learning to give thanks

i am thankful to live with my parents, it is financially more than affordable and i always have company when i need it and somewhere to go when i need a big hug!

i am thankful for my part-time job that challenges me everyday to be stronger, confident, and a risk taker. it also allows me time to do my own thing. every weekend is at least a 4-day weekend. that's pretty sweet.

i am thankful for my parents generosity in allowing me to borrow their cars when i need to go somewhere. it's difficult to share a vehicle, but i'm grateful they are willing to do this with me.

i am thankful for my singleness. God has given me time to figure some things out and walk a journey that would be difficult to walk in a relationship. i have the space i need to find healing and wholeness, and i'm sure my future husband will also give thanks for this. my singleness has also allowed me the freedom to explore the world and my passions without the worry of not meeting anothers expectations of my time. i will continue to take advantage of this freedom and time until God allows me to share my life with another (who hopefully embraces a passion of serving and exploring right beside me)

i am thankful for arizona and it's beautiful fall/winter weather. i am thankful for the fresh air and warm sun that bronzes my skin. i am thankful that i don't have to deal with seasonal affective disorder in arizona. :)

i am thankful for the process of making new friends. what an opportunity to stretch myself and be challenged to embrace new and wonderful people.

i am thankful for my body and my back. without health problems i may never be aware of the need for good health habits. i embrace ease much too readily to be a healthy person without health issues. God knows me well.

i am thankful for the obstacles i have faced in these recent years. again, without struggles i would be bored and would most likely live a mediocre life. i'm guessing its a requirement of passion to face resistance. how would i know good if i didn't know evil.

see what i've done here...the old switch and flip...

i am thankful for life, the opportunity to see beauty and truth in this world. i am thankful for love and family. i am thankful for blue skies and pink flowers, and those hummingbirds that leave me in awe. i am thankful for my savior who calls me by a new name, who has drawn me out into the dessert and spoken promises of so much more.

every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows - james 1:17

sky rockets in flight, marshmallow delight...

isn't that how the song goes? i can hear it in my head and it sounds right, just like i said.

i wanted to update the world on how awesome i am. i made marshmallows from scratch yesterday, and they're good. now i'll experiment with flavors and such. i'm not really a marshmallow kind of girl so making them was due to the incredible power of persuasion. i had a homemade marshmallow at my friends wedding last friday because it just looked like i needed to put it in my coffee, and it was phenomenal. i haven't really been able to stop thinking about them since, sooo......

sensitive material

in the vein of angst, i have something more to say.....

dear men who are homosexual and are part of my world: you know who you are, and i probably don't. please do not use me as a shield of sorts to protect you from the judgement of society or the church by engaging me in a romantic relationship. i understand that you are not accepted in the church, that you have faced harsh criticism and rejection, judgement and persecution. i understand that there is fear. but this is no excuse for using the lives of another to comfort your own. i hope to never find again that i have been the "stand-in", the one that throws everyone off from what they originally expected. lets not use one another. and please, as truth is expected from each of us, let us have the compassion and love towards one another to speak truth and accept the truth spoken of others. i am just as guilty in other respects, but....i've developed a complex, and it would be a major blow to have to go through this again.

we don't give others the opportunity to truly love us when we live a lie in fear of who we truly are.

tears

i cried at work today, as my finance guy told me that we didn't have the budget to make it to may. i cried. i did my best to blink them all back before they started streaming down my face. i knew it would be uncomfortable, boys always get uncomfortable when women cry, and i didn't want to be that girl. but i was. i think it's the build up of everything. some of my staff are upset with me, they don't like having a boss. heck, i don't like having a boss either, so i understand how it feels to have someone that says, you need to report to me, but goodness, i'm not a bad person, and i'm not being mean...why don't you just like me already!

its difficult for me to see the big picture, to let things go. what i like to do is focus on the smallest painful thing and bury it into the deepest part of my soul where it festers and wounds, deeper and deeper.

control, things are still out of my control. my heart yearns to travel and get out of this corporate mess, but then i'm in it, and it has engaged my passions, and i really want a car and a place to call home already. so i fight the news that my job may end before it's truly even begun....but then i wonder, maybe that's my open door into those other passions of travel and culture and adventure. i don't know the future, i don't know His plans...but i feel confused, torn. so do i buy a car? or maybe i will just continue to save and pay off the last of my student loan. i want to know how to plan for the future, but there are never any guarantees are there.

one day at a time, that's what my brother tells me.

i'm fighting to get all the angst out of my heart
...stay tuned...

shhhhhhhh....

your silence and avoidance speak volumes to my heart
i've met you before, many times actually...
the pursuer of ease
it's funny how attractive you are to me
and then how revolting
passion, words, truth
those are the things that hold beauty in my heart
can someone please show me a man who loves words
a man with the character to work for, fight on behalf of...truth
ease on the surface is appealing, but once you bite down into it
you find it is empty and tasteless.
who values those things that come without effort?
it is the effort of obtaining a thing that gives it a high value
well, the value of this bird is high indeed
and there will be effort, and there must be words
words unprompted, words of truth, words of strength
and these, unyielding

ideals

today marks the day that i plan to begin intentionally living up to my ideals. this means in every aspect. food, drink, art, nature, my body, spirit and soul, my spending, my life.

something has been spoken a couple times recently that encourages me in this pursuit.

our imperfections are what make us uniquely lovable.

i like that a lot. i've spent many years in my life in the attempt to reform myself, to become better, adjusting my behaviors and attitudes, my actions and beliefs. where there is value to this there is also a sense that i might need to constantly be changing myself to fit into a mold of someone else's choosing. i started thinking that much of my dissatisfaction with myself and my imperfections came with the truth that i knew what i was, and what i wanted to do, but often took the easier, safer road rather than the tough road in life. this is not characteristically fitting for me. i'm a risk taker, and i have challenged many fears in my life. but there are those lingering ones, the ones inside that i have taken the road of convenience. food, relationships with men, free time, even money. all these areas could use some improvement. and i don't mean that i'm choosing some kind of restriction or limitation for myself, it's choosing a different kind, to choose freedom for myself. a freedom from the bondage of the world into bond-servant-ship of Christ.

i'm excited about this, excited to embark on a new voyage of discovery in understanding who God truly made me to be, and how i can understand this abundance that he promised me.

so many things in this world have become easy and attractive, but they are destroying us. why would we give our lives away so freely to the opinions and selfish ambitions of this present world? i believe there is so much more for us, but we'll have to give up the easy road of convenience in order to experience it. i believe that is when, that is where we'll begin to see this abundance Christ speaks of. and i want that. challenge me, i would challenge you to challenge me. because i need people to see something more for me than what i can see for myself sometimes!