resolve.

when i reflect on my walk with christ, ive seen alot more evidence of his presence in my heart than in my circumstances. i spend alot of time trying to save people and change people and get people to make better choices (by my own obscure standards) for their lives. the thing is, i also pray for these people and ask god to change their circumstances.

i have completely missed the meaning of life. 

there are mountains and valleys and the mountains are amazing and the valleys are supposed to suck. that is the nature of mountains and valleys. in valleys, you cant see beyond what is right in front of you. valleys are hopeless and there is no way out but through. 

when i reflect on my quarter century of life, the moments that have defined me have been equal parts mountain and valley. the mountains have been incredible, but the valleys have shaped the way i see the mountains. on the mountaintop, i see things clearly, i feel exuberant and hopeful and alive and free, there is nothing blocking my view of jesus. these places are often based on the condition of my heart being equal to my circumstances. 

but, oh the valleys! these are the places when my circumstances are often completely out of my control and the only thing i can do is pray for god to change the condition of my heart. and he does! he doesnt often change my circumstances (he can, and he sometimes will) because they are ordained to shape my heart. 

the point is, i have decided that i dont give a damn about circumstances in 2011. last year, i allowed my heart to completely depend on them (ex: we just won a trip on wheel of fortune! life is great!-- or, we just argued for three hours straight! life is horrible!). 

i just want to focus all of my efforts on being the person that God created me to be, and praying (not manipulating) for the people around me to be who He created them to be. 

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.  What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.  I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection.  ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” – Thomas Paine

you know that feeling when you have absolutely no control over anything at all? its kind of freeing. 

figments

i feel really good right now. i mean, i usually feel really happy, but right now i feel really good about life. and not because good things are necessarily happening, quite the opposite actually. its just that bad things dont shake me the way they would have a year ago.
ive been reading about shawn mcdonald. he sings all those catchy worship songs that sound like this "i da wada wada wada waiii need you!" look him up if you want to, hes good stuff. ive always liked his music, mostly because omar is really good at emulating him and i like omar.
but heres the thing, most people (myself absolutely one hundred percent totally included) like to pretend that they are figments. they (we) live imaginary lives and sugarcoat everything and pretend like everything is candy dandy. some people (me) only share the bad when it is happening to someone else, and only share all of the peachy things happening to themselves (myself). this gives everyone else a false sense of what life is like and they start doubting their own lives and thinking that they are the only ones with issues and they start pretending too, and pretty soon weve got a world FULL of figments.
so, back to shawn mcdonald. he is a pretty bomb musician and i wanted to read about his life so i looked him up on wikipedia and saw that he got a divorce in april of this year. i have never, in all of my 7 years of being a christian, ever heard of a divorced worship artist. so, i started investigating and i found his blog and i found his former wife's blog and they laid out the entire event. as it was happening. and still honored eachother and god. it is so refreshing to read. and i was so stoked- not at all because of their crappy situation but because someone finally came out in the christian worship community as a sinner. a broken sinner, (like me) who is in desperate need of grace and knows it and wants other people to know it. so people (like me) who need hope and need to know that im not alone in working through things that are far beyond my realm of understanding can look at a real life, all laid out, a person who messes up- reeeally messes up--- and knows how desperately they need jesus without turning away from him.
i say this all because alot of people think my life is perfect- and its not. when they say that to me, i smile and think "if you only knew." most people i know would say that i have my stuff together and im a good person and i am good at life- and its not fair to think that because then people get false perceptions about their own lives and that sucks. it sucks to think your life sucks when everyone elses life sucks too, but nobody wants anyone to know. its obvious that im not very articulate lately, which is why i dont blog. and also, i want to be real and im not sure how to do that without hurting other people, but i recognize it and thats a start.

here are the blogs i was referring to---GOOD stuff:
Shawn McDonald
Kate McDonald

i wonder what people did before the world needed saving. im assuming that the only instance of this took place in a garden, where a man sat around
naming things
waiting
wandering around
waiting
waiting
doesnt exactly seem like "fullness of life" to me. i wonder if he wondered what he was waiting for.

why sending your 18 year old daughter to europe by herself for 2 months is a great idea

evidently im not very good at commitment. i am not used to blogging. ive "blogged" for 8 years, but theyve always been on my own conditions because the only people who actually read what i wrote were ex-boyfriends and stalkers. no excuses. i really want to write a life update. like, about my 25th birthday indian party. and living my DREAM job. and how being married is so incredibly difficult and omar is still my bff. how i have the most loyal, incredible, supportive friends on earth. or how grad school is the most fun thing on earth.

i think i accidentally wrote an incredibly vague life update just now.

but that is not it. there is more. there is so much more.

once upon a time i went to europe. for two months. alone. with little money. and no plans. it was the best experience of my life. so much of what i know about being a strong, independent woman with a complete and total reliance on my creator comes from that experience. i am constantly drawing back to that time when i need to be brave. when i wonder if i have what it takes to do things. when i wonder if my god will come through. those months were when i got to experience the most pure, raw, version of myself. i am really good at getting off track and venturing far away from myself, and those are the places i draw back to. so, my 18 year old self has been equipping me lately to take on things wayyyyy beyond my scope of understanding and bringing me to a place where i have to just make it happen. make it work. press on. be brave enough to run half naked into the warm ocean water at one in the morning with absolute strangers and splash around and flop down on the sand and not give a damn what my hair looks like or if im saying or doing things that arent ladylike, and hold my pants and my sandals under my arm as i wander barefoot through a city that only days before scared me to death and feel completely at home and safe in the arms of my savior. thats whats up.

all i have to say right now.

I have unanswered prayers
I have trouble I wish wasn't there
And I have asked a thousand ways
That You would take my pain away
That You would take my pain away

I am trying to understand
How to walk this weary land
Make straight the paths that crookedly lie
Oh Lord, before these feet of mine
Oh Lord, before these feet of mine

When my world is shaking
Heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave Your hands

When You walked upon the Earth
You healed the broken, lost, and hurt
I know You hate to see me cry
One day You will set all things right
Yea, one day You will set all things right

When my world is shaking
Heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave Your hands

Your hands
Your hands that shape the world
Are holding me, they hold me still
Your hands that shape the world
Are holding me, they hold me still

When my world is shaking
Heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave You when...

When my world is shaking
Heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave...
I never leave Your hands

do you love it?

one of my earliest, most vivid, memories is from first grade. i dont remember who my friends were or the specifics of what i learned, but i vividly remember a very special person who spoke truth into my life at a very early age. she was a janitor (or maybe a campus monitor or teachers aide of some kind?) at my elementary school. i remember very little about her, other than the fact that she was a middle aged african american woman (i only remember this because i was at a time in my life where i desperately wished i was black. not kidding.) who smiled alot. i was five years old, and younger than many of my peers. i remember a shirt she wore that had comic book writing all over it. while she was overseeing the kids on the playground, i walked over to her and told her that i liked her shirt. she laughed and asked why. i told her that i thought it was funny. she laughed again and asked how i knew it was funny, because no one had read it to me. i explained to her that i liked (LOVED, more than anything) reading, and i already knew how to read. from that day on she called me "little miss i can read everything i see."
each day after that she would greet me in the morning with my nickname and would bring something for me to read out loud to her. i looked forward to seeing her everyday.
one day, she and i were standing out by the busses and the kids with special needs arrived. i had a friend who was in a wheelchair (who probably also had some mental disabilities, but i didnt notice that at the time). i remember interacting with my friend, and after she rolled away i vividly remember the janitor lady looking me in the eyes and saying, "Honey, looks like you've got a gift. You will be a fabulous special ed teacher someday."
i firmly believe that a seed was planted in my heart that day, twenty years ago.

i have met countless "janitor ladies" in my life. the girl that used to manage the rubios down the street who treated every single customer with such kindness that it was apparent that the light of christ shined through her, my 6th grade bus driver who played worship music and told me about god and how much he loved me, my mother in law who cleans houses for the elderly, all people who have embraced their profession and chosen to use it to glorify god.

anytime i meet a new person and they tell me what they do for a living, i always ask the same question: DO YOU LOVE IT? the answers are shocking. ive met multimillionaire CEOs who say that they hate what they do, and girls who work the night shift for the drive thru at jack in the box who say that they love their job and wouldnt trade it for anything. people are clearly capable of loving almost anything. as i look at the upcoming school year and the apprehension i have about teaching at a new school to a new population of kids, i want to choose to have the attitude of love. i want to wake up every morning and decide to love what i do, the people that god has placed in front of me, the trials that will grow me, and the time ive been given to do exactly what god is calling me to this year. because next year, he could be calling me to scrub toilets or meet with the leaders of the united nations or make french fries, and the only thing that will matter at the end of my life is what i did with the time he gave me.