50 Miles in Two Days

Road biking gives me a pretty good natural high. But I'm not sure how positive it is when I'm biking 30 + mph down a hill and I get the overwhelming urge to yell, "WHAT NOW, PEDESTRIANS!"

Unhealthy Conditioning...

Sunshine makes me feel so spiritual! I turn on the upbeat Christian music, I want to spend hours in prayer and Bible reading, I want to dance and sing and spend all day at church :D Because it feels like summer, and summer is the time for JESUS!

Isn't that horrible? But that is how we've been conditioned since our teens! No, since CHILDHOOD! How many of us did VBS in the summertime, 5th and 6th grade summer retreats, then later, high school mission trips and retreats and special church events and super spiritual challenges and urban plunges and everything else! In the summertime, we finally have time for Jesus!

Not healthy. Not healthy at all.

But we have all winter to deal with these things we've realized about ourselves. For now, I'm going to buy my iced drinks, turn up my tunes, and take my bike to work in the joy of the Lord :)

Is my faith the only part of my life where I'm comfortable with mediocrity?

Nothing in the Bible allows for mediocrity. Nothing in life rewards it.

Brown blanket, thanks for being
Warm wine, you are seeing
Frigid air peer through my window
Blue moonlight chills the street

Poems, music my mind composes
My eyes compel my head, it doses
But your voice trails through my ears
I can hear my chilled heart beat
--
Every fix is just a killer
All my dreams were just a filler
Shrouded in hope with faith for diversion

And your brown eyes are a dark excursion


Every time I hear your voice

My will loses the power of choice

My heart is yours, my mind is weak

And the stitches unravel, leaving a leak

--
My heart drips out
The life inside
My body was cold
Each time I died

Because
I can’t
See through
This dark
This cold
Cold night
Moon white
And stark
Stares at me
While I look
For one last chance
A glance
A taste
An accidental touch
Cover
Recover
Bury
And hover
To guard the hope
The faith
The love
That kindles then kills
That mocks
And stills
My slow
Beating heart
That quietly
Releases
decreases
Losing the fight
For right
For life
For everything
Not real
At all
Because of you
I see my fall
And I have given up the fight for right or wrong or dark or light and I can't do anything more, because you’ve infected me to the core, you are stalwart, you are my rock.
You're not here; so my heart locks.

It's easy to feel you are good enough until you meet someone you wish you were good enough for.

How do you know just what to say? How do I know just what to reply that is exactly the wrong answer? :)

I only say depressing things here because I figure nobody reads it :)

I've set up a pretty nice place for myself in our new apartment. It's super comfortable. Man, I have the urge to move all the time, though! I really want to leave the country again, and not just for work. I wonder if I'll be really happy until I'm totally disconnected from everything? But I've felt nearly completely disconnected before, at certain times in my life, and at those times, I panicked and grabbed for some connections! Oh, humans. We're funny animals :)

Life is utterly exhausting right now. 1.5 hour talk with austin that got so emotional. My heart is torn for that kid. Talk with Annie, don't even know where to begin helping her. My head is splitting. So much more work to do. Fish and Joanne just went to the Fongs. I know I should too--community and all... can't even handle trying right now. God save me from myself :(

Ok, to lighten the air of this blog (sadness is for my sad green blog, haha), I'll post something cool.

My friend had drinks with Zach Condon. It's like we're friends vicariously. So that's awesome.

In other news, as soon as I find someone I can visualize being happy with, who I actually really like with no good reason not to, I grow terribly sad, as though preparing my heart for the inevitible break. Isn't that the worst???

In additional other news, I'm internalizing the problems of the kids. I'm not insane, just dealing with the counseling syndrom of taking on the mindsets one hears about continually in private talks with people who have been screwed over by their parents. I should fix that so I don't blow my brains out someday.

So I didn't succeed in making this blog happier. I'm not that sad. Just frustrated. I need something bigger in my life. Maybe I'll have a kid.

no releif yet. just rain.

what did i do so wrong in life that no one even thinks to call me up and say, "hey! you've had a tough week. wana get some food?" or, "I notice your eyes are red and puffy, you haven't been eating or sleeping, and you don't talk to anyone anymore. let's grab a cup of coffee!"

i need to be that person to these kids, and i fail miserably.

I have three close female friends I would call my best friends. I have a posse of youth who trust me and tell me things. I have a future I'm excited about, an apartment I love, I keep my car and house clean, I cook, I pay off all my debts on time and never let the bills pile up, I pursue my interests. Things are, in general, pretty good.

So I sought God, and He told me two things. #1, I am an incredibly ungrateful person. Now I try to filter all of my prayers and thoughts through the lens of gratefulness.

#2, I need to be growing. I need God's discipline in my life. I prayed hard and long for that.

So God sent His discipline :D I was confronted with stuff I had decided to put behind me but not deal with. Boom, boom, boom, three past issues all at once. Old college friends, too, with things I had neglected to see or discuss. A week-long study in the book of Isaiah, reminding me that God's love is the most painful thing a human can endure. Then four hours catching up with a friend I should never have lost touch with--and some realizations I don't know how to process right now. Then two days with the kids and pastors at camp.

Then the heart shattering realization that the one person that actually needed someone was the one person I had alienated in youth group. The one time God actually wanted to give me something too hard for me to handle, something worth undertaking, I had been ignoring it.

But I know now. And even though I feel like there is no way I will have the ability to do anything, I know He sent this because He'll enable me to do what needs to be done. God help me not make it worse.

A million things I'm holding in my mind. My roommate feels the same way. How many things can we hold without popping? When can we cry "uncle"? Life is good, but I look forward to a little relief... soon.

Something I wrote on my Orual blog after my 27th birthday.

Somehow, turning 27 wasn't as detestable as I thought it might be. In fact, I feel like I've gained a new burst of confidence, as if someone turned on turbo-confidence the morning of July 16th. Given my usual lack of confidence, it doesn't look like much, but it seems like quite a lot.

There's a lot I don't care much about anymore--acceptance, a "normal" life, my future. It all still concerns me, but more than ever before--so much more than ever before--I want what I've always known I needed. I want a hard life, something I know I can't do, but I can try, I want to do hard things! I want to be pushed to my absolute limit and them beyond. The worst of it is that I know I can do it. I have so much in me that I've never begun to explore. And with the power of God, how can my life really look? Not normal, that's for sure.

So much in the Bible about giving up everything and living in complete abandon. So much that I want. So much still holding me back.