Monday, December 28, 2009

A Cry Of Thanksgiving


Our Father in heaven is so wonderful. Why do I let myself get scared or worried? How do I fall into doubt, time and time again? He is the Great Provider. He always pulls me through. He delivers.
I cannot express my degree of thankfulness in this moment. No word or phrase could sum it up. Except my saying that no word or phrase could sum it up...
I reach such a low, and become a basket case and a train wreck. Constantly threading my fingers through my hair and stare off into the void with a panicked expression and a heart heavy with stress and worry. Will He hear my desperate prayer, my desperate cry for deliverance? He always does. He reaches down from heaven and wraps his arms around me. Embracing my lack of faith and renews it. Filling my body and soul with peace, lifting my heavy heart with His light.
My God and Father delivers me. He delivers me, his wayward child. His disobedient, rebellious, forgetfull, weak child. For this I am more thankful than I ever knew I could be. And yet, this thankfulness continues to grow, reaching immeasurable heights.

"1 Shout out praises to he Lord, all the earth!
2 Worship the Lord with joy! Enter his presence
with joyful singing.
3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God! He made us
and we belong to Him; we are His pasture.
4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His
courts with praise! Give Him thanks, praise
His name!
5 For the Lord is good. His loyal love endures,
and He is faithful through all the generations.:

Psalm 100

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Day After Christmas

the silence. The inevitable silence of boarding this train carrying me to the border. Well, close enough to the border. Everything happens so quickly when you travel by some transportation company… I’m the sort of person to draw out goodbyes for as long as I can. Though I have found that this is not necessarily easier or more painless. In the end, the goodbye is just as painful and just as hard. Perhaps, even more so. I leave behind me waving hands and smiling faces. Full of love and sadness, mirroring my own waving hands and smiling face. A sinking feeling hits as I see their backs turn from me, leaving, to get in their cars. They’ll go home to other loved ones, and the sadness will melt away. They might remember the sadness, but it wont feel nearly as bad while they are surrounded with warm faces. I envy them that. I’ll sit here, on this train, amid strangers. Strangers who all have their own destinations, who sit in their own little isles reading things like,” Women’s Health Magazine” with a headline exclaiming,” Flat Sexy Abs!” Or the brothers directly across from me, sound asleep.
I am longing for the cold sensation of ocean water rolling over and under me as I share in its majestic marvels. To glide along a glassy wave, to fall into the cold, salty water and feel it’s bubbles floating up and around my body as I swim toward the surface. I’d even embrace a brain freeze from a wave hitting me face on.
The green hills, rolling and smooth, are slipping away now and the ocean is in view; Surf Beach. No turning back now. That chance was gone at exactly 7:21 a.m. This train is disgustingly always exactly on time. It came at 7:21 a.m. and by 7:22 a.m. I was sitting in a seat, waving and holding back a frown while my ticket was being punched.
Ugh it only makes it worse watching the waves rise and fall…. Noting at all the waves that are ride-able and imagining the feeling, the rush I would get when I first stand up and drop in. I just saw, literally, an amazing barrel. It was a little small to really fit inside… But it looked amazing. I always see them, but have never experienced riding one. Of being inside, with a salt water wall at my shoulder... The water is such an amazing color right now. A sort of tealish grey with brighter teal highlights. I swear that my phone is against me right now.

Haha. Before I boarded the train, I noticed that Dean had this freakishly long eyebrow hair sticking straight out of his eyebrow. I think that it was possibly the longest eyebrow hair that I have ever seen. I notified him as soon as it caught my eye. He told me straight away they he had a no tolerance policy regarding long eyebrow hairs and to pull it. I wasn’t ready to pull it. But I tried anyways. I failed. The end result was Dean thinking that I got the hair, when all I really did was give him watery eyes. I had to tell him the truth. He pulled it successfully. Then asked what was wrong with me that I couldn’t pull the hair myself. And why it hurt when I tried and not when he did. Adam and I just stood there laughing until our abs burned and our cheeks hurt.
I think that the people standing there will always remember that moment. They just stood there staring. They heard the whole conversation, eyebrow incident and all. The look on their faces only made me laugh harder. One day they will say,” hey remember that one time when we got on a train going out of Guadelupe? And there were those people, and the eyebrow…?? “ ( as most “remembers” are vague. ) Despite the vagueness, the other will exclaim,” Oh ya! That was so gross.” HAhahaha I truly hope so. Perhaps this is a silly thing to say… But in light of my leaving, it makes me laugh, and therefor less melancholy.

I’ve started to learn “The Meadow” song from New Moon. It is so pretty. I wish that I could be playing it right now. Feeling the smooth keys fall under my fingers. To feel my fingers slide over them as I transition from on octive to another. With school, I’ve had such a limited amount of time to do those sort of things.

I just saw two shipwrecked sail boats in the same little cove. I wonder what happened. Maybe I should write a story about what I think happened. That might make for an interesting short story.

AHHH!!!! I forgot my Dad and Lori’s Christmas gift!!!!! In that moment when I stood in my room thinking to myself,” Did I forget anything..???” Why, oh, WHY did my mind say,” No, I think you are good,”!?!?!?!! UGH☹ I wonder if I could get my parents to send it for me…?? Oh man, I am so sad. I wanna just run to the conductor and yell,” Stop! Turn around! I forgot something really important!” And in this daydream of a desire, he would actually turn around for me. Too bad that this is a daydream of a desire☹ I just realized, I couldn't have brought it with me anyways. It wasn't dry yet! Oh yay! Oh the panic...

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Jesus is our Peace.

I had something meaningful to blog about the other day, but somewhere in the holiday rush I forgot to post and lost it. Whether or not it will be found again, will remain a mystery... Until, should I remember, I post it...Whatever it was.

(some gifts for this Christmas. Please excuse my hands... they have a tendency to get really dry and ugly in the winter:/ )


I can't believe that Christmas is just in four short days... So crazy... Well five, if you actually count Christmas morning. I feel ill prepared and lost in the flurry of Christmas activity. I can't believe that I was able to finish shopping for three people in an hour the other day... Including, going into the mall... No matter how lame a mall is (cough*, like ours, cough cough**), they always seem to fill with people, all sharing the same mission; Christmas shopping... I always try to make as many of my gifts as possible. I have had so much fun with that this year! Including a piece of art done in pastels:) I love the feeling of pastel stain fingers... Or charcoal stained fingers. I love the feeling it gives me. A sort of satisfying excitement of accomplishment.

I seemed to have pulled a muscle or strained a tendon in my right shoulder. It is driving me insane. Even the smallest of movements seems to send a little pain through my upper arm. How I did this exactly, I have no idea. Ugh, it is so nagging!

I heard something in church today that really stuck with me. I loved the whole sermon! Our pastor is really wonderful. But this phrase really stuck to my heart," Jesus is our peace." There is something deep and profound about that short phrase. Something that just strums the right chord in your heart, mind, and soul: Gratitude, joy, happiness, love, thankfulness, reverence, honor... Our Lord is so great and compassionate to us, His disobedient children. He sent His son into this world to live among and gather up his straying children... The great shepherd. Sent him, to suffer and die for our sins. Christ took the full burden of our Heavenly Father's wrath, to save us. Christ suffered, but so did the Father. He sent his unblemished lamb into the world, to suffer his hand to save people who were drowning in sin... Living it... Our Lord is so compassionate and forgiving, to give us a second chance at life.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

His strenghth

1 Give thanks to the LORD! Call on his name! Make known his accomplishments among the nations!
2 Sing to him! Make music to him! Tell about all his miraculous deeds!
3 Boast about his holy name! Let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice!
4 Seek the LORD and the strength he gives! Seek his presence continually!
Psalms 106:1-4