportunities, I need to sit and write.

Fall is knocking on my heart all day long, every day, and I long for apple-picking with friends. Cider is in my fridge, but it's not the same, and the spices stick to the sides of my kettle. Every time I boil water for tea after that, it tastes slightly of cinnamon and nutmeg...which is nice in cider, but not so much in breakfast tea, or pineapple-mango tea, or peppermint tea. (:

The trees on my street wave to me through my window, and the sunshine blinks in through the drawn shades (yes, drawn. We must keep it warm in here). Flannel sheets are keeping my toes safe from the cold that wafts around in our bedroom, and the invitation from my little sister is hilarious. "Let's Go Shopping!" (: Adorable.

I want to work for Gymboree Play & Learn, a wonderful mainly pre-school and kindergarten program that teaches a number of skills, though there are classes for infants as well! Music, art, crafts, practical school skills, and other such classes are typical of the things that they offer, and I adore that age group. Tomorrow I will be forwarding them my resume, and hopefully I will receive one of the three positions that they are currently offering.

On top of this, I have an opportunity to babysit for a Christian family in Chicago. They sound wonderful, but I am not sure if it will work...an hour one-way commute. :( Hopefully the map is wrong.

Dinner needs to be made, and I need a shower. Stinky me. (:

Au Revoir.

Father's Love.

Listening to a new discovery, The Kaleidoscope, Brighter; I think I like them. Sort of raw, need a little work, but honest.

I'll shiver and pull on my sweater. Still waiting for Nicholas to text me to tell me when to leave for the train. Comfy in the sweater and new purple scarf he's given me. It looks sunny outside, but I know it will bit me in the nose when I walk out my door.

Ad Vivum shows soon...last week's show was a bit of a disaster. One of our skits has a sort of domino-effect-feel to it, starting with one short phrase, another person continuing immediately after, almost overlapping, with a short phrase of their own, over and over again with a long row of about nine or so people. It's supposed to be a good domino effect. Last week it was a bad one, with everyone forgetting and changing their lines, so even if you knew your line, you were screwed anyway, because the person before you didn't give you your cue. Disaster. But still, even, one of our better performances, considering last year's. Sad, I know. (:

Painting has become a lovely activity for me, happening almost every day. I was surprised the other day to think that I only paint when I have some kind of inspiration in my head, and then to think that it happens almost every day, and then humbled and honored to think that God puts those inspirations into my head nearly every day.

Sent out well over ten resumes yesterday. Have thirteen or so left over. Maybe a job will come along? I hope so. I'll keep sending them out daily, I think. Who knows.

Soon to leave, I'm sure, though no text from Nicholas yet, I'm off.

Au Revoir.