family album heels

shorter posts
later calls
texts

follow up emails
responses
one on ones

schedules
deadlines
phonecalls

a movie
a lunch
a dinner
a visit
a call

a paycheck
and--none.

1 a.m.

folding
folding
sorting
hanging
folding some more

a mess.

ill do my best
to be the best me
a fractured sentence
can be

"it's God's safe harbor..."

"...why play it safe?"

that's what my mind, or my heart
or something in there
keeps asking me

but i cant help but just feel nothing but fear
im just scared.
im scared all around

my heart feels pressured into immobilization
my mind feels like its racing against an invisible opponent
as if collecting gold coins in a timed video game race

im collecting answer after answer

thinking the number of those answers
will be the only thing that saves me

instead of trusting in the inevitable unknown
that comes with putting my faith in God

..and that's just it
somewhere along the line
putting my faith in God
became an unreasonable,
impractical, if not irrational option

trusting where God has placed me
or wants to put me
suddenly becomes
a pool of regret
because something didn't happen
exactly the way
i thought it should
and planned for it to

"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

im scared, God.
im scared of loving.
and im scared of what it might look like to.

i feel like a part of me
has distanced myself from family
for so long--that the idea of being close to
and more fully known by a part of my family (my aunts)
becomes suffocating, instead of comforting

i feel like i've thrived off of
movement, and the desire for change
that only when im in a different place from before
and visibly so
can i be validated
as a productive member of society

..as if there's always
something to prove
and someone
i cant trust
to prove it to

"How refreshing to know You don't need me
How amazing to find that You want me...

'Cause I'll never get by
living on my own
ability"

but that's exactly what i've been trying to do
that's exactly what i'm unable to do
but it's also exactly what i've been deceived into thinking
i alone would have to do.

"When I'm weak,
You make me strong
When I'm lost
You shine Your light on me"

i want to write my own story
and i want to fit You where i think is best into it
i want to decide my own successes
in a way where i can attribute them to myself
as my own successes

it's ironic, but sometimes
i'll have faith
in my own faith

like--if i take this huge leap
this will put my faith
in the best of light
that i want to shine on it
yeah--thats it.
that's where i can fit God
in the midst of my own decision-making
and plans

and i pat myself on the back
for a good job
and then punish myself for any thoughts
of going against my own plans or ideas
and without realizing it
im doing exactly what i shouldnt be doing
which is not leaving any room for God

i pat myself on the back for my own plans
and weaving faith into it
instead of leaving room for God
as someone greater than my faith
and my ability to believe
and that's the minimum that i do
is that i "leave room"
here and there
for God
rather than centering
all that i am
and all of my plans
around Him
and His will
and how i can obey it
rather than how
it can fit
around me
and what i want

...why am i so eager
to stand up for myself
as if no one else--
as if God Himself
isn't already doing so?

"So I'll stand on Your Truth,
and I'll fight with Your Strength
Until You bring the victory,
by the power of Christ in me"

..."the power of Christ in me"

...to be honest
the idea of that--of Him
existing in someone
as i am right now--
someone like me...

isn't yet...
it's not yet something
that i can genuinely say
i believe in--or more like
know HOW to
believe in

im scared all around
im scared, and im weak
and i've lost confidence
a zillion times over
...every time
i've tried to let that confidence
be a light
that shines on, or from me
alone

i don't
i honestly right now
don't..know how
to believe or to recognize
Christ's presence, nonetheless
His power
as something alive
and beating
and a part of me--
inside me
that close to me

..but i want to

Lord...
i really want to.

[this is where the lies spill out,
reminding me im unworthy
reminding me im alone
reminding me i belong
only to myself
because no one else wants me
...when i know
even deeper
that i want to belong
to Him
im just too afraid
to admit
to accept
to live boldly
as if
i already
do.

...in making my decision

..what would that look like?]

i chose you long ago

"have you chosen me yet?"

i think im going crazy
all this time, few days that its been,
ive done nothing but flip back and forth
and when i finally draw closer and closer to a conclusion
i realize that im, in reality,
nowhere near
nowhere at all near
the answer
at all

my understanding is so limited

my heart is so shallow,
and untrustworthy

i dont--
i cant--
..im not confident in myself

and in truth
i hear that song
and i hear God asking me
the more important question
of am i confident
in Him?

He chose me long ago
He loved me since before i knew
what love was, or before i was
alive to experience it

and He's asking me now
telling me it's up to me
and asking me
if i've chosen Him yet

...but i dont know what it means to choose Him
i dont know what it looks like.

will i never be good enough?
i feel like its not even Him im trying to prove myself to
but to others, to...myself

Lord, God...
am i ready to go back to school yet?
am i ready to live this life everyone else
really wants me to--and soon?

if i dont follow
these carefully dotted lines
of the perfectly structured path
called 'ease,' 'efficiency,' 'responsibility'
...will my world fall apart
if held together
by faith--
by the idea of faith?
rather than the solidity
of reality
the concrete foundation
of money. practicality.
and the steady heartbeat
of a ticking clock
thumping echoes
in everyone's ears?


im scared to admit
that i dont really know what it means
to live as if i fully, truly, completely believe
in something to believe in

and i think the ironic part of that
is that what keeps holding me back
is my own obsessive desire
to want to believe
instead
in myself

the self that keeps failing
the self that wont follow through
the self that i know will let me down

i know there's something to believe in
i know there's something greater than myself
bigger, stronger..more loving
than i could ever know or express
love to be

Lord God,
im just having trouble
trusting it--
trusting You

..im so scared
of losing control
of my own failures
or successes

and You place your knowing hands
over my clenched, suddenly toddler-like fists
willing me to let go,
of all of these things
that hurt me

but at the same time
patiently waiting
and ready to hold
my trembling hands
in Yours

the flowers that You gave me

"despair is when the devil tricks
a living person into thinking
their overflowing cup of hope is empty."

...so i was about to write an emo, angsty blog entry
referring to some sort of process of fading dreams
or jaded hope, and fleeting trust--draining even

then when i typed the title of "all the flowers that you gave me"
the history popped up to show me that i had actually written one already

..and i think it may just be
God's way of reminding me
that as drained and tired as i may feel now
and as abandoned or bitter or hurt as i may want to feel now
as i may sulk myself into continuing to feel now

..that God's love for me
is still--still
and always will be,
contrary to my
surviving fears,

relentlessly

overflowing.

i am still
so, very loved.

i know this.
and this should be simple

i think i just needed to be reminded this

that my flowers
are not like the flowers here
that inevitably wilt
no matter how lovely it once blossomed

that my flowers
bloom eternally

His love for me
is perfect
and complete.

...and according to Him
i can--
and i will be, too.
and in a sense--
after the cross...
also, already am.

...and hope does not disappoint

"Just as soon as we turn toward Him with loving confidence, and say, “Thy will be done,” whatever chills or cripples or enslaves our spirits, clogs their powers, or hinders their development, melts away in the sunshine of His sympathy.
… He does not free us from the pain, but from its power to dull the sensibilities;
not from the poverty and care, but from their tendency to narrow and harden;
not from calumny, but from the maddening poison of its sting;
not from disappointment,
but from the hopelessness and bitterness of thought
which it so often engenders."

-William W. Kinsley

i like this quote a lot..< 3

i just got it in an email a friend sent me
and it made me think a lot about where i am

i think itd be easiest just to pray
and ask him...to help us...not fail
itd be easy to pray
and ask to succeed

itd be easy to pray
for things not to hurt
anymore

i like that instead, this quote doesn't try to put our will above His...
it doesn't try to insist it as if we obviously know better--what pain is worth it and what isn't
as if we obviously know better
what our lives should be filled with
or look like, or definitely, definitely
precisely, and specifically be

i like that this quote looks past pain
and into the real heartbreaking thing about it
which is its ability to leave us jaded
and worn...unwilling
to hope
automated to think
its better not to feel

he dares us to be generous
even amidst our own feeling of poverty
and to care
even when everyone else
has decided
its best to be 'too cool' for it

...i had to look up calumny
but apparently it means rumors or slander
malicious and false statements
that defame the object it talks about

we're asked to remember our identity
who we are--praying against the slow poison
that the betrayal of words
or feeling of being unknown
that will otherwise tear us down
starting from the inside out

i like that we're not asked
not to fail
instead we're asked
to remember our strength
and rise above
the otherwise engulfing waves
of disappointment

we're not asked
not to fail
but we're asked
not to let ourselves be defined by them

and not to let the fear
or bitterness over that failure
keep us from hoping
and trying
once again

i like that this quote
doesn't ask
for a life
without fear
but instead reminds us
that even the most crippling of these fears

are nowhere near
as big
as the warmth and presence
of our God

...because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” – Romans 5:1-5