Birds should unionize.

Have you ever just been terrified?
Heart stopping, blood-draining kinds of horror.

Not because you visited the Shark Tunnel or because your mother jumped out at you from behind the refrigerator (both are tremendously scary events, believe me on that.), but just because you feel like this night is a night to fear.

Nights can so often bring such distasteful ends to perfectly wonderful days.
I blame it on nice bugs and birds and things.
During the day they do what they're supposed to do and make noise, but then they get lazy and go to sleep, leaving only the buzzing, nasty bugs to take up the music selection.
While in the buzzing quiet perhaps our minds try to make noise for themselves.

Noise like doubt and gloom,
despair and doom,
rainclouds and puddles with no rain boots near by.

I firmly believe in the birds joining the industrial revolution.
Splitting shifts and having night workers.
Perhaps then Night won't be jealous of Daylight.
That could be why he causes such mischief.
Maybe Night is just lonely?

The stairs by the science hall are surprisingly comfortable.

It had been my dream to be where I am.

Living in a city with lots of books and not knowing anyone.

A mysterious enigma. Slightly antisocial, drinking cup after cup of tea, and getting lost in books for hours. Sure, I wanted to flirt with lots of boys and maybe even break a few hearts, but for the most part I was looking forward to the solitude.

Isn't it amusing how dreams turn into such undesirable ideas?

Now, please, don't get me wrong. I love sitting on campus in a patch of sun, reading ever C.S. Lewis book I brought with me. It's too hot to throw back cups of tea, but I'm sure it'll still be wonderful when it's sweatpants weather. It's more the feelings and ideas behind the dream that I don't recognize anymore...

There are the second glances and prolonged stares from guys in my classes and around campus, but I don't want them! Mostly it's just a frustrating reminder that the one boy I do want is too far away for me to easily see. I don't mind spending time alone, but it's not for the same reasons as before. I don't have any desire to sink into myself, to be "that nerdy, hipster girl who doesn't talk," or even because I'm secretly, deathly shy. I don't, honestly, want to feel invisible.

It's not that I truly care about being seen,
but there's so much to see,
why waste your time trying not to be?

Yes, Mulan is often my philisophical starting point.

I was never picked first for volleyball.
Hey now, don't get me wrong. I was never picked last, either.
Just never first. Or second. Or third, fourth or fifth.
I was never argued over and traded for, etc.

I think every kid, while they're lined up against a wall, waiting to be picked,
has their fingers crossed
hoping to be #1.

Hoping to be something so sought after,
something desired,
and something worth fighting for.

Oh, there's a difference between fighting for and fighting over.
It feels so helpless, being fought over. As if you were an item.
But it's second best,
and sometimes second best seems not so bad.
Like the girl who's so lonely
that her dream is to have a guy sock another in the face over her.

But that's not the fairy tale.
The dream of a hero who fights dragons for you.
Who will chase after you when you stray.
And who won't let you walk away, no matter how you fight against him.
It's fighting for the right to love you.
Fighting for the chance to be near to you.

And I suppose like most things, this ties into my Jesus.
When everyone on Earth seems to not want to put forth the effort,
He's battling for you.
On crusade for your heart.
And it's the best kind of romance.

Every time I yell at Him,
every time I turn my face,
and every time I'm contrary and difficult and so unworthy of loving,
there he is chasing me down.
Grabbing my shoulders and forcing me to look back at him,
because He wants me to love me,
and will do anything to make me let Him


Psalm 18
16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
       he drew me out of deep waters.
 17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
       from my foes, who were too strong for me.

My favorite birthday blessings are mustachioed.

Jesus, and chocolate, and lactose intolerance.

Happy Easter
10 days 'till my birthday.
14 days 'till the one year anniversary of my decision to recover.

6 months last Thursday of finding a man who seems to want to stick it out.

So many numbers.
And for the first time in a long time
none of those numbers are my weight
or free-floating calories.

But the total of friends I told "I love you" today,
and the amount of times I looked at the sky and smiled
because my God is so good to me.

Oh, happy day
oh, happy day
when Jesus walked
and took my sins away.

oh happy day

Promises never feel real until you don't know what to do with them.

Sometimes I miss the way things used to be.
When riding the bus to school was my only choice,
and panic and stress were constant.

Is that too strange?
That now that things feel good and correct,
that I'm starting to work hard to do the right thing,
and now I feel guilty.

Because sadness and longing have been my companions for so long.
Hurt and Tiredness were always lurking by.
How do you deal with happiness?
What do you do when you feel no reason to pout,
when everyone else seems to be so upset?
I feel like it's not fair,
like I should be sharing in the pain.

So what do you do
when you're finally feeling the Love that was always promised?

I've never seen a brighter night light than Love.

Oh this night feels so black
like a granite chalkboard that no one thought to decorate.
And there feels to be little camaraderie between the stars that seem to not want to glow tonight.
There must be secrets in this night for the stars to be so hidden.
Or perhaps it's just hurt that's oozing through the streets.
The kind of hurt that makes you run from behind one tree to the next,
keeping out of sight.
Or the kind that has you sitting beneath street lights,
yelling at the sky for a fight.
And there are those who ignore the pain,
and just walk through the alleys as if it were bright out,
side stepping trash, and stumbling over pot holes with their eyes averted.
And we don't understand why this place won't shine.

But what is to shine
must endure the burning.

The burning of coming clean and stepping out from behind that post box.
Of lowering your fists, and letting tears free.
Of opening your eyes and realizing that this isn't the beat you were meant to walk.

Because God didn't create this world to be in the dark.
Which is why he hung the stars.

Because we were made to burn.
To burn so we can burn bright.