Why love?

I heard her coming before I saw her... Her bare feet smacked on the concrete floor and she was, as she often is, laughing. She flew behind the deli and whether it was me or her daddy that she was looking for I'm not sure but regardless it was me who was there and me who got the hugs! As her little arms wrapped themselves tight around my waist and her giggle burst into my ears I felt that swell in my heart like an ocean wave. In an instant, I knew that I love this child. I hadn't quite realized it so clearly before but in that moment I knew that I do, truly, deeply love this darling beautiful delightful child. How does that happen? How does one go from being a stranger to loving fiercely in so short a time? How can one heart grow so very much in just three months? And how does one know if the love with which one loves is ok? Love is such a vulnerable thing! To love someone is to give them the power to hurt you. As I look at this place, these people, all the enormous amount of things I have come to love since I moved here, my heart catches and a bit of panic slices through me and I want to know HOW this happened! How did I come to care so much for these people that I work with? How did I get to the point that when my dear new roommate is sad, I am sad. How did I come to the place with my friend who I have known for so short a time that when her mouth hurts I want to cry for her? Since when do I love Brother 2 so much that when a customer is rude to him I want to throw her ground beef in her face? And the customers, why, how, do I care about them so much that its super important to me to where bright clothes that cheer them up? How can it be that I have come to care so much about a lady I have never even met simply because she is the sick friend of one of my favorite customers? I want to know the logistics of love. I want to understand the science, know the formula, figure out the reasons WHY I love these people. I want to know why it is that already Strider's youngest nephew has me COMPLETELY wrapped around his tiny little finger!? How do you reconcile the fact that, if you want it to or not, love happens? Real, true, deep love. The kind that wants the best for the object of its emotion regardless of the consequences for yourself. My co-workers, the people at church, the customers of the store, and most of all Strider's family... Since when does love just grow even when I think it wont?? Even when I fight it? I don't have answers to my questions. I wish I did. I know that I love them. I know that if I left here, left them, I would leave more than a piece of my heart, I would shatter my heart. Perhaps that is simply the nature of love. Maybe love is a force all its own, a part of the heart of God that just wells up and swallows the heart of His children? If you have an answer I would love to hear it!

Camo... A tribute to greatness.

When I first laid eyes on him he was no bigger than a minute. A tiny ball of grey and black fur, his eyes sealed shut and his pink nose and tiny tongue oozing that beautiful scent that only puppies give off. Half great dane, half blue healer, all adorableness. He was one of several and he was so special! His mottled coat and sweet personality completely won my heart and of the litter he was the one I fell in love with. It was a love that never wavered or faded and tonight, as I listened to my daddy's voice on my voice mail explaining how he found him dead and how my brother in law helped to burry him, I felt a piece of my heart die too. Camo was so much more than just a dog. My fierce protector, my constant confidant, my loyalest friend. His coat caught a thousand tears! His ears bore the brunt of many teenage heartbreaks. His tongue kissed away the sadness and made me giggle so many times! Once, when he was probably 3 yrs old or so, we were playing ball and he somehow managed to get a tennis ball lodged in his throat. It was sheer panic on my part for a bit but somehow I managed to keep my wits about me long enough to perform the Himeliche (sp?) and get it out of his air way. Ever after that tennis balls were NOT allowed outside! Another time, when I was practicing batting, I accidentally hit him in the head with the bat! I would hit the ball and he would run and retrieve it and somehow he got too close and I got him with the bat. I felt AWFUL and that was the end of that sport because he would no longer come around me when I had a bat! Smart dog :) I have always said that if he were human Camo would be the perfect male. Sweet, handsome, loyal, gentle, kind, considerate (he used to carefully carry his food dish out to the pasture every day for this little stray mutt that would come around. He didn't eat any food for like 3 days or something until I finally realized what he was doing and started putting his food in a concrete dish so he couldn't take it out for her) affectionate, adoring and completely amazing with kids! That was Camo's most valuable trait. He always did absolutely excellent with kids! They could beat him, ride him, pull his ears, kick him, throw stones at him, bite him, or anything else they could come up with and he would simply patiently endure it. A few times, when it had been several hours of non stop roughness, he got up and walked away from them. But for the most part he simply did whatever they wanted him to to make them happy. 

Today, my dad and brother in law buried a dog. They also buried a friend, a protector, and a family member. With him, they buried a bit of all our hearts.    

Filleting the Salmon

Sometimes I just need space. Air, room, nature. Some place to be that does not belong to another person. My biggest struggle since I have moved is desperately missing having 'home'. I miss having a kitchen and living room that I can just chill in. I miss that amazing feeling you get when you walk through the door of your 'own' house and just know that its yours and your heart is safe there. Please don't get me wrong, I have wonderful room mates and the house I live in with them is very comfortable. But its not home yet. These things take time. In the mean time, when I need 'home' I often go to the park or my favorite spot under the bridge. Tonight was such a night. All the world was crowding in around my brain and I needed space. So, I went to the park to swing. Let me tell you a bit about it. 

The Sparta park is not very big but it is quite pretty! The road that ambles through it is paved. Several ball diamonds sprawl out across most of it and the play grounds lie against the banks of the lake. On the other side of the lake a golf course stretches and rolls and weeping willow trees make lace over the lush grass. I love that park. I love to sit by the boat ramp and listen to the life that happens around me! One of my very favorite things to do is sit there and simply write out all that I hear and see! Sometime I will let you all in on one of those ramblings. Tonight I needed the rocking of the swing and the twinkling of the stars to sooth my soul so after swinging awhile I went and lay on my back on the play set and thought. A million thoughts ran through my bothered brain but the one that finally surfaced was "I just want to keep filleting the salmon". The thoughts before that one went something like "Why did I move here? What if people really don't actually want me here? What if I'm just going to totally annoy these people? What if I am only here because I want to be and not actually because God wants me here? What is my future here? What if my whole life here just falls apart and I have nothing to fall back on?" These are things that rattle at the back of my brain a lot, as my poor boyfriend can testify to! See, even though I know that most people who know me would never believe this statement, I am not a person who loves easily. Most of the time it takes me months to really love. But here I'v encountered something entirely different than I have ever known before. I have nowhere to hide. I am constantly forever and always with people who I have to learn to love. This fact makes loving them happen much more quickly and it also makes it much more frightening because they are my whole world right now. I fear overwhelming them or being too real or open for them. I fear doing something very unladylike and being forever branded a tomboy. I fear over reacting to something and being titled 'dramatic' and therefor discounted. Probably none of them is founded but it sure feels like they are! So many times, like tonight, I get so overwhelmed and wrapped up in the big picture and what MIGHT happen and what COULD happen and the worst thing that possibly MAY happen, and I forget to live in the day. Strider on the other hand, bless his dear patient heart, is incredibly good at enjoying every moment. He is teaching me. Slowly. That is where the "filleting the salmon" comes in. One of Striders favorite chefs was asked, after opening some new restaurants or something else very great "Whats your next big thing going to be?" to which he answered something to the effect of "Why cant I just enjoy filleting the salmon?" Its a phrase that runs through my mind a lot when I want to panic about school this fall or my parents at home, or how far Wisconsin is from South Carolina, Mississippi, and Virginia. It reminds me to focus, draws my attention back to what I'm doing, and plants my feet back in the world where loving people is a day to day thing. It reminds me that this church is a whole church. Even though somedays I know that I am "different" than what is the accepted norm here and even though sometimes I feel like everything I do and say sends shock waves, and even though sometimes I wonder what on EARTH God was thinking when He moved me here, or I was thinking when I agreed to it, I know that in reality, I'm just a girl who works in the local deli. I cut meat and cheese, package salads, wrap raw meat, arrange the produce, make an occasional sign, and date the bosses son. In the scheme of things, I'm not all that important. Its a very comforting truth! I don't know about ya'l, but I know I sure tend to think I'm way more important than I am. The flat truth is that I'm just me. Just plain ole me who loves the rain and hates the snow and is afraid of too many things. It is my constant battle to lay my future down at the feet of Jesus and choose to just 'filet the salmon' every day even though I have no idea what six months from now or one year from now or ten years from now may hold for me. "Filleting the salmon" is changing my life and my mind set. You should try it some time :-)

Moments in Narnia...

Today, we took a walk. Brother 1, Brother 2, Strider, and me. We walked along the sidewalk, sucked down its length by the music pulsating from the end of the street. It sounded like a live band. It was a live band. We were delighted! We watched and listened for a bit and my Southern Blood bubbled within my veins and I fought the urge to break out dancing. It was just that kinda day. Big beefy motorcycles stood all around and people milled in and out. After a bit the music lost its pull and we headed on down to the creek. They had told me earlier in the day that there was one and I thought it would be boring and clean but turns out its a very lovely creek with nice muddy water and lots of big slimy rocks. We stood on the bridge and looked at it for a bit but I knew I had to find a way to get down to that water, so I found a path and went scootching down it to the creek. It took me a bit to convince the three men/boys to join me but I told them they had to see it! I wish I'd taken pictures! It is pure magic under that bridge! A place anything is possible! From drug deals to stolen kisses to a hundred other rites of passage. The water roars through, murky and cold. Against one side of the bridge there is an old bench and across on the other side are pages of graffiti splattered against the wall. After too few minutes and too many mosquito bites, I was ready to go! So we scrambled back up the bank and headed for the train tracks. For a little while we were tight rope walkers. Brother 1 and Brother 2 were already barefoot. I, in a streak of less-hippieness, was wearing Strider's much too large for me shoes, and he was wearing Brother 1's. I quickly learned that tight rope walkers cant wear too big shoes! So I kicked them off and off we went! Such great fun! I wish I'd been introduced to train tracks years ago! I'm getting rather an obsession with trains and tracks and chatter bait. Weird, I know! We walked and laughed and my favorite navy dress that makes me feel like a fairy floated around me and for a while we were kids and the whole world was sunshine and magic and freedom and there was no work or bills or anything but the 4 of us and the tracks and the music still playing in the background. And that is how we found a slice of Narnia right here in Sparta, and that is how it goes, and how we roll, and how I learn to love these 3 crazy amazing men/boys who are teaching me to act like a kid.  

Life today...

My feet hurt. My eyes are tired. I cry a lot. Its very very cold here. I miss my family, and especially my sweet Angel Boy. I miss my dogs, badly. My heart aches. And maybe worst of all, I now live a mere 6 hrs from the Canadian border. I nearly went through the roof (grocery store roof mind you) today when I realized that dreadful fact. Sometimes I think my head will spin right off my shoulders and fly away into the wild blue yonder without me. Wouldn't be a great loss really, with as silly as the old thing seems to be these days! I now know more about cheese and deli meat than I ever dreamed I would. I'v learned that labeling machines are pure magic and that bread slice machines are evil. I don't shop at WalMart anymore (thats a post all for itself. It may be written at a future date depending on popular demand). I now know just how tired a pair of feet can get after 9 hours on concrete. I don't have homework :) :) :) :) :) :) Ya, thats happy! I absolutely love the people that make up my world now! I'm entirely smitten with every single one of Strider's family members that I have met so far. Especially the baby... He has beautiful blond hair and big blue eyes and even though he hasn't even tried yet, or really warmed up to me, he has me wrapped around his little finger! He is only a few months older than Angel Boy and looks very much like him. I tell Strider that his place as leading man in my life just might be in jeopardy. Some times, when I am hanging out with Strider and his 2 bachelor younger brothers I feel just a bit like the girl in the book Seven Brides for Seven Brothers :) I like that a lot! Some days I just need to go and hold Bella. Brother 1 does an amazing job of taking care of her though! She lives over at the guys' place and I am SO grateful to have her here with me in this cold cold world. The land here is all rolling hills and farms and looks like something strait from a picture book. I suppose most people would call it breathtaking, and I think it is really. But its also very very tame. I have yet to find a single wild thing here. There are not even any dew berry vines. Tomorrow is my first real day off since I started working in Strider's family's store and I am super excited about it! I am going to sleep as late as I please and then make food and take lunch up to Strider. Happy :) He also says that next week we are going fishing, so that makes me very happy too! :)

In spite of the rather complaining sounding things you just read, I actually think that my life here is going to be a truly amazing one. I really enjoy all the people I work with! Like I mentioned, Strider's family is wonderful. They are so very very different from mine in some ways, but in some ways they are just the same. They are warm and welcoming and very accepting! And funny... So very funny. I also really like the church people! Its such fun to live close to cousins. I'm excited about that part of living here! I actually really enjoy all the church people, and am very excited about getting to know them all better. I have great house mates!! One of them loves to cook and we have already learned we have a blast cooking together. I work with both of them at the store so that is a cool thing to share. One of them is busy planning her September wedding so that keeps her pretty busy too. And then there is Strider. :) Life is just better with him close by. I miss home, miss my life, my family, and my house. But when I look honestly at where God has me and how He's led me here, and the amazing man He's placed in my life, I know that I would not trade this moment in history for anything in the world, no matter how hard it is some days.

To all my friends and church family at home... I miss you. I am SO excited that I get to come home in July and see everyone!! I am super grateful for a sweet man who will take me home too! When you think of me, please pray for me. Each of you is in my prayers as God lays you on my heart! Don't forget that I do want to know what is happening in your lives as well! :)

A Political Post...

Disclaimer: This is my opinion, which has been held for quite some time. Take it or leave it. I'm not looking for a debate, just throwing my $.02 in.

As anyone who knows me well already knows, I do not follow politics. Truth is I probably pay a lot less attention to the news than I should and thats not a good thing. My dad and boyfriend are both newspaper readers and so I get a fair amount of news second hand. The reason, mostly, that I don't keep up with the news is that its depressing and frightening. I'm not condoning this habit of mine, I'm just stating it as fact. There is a trend that I see amongst my friends, especially on facebook, that really bothers me though. It looks to me like Obama bashing has become a sport. Now, please, do not get me wrong. I understand that he condones things that from a biblical standpoint can not be condoned. I get it that he supports abortion and abortion is, according to Scripture, murder. But according to Scripture is it not also murder to hate someone in our hearts? Since when is it ok for a Christian to publicly bash anyone, let alone an elected official?? God clearly states that we are to honor our parents. He also clearly states that we are to give honor to elected officials. I do not know one single person who would publicly slander his or her parents on facebook or anywhere else for that matter. Even when a person hates his parents, we generally have more decorum than to paint our walls with it like graffiti! So maybe all the jokes, pictures and "you need to be aware", posts are not actually ok. Perhaps, (and I do mean perhaps, I am not saying this is the case) they are an overflow from a heart full of hate? 

Another angle of this whole thing that I find particularly troubling is how much people are talking about our president vs how little they seem to be praying. Note I said 'seem to be' not 'are'. I understand that a great deal of silent and unseen prayer goes on! But my question is, can you truly pray for the good of someone and then turn around and slander then publicly? And I wonder too, have facebook and social media and other people become so huge to us that we think that telling the world about our feelings about our president will do more good than telling Almighty God? I understand that we have a responsibility to stay up to date with what is happening in the world around us. I understand that I am lacking greatly in that area. But I also understand that we are required, by God's law, to pray for those who make the laws of the land we live in. If we as American born Christians put the energy into prayer and fasting for this country and our leaders that we do into 'warning' others of Obama's marxist/socialist/muslim traits, perhaps the tide of the country would change. Our futures are NOT in the hands of any man. We rest in the palm of Almighty God! If we are subjected to the horrors of torture for our faith, it is simply because America as a whole has fallen away from God, not because one single man took us there. No man has the power to destroy a nation. If we are destroyed it is our own doing. And yes, I do mean 'our'. When was the last time that any of us spent an extended length of time in solitude, prayer, and fasting for this country and the hearts of its leaders? What about for revival to sweep our land? What about for the souls of the teenagers and children that are so hurt by the corruption around them? We are 'so upset' by the issue of abortion, but what are we doing about it? 

So here is my personal take on politics. I want to pray more. I want to lift up the men and women who lead this country that I am blessed to live in. I want them to know Jesus Christ. And I want my life to be led, controlled, and dictated by the will of my Father, not by the whims of any human, including myself. Yes, I want the killing to stop. Yes I want this country to honor God. Yes I want this country to be a democracy and not a socialist country. But I know, absolutely, that only God controls that and the only way that God will be honored in this country is if He is honored in the hearts and lives of His children who live in it. 

Choir...

Five months ago I made a decision that completely changed my life. Yup, completely. I decided to join the choir at my school. I had no idea. No. Idea. how MUCH that would change my life on campus. You see the thing about choir is that every single person in choir completely rocks. I have learned to love each and every one of them so very very very much! They are goofy, crazy, silly, original, and totally amazing. Ya, every one of them. And they really are. Every one of them, every one of us, together make up something really incredible! I love being a part of that incredible something! 

I will never forget the first day that I slowly climbed that long long stair case in the Music building. I was kicking myself all the way. One of the ladies that I work for goes to church with the director and had been after me for months to join. I had finally given in and here I was. All I wanted was to turn around and leave. But I didn't, thank God! I had one friend in choir but climbing those stairs I didn't know that he would be there. That first day I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I loved the music, and the people looked fun, but I was scared and felt alone and didn't have my brave face on very well. But, I was also committed, and I love to sing. So I kept going back. It didn't take long for me to learn that these people were totally awesome and I loved them, but it took them longer to learn to love me. I'm not sure they all do yet, but thats ok, I still love them. To me it felt like I sort of found a spot when I went to see a play put on by the Music Theatre Workshop class. It was a totally great play and I got very into it. The next day in class it was so fun to have that in common with the ones who are in that class! The end of February when we went to Meridian for the Community Choir Convention I felt like I was finally a part of the group. That was when choir really got fun for me. At that point I realized that every person on that bus was special to me. The time since then has been a lot of fun! 

Last Thursday at the awards ceremony I got to sit with the Reflections Singers. They are a smaller group from Choir that does more music and does a lot of special services and stuff. It was so much fun! It was cool to see/hear how much NOISE we made whenever one of us won an award. I'm pretty sure that we were by far the noisiest bunch in the auditorium! That afternoon while I was doing homework I randomly popped onto facebook to see that one of our band directors had posted saying that the choir director and Reflections Singers had been in a bad wreck on their way to a performance. My heart went through the bottoms of my feet!! I had no idea if everyone was ok or if anyone was dead or seriously hurt or anything! I immediately tried getting ahold of people and finally got a call about an hour later saying everyone was ok. Banged up and some injuries, but ok. The complete horror of that hour is going to stay with me for awhile!! 

Tonight, as we gave our last performance, it was so incredibly good just to be together. All together. We were missing one of our members who got pretty roughed up in the accident, but she is alive and ok. Thank You God! I think sometimes that you don't know how much you love people until you are faced with the reality that they could be gone. Saying goodbyes tonight was hard. I wanted to cry. I love each of these crazy kids so much! I call them kids because (although they don't know this) they are a lot younger than I am. Yes ya'l, I'm 24. A lot older than you :) 

Choir taught me a lot. Let me give you a few things that got cemented in my brain a lot more deeply. #1. People don't notice each other, they only notice themselves. Nobody thought about my presence nearly as much as I thought they did. #2. People like people who are themselves. I learned this by trial and non-error. Once I relaxed and was myself, people liked me. Voila!! Amazing new friends! #3. New things always make you grow. Sometimes we don't like to grow, I get that. But if you never try something new, never stretch your world, never go out on a limb, you will not grow. Amen. #4. People are people are people. We all have feelings and fears and hurts. We all have insecurities. We all want others to like us. Thats just how we are! #5. People like people who like themselves. Its not easy to like ourselves. To see our value. To be comfortable enough in our own skin that we can look outside ourselves and love others. But its pretty vital to being like Jesus. And #6. People like people who like them. We like those who genuinely like us and reach out to us. Its just human nature! 

I am so glad I joined choir. I would not trade the experience for anything in the world! I already miss my dear friends so very much! They are truly a part of my heart! So ya'l, (EMCC choir) when you think of me, drop me a message :) You know I would LOVE to hear from you! Any of you. Any time! I love you all so very much! I pray your summer is totally amazing and that you go on to have wonderful lives! Follow Jesus, and remember not to talk during practice or use your cell phones in church! :) :)