Living it up

The doctor put her stethoscope up to my heart and told me to breathe in and out. She listened for a long moment.

"I'm afraid I was right, you are a monster."

"I was worried about that," I said, thinking what this would do to my copay.

"And your ears are crooked," she said. 

I can't stop loving you, I made up my mind

After everything, sometimes what you have to do is turn up Ray Charles and just let go and be enveloped in the romance of what can and can't happen in one lifetime.

fever song

I stayed a little longer at work today, in the air conditioning.

I know we are only a few weeks into the heat, but I am tired now. The same tired as finals week. The tired at the end of a 12 mile run. The tired where you blink for a second, and your eyes don't open back up. That is summer, to me.

God has been giving me a grace to keep going, though. Interesting little things here or there to keep my eyes awake. 

A conversation with an atheist coworker who says he doesn't think he has ever met a creationist, besides me? It breaks my heart, but increases my boldness. To be kind, to be joyful, to show light.

A second interview that I feel peaceful about, whether or not I get the job.

A new perfume.

Iced espresso with dark caramel.

A best friend who wants me to try a billion pie recipes.

Steak nights with my dad.

Praying with abandon: not hiding anything from God, whether or not saying these things out loud is going to end in weeping or desperation.

It feels clean, amidst the sweaty battles that we are fighting. Amidst hurt and hurt and hurt after hurt.

In the tired comes the blessing that it is very easy to start laughing.

i know you like to captain a capsized ship

What you don't end up knowing is: the heroes.

Every week, there is some new and terrible way that your friends or loved ones are letting everyone down, and it makes you doubt your faith.
But what you don't know is that for each of them, there is another friend who is fighting the good fight.

Making their marriage work.
Getting out of bed to take care of their kids.
Reading their Bible even though they don't want to.
Going to work with a headache.
Choosing to stay in Utah.


These things aren't as hard as starving in a 3rd world country, or watching your house be demolished by a tornado.  But it is still duty, and it is still honorable.

This is the end of a very long week, and He will give me rest, I know.

the Army

Several times a day, I breathe in deeply and whisper to myself, "You are a soldier. You can do this."

There are a lot of things that keep me from joining the army. But my heart seeks the structure and the discipline and the place.

I feel placeless.

I am a little weak. I know my place and my identity are in Christ, but this is a daily struggle. The sleeplessness, the hopes deferred, and the flimsy armor I've been carrying don't help. But my foundation is firm. And this can't last forever.


"For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline."
 2 Timothy 1:7

generally speaking

the sun was on the rise

I looked out over the airplane wing on Wednesday and thought I'd come back all bright and shiny like someone had erased my hard drive and I'd have all this beautiful RAM and I'd be efficient and taller and more likeable and stop getting angry and stop watching TV and

mostly I just sort of stopped eating once I got here, and definitely stopped sleeping.

I've actually been having great times with my friends at night, but then I get home and lay in bed and wait for sleep to come. And then I work tired all day, but my thoughts are racing when I come home for my post-Starbucks nap.

I think of my to-do list and look at the wall.
I'm a little overwhelmed, but positive.

God is giving me small joys to make it through hours. Surprising moments of opening the front door at 4:20 am and seeing that is raining, lightly.
A customer who notices that I was gone and whose face lights up when he sees that I am back.
A favorite old song coming on the random Starbucks playlist, and sweet girls who want to shoot espresso shots with me and laugh at my jokes.

Anyway. Here are some pictures of our family farm, and the Heaven I left to come back to the desert.
There is hope to go back, and there is hope to be here.
To do good work.
To be bright and shiny.

Friday Quotes

I'm starting my weekend now.


"Does anyone have a soda they're not using?"
-Grant

Me: Don't hit your brother, Eden.
Will: I'm not her brother. I'm a boy.

"I let someone else pack my pedal bag, so it's still sitting at Urban Lounge, probably getting Hep C."
-Randal

Me: You can have one of my fries, Noah.
Noah: I'm going to use this for long term energy.

"He's trust falling all the time these days."
-Garrett, as he looked vacantly out onto the beach at Hayden

"Makensy, we don't trust you. You're unAmerican. You hate cinnamon rolls, and you probably hate freedom too."
-Philip

your unsecret life

This might sound silly, but every once in a while, I will just start searching hashtags on Instagram, and go down a long rabbit trail of looking at profiles that haven't been set to private, and just peer into the lives of others.

They won't ever find out I'm doing it. I won't ever meet them.

But sometimes I find kindred spirits out there. People who seem genuinely funny and seem to have such similar interests to me, I get really jealous that we aren't friends in real life.

I won't be vacant anymore

We actually had a spring.                                                        

Cold nights melting into warm, and then reprieve, again, to find yourself in fluffy covers, drowning like you're happy. We start to pick out grays in each other's hair. Smell like campfire for days. 

And I might not get out of this love for you.

But I can probably get out of ever seeing you again.

Didn't you pick your old hopes and dreams out of a hat drawing? On a Sunday afternoon? So it shouldn't be that hard to pick new ones and stand up straight and say goodbye to sleep and do everything better and newer and righter?

We found flaws in the theory, Jim and I.
You can't stop it once you get there. Standing in your lab coat, in front of a microscope, the doubt overshadows all the collected data.
Nothing became reliable.
The things Jim had finally written down in pen, started to shift-- in my mind-- back to pencil. To notebooks full of "wrong".

"Well you wrote the ratios down wrong in December. Is that the date we have to go back to and start over from there?" He glared at me.
"Well you were sloppy with the solids, so maybe we should go back to then, to November?" I accused him.

Back at the apartment, at night, something as simple as cracking eggs into a pan became doubtful. I felt as if the pan might collapse in my hand, or the egg wouldn't change from raw to cooked. It might just sit there and stare at me, from on top of the little fire bursting from the range.
"No," I said, because I knew the rules. It had to change from runny clear to bleach white and so forth. That was the given.

We started over at October's numbers, angrily, and started cutting the project in half, laying it out in more increments, taking persistent pictures, and writing our notes explicitly and videotaping the extra miles we were going.

We pictured going back to real life one day, to listening to our loved ones when they spoke to us. To trying to put contacts in our eyes, and show up at barbeques, and email our old co workers back because they'd asked about the project weeks ago. Or months ago?
Family vacation?
Dentist appointments?

They'd escaped us.

All that we saw was the science, and the gravity holding us there.

"If I knew the answers, Jim, I'd tell you," I said, one day, sipping my burnt coffee and staring at the wall while he spouted off rhetorical questions.

I wanted to take a break. To feel sunlight. To clean my car. To grow a garden instead.
But there was the pressure calling in everyday, with the money, to make sure that we didn't have a life.
There was the need to know, where this was all going.
And that's how we figured it out, Jim and I.
After 11 months, and that's why you're still sitting here, still able to buy your food at the grocery store, and to count on the clocks to keep time.
It's because of what Jim and I did, and the life we gave.
You'll never know, and we'll never be able to tell you.

The whole story is more unrealistic than this.

take a little break from thinking all the time

I didn't know hummingbirds stopped moving, but there he is sitting and resting on a telephone wire, letting his heartrate calm down. We're listening to my neighbor's terrible punk rock coming from his garage. The bird's friends are somewhere else and I'm enjoying his aloneness like it was company, from here on my hammock.
It's the end of a good week.
I have a job interview on Monday, and I feel like there is a weight off of my chest. Different weight than usual. Like when things have been bent and stretched so far that eventually, you know they will snap.
Like when you know that if you keep placing the same bet, you will eventually win some kind of prize. If you wait long enough, a bus will come to take you north or south, because there is a bus schedule.
There is a pattern of interruptions to silence, if you are just, like, super patient.

Collect moments of sticking your arm out of the window and coasting 44 mph. 
The smells, the chlorine and the beer and the basements and warm skin.
Days of no headaches. Days of long runs.
Scratch those days off the wall.
For a short time, I am here. For a long time, I will be there.

There is a happiness to catch out of the air like a lightning bug. If you are like, super patient and work hard. (They glow for a moment, disappear, and then glow somewhere else.)

Be good. Be kind. And keep your eye out for it. 

Telephone wires above are sizzling like a snare

Bright hot Nikes hit the blacktop under pink-purple hallelujah sunset. If this is summer, I can do this.

Run til my spit turns into pancake syrup. Run farther away and try to commit to the time it will take to get back. Commitment is tricky.

But I can feel my robot heart and lungs getting better until I don't feel them at all. 

The streets are thick with teenaging. Kids drunk on never having to go back to school again. Summer is promising me that thing of no consequences and being awake when I'm awake.

Maybe I am a teenager too.

Maybe I want you to know my robot heart.

Lucky for me that the muscles keep moving my legs forward. Lucky to laugh. Grateful to breathe.

9 to 5

I have this fantasy of having the kind of job that you can wake up and shower and read the paper, and make your coffee and toast and sit and chill with your kids for half an hour before work in the morning. But I don't have kids or a newspaper subscription.

So I guess I'm lucky to get off work at 1pm and watch Battle Star Galactica in my underpants and eat cake all day.

That is the other American dream right? 

blurry night driving

Tonight I am drinking Sailor Jerry out of a Starbucks mug from the Twin Cities. Someone else has been collecting them. The mugs. I am sitting in the part of the countryside that belongs to a Delta pilot. Out by Ikea. I'm sitting on his front porch and watching his neighbor park their Ferrari into a garage as big as my house, but all I'm thinking is, what would have happened if I had kept driving til I ended up at your house instead.
The answer is nothing.
I'm not going to do this all and hope it works.
Because then what happens the next day?
Not the Nobel prize. Not for showing up at your door uninvited. Not the cure for cancer. Nothing good would happen. I'd get back in the car and drive home, unanswered.

The street goes back to black, except for a fullish moon, there, right on schedule. For better or for worse. I listen to the Front Runner humming on the tracks. Brakes. Humming. Freeway. Crickets. Country.

We could sail. If I showed up at your door. Somehow we'd sail away. Even if it was just laying on someone else's manicured lawn and talking about sailing away. I could still smell the ocean and listen to you breathing.

Oh no--wait--don't do this. Set down the mug, and listen to dogs barking a story to each other, faintly, everywhere. It will keep going. You will have to do this, and then one day it will be over suddenly. Like you had never
wept
at
all.

walking in the valley

"It's what I always wanted," she said, as we walked through her garden. She pointed at each row and specified each plant. I was awake for every second of it. I mean, I haven't slept all week, but what I somehow grew up and realized via God and God's love, and the women who teach me things when I show up in myself in various warehouses or workplaces, was that I was legitimately happy for her, in her moment of having everything I ever wanted.

And I'm not used to that.

But what I do know, is that I like the chase. I like to be alive for that. To not know what is coming next is the greatest part of being alive? To walk out your front door with a credit card is an unlimited possibility here in America? But you may want to get it a more difficult way than that. With many breaks in-between to stop and look out of windows or wait for a tram, or reply to an email, to talk to a man in salmon-colored shorts, or to secede from a nation.

This life is long; you stare at the fruit on the tree to try to make it grow faster.
And then while you wait, you buy fruit from a grocer.
And the grocer is trying to know his purpose too.
Summer skin.
Your hair will keep growing. People you don't know will die and leave their bodies.
The fruit might keep growing. And one day it will either fail to sustain, or it will blossom into something you can cook into a pastry, or consumer quickly in an afternoon.

I love you.
I will love you.
I have loved you.

Simple conjugation and history. 

Two weeks paid vacation won't heal the damage done. I'd need another one.

Sometimes I think about all the people out there that are making more money than I am, that can't spell, and I wonder what I'm doing with my life.

I took a night off of angry 3-mile runs, and just watched Space Jam.

"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
-Marthe Troly-Curtin

I actually really love Mondays. I like routine. Sometimes on Sunday afternoon, I just tell myself, "You are almost there, you can make it." Because Sundays feel so sloppy and the plans are unpredictable.

Because I ate so much junk food over the weekend, I bought a bunch of vegetables at the grocery store after work to do a vegetable fast for the rest of the day. Then I went to the liquor store to get some beer and wine (I am not drinking hard alcohol for the month of May, and it is actually a great way for me to exercise self control and still enjoy a drink at dinner or before bed...) and this lady asked me if I knew much about wine, and I said I didn't, but most of the employees at our state-owned liquor store are not very helpful, so I tried to help her pick something she wouldn't hate.

"Sorry I don't know more about wine," I said.
"Well you know more than me, and you are a sweetheart," she said with a worried look on her face, and it made me feel a little taller for a minute.

But then I went home to chop up my vegetables and sliced my thumb open because I was getting too cocky.

I guess what I'm trying to say, Sharon, is that I feel a medium amount of good, right now, and there is a tan creeping into my skin.
There is a five mile run creeping into my feet.
My hair is getting longer even though you can't see it, and you won't believe it.

I'll send you a picture so you can know.

I stuck around, I did behave

Do you remember how I searched you out? How I climbed your city's walls
Do you remember me as devout? How I prayed for your calls...
I stood still... it's what I did.

Love like ours is never fixed.

T&S

quotes friday

"Have I already told you my not-very-clean joke about trees?"
-Arminda

"Pills are friends, not food."
-Izzy, quoting Finding Nemo while popping ibuprofen

"Everything in my house is a cactus...oh wait, dang it."
-Tony M., trying to tell a joke

"Nothing's illegal in a friendship."
-Kelsea, and I can't remember why she said it...

"It has a puke-y back end." 
-Nick, on a terrible wine, but kept trying to finish the glass

"Shorts are a sign of weakness."
-Steele

"He was not magnificent."
-Stesha, on a duck at the park

I'm not your hero but that doesn't mean that I wasn't brave

At least after a long week (wait, it's Thursday, I thought it was Friday all day) working too many hours, feeling like a failure, getting no sleep, and yelling at God a lot...He still gives you good gifts to make up for the giant hole you have in your heart.

Even if that gift is just that you are not doing university finals.
Or the medicine of a good hard run.
Or warm text messages.
Or dreaming of being out on a lake and falling asleep in a boat.

Source: flickr.com via Lovely Clusters on Pinterest

I can try and I won't find it where I'm looking

"If I read our story backwards,

it's about how I un-broke

your heart, and then we were

happy until one day, you

forgot about me forever."

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories

Let's move forward and do new things so that the nights don't feel so long. And let's stop stressing out about things we can't change. And let's pray. 

the next part

He walked out the front door and thought, what to do with all of these cats? Because the cats just kept showing up. But that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that he didn't know what was going to happen on the series finale of his favorite TV show. The real problem was that he hadn't emailed his best friend from high school back, because he was trying to think of a cool way to say that he was working at a Blockbuster that was currently going out of business.
The real problem was thinking of a different dinner that wasn't spaghetti and red sauce out of a jar.

He sat down on the stoop and let the cats slowly slink back out of the bushes because they felt a kindred spirit in him. But the joke was on them, because he cared nothing.
He took a picture of himself on his phone, and looked at it for a minute. After a full three minutes, he deleted the picture and checked his real mail in his real mailbox and found nothing good.

Some days he spent whole hours of his free time in this fashion. Just looking down the street. Just standing with a hose in his hand, mildly watering the lawn when he could just buy a sprinkler instead.

He liked to think he was interrupting someone else's life when they'd jog by, or walk their dog by his house, or a kid would ride a bike past him, and he'd try to get ideas, on what to do with all the free time. The ideas would always sound the same.
"Sandwich," the ideas would say. "Sandwich," he would mumble, and think about what ingredients were in the crisper. In the refrigerator.
"Pepsi," would be the next idea, if he kept thinking pretty hard.
And then after, "Potato chips," the next idea would inevitably be the title of a video game, which I don't know the name of, because I'm actually a girl, telling you this story. Sorry.

But the ideas would just drift off after that, to someone else's head. And he would think about picking up the phone and making a phone call, but it was just easier to let it slip by until a different day. Because, there will be lots of days, and lots of phone calls. Even doctor's appointments, he could iron out. That would be a real accomplishment if he made a doctor appointment sometime this month. But the best part would be, when the months would just keep going by, and then eventually one month, something would happen to him.

And it would be a big something. It would be a really nice thing to happen to a guy like him.

for today, and tomorrow

the phone number is only three glasses of whiskey away from being used.
stay strong. love lots and bury the love that you loved lots.
Put the love into something else.
The anger into running. The need into pain. Praying for pain.

Taking five deep breaths all day long until you are sleeping again, and sleep pain away into sunshine. Then will come iced tea and the blessed forgetting. You could turn it all off.
Pray for forgetting. But only to just forget enough and then to start loving again. To love sunshine and whiskey and hope and new people. To remember just enough about why you loved the old people. And then to keep going, until you get to be with Jesus.

love and hurt, forgive, and then love again.

The district sleeps alone tonight

Drink coffee. Run miles. Count to five. Praise God and Walk with Him. Repeat again tomorrow.

free will

There is this setting on the game The Sims (or at least there was on an older version that I used to play) where you can turn off the Sims' free will, and they have to wait for you to give them direction.

I've been thinking about that  a lot this week, because I've been getting really tired, and sometimes I just

stand in one place, and wait for direction.

The Sims really won't protest unless they start having to go to the bathroom, or are really hungry. But I usually just stand there for a minute, trying to remember what I was doing, and then just think about absolutely nothing.

I'm always running these experiments on what times of day work best for sleep and for awake, and I turn into a robot, a little bit.
But I had a great weekend, laughing and dancing and going to the art show and church and frisbee.

You can really do new things everyday, if you want. Why would you tie yourself down with such a tight rope?

Source: appleday.tumblr.com via Kathy on Pinterest

Sometimes when I am talking to my dad on the phone, I hear a young man, who sounds like one of my brothers. He sounds so young, I forget we are related for a minute, and I think we are friends, and that it is still the 80's and we're just chatting about whether or not my car is going to blow up when I drive it down the street.

We turned out kind of different, but we turned out kind of the same. I'm so blessed with the life God picked for me, and with the family I have.

I found a jar of peanut butter in the plates and bowls cupboard, so I also know I'm not the only one going crazy around here.

Quotes Thursday

Text I received from Megan:
"You can write down this quote from me..."Dogs are just amazing people!" "

Inception quote?

"Every time I get Champagne for Christmas, I get pregnant."
-Alyssa G

wherever you are

Well, wow. I really haven't been updating lately. 13 days just comes and goes. Quickly, thank goodness, because that means the paychecks do too.

I sort of feel like I've been drowning this week, but I guess you have to have the salty to taste the sweet.
Finally got to Friday night without letting handsome strangers talk me into speed-skating dates, or leaving town or any of that.
Had a wonderful seven hour Italian dinner with some best friends that just get better the older we get. I like that.
I guess, even though I am stressed out every time I see a new wrinkle under my eyes (must cut back on Wes Anderson makeup) I am at least glad that we're all growing older together, while we get to. I know my parents said goodbye to a lot of really great friends due to church-planting, but I hope we have a little while before any of that which leads me to...

I said no to the store opening in Wyoming. Or at least told my boss I didn't want to interview for it anymore. My heart was just not excited about it anymore, and I'd rather pour my time into people here, and go to barbecues and frisbee games than live in a resort town for six weeks with a fake-ish smile on my face. She also offered me a position as shift manager which I turned down as well, because I don't want to feel more loyalty to my retail job than I really need to. My heart is too full of love and I'll end up being here for 10 years making zero money, and still living in my parents basement.
Grow up already! you may be saying.
I'm trying! is my response.
"That's what you get for having such a good attitude at work, I guess," is what my boss says.

And some days are so lonely that you think you're going to start coughing up blood because your heart is hemorrhaging or whatever. Gross. You look around at all your friends that you love, and you know that they're there for you, but you just don't even know what to say. You start a text message, and then delete it. It's something your Creator only knows how to deal with, and love you through it.  It hurts, but there is Grace. And because of grace, there is also whiskey, which is a great medicine for chest pain.

There is new life in tomorrow.

"He has his dad's smile and his mom's angry eyes."
-Stesha

what you meant by that

I bit down a little too hard on the chicken wing and then that thing of my tooth is going to hurt for 5 minutes and serve as a general warning of you could have chipped your tooth, and you might, next time, so be more careful was happening to me, and the kid was staring at me, and I was staring at him back, but not really thinking about anything, and I was wondering if he was doing the same, but the hard part about kids is that they are letting on that they know less than they really do. Their brains are working better than you think, but they just have sillier ways of communicating that they haven’t ironed out yet.

What I thought was, people make you nervous, but they are just people. And some of the people are good at taking pictures that look like they’re from Hollywood, or that they are snobby, when really they just live in an apartment downtown, and they get lonely and spend the night cutting up their junk mail too, sometimes. But I wished I could see it for myself. I wish I could see that girl with the beautiful hair, what she looks like when she’s in sweats, and when she has some bad acne, and has been putting off her dishes for a while. I wish I could be there so that I could secretly feel better than her, and quit thinking her pictures were so Hollywood, because I knew her real story and had looked through her garbage when I used her toilet, and why did she let me in her house! (ha ha, what a fool) but then you also have to realize that you both have a common denominator such as having to do laundry, and having to get in your car when it is freezing in the morning.

You think that the kid is seeing this in you, and you start to have a question for the kid, but then let it die on your lips. You think that he can see that you are a bore, and that you are super fake but you want to just get out of there, like maybe apply another coat of lip gloss in the bathroom or maybe you will just stare at this TV or that TV and pretend you know what is going on in that specific sport that is appearing there, and wish someone would say something to you about NPR or coffee or working out or something that you know how to talk about, and you realize that you are a real person. Nobody knows it. Nobody knows how you dance in your kitchen. Nobody knows that you talk to your dog like it can really hear you. If they knew, they’d stop moving so far away from you. They’d start inviting you to their parties. They’d get their picture taken with you and they’d even like it. They’d stop breaking up with you. They’d realize old stuff and new stuff. You’d be at the same place, at the same time, looking into each other’s eyes, and it would be like the perfect vow to be together all the time, and they’d really mean it like you mean it.

For good. Because life isn’t really that long.

building

The lent thing has been going okay. I've been observing Feast Sunday since last Sunday, because we were going out with some of the guys from a store in my same parking lot, and they had a lot of home brew that we needed to help them drink, and it just seemed like a wise decision, because of finishing strong instead of giving up and whatever.

Ken quit, 9 days ago. I found out from one of the other guys at my gym, and it was a little bit heartbreaking, for reasons not just about getting free personal training, but just having my gym owner be a Christian, and to see him everyday at Starby's...it is just really sad. I don't know what he's going to do now.

But I've been climbing more, which is great. I go with this girl I met at Starbucks, and I'm trying to work up the courage to invite her to church, even though it seems like she and her husband are kind of anti.  

 Training at work, to become a trainer for new hires. One of the things that I've been talking about that was up around the bend is this: my manager recommended me for this new store opening in another state, and so I'm training for it and going to interview with my DM sometime soon. I would be gone for 4 to 6 weeks, but it would be an adventure, and help me pay off some bills, and give me some time alone with God, and it would be a whole new batch of coworkers to Simply Sow with. I'm already feeling homesick about it, but hopefully I would get a few days off in a row, here and there, to drive back to Utah. It's way less time away than joining the army!

Anyway. So that's what's up. I think I'm doing pretty well. I gave blood on Monday and my resting heart rate was 60, and my blood pressure was 100/72. I felt so proud and healthy when the girl told me, and when it comes down to it, being done with college is such a stress-free life. I feel so mentally healthy, but want to go looking for obstacles some days. Maybe after this summer, I'll even start looking for a grown up job.

quotes, actually

"Oh sorry, can I change the subject or did you want to keep talking about diarrhea?"
-Ashley J.

Bryan: Hey babe, can you put this iPad in your purse so we don't have to leave it in the car during the movie?
Celisse: It's only an iPad 1.

"I'm so glad our band smells like girls again."
-Billy

St. Valentine's Day, and high standards

Source: etsy.com via Jane on Pinterest

Handsome Cappuccino Jon came to stand and wait for me to finish his drink and so I asked him if he was doing anything great for Valentine's day with his wife, because I just pictured him in a tuxedo, for some reason, sitting down in a fancy restaurant downtown across the table from a thin (possibly Brazilian? hopefully not blonde) woman and them just so happy to be married to each other that they couldn't even choke down some steak and red wine.
Jon: No, we're just hanging out.
Me: Oh. That's cool. How long have you been married?
Jon: (counting on his fingers) Four years.
Me: Dude, that is awesome, congratulations on staying married so long in Utah!
Jon: Yeah. Sometimes it gets boring. But boring is good too, I guess. See ya.
Me: Um, okay.

It was kind of a relief to have the celebrity fantasy of his gorgeous life just shatter in my head, but I just wanted to invite him to our church, and introduce him to all of my married friends who are still having fun together after 4 or more years, and that God can do awesome things to your heart.

I wish I wasn't so terrified. I don't know how to just get brave. And sometimes I do get brave, and start sharing my convictions, and then I seriously mess it up big time, because I'm human. I don't want to lose friends.

But WHY?
I have real, awesome friends at church. I should care less about the friendship of my coworkers and the customers in my mission field, and care more about their eternity. It's a struggle for me right now, and something I'm working on. Loving, and loving enough to share.

So anyway. Happy Valentine's day. You and I are loved by a gracious, and forgiving God who is just waiting to spend time with you and with me.

Ash Wednesday

At the beginning of this year, I decided I wanted 2013 to be a year of adventure, but also of increased self-discipline. I've spent a lot of years justifying doing whatever I want (lots of Treat Yo Self Thursdays and Fridays... and Saturdays...) and I just want to grow in the area fasting and self-control.

I listened to the Swerver message yesterday while I was running, and I got angry and bitter all over again, but then I got encouraged. And convicted.
My biggest conviction was that I need to be getting rid of bad habits, and replacing them with godly habits. 
Even if I never get married, or whatever. I don't want to be a slave to my guilty pleasures.

Anyway. When I was falling asleep one night, a month ago, I was thinking about how Megan was doing these different month-long challenges of basically fasting from different pleasures, and I thought I could at least do some form of that for Lent.


-10 days of no coffee
-10 days of no alcohol
-10 days of no eating out
-10 days of no soda/treats/bread

So you can see they get progressively harder. Ha.
 And I realize it is kind of a Catholic tradition and a lot of Protestants may find it legalistic, but I challenge you to read the description of Ash Wednesday and see if you don't think it's based on Biblical ideas, and how can it be a bad idea to pray every time I wish I was drinking a cup of coffee or eating a cream cheese danish? Plus, if you really want, you can take breaks on Sundays.

So that's what I'm thinking about today. Asking God to help me cast away my idols, because there are so many that creep up.
Praying for bravery.
Praying for strong marriages at my church.
Praying for this clean(ish) air to keep being a thing we can breathe in Utah.

There is hope in the air.

hi, hey, what are you doing?

Well it turned February, so 60 degree days are right around the corner. There was seriously a day last week that I was mad that it was too warm to keep my groceries in the car for a couple hours. But in general I'm kind of looking forward to spring this years. Maybe not July and August, but definitely the first part of W A R M.

The past week, I have been entering my calories in MyFitnessPal app and I think it is actually making me skinnier and making me work out more, (it only allows me 1500 calories, unfortunately) and I am always starving, as a result. But I think I lost 1 or 2 pounds this week.

Slowly paying off my Europe trip, and growing my savings for more trips, and for LASIK which I'm obsessed about. I'm encouraged, but still asking God if I should just stay at Starbucks or try to find a better paying job. Sometimes it is hard for me to know where the line is between living a simple, unflashy life at home with my family and with a 1998 car that's falling apart, or taking a step to becoming more financially "stable" and adult, but have less energy to give to my friends and ministries because I'm working a more stressful job.

 Still praying, never ceasing.

I'm encouraged. I'm pretty healthy. I'm cherishing the last couple weeks of sleeping with my electric blanket.

let's start over

Source: ascphoto.tumblr.com via From London With Love on Pinterest

Let's be kinder this time, from the beginning.

Let's know we're in love and say it out loud.

You can shake my dad's hand and make eye contact with him.

I can show up in myself when you kiss me. And I can kiss you back.

You can say nice things to me, and I won't drink at parties so that I won't embarrass you.

We can give up 7 years of selfishness and genuinely smile because we like it.

Let's pretend that none of the in-between happened if our friends bring it up.

Let's hold hands and pray.

Let's get dressed up and go dancing.

Or else, if you want...

we can just keep living in empty rooms and talking to imaginary versions of each other. For years and years.

Maybe I just thought I was in love because of the song that came on the radio when you walked into the room for the very first time.

It can be tricky like that. 

And we can keep going, because there's not much choice. 

we can be best friends

Thursday night I found myself awkwardly getting a pedicure across the room from two girls I was supposed to become friends with and be all bridesmaidy with and they talked quietly to each other, but my feet look awesome.

We went out to dinner at a nicer restaurant, and all I could think the whole time was that I wished Celisse was sitting there and we could talk about the food together, but finally after another awkward hour with my cousin (who was getting married) and the two other bridesmaids, our fourth showed up, and her name was Caitlan, and we got along immediately over a Brandi Carlile song on the radio, and I partied with her for the rest of the weekend.

I don't remember being the kind of person who becomes friends with people so quickly, but I think God is really gracious when you are in a weird spot, and she was a ray of sunshine for me. And I might actually see her again someday because she lives in Boise. Anyway.

The wedding was great. A tiny bit short on hip hop, but nothing short on fancy or food or whiskey sours (which I had never had until Caitlan let me try hers) so it was worth having a flight delay on each of our four flights, and getting lost on dark country roads with no iPhone for GPS several of the nights.

out into the woods

I am procrastinating-blogging (which might be the only reason there are any posts at all during my college days,) and I am drinking a Blood Orange San Pellegrino because I am addicted to them, even though I should be drinking hot tea with honey and lemon because my head is a snot machine.

I'm taking off for five days in Illinois tomorrow, for my cousin's wedding.
I'm stoked about the cold, clean air.
Excited to see my family. I haven't been back to the Midwest since last May, so it's overdue.

I know I sound really boring right now, (I have foggy-sick-head) but there are a lot of really cool things up around the corner that I just can't really talk about because I'm still praying about them, and nothing is set in stone.
But my heart is happy.

Even though this might not be the year I find love, or get my pilot's license, or become a doctor, I'm still encouraged and I might
a) get lost in a forest
b) jump off a mountain
c) and dance more because I have iPod speakers now.

Source: toelle.tumblr.com via amanda on Pinterest

Source: fab.com via Rachel on Pinterest

I'm just trying to make an adventure out of everyday.

post haze

If the last 13 days of heavy smog and coughing and restlessness and sad January blues were just leading up to this day.....it might have been worth it.

I made myself go to bed at 7:30 last night and got at least 6 hours of reparation sleep, before opening with my darling Elaine (whose problems, sadly, get worse as the months unfold themselves) and my heart started to hope, as I could almost make out the mountains in the 4:27am glow of the valley.

By 8 o clock, I could see everything out of the windows, and it was like that feeling of making a last payment on a huge loan. That feeling of breath after someone you thought was your friend, holding you under water for 13 days.
 That feeling of someone asking you to marry them, and you said yes, and you liked it.

That is how I've felt all day long. It's better than getting 100 happy birthday texts and a surprise love note, and fireworks, and Nothing Bundt Cake.

After I got off of work, I decided not to waste any time on my usual post-open nap (even though I love sleep more than almost everything) because my boss told me I was being considered for an exciting Starbucks adventure, and then I ran 8 miles at the gym, on the high that was left over from my morning.

After that, I just sat in my hot tub and ate an ice-cream sandwich, and for once, just soaked it all in. I don't know what to do about all the people in South America who have less than me, and have worse days than me. I still don't know. But today, I forgot all of the things I've been regretting, and just cherished every happiness and every love song, and every mile that my strong legs carried me.

But here I am, and God gave me one more day to live, and

God, thank you for that.

tunnels

Source: ideefixe.posterous.com via Jamie on Pinterest

Last night, I laid in bed and admitted a lot of things to God as I was falling asleep.
About how the smog is depressing me.
How I feel a little lonely and a little bit suffocated by January (again, mostly due to smog).
And I also prayed for a house sitting job just to help me catch back up on bills.
I admitted some deeper secrets that for some reason I thought I could just hide from Him? And why do I bother to do that?

He is such a good God.

He placed a few rays of sunshine in my morning via some favorite customers and then when I was getting off work, I got a house sitting job as I was walking out the door.

I am crazy blessed. I need to surrender more to Him, so He can fill me up with Him. Because it is me, that is making me blue. It is my selfishness that is crushing me.

God, help me to shine for You through the smog.
I love you, Lord.

some blessings come with the light.

When it is light, it is easier to go to the gym. It is easier to go to the grocery store. It is easier to pretend you are a normal person. You might fool people into thinking your contacts are your real eyes and that you are 20/20. That you are the real deal.

Then some blessings come with the dark. Once the sun goes down, you can pretend that the 10 day forecast does not equal emphysema. You can not see the pollution and when you breathe deep you can almost think you do not feel the smog changing your lungs.

You wake up quick. You serve people happily. You think to yourself that you were manufactured by a happy merging of Disney and Starbucks and NPR.

When it comes down to it, you are a not a dog, barking in his sleep. You are a real human, with a real purpose.

Our bruises are coming, but we will never fold

I woke up bright and perky at 5am from not-partying last night, and my first customer this morning was a sweet regular, who always has a smile for me and while he was stirring cream into his coffee he said, "Rachel do you have any resolutions this year?"
And I smiled and said, "Oh I don't know, I'm on a diet, I guess."
I reciprocated the question, and he said, "Well, you probably won't get it out of me. It's a little bit emotional." He went through a really sad divorce this last year, and I didn't even want to start to ask, so I just said, "I suppose we all have a secret resolution that we don't want to tell anyone about." And he smiled and wandered out of our store, into the cold dark morning, but with coffee in his hands.


And at least sometimes, if you have to start all over from the beginning, you should be doing it with a strong cup of coffee. ((Or whiskey)) Whichever the time of the day calls for.

 

Source: hulaseventy.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

This year, I suppose what I really want is to finish paying off my Europe vacation, and save more money for more trips.  
I want to run hundreds  more  miles.
 I want to jump into mountain lakes. 
Want to go to dance clubs.  
Want to run through the fields of my grandfather's farm.  
Want to drink margaritas on warm summer nights and not think about opening at Starbucks the next day.
 I will enjoy all the wonderful winter days of hot coffee and electric blankets.  
Want to get inspired to really write again.

I feel that I am starting this year so healthy.

Last summer was pretty rough to figure out what I was doing.
I would say, up to September, I was starting to get pretty depressed, and considering joining the army (and other brash life changes...) because of being done with college and basically being done, therefore, with my childhood and adolescence. This is the dawn of adulthood and I am really bad at it.
I am good at living in my parents' basement.
I am good at following the rules and the speed limit, and not going out on dates with good looking guys. I can do all of that really well.

So I don't know if God wants to change any of that in the near future, but I am enjoying a season of rest, and good mental health.
Not drinking as much.
Running and building muscles and mailing letters.

So here is to 2013.....may the days be merry and bright.

I.give.it.you.all (yes, I will)

But you came from nothing.

You found yourself creeping from dust, grateful for a Creator who breathed life into you and gave you a brain that would rebel against Him.

You said sorry.
Sorry that you can't break down more, for Him.
Sorry that you flirt with the idea of other lovers.
Sorry that you don't fall down hard enough and that you can't deserve Him.
But He won't hear of it.

He looks past the failures, and the adulteries, and the idolatries, because of this one time that you bent your knee to him.
And for some reason, you wake up in a warm house in the United States of AMERICA, despite His other lovers in Africa and South America and such, but you are still so whiny? you still think it is hard to go to live alone in your shell? you think you deserve more than 3 or 4 huge meals a day and a limitless credit card?


And yet, there is unending forgiveness.

happy, reprise

Yesterday, one of my regular customers (one who I have barely talked to that much) announced out of nowhere that he had a Christmas present in his car for me, and then walked away.

I got uncomfortable as all of the other girls gave me a weird stare, and then he suddenly appeared again and handed me a framed picture, and said, "From one Midwesterner to another. It's a little piece of home." And it was a black and white picture of a lonely barn out in the middle of nowhere, Illinois.
I started crying.
I didn't know what to do. I haven't been back since May, and I know I'm going back in January, but it is just the time of year, and the fact that in all of my fuzzy-headed foolishness and mayhem, it was a reminder of the solid rock I have to stand on in the Midwest, and the solid rock I have in Jesus, who sees my loneliness and wants to take care of me.
"I'm going to hang it up in my room," I told him, not knowing what else to do, and if I was supposed to hug him or what. But now the photograph is sitting on my desk and I can't stop staring at it when I come in and out of the room, and it's become its own person, living there, haunting me when I wake and when I brush my teeth and it says to me, "Have you made all the right decisions? Are you really supposed to stay in Salt Lake?" But what I mumble back to the photograph is that it doesn't know what it is talking about and to stop trying to break my heart.

And then we all went to a women's basketball game, and Wesley threw up real vomit on us, which was disgusting but we still got smothered burritos anyway, after we'd cleaned up and changed.

And this is my life. 
Getting thrown up on.
Working out with Emily and Philip and Krista, and Ken asking me if my parents are Calvinist.
Sleeping long naps in the afternoon and killing my plants slowly by forgetting to open up the blinds.


But after today, there will be a little more sunlight in each day, because God is kind enough to give us seasons so we don't think we're living the same days over and over again.

I'll be right here, lying in the hands of God

Me: I'm going to be this soldier, because he has a mustache.
3-year-old Elias: My dad has a mustache.
Me: No, I don't think he does. I've never seen him with a mustache?
Elias: Well he does. He hides it behind his hair.
Me: Oh.....okay.
Elias: God has a mustache too.
Me: Really? How do you know?
Elias: When you get to Heaven, you will know too.


When I am strong, I am very strong, and I wish I could bottle up the strength and save it for my weak moments and take a sip and feel strong again. 
Sometimes I go to God so grateful, and sometimes I come to Him in a panic and tell him I doubt all the goodness He seems to think he has for me.

My poor, beautiful Elaine, who has so much more hurt in her life right now than I know what to do with, she sat on the floor at 4:45am this morning while I brewed 6 pitchers of tea and said, "Do you ever wish that God would just tell you whether you are wasting your time or whether to make a move?"
"Yes," I said.
"Like, I just wish I knew when it was time to give up, and move down a different road."
"Exactly," I said.

I can't wait for that day that God tells me what I'm supposed to be doing, but I'll just keep asking Him everyday and make thousands of cups of coffee in the meantime.

Elias: Why are you laughing at me?
Me: Because I think you are really funny.
Elias: No. I'm not funny.
Me: Why wouldn't you want to be funny? Everyone wants to be funny!
Elias: I want to be a serious boy.

Let's start over.

Personally, I really don't know what's going on.
That's why I haven't been writing anything.

My heart isn't saying anything, and my head is just saying "I love Jesus, I love America, I love Starbucks."
And maybe the last two things are foolish to admit somedays, but there is grace for that. Also, I may be brainwashed from getting up at 3:45am to brew coffee for crazy men.

 So here are some quotes.

"It's weird but, when I lean over like this, I can feel it squishing my baby. (long pause....) So maybe I shouldn't be doing that anymore."
-pregnant Elaine

"Dalmatians always die of cancer. I guarantee every single one of the 101 dalmatians died of cancer."
-Philip

"Run hard good and faithful servant! Just kidding. Go burn some calories."
-Ken

conjugation

"I've been trying to do it right.

I've been living a lonely life.

I've been sleeping here instead,

I've been sleeping in my bed."

-The Lumineers

she resists 

she resisted 

she is resisting 

she will resist

It is a daily fight. A daily thorn.

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful."

Hebrews 10:23