my feelings are hurt.

and as it turns out, it is normal that i feel this crappy.

i believe it is completely natural to be broken when you feel this let down and powerless over the way a friendship you really invested in is playing out.

it's tempting for me to conclude that things have happened this way because i have no value. (even though it could be an unconventional answer to my prayers, OR it could be just because you're a big POOP HEAD. i'm gonna go with the latter at least until i get further notification from jesus.)

but temptation is just that.. temptation, and temptation only.

like an unbudgeted purchase or a slanderous word rolling off my tongue:

it's nothing i must accept as a requirement for my survival, but simply a compulsive reach to the top-shelf coping mechanisms.

i can affirm my own value, and it is not subject to change with any potential situation.

i am ultimately a joyful person. i am a beautiful person. i am a determined, well-rounded, intelligent, and caring individual.

i am being further educated, and i don't take that for granted. i literally had to fight and claw to make it possible for me to be where i am at this point. the best part?? i chose this point as my goal for this place in time. where i am now isn't one step, two steps, or seventeen steps away from what i had decided i wanted.

i decided what i wanted out of this time in my life, and i worked, put pride aside, and did what was necessary to get here.

i have had no regrets regarding what i have put out to the world, said, done, or tasted since the day i decided that life was too short to live every day with a limp from whatever traumas we accumulate.

life is sweet.

and fate has never failed to drag my life from the ashes as something 10 times more beautiful than it was before the fire.

i have decided to trade lies for lessons, and to walk away from whatever situation having learned something, instead of reaching for the hatchet to chip away at my shoulder.

sometimes people in our lives are only supposed to be there for a season, to plant seeds in our spirits and hold our hands while we hesitantly dip our toes into the cold water we'll later swim in..

then there are the people who have already hopped into our bandwagon, and have their seat-belts fastened so tightly that they are nearing circulatory damage.

i am learning to take the people and what they bring at face value, without always over-analyzing.

life is so much easier when i remember to loosen my grip on everything i love so dearly. when things are able to pass when it's time; when new wonderful things are able to fall into place when they're ready.

i'm ok just the way i am. my value doesn't change with the measurement of my hips or with the abandonment of others.


it's ok that i feel the way i do. even muscle tissue has to tear before it grows.


and i'm broken just enough to grow into something wonderful.



life is beautiful that way. :]

(although you are still a poop head until further notice. waaaay further.)

i'll be happy for the fall..

 

fall brings change.. and pushes you far away from here.

you're ready, and so am i.

so no more narrow eyes in public,

just to whisper in the dark.

 

so. i went to a graduation at mercy.

and nancy was telling one of the girls about there being times when it seems like the fact that you've overcome gets turned around on you.. because of what you were previously involved with.

i could see that.

i'm pretty confidant in myself these days, but sometimes stuff like that wears me out.

i've met a few guys here and there since coming home. (i know. shock...)

and then when conversation happens, what should be simple answers get unavoidably complicated.

oh well.

 

there's some guy out there who's been just as twisted (and then untwisted) as me. :]

 

sometimes i wish i were more boring...

i always lose at that stupid 10 fingers game.

maybe you shouldn't always stick with what you know.

why repeat ancient history.

so stick to staying away from a past that previously fit you like a glove.

you're different now.

those gloves don't fit anymore.

 

thinking, thinking, thinking..

my mind has been useless here lately.. i have one million thoughts racing and crashing to form this static.

what a lovely mistake i made by reading rob bell's "velvet elvis"..

i thought to myself, "apologetics are great. i should read this." i assumed i would learn heaps on how to more effectively answer my daily presented questions.

the book, instead, drew my attention to bricks, trampolines, virgins, and a hypothetical man named larry.

i finished the piece with more questions. questions that are only answered with further questions.

this book dropped me into a place of different perspective.

i am a disciple, basing my decisions and thoughts and feelings on a yoke of specific translation that may or may not be somewhat shaded by the filters of traditionalism.

i have so many questions in my mind.. but i'm finding peace in my newly formed opinions. we don't reach "saintly faith" by being ignorant or simply (or not so simply) stopping trying to reconcile our intellect with what our spirit seems to know so concretely, regardless of it's contradiction with our fact (not truth) based brains (that we only use 10% of, mind you).

Ignorance has never been a virtue. Choosing to know facts and their contrast from generational commentary doesn't threaten faith. "science" doesn't threaten faith half as much as walking around daily in a society where the mothers and fathers continue to hand their children blinders to avoid the sight of the degradation of their morals in such plain view.


I'm done rambling for now.

now is one of those times when you realise that there may have been something with potential so close to you, but you never really gave it the attention it deserved.

well. i will be attending now.

there's a million and one things i wish i could take back.

there's a lot of times that something i did will just dawn on me.. and i won't really believe it at first.. and then i kinda go.. oh yeah...

 

there's also, quite honestly, a lot of things i don't remember.

 

maybe that's a good thing. :)

I was at steak n shake this evening with a group of interesting people.

one of these people talked about how he had never drank or touched drugs in his entire life. He also put milkshake and ranch dressing on his grilled cheese.

I still caught myself feeling a little envious.

I know I'm a completely new person with a new life, attitude, and phone number, but it still stings a little to look back at what things were like.

Because that sucked. There's a time for mourning, a time for laughing...

Since getting out of mercy, it's felt like test after test.. And I've been reading Joshua. That's a cool book, you know.

YHWH not only parted the red sea, but also dried the Jordan for the same group of people who consistently spat in his face for around half a century.

The people of Israel were instructed to take 12 stones from the Jordan to be in memoriam to what the lord did for them.

then he demanded the circumcision of the original exodus group's children and grandchildren. It was that same day that he removed their layers of reproach.

There have definitely been a lot of dried Jordan Rivers in my life.

I think about them every day.

But now he's calling me to that next degree of separation. I'm becoming a consecrated vessel. And it hurts. Because killing your flesh every day hurts sometimes.

But the day we cut away is the day YHWH rolls away our reproach at our own personal gilgal.

I'm excited.

A good friend recently told me about the purification of gold. The gold is heated to an incredible level, until the bad stuff surfaces. The purifier scrapes it way, and repeats the process. He knows he is finished when he can see his reflection in the gold.

I like that.

 

So I'm just a wee bit lonely at the moment.

Not in a pathetic attention seeking way, but in a normal way, I would guess.

Most of my friends are pretty new. I quite enjoy them and the time I spend with them, but there's a particular level of intimacy within a friendship that can only be reached with a longer length of time.

it would be ridiculous to expect that at this point. and i am content with waiting. believe it or not, i have learned a thing or two about patience (to an extent).

I'm still happy. Just a little quieter.

When you're solitary, you get to know yourself a little better. I'm fine with that. Maybe a little alone time is a good thing. I'd imagine that meeting yourself before meeting others would provide at least a spine to the standards you would place on potential relations with others.

Hm.

Happy. Yes.

Alone. Not quite.

Lonely. Not completely.

Enjoying time with myself. Learning.

On another note, I have noticed that the more channels you have, the less you have to watch.

I am sucked in, regardless. I am disturbed with my inability to NOT watch and learn about the alleged "ape man" in Russia.

Lord help me.

under no other circumstance, besides that particular evening's call for polite participation, would i have ever watched that film. the movie was clearly targeted at the cliché crowd of hyper-romantic women, possibly the lifetime movie type.

not me, so much.

i was, however, surprised (if not completely disturbed and/or horrified) at the parallels with my life that i was recognizing.

i found myself labeling the movie's designated "crawler-backers" as pathetic and incompetent as individuals without any kind of pride or dignity.

funny how we hate in others what we see in ourselves.

in some odd way, this movie somewhat "ministered" to me. 

"....oooh. so THAT'S what this looks like from the outside. how dumb.."

hm. there's nothing more alarming than things in perspective.

well, ladies and gentlemen, it is now time to cut away the ties.
(in the poetic words of Andy Dick and his scissor hands, "ftftftftft")

I promised myself this morning, upon exiting my car, that you'd stay on my mind at work today.

And I forgot again. Please have patience with my lack of mental ambidexterity... I want to be more loosely bridled. To be focused on what's stapled in front of my face. To be simultaneously focused on what's taking shape in my hands.

"Still not getting it right" is frustrating.
(But) life is still good.
Shame is gone.
Good riddance.

being home has been great.. in the begining i was so excited about not having to deal with school.. but then with not having a job, it got pretty boring after about three days. (after the three days i had finished all of our neighbor's "the office" dvd's.)

so.

i've been doing a whole lotta nothing here lately. i saved up a little money while i was gone, so at least i've got some gas money. i've been wandering around making new friends. i've been wandering around with some old friends, as well. you know, the good kind that you didn't pay enough attention to the first time around. there's about three of those that i've been really hanging out with. otherwise, i'm pretty much companionless. which is fine for now, honestly. there's absolutely nothing wrong with taking time to think on what you want in your friendships. i'm taking my relatinships a lot more seriously. i'm seeking less friendships, and expecting those few to be really awesome and commited. so, i'm not just going to be friends ("friends" is often used far to loosely) with whoever. i'm really setting standards for who i let in.. somewhere in the bible it says don't even stand inactive in the path that sinnners walk in. i used to do cartwheels all over that path. so, since i've found myself previously overly influenced, i'm being a better steward over myself.

this whole conversation reminds me of "the tangent".

i need a job here soon. i think there's an opening at our vet's office. i need to check that out.