I'm so tired of feeling alone.

There are so many battles to fight. I have learned it is not always about instant victory, but even learning to fight in itself wins a battle within my own heart.

But it's fighting alone that's starting to kill me. The longer I go without encouragement the more I want to give up. I thrive on words of affirmation. I love being reminded that I am not alone.

So why was I placed in such a lonely circumstance? Not that I don't have a couple of people who challenge me not to give up... but I feel like compared to the things in my life that tell me to give up their voices are often buried.

I hear You say "My love is over,
its underneath, its inside, its in between
the times you doubt Me, when you can't feel
the times that you've questioned 'is this for real?'
the times you've broken, the times that you mend
the times you hate me and the times that you bend
well My love is over, its underneath
its inside, its in between,
these times you're healing
and when your heart breaks
the times that you feel like you've fallen from grace
the times you're hurting
the times that you heal
the times you go hungry and are tempted to steal
in times of confusion and chaos and pain
I'm there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame
I'm there through your heartache
I'm there in the storm
My love I will keep you by My power alone
I dont care where you've fallen, where you have been
I'll never forsake you
My love never ends, it never ends

i am seriously SO SICK of writer's block.

"My generation's apathy. I'm disgusted with it. I'm disgusted with my own apathy too." - Kurt Cobain

Something inside me that has been dwindling and dying and wasting away for the past year is beginning to stir. Something that has laid dormant far too long is beginning to awaken. Something that has doubted and grasped and questioned and wrestled and wailed and struggled to blacken the faithful light of hope is beginning to be slain. And now something looks around and says is this really all there is? I am so tired of everyone in my life settling. I'm tired of settling. I'm tired of feeling like any attempt I make to burn will be squelched. No one can truly squelch me but myself. What happens when you're dry? You are only the better to burn with passion.

My friend Elsa is so wise. After lending an ear time and time again to my woes and complaints, she had only one statement to make: "so change it."

It's not that easy to change everything else. But I can change me.

I feel complacency in the air around me. It presses in from every corner and squeezes the breath from my lungs. I am weary of allowing it, of lying down to sleep in the midst of it. I want to build a bridge of passion, of dreams, of hope, of love and walk on it above the clouds of apathy.

I hate the stereotypical Christian attitude above all. The one that reduces this life to a lot of words, a certain type of music, a message to be preached. I want to be known by my LOVE! And for how long have i sat back and groped in the dark, hoping my love could sustain itself? There are periods for raw survival but now is a time to feed the fire, to stoke it, to thrive in the midst of adversity. It should not be a world where someone like Kurt Cobain can sense a need for passionate pursuit while the church sits on their hands and complains about the worship music. The hardest battle is against that which fights by not fighting for anything at all.

But one thing I know. I have something alive. And it will not be satisfied. Hype and emotion will not satisfy it, nor will the revelations of others. Time for one more brick on the foundation, one more battle scar from the war in my heart, one more dry twig into a fire, and one day, I will be ablaze.

And maybe one day, another and another will be too. And even the sun will look like darkness in comparison.

Happening

I can’t believe this is

happening

like the fairy tale of

my life finally

happening

Like you peeled away

the layers

and opened up the pages

and finally someone liked

what they

saw in there

And I was afraid

so afraid

to let you in

but you pushed

just a little

so I let you win

and I don’t think

I’ll regret it

no matter what’s ahead

’cause I’m healed and

transformed

by everything you’ve said

You can’t seem

to contain it

and that undoes

my resistance

and I begin to trust

you and your gentle insistence

and I gave you

everything dead and dry inside

with a bitter smile

waiting for you to

give up trying

And you look in my eyes

hypnotized

and you fan a spark

and I’m alight

and I’m dreaming again

and I’m terrified

and I’m breathing you in

as our stories collide

and I melt on your chest

putty in your hands

but you don’t take advantage

and I don’t understand

This is impossible

this is surreal

I’m so overwhelmed

I don’t know what to feel

consume

believe

love

desire

accept

embrace

inspire

me

you

are becoming

consistency

hope

addictive

hope

my best friend

hope

so hold me

tight

hold me…

I can’t believe this is happening

birds

her wings are spread, she's stuck here on the ground. she's not heavy, she's my world, i'll carry her around

lately i have just fallen in love with birds...

i love the freedom they represent. the fact that they can just go whenever, wherever

i'm like a bird, i only fly away, i don't know where my soul is, i don't know where my home is

and then there's the irony of a cage.



and that part is kind of sad. that a creature with total freedom and so much beauty would be caged. that its wings would be clipped. that it would be stuck within one square foot of living space when it has all the blue skies of our world to explore.

may 15, 2008 i wrote "i am not a child with a skinned knee. I am not even a teenager with a broken heart. I’ve moved to a new level. I’m a broken spirit, a broken smile; I’m a bird with broken wings – unsure of my purpose and only able to see from the perspective of one grounded. My heart is so desperate for something it can’t have that it gives up what it already possesses." - and o how little has changed in ways. but in so many ways, so much has changed.

because the thing a bird caged and the thing a bird in the air have in common at ALL times is this - no one can steal their song away from them, even if they try. the only one who can stop their singing is themselves.

though my song be taken from me, yet will i sing

every season shall fade away, either in bursts of hopeful song, or in suffering silence. i shall not lose my voice.

"Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her; still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings."

i want to thank everyone for all of your encouragement. you help remind me that inside me lies a song of victory and freedom, of hope and of life. no cage, self imposed or otherwise, can keep this voice contained.

i know this wasnt very eloquent. just a mess, like my thoughts.

My whole life I have always thought I was made to help people. When I help people, I feel like it's what I was born to do.

Somewhere along this week... I realized no one I've ever tried to help has really changed. They all just get worse and worse. And I am almost out of hope.

Strength

"It was a beautiful letdown when you found me here... yeah for once in a rare blue moon, I see everything clear. I'll be a beautiful letdown, that's what I'll forever be. And though it may cost my soul I'll sing for free."

Often these days a thought comes into my head. It comes randomly, like when I am washing my hair in the shower, or at night when I switch the light off and climb between the sheets alone... is there any great love story that isn't colored with tragedy?

I would submit that there is not. There is always a struggle. There is always a fight. Even our Great Romance is colored by death; having to enter into it in order to overcome it.

And then I think about this; why is it always so much easier for me to remember the bad stuff? I hold onto every hurtful thing someone says to me and paint it into the picture I have of myself in my mind. I heard some painful words from people this past week. The kind that cut deep into my heart more because they reflect what I also see when I look in the mirror than because they "offend" me. And when that happens, I try so hard to remember the good things people have looked in my eyes or taken time to write down over the years that they see in me... but even if I recall them, I find them difficult to reconcile.

A few days ago, with that in the back of my mind, I was digging through my mom's filing cabinets. She has several folders labeled with my name. And I was looking, quite unsuccessfully I might add, through all of them trying to find my Social Security card. And instead I found a note from my grandma.

... Remember the prayers that were said for you. Believe me when I say they stay with you your whole life. And when you get older and you are tempted to abandon the things you were raised to believe, remember it takes a stronger person to say no. It is weak to say yes.

It felt pretty epic, digging through a bunch of documents, finding a random old note from my grandma and breaking into hysterical tears there alone on the floor of an empty house. But for the millionth time, something broke in me and I found the strength to fight once again, if only for a while longer.

I have been exhausted and disappointed by the notion that the wretched mess I am is going to be a once and for all fix. I am sick of feeling like a a failure simply because I am an emotional roller coaster. I am tired of losing battles merely because I am overwhelmed by the time and strength it will take to win them.

I don't know much... I don't know if the good things people have said are more true than the bad things. I don't know how much longer I will be confused and frustrated and living off of just enough strength to make it through a day at a time. I don't know how long it will take for me to move forward and stay forward.

But I do know this. I am a strong person. I will not succumb to the temptation to give up, no matter how much easier it would be. I will say no. Though I may be unsure of any other qualities that may or may not define me, this I am sure of.

So what if I'm a letdown? I'm loved, and that makes me strong. And strength makes me beautiful.

<3