so, what are you waiting for

these were the words that looked up to me this morning from my bedroom floor. i had just been asking myself the question when i looked down, and there it was written on the front of a birthday card.
i realize that i have been waiting for, and putting my hope in my own selfish desires. but everything else pales in comparison to the hope i have in Christ. i have been waiting on the things God has for me, or rather what i think God has for me, instead of waiting upon WHO HE IS. When i wait upon his faithfulness, i have a feeling that my anxiousness will begin to go away. i don't need to keep trying to be patient and striving to just deal with it because you know, there's this thing called peace. And when we wait in the peace of the presence of God, we don't need to wait for anything at all. two things that i continually seek are compassion and contentment. contentment is rooted in this peace, knowing that whatever comes my way...or doesn't...won't change who I am in Christ.
i lay it all aside, just to be in the presence of the maker of my heart.

in his arms

i fall hard. i bleed deep. but i also laugh without inhibition. my joy is real and rooted in a firm foundation. i want to live on purpose. i always ran away from mediocrity. that is a good thing, except it's a bad thing when it gets mixed with my stupid pride.
today my heart was broke open for the hurting children of this world. i have been so swallowed up in my pride i had forgotten my purpose here on this earth. caught up in so many other things. even though i know i am in the right place, i really have been somewhere else. if everything were to be stripped away from me, where would i look to for my identity? i am willing to give everything up, but i dont want to wait for that to happen for me to realize Who gives me breath, what i am living for. My God is a LOVE greater than life, a love that defeats death. i am honored to be able to share this love with others, and i wont let anything stop me.
Lord, keep those kids warm tonight. May those who are hurting know that you are the hope they have been searching for.

jacqueline

i have a pretty vivid memory. i seem to be forgetful in the day to day things but my childhood memories will always be with me. I only wish i had a picture to share of my Great Aunt Jacquie. Instead i will try to paint a picture with my words, to share with you the wonderfulness that she is.
some of my first memories of her are with my Uncle Harvey (who has since left to be with Jesus). I don't remember a lot about him, only that he was very quiet, tall, and distinguished; a perfect match for my eccentric and talkative Aunt. Aunt Jacquie's home is situated on over ten lovely acres on vancouver island. one turn off the highway and you find yourself winding through worn pavement walled in by trees. it's almost like stepping back in time as you drive through her well-kept gardens. hired church boys may be working in the yard, pulling weeds or cleaning the ponds. her two german shepherds, max and kaitlin, will meet you, quickly followed by Aunt Jacquie. She will be wearing a floor length skirt, a blouse, and her never-cut auburn hair piled high in a bun on top of her head. As she smiles and welcomes us in her home, she will never cease to talk until the moment we leave. she will have hired girls from her church to help her out in the kitchen. Dinner with Aunt Jacquie is never just dinner. It will start with tea in the parlour with her silver tea set and best china. Followed by a light bowl of soup. Then we are all moved into the dining room for a formal dinner. my brother might say something like "well I'M stuffed!" and Aunt Jacquie will say "you mean, 'i have had sufficient'".
After dessert us kids would run off to play by the river, or to the apple orchard. and Aunt Jacquie would say

"just steer clear of the mesh bags hanging off the trees kids. i put some of max's hair in my pantyhose and dipped it in my pee to keep the deer away!"

it kept us away too.
i cannot even begin to describe Aunt Jacquie's house. The parlour is facing the front yard with huge windows curved along the entire wall. all of the furniture is antique and you feel as though you shouldn't touch anything. the kitchen is just adorable with the oven built into the brick walls, and lots of tiled counter space. it has a door that leads out to the back woodpile... the main bathroom has a bed in it! i can't even explain...but it works. across the living room and down a few stairs is the old indoor pool that has been remade into extra bedrooms. one whole wall is solid windows which look into the backyard. i always wished i could have seen it when it was a pool.
i have many memories of my Great Aunt Jacquie. when i was a little girl i was a bit frightened by her, by her bubbly personality and old-fashioned ways. but now all i remember is how beautiful she has always been. and that i hope to see her again soon. to have tea, and appreciate all the lovely things about her i never had a chance to when i was younger.

for my dad.

i had been waiting to get a new car for a while. well...new to me. we finally found one. my brother and i were going to share it. i sucked him into naming our little beauty clementine. he wasn't too thrilled about that but i didn't care. the only trouble was, she was a standard and i still needed to learn.
my dad had taught us all to drive. once i practiced driving with my mom and i think i gave her a heart attack when she screamed to brake and i didn't do anything because i forgot which pedal was which and i figured if i made the wrong choice it would make it twice as worse. so dad was the driving instructor.
as i got behind the wheel again to learn standard i just remembered wishing it was over already. wishing i just already knew and didn't have to learn. My dad took me along all the back roads where there were no cars and for the first little while i was doing ok. things were looking up and i thought that maybe i could do this in a few hours. Then i came to a stop sign on a hill. I think it took me 10 tries to actually pull out of that stop sign. 10 tries, about 20 minutes, a couple cars passing me, and a few tears. After driving a little further i just was not getting it and i pulled over, defeated. my dad didn't say anything but just waited for me to finish crying. I was embarrassed that i was so upset but i felt that i would never learn and i would just have to accept it. I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached for the door handle. my dad asked what i was doing. I said i can't do it and he's going to have to drive home. he gently told me that he knows that i can do it, and it's me that is going to have to take us home. i wanted to give up so bad. i was so stressed out, and just wanted to be home and not think about it. But he didn't let me give up.

I don't know if he realized how much that has impacted my life. How much my dad teaches me about my heavenly father. That neither of them give up on me, or want me to give up on myself. Both are more patient with me than i deserve. Both show me how to work hard and persevere. And that when i fall, all they want to do is pick me up in their arms and hold me.

be honest. be kind.

it has hit me today just how drastically our culture has changed even over the past year. As the media is sitting in the drivers seat of our culture, that's where i look to first. I've been really aware of advertising lately. Which commercials do i like? why? one that catches my eye is this one by maybelline. I like it for many reasons, but did you catch the wording? there was one mention of "flawless", but other than that they completely went against the usual "get perfect looking skin" to showing your skin the way it was created to be. "fit me" instead of "fit the product". It even starts with "don't judge me, don't change me". The media knows that people have caught on to their secret of using perfection-driven advertising to create a beauty ideal that doesn't exist. Dove was one of the front-runners by taking a risk and shifting the world of beauty back to it's original state. From their first viral video 'evolution' to their controversial photo shoot, they foreshadowed this shift in the western culture of women. There has been an explosion of advertising with curvier, more natural women. The beauty ideal has become more honest.

People are tired of manipulation and deceptiveness. Give us the truth people! I've even noticed it in food advertising! And just the other day i saw on a cereal box: healthy, delicious, honest. How can a cereal be honest? This is the advertising industry jumping on the trend that people want authenticity. Sure, they're just doing what they can to make money. But hey...it's a good trend to be running on right now.
So many things about our culture has changed drastically. Has the church been left behind? Have we been so concerned with attracting people and drawing them in that we've lost our authenticity? people aren't looking for a show anymore. our culture is over-entertained. we all are just looking for a little honesty. and a lot more kindness. food for thought.

give someone a hug today

adventure awaits

the home stretch of five years and where oh where am i.
i have become collected while scattered. and let me explain.
i wear my heart on my sleeve. what you see is what you get. and what you get i give. whatever i do in life, i never want to miss out on anything. so that wherever i go, i breathe it in. whoever i meet, i try to love unconditionally. in this way, i have been scattered. pieces of me have been left behind with places, with people. home has become a fluid concept. my friendships have widened and deepened. when i am in any given place, with any given person, i am there. however there are still those pieces that are a part of me and are somewhere else. i guess this is the bittersweet symphony of reckless abandon.
quite a few times this has torn me apart. i have felt lost, alone, confused. those pieces of my memories, my present, and my future dreams seemed to collide and i could no longer organize them.

i have written before about my beautiful mess of a life. that i cannot change, and dont really want to. that's where i become collected. i am whole. because these scattered pieces are a part of the whole, beautiful, mess that i am. i guess if you wanted to catch a glimpse of my life and how i live it, you could watch me create something. i may start with paint. or paper. or a huge piece of cardboard. i never start with a plan, simply a piece of inspiration. i use my hands and strive to create texture in everything. it doesnt have to make sense. it often doesnt.
and who are we to try to make sense of the world? i would rather make a beautiful mess of these collected pieces, and have a damn good time doing it.

cultivate me

in one of my previous posts, i said i am not much of a planner. i lied. i realize that even if it is sub-consciously, i plan and plan and plan. i think part of it is just being a girl. sometimes i don't like to admit that i'm a girl; that sometimes i'm emotional and idealistic. i guess what this comes down to is learning how to deal with life when it doesn't go the way i planned or expected...which happens quite often actually. It's quite remarkable how the Bible contains answers to our petty little problems...it's like...God actually cares about us! crazy hey? And he knows how to care for me, better than i know how to care for myself. Like a good farmer. This is where Isaiah 28 spoke to me this morning. it starts with a warning for those who give in to their humanly desires. is it because God doesn't want them to have fun? not at all. it's because he knows even better than us what the outcome will be, and that we will be doing ourselves a favor if we listen to him.
To me the verse says that if we tune ourselves into God now, it might be a little painful. It may feel like grains of wheat being beaten on the threshing floor. It may feel like punishment, but really, it's our lifeline. It will save us from even greater pain later. A wise farmer knows what he's doing; what he's planting, why he's cultivating, and when he will harvest.
i do not want to fight against such a wise farmer. i don't need to be afraid of him.
cultivate me.

you have no idea...and neither do i

fleeting thoughts of the future...remain in my mind and aren't so fleeting. they settle in and become unwanted house guests. i have no flippen idea what will happen in the future. i am not a five-year-plan-person. i am not a two-year-plan-person. i want to be. i want to be that person and have the security that all my plans will come to fruition. but i mean...i can't even begin to be that person. i have no plans to push forward, because i guess...in my heart of hearts...i only want what God has for my life. and he's not one for keeping me in the loop.

today i became more ok with this. because even though i don't know what will happen, i have today in front of me. i have more than enough to be thankful for. i continue to learn through the things i'm not so thankful for. and i am getting more and more excited rather than scared for what's to come.

i realize i think way too much. and dang i'm weird. hats off to my friends, seriously.
going to pull on my rain boots today. it is raining. although that's irrelevant to whether or not i wear them.

and all the wiser you will be

part one. so here i am, walking through life, all the while trying to learn something new. i know from experience that sometimes learning feels like you're being dragged through a pit of broken glass with an evil flying monkey squirting lemon juice into your eyeballs and laughing with glee. basically...it sucks. BUT i also know from experience that once it's over with you will look back and nod your head through the pain and know that you've become stronger and wiser because of it. sometimes it takes longer than other times. sometimes it's hard to not regret what you've been through, or hard to see what the point of it all was. you feel like you've messed up, and wish you could do it all over again. [hypothetically speaking, right?]
sometimes i wish i was the person i used to be. back when my heart was innocent and whole. i could strive and strive to be that person again, but i would really be cheating myself. i cannot go back, i can only move forward. and why deny myself the reality that this patched up, sewn together, bloody heart is way more beautiful and wiser than it was before. it is a gift in disguise and i do not want to throw it away.

part two. i thought i knew what it meant to love people. i thought i understood the teachings of the most loving man who ever lived. i have not yet arrived. one of my friends told me that we don't just tolerate people, we really love them. and recently my eyes have been opened to this reality. a revelation, i guess you could call it. have you ever learned something that has shifted your worldview so much that you feel like you're a new person? that everything seems to make a little more sense? that you feel inspired to go be a better person? ya me neither. no i'm kidding, that's exactly what happened. love will always be a mystery to me, but yesterday i realized it doesn't need to be complicated. just love people. without borders, boundaries, limits. sometimes it will mean offending some in order to love others. the call is great and the need is evident. love people.