this is something I wrote for my Creative Writing class that I don't think I've shared on here (sorry if I have though, I honestly can't remember), but one of the girls from that class told me she really liked it yesterday, then quoted a line from it, which was AMAZING to me, because I read it to the class back in February. So cool! 
Truth
I choke on my spit. I don’t mean to, it just happens. I’m more likely to trip going up the stairs than down. I get upset if I feel pressured to wear something I’m not comfortable in, which basically just means that if I’m wearing something tight or short, I’m fuming inwardly. I always want to be awkward in elevators. Whenever I’m in an airport I want to scream and take off running, just to see if I can outrun security. I hate when people flip to the back of a book to see if it “ends well”. At my sickest I hold an inward debate over what position I would play in Quidditch. I do not have a favorite Beatle.

Oh wait yes I do, it’s Paul.

Liberal, I don’t like labels. I believe nothing is ever as cut and dry as it seems. ‘Christian’, no thank you. Christ follower, sure. I mean what I say, except when I don’t. I believe love is love and to argue with that is stupid. In my nightmares I’m strapping one of my close friends to a backboard and trying to remember how to palpitate and do an occlusive dressing. Passion is my thing; judgment is not. 

There’s poisonous mercury inside of it, but you want me to put it in my mouth?

Thermometers freak me out.

I talk in my sleep. I don’t like lying because the truth just sounds better. If I could live anywhere I wouldn’t live here, but I wouldn’t live there either. When I have my own house, I want to use a stolen grocery cart as a planter in the front yard, just so I can be ‘that house’. My skills are so hidden that I can’t even find them. I plan on walking into a burning building one day. I’ve never lost that ambition I had as a child that one day I’ll jump off a swing and fly away. I love redheads.

I want to own a dual counseling office/tattoo parlor.

No, I don’t know how it’ll work out.

At night I drift in and out of wakefulness while listening to poetry videos on YouTube, because sometimes my soul won’t rest ‘till I hear an outpouring of another’s. I’m obsessed with remembering because of that one voice I managed to forget. I think people get lost in themselves without realizing it, but there’s something to be said for knowing yourself.

 
Tonight I was lamenting to my very best friend how it had been put on my heart to be this prayer warrior, but how I just...hadn't been making that happen. And maybe you're thinking that's God's business (changing you into a prayer warrior, there's nothing YOU can do about it), but I truly believe that we have to be moving for Him to direct us, we can't just be sitting still and wondering why He's not moving us. It's a lot easier to steer a ship that's sailing and not just sitting at the dock, you know? 
After that phone call and watching a little bit of Glee, it dawned on me, but when I say 'it dawned on me' it was really just me feeling sad and very downtrodden and then (slightly) choosing not to feel that way, not to drown in sadness, and the helping hand that came from that decision. Trust me when I say that it was not me. I love...obedience. That's what tonight is, it's the beginning of obedience. Of not just listening, but doing. 

As I started to write down things that had been laid on my heart to really pray for, not just glean over while I'm taking a shower, but to actually put on my heart, to appeal to the God who listens and cares, it opened my eyes once again to how my ways are not God's. How right this feels. I've had this vision for a long time now of me sitting on my bed staring at the wall, and just having prayer with God. Not TO God, but with God. God showing up, and me showing up. This isn't a laid back, prayer to lull yourself to sleep. This is a burning bush, part the seas, I know my God is powerful beyond belief sort of prayer.



And so voila!
God is good. And He is going to show up. And I'm going to look back at this blog post one day and be shocked at how things have changed. How I have changed. 
Picture
the late night beginnings of a prayer wall
 
-When I see pictures from a wedding or a party or something, and there's only 1 or 2 of me, but tons of my friends, it makes sense to a part of me, because why would someone want a picture of me? [I dislike purposely not writing about things that could be labeled 'sad'. If I feel a certain way, I think I should say it, and not be ashamed or fearful that it will sound needy or depressing. So there you go!][I am not needy (well I try not to be) or depressed (well okay sometimes), but I AM truthful.]

-I have a clock on my wall that doesn't work but isn't broken, kept there for it's difference, for it's beauty. 3 o'clock, the hands never move, is the constant judgement and watching of time that important? ---> "and the clock on the wall has been stuck at three for days and days..."

 
Picture
Picture
That morning my back unclenched for the first time-no stress in my forehead, no arm muscles randomly tensing as if to prepare for a fight unbeknownst to me. Driving through darkness to dawn, I lost myself. Headphones on feeling more awake then I had been for months, it was just me. And him. One of my best friends asleep in the passenger seat, if I got too tired I could wake him up, but there's something beautifully calm about a sleeping friend. Smiling, I felt like a parent, for once getting to keep someone safe other than myself. Also, it was a time for just God and I, to watch the sun rise and miles eat away; I love to drive. Instant gratification, the wheels could take you away from your problems if you hadn't buried them so deep in your heart. The spoken word poems of Andrea Gibson meeting my ears, I cried going down a mountain, finally opening my heart to God and telling Him how hurt I was, another cross He bears for me. Feeling my spirit soar as I did not, for once, have anything else to do but sit in His presence and listen. No paper to write on, no way to get my own thoughts down, it was time for me to listen. To just be



*of course me being ME, I write about one of the last parts of my road trip first, without actually telling you where I was or where I was going. All in good time! 
 
Tomorrow my friend and I are meeting in DC to just hang out at the mall and enjoy the nice weather. I was thinking about bringing along the 4 year old that I watch, until I realized that the friend I was hanging out with wouldn't appreciate it and really...would teach my little dude things he doesn't need to know yet. Which inspired this writing: 

I want him to know only sunshine and dancing for as long as possible.
To keep the scary world out, and the ‘you can do anything’ world in.
The world where good always wins and badness doesn’t live in people’s hearts.
One day someone will feed him the lies that he isn’t strong enough, that he doesn't look right, that he is missing something vital…but that day won’t be today.  Or tomorrow.
I want his eyes to stay a clear blue, reflecting the innocence of the sky. I want him to stay a little boy at heart for as long as he can. He has freckles and a gentle spirit, both of which he will be teased for one day, and loved for later on in life. 
There is a time for growing up, but that time isn't now. Now it's time for shirts with fire trucks and hands painted with light sabers, shown proudly to strangers. For milkshakes that taste green and favorite colors to be vastly important. Dancing and funny faces to be as easy as breathing. 

 
if you wanted one. Of course right now all I can think of is:

I miss you.
I love you.
Please don't be mad.

Nonchalant: 
no worries I'm not.
I need you passionately, 
Truth woven in those words that only best friends understand.
I could lie and say
I don't need you in my life I 
choose to have you there.
But my nose grows with every word uttered
My heart flutters
Hummingbird wings beating
I love you.
 
Just in case you're stalking my life, I feel like I should update. Also, as usual, I SHOULD be sleeping/getting ready for sleep, but I just can't. I'm currently having a really good week. Earlier it was stressful, but now I'm getting used to the stress & am working with it. My friend and I have this deal, that will one day be made official with a pinky promise, that since he lives far away, when we get to see each other I give him a cup that I've drawn all over (a throwaway one, like from Starbucks) and sometime during his or my visit he plays me a song. 
----> It's a great deal because it includes something both of us enjoy and the other one appreciates. It's fun. 
So if you don't count art and being creative, I got nothing done today, other than making it to class as a fast as a ninja, cause I woke up 5 minutes before it was supposed to start, and still managed to get there before the teacher.

 
right here, right now. My lungs gasp for air and the fear rushes over me like a wave. I am so deep into this that I can feel the foam from it on my face, the drag of it pulling on my feet. It wants me to go deeper, further out into the ocean.

I'm finally for the first time in my life, scared of my future. I've worried, I've dreaded, I've hated the idea, but now...I'm scared. Fearful. On the brink of overwhelmed. I was dreaming too small before, and when we dream too small our very BIG God has no room in our dreams. Our hopes. Our desires. I know this to be true.

I feel the most out of control because I recognize a current when I see one, when I feel it tugging the sand from underneath my feet. My future always looked like a path before, one that branched out into different smaller trails, so...mundane compared to this. I never wanted to go to a Christian college, I had enough of that schooling throughout elementary, middle and high school. But now...things have changed. 
-----> As I finished that sentence, I started humming a song that I haven't heard sung in ages, and once the lyrics finally came to me, they were: I wanna get carried away
I wanna get tossed by Your waves
I don't care where or how deep
I'm gonna jump in with both feet
(Carried Away by Sonicflood)