why

why do those three letters hold so much weight. sometimes i wish we had more answers to our questions. but then again...if we knew the answers, would it make it better or worse?
how can we trust if we have all the answers.
today my prayers are with the heartbroken. may you trust in the maker of your heart. the one who knows your past, present, and future. he loves you. [and his love doesn't always make sense]

today's treasures

some thoughts of the moment...
~love the movie Julie and Julia. I just love the era that Julia Child lived in especially in Paris! I love Julie's style and she kinda reminds me of myself in a way. I love that they both have a passion to do something, and they just go for it and do it. Oh, and i would take Julie's super cute apartment any day.
~loving the tea mistos mmm
~just finished a project today that has been about a 3-month ordeal. I got in a little over my head and wouldn't have been able to finish it without my sister. It was quite a humbling, frustrating task and i am oh-so-glad that it's over.
~i am IN LOVE with my church. i haven't always been. getting into my teen years, my friends started dropping out of church or moving away and i was left alone. We have a lot of seniors and a few families in our church and i felt very out of place. Since spending this year at home i have realized how much of a family we are. putting my own desires [for friends] aside and helping out with the youth group i have almost forgot my loneliness. i have seen how excited the old people are to see the youth grow and be active in our church. i have seen parents come along side me and support me in whatever crazy ideas i have planned for their kids. i am amazed at how welcoming our church is to anyone who comes walking through the door; and also how nobody is seen as a "project" to fix but as a valuable, contributing member of our family no matter where they are in life. i have been blessed to grow up in this church and it will be a bittersweet goodbye in a couple months.
~in a couple months!! more like...55 days or something. so crazy. i will be leaving the beautiful, safe country of Canada into the unknown. no not like a jungle or anything, rather the well-traveled-but-unknown-to-me destination of Southern Europe. While i am excited...there are so many things i'm leaving behind. my wonderful family including my ever-changing, growing, adorable nephew [tear], my great job and the lovely people i work with, my AMAZING youth group who i will miss SO much. heck i might even miss my dog.
~God provides!! He has proved himself more than faithful this past week to my family, even providing my brother with the car he needs to move out in a month to do a course in nanaimo...a car which i will probably be using when i get back. keep it in one piece brotha!
~that's about all for tonight. now if only my room would clean itself...

and how beautiful it is

life is a mosaic. it is a puzzle. it is a song. life is a masterpiece.
life is a ......journey [oh so cliche...barf]. however you want to put it...life is a beautiful mess. and i wouldn't want to have it any other way. a masterpiece is never written or painted in a day. a masterpiece involves hundreds of crunched up papers, thousands of hours of hand-callousing jam sessions in someone's garage.

it's interesting living in a valley. because even in the depths of the valley, you can see the rivers flowing, the trees growing, life flourishing. you can look up and see the tip of the snow-covered mountains, you can look up and see the sun burning bright in the december sky. and then you can look around you and see people hurting, hearts broken, lives destroyed, girls lost, boys confused, families separated. i just wish i could take the hand of every hurting person, and point them in the Direction that will satisfy, that will answer, that will comfort, that will Love, that will fill the void. every person has their story. and every person waits for their story to turn into something beautiful.
i think i've written a note on this before but i feel like i've been thinking, drinking, breathing hope lately. Hope. hope.
–noun
1. the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best
-verb
2. to believe, desire, or trust

[ More Than Conquerors ] And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. | romans 8:28

just a bunch of silliness really

maybe one day these words will find a song. for now they are just some words.

riveted to this place is not
where i am to be but out there
anywhere please send
me i will go; just tell me I just want to feel free
or even dare to feel


gasp for breath above the tide
it will not pull you down. the sun
still shines baby can't you see the
starfish between my toes laugh
and seaweed twirls through my hair.
this is not your greatest enemy but a
friendship in conflict. little girl
stand up and laugh into the wind for
you are not one to be defeated.
the voice of defeat does not find roots in your song.


silly boy just hold her hand and take her
by the sea. there you will find the crashing waves
will drown out the sound of your pounding heart.
so chill little boy and smile for she holds you dear.

starsucks

This past weekend i found myself rushing to catch a ferry across the Georgia Strait to hang out with some great people for a day. Being 7:30 in the morning, i thought i would grab a cup of something hot to wake me up. So...i walked over to the Starbucks in the ferry terminal, stepped in line, and ordered my tall vanilla americano misto. Not that i'm a coffee snob or anything, i just like options, and if there's options, i will take them. especially if i'm paying 3.75 for it. However, as we were being herded into the ferry like a bunch of cattle i noticed something disturbing...i glanced quickly around to see if i could find anyone NOT holding a Starbucks cup. With the dozens of people surrounding me, i could only find a couple. i don't know why this disturbed me so much. I wished that i had brought my own travel mug, letting the world know that i value saving the environment. Or i wished i had purchased coffee on my way there from a small lesser-known coffee company letting everyone know that i know a little secret place that makes the best coffee for half the price of Starsucks. I felt like a conformist. like one of them...one of everybody. and it bothered me. Geez danielle it's just a cup of coffee! but i couldn't handle it, i threw it in the first garbage can i saw. It was a crappy vanilla americano misto anyways. I don't think i'm going to completely boycott starbucks because in that way i'll label myself as a person who boycotts starbucks and this will raise questions from people and thus draw further attention to myself. By not wanting to be a conformist, it doesn't mean i want to stand out. i just want to be me. I want to be like Donald Miller and not feel the need to buy something at every pit stop just to feel different about myself. I don't want to hold a starbucks cup like it's part of my identity. Do you feel less important if you're holding a cup from 7-11? Do they actually have the best coffee or is that just what we tell ourselves so we can fit into this coffee culture who demands their Quad Grande 3-pump Mocha 3-pump Vanilla Light Mocha Drizzle Light Whip Cafe Mocha...oh and make that extra hot please. I feel sorry for starbucks baristas. They are required to be the makers of perfection everytime. they must perfect every customers wants and desires in a single cup in 30 seconds or they will be confronted with angry, caffeine-addicted customers who will demand a free drink ticket to add to the plenty they have in their pockets.
Ok now i just want a cup of coffee. I crave Bean Scene coffee from Kelowna. it's the best. But then again, that's a whole other culture isn't it? the hippies who KNOW about the hole in the wall coffee shops who don't feel the need to hold a starbucks cup to feel important. but...i guess this world is about culture and choosing which we want to follow. You can't really avoid it. I choose the hippie one. i love hippies.

[waiting]

i feel like i'm waiting for something to happen. and there's this faint, strange, but definite excitement about what's to come. what's up? i don't know. maybe i'm excited for my internship, for living in europe for a few months, for finishing school, for taking some art classes, or maybe for something more immediate. for taking the youth group to a youth conference in november, for introducing a friend to the wonderful world of painting...i'm at a loss. i don't know what this feeling is. well whatever it is has led me to create a new blog. it's my travel blog. very premature i know, but i just wanted to be prepared. so one day, when i set foot on the open road i have a blog ready, waiting, to be used to scribble down my thoughts, the deets on where i am and how i'm doing. it will be interesting one day.

[www.journeywithdanielle.blogspot.com]

change it.

time goes by fast, time goes by slow, time goes by. life happens. it happens whether we enjoy it or we don't. i guess the past few months haven't been so enjoyable for me. i have a job and as a job it's great. i now run a youth ministry, and i love this ministry. i have a family which is awesome and i love being able to live near them and help them with their various ventures [which have recently included pulling the entire contents out of our pantry to make room for gazillions of jars of the world's best salsa]. so you may be thinking "well that sounds great, you shouldn't have anything to complain about". and that is very valid. i shouldn't. but i do. and i don't admire that aspect of myself, complaining is never attractive. of course lately it hasn't been complaining it's been more of exhausted, frustrated, ranting, venting sessions that my poor dear of a mother has to listen to and slowly speak simple words to help lower my blood pressure. ok i'm exaggerating, but ya i have been so exhausted lately. and i guess that's the problem. when you mix all these great things together it starts to form something overwhelming. when i get like this i know the solution. i know all the answers. i know that i need to chill out, make time for myself, say no to people, and stop feeling bad about it. but i learned something about myself recently. i am a people pleaser. i have labeled myself with that term and i'm working to get rid of it because i am constantly disappointed in myself when i don't meet up to other people's expectations of me. when i know i have failed someone, when i have let someone down, when someone is disappointed in me, it's like the milk has drained out of my cornflakes through a hole in the bowl and i'm left with the gloriously soggy remains. i hate that feeling. it's probably my second worst. yes i rate them.

so, with this feeling in mind i collapsed on the couch one evening and said out loud "i don't like my life right now!" for one being so opposed to drama all the time...go me. without skipping a beat my wise mother says "change it".
so i did. well, at least i'm trying. what has changed? basically just my attitude, my outlook on life, and realizing that i need to narrow down my priorities and focus on those. i can't take on people's expectations...those i need to get rid of. i need to know that i can do the unexpected when fully relying on the Maker of Time. i need to take every day as it comes. this is just part of the cycle for me. tomorrow i very well could be ranting and raving about how i don't have enough hours in the day and i just want to quit everything and move to malta (seriously have considered it). but for now, for tonight anyways, i'm going to trust. as my mom likes to say [wow mom, three shout-outs today, lucky lady!] it's not what you got, it's who you know. Ya, that's from Maid in Manhattan, she likes to pull out quotes from movies and make them spiritual, she's cool like that. peacing out...