heart brims with expectancy

these entries are getting scarce, i am full aware. but bear with with me. between starting a new school year (homework already. really?), huge youth event, trying to be a member of this school community and watching gilmore girls (i kid) i'm just not sure i know what to say. or if i have the time to say.



besides that there are lots of changes. good changes on the horizon.

and i am in love with my research methods and study of scripture professor. truly and madly. i kid. i really really kid. (is that something one kids about? probably not.) he is married and has children. and i am no way attracted to his silver hair or his santa clause-like list of credentials. nor am i a homewrecker. perhaps a better way to put it would be that he is like a grandfather. one i dreamt up. i never met either of mine, thus the dreaming. one i love but am not in love with. one with a resevoir of knowledge. yes, that is it. the man can spin a tale. and is a painter of words. and commands attention with his command of language. and has a generous smile. the kind the does not expect a smile back. yes, that is it. but even though some (rudy) reiterate, jokingly of course, how unprepared i am for this class and all it entails. and even though i concede that i may not be ready for this class and all it entails. my heart brims with expectancy. because i am going to be challenged. :)

and i find that music theory and aural theory require an increasing amout of effort. that means practicing these things daily. key signatures, relative and parallel keys, rhythmic dictation must all be second nature to me. i should be able to read this language, these archaic symbols that connect me and beethoven in the most miniscule way. children in small towns in large countries - here, alive in the world, as i am - are learning these things. and the movement of music, this inexplicable gift bestowed to and within us is so worth my time. i want to make music one day. one day.

and i am thoroughly scared for vocal instruction to start. eeks!

bloglite

now introducing bloglite. lighter in tone, subject matter, etc. enjoy. :)

the other day i ventured into forever21. two stories. ::swoon::

this one had their faith21, love21, and heritage 1981 (my favorite) lines. as well as a floor dedicated to low prices in red ink. it was "confessions of a shopaholic" all over again. except, a reality. my budget was set. and there was no going over. and i had to say no approximately thirty-four times. i promise i am not materialistic. it's just that i gave away all the clothes i hardly wear. and ended up with only five tees. anyways, i ended up buying quality pieces that will have (fingers crossed) a long "shelf life." they are necessities, i argue. much like rebecca bloomfield on the sales floor:

"oh! gloves! i need these, as it is winter... and i have hands."

i must admit: i watched this movie on a friday evening and erupted with laughter. the next morning i watched it again. incredibly worth it. this was at my sisters house, when we each ate a medium sized pizza and a bowl of ice cream. never was i more content with such an ample consumption of food, such honest company, and such a well-crafted chick flick.

fact: as i am now a raging "gilmore girls" fan, i will be be sitting in a movie theatre this week watching "post grad." oh, alexis bledel, don't let me down!

, i remind myself

i am unbearably absent-minded. and it is a detriment to my growing up. because i have broken and misplaced too many things. things that are not mine to lose or destroy. mind you, i am trying ever so hard. but all my planning and organizing and attempts at being someone other than a young girl lacking focus have gone awry. slow down, i remind myself. because it is in my hurriedness that i get lost in thought.

lighter note?

music camp was fantastic in every aspect. and last night i devoured a watermelon that revolutionized my taste buds. so cool and sweet. and fear is not on the horizon any more. all i can do is breathe in steam. drink plenty o' water. rest. articulate and anunciate so i could be understood without the raising of my voice. refrain from clearing my throat. cut down dairy products. avoid coffee and soda. never push through. that is all i can do. and it isn't much. but i need not fear sickness or physical ailment. for my beautiful King has conquered it. and He is delivering me. right now. every time i wake up with worry on my mind. there He is.

"i sought the LORD, and He heard me,

and delivered me from all my fears."

psalm 34:4

p.s. today is my last day of summer. classes begin tomorrow. and there is a swell of excitement rising in me.

an overstatement

commuter: an individual who frequently travels between two places and fails with awe-inspiring accuracy at fashioning friendships of any sort; socially inept to the point of loneliness - a point that drives said individual to the car (parked far away from the others) to read a book... and not interact for fear of humiliation and rejection.

yes, i do commute. and yes, i am guilty of eating the majority of my meals in my car when the few people i do communicate with regularly are m.i.a. i also must admit that the above definition is an overstatement. the fear is real. as is the rejection. but the language is elaborate and inflated like a muscle-man suit on halloween. it is okay, i get it. and i realize that people are unaware of how exclusive their groups really are. they live with each other. eat with each other. study with each other. skip class with each other. etc. etc. etc. and i admit that i am largely uninvolved in this community that many rave about. i want to. not out of desperation, because i do have solid friends whom i spend time without outside of this school. not out of a need to be the center of attention, because i cannot withstand such a pressure. but out of a basic human longing to get a joke you are telling. and laugh with you. but there are so many of you, and only one of me.

don't get me wrong, i am not throwing a pity party.*

i am quite happy - satisfied with both my schoolwork and current relationships. but as i was waiting for time to pass between university registration and lunch (a whopping forty-five minutes), i came across this passage in "a tree grows in brooklyn":

And Francie did cry [...] because she was lonesome and nobody wanted to play with her. The rougher children found Francie too quiet and the better behaved ones seemed to shun her [...] So in the warm summer days the lonesome child sat on her stoop and pretended disdain for the group of children playing on the sidewalk. Francie played with imaginary companions and made believe that they were better than real children. But all the while her heart beat in rhythm to the poignant sadness of the song the children sang while walking around in a ring with hands joined.

my teachers, in loopy cursive, would always comment that i worked well independently. and it's true. i am rory gilmore at chilton during her second year. and i sit alone at lunch. and it bothers me some. but this is, as emily gilmore would put it, a habit i learned from my parents. who taught me, without words, the finer points of a hermit lifestyle. the advantage of not having friends over, mine or theirs. solitude was encouraged. there were too many children. and paychecks were stretched. and time was noisy. and they never set the example.

but i am going to try and burst out of this shell, no matter how lame this hermit metaphor is.

and i may make forever friendships. and i may get your joke. and you may even get mine.

*and please, i beg of you: do not befriend me because you read this. go about your business and feel no pity. or ugency to smile at me and ask me to sit with you when you see me scrolling through my phone. thank you. :)

p.s. today was good. i promise. i just felt introspective. and the length of this introspective post is so unbearable i will not read it through for misspellings. enjoy.

just as tenacious

today i am aware of my new obsession: cleaning. constant scrubbing. wiping. polishing. everyday is cleaning day. i am now my mother. taller but just as tenacious. i used to look on dishwashing with utter disgust. vacuuming was noise that interrupted my television show. windex just smelled funny. i am on the way to a more domesticated self. my husband will be proud. and clean, for my sake and sanity.

tomorrow is the first day of music camp. and i am shaking in my boots. quite literally.

sweetsmelling savour

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;

and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you

and gave Himself up for us, an offering and

a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma."

ephesians 5:1-2

this surrendering of life by the king of kings is likened to a fragrant aroma. the king james says "sweet smelling savour." throughout the old testament, particularly leviticus and numbers, when offerings were given up they too were described as pleasing and soothing fragrances. rams and bulls are not required any longer as an offering of repentance. so what is my sacrifice? what is my "sweet smelling savour" unto God?

"therefore, i urge you, brothers, in view of

God's mercy,to offer your bodies as

living sacficies, holy and pleasing

to God - this is your spiritual

act of worship."

romans 12:1

it is my life. poured out into the Father's hands.

the decision to grow up

i have made the decision to grow up in small steps that mean a great deal. on tuesday i drove to ikea, purchased a desk, drove it home and assembled it. two phillips screwdrivers and twenty screws later (mother insisted the drill was too dangerous) i hung van gogh's "mandolro in fiore" above this new work area. three days later, i am still glowing with pride. radiant i tell you!

my next small step towards adulthood was to clean out the garage with my mother. we made a dent in this monumentous task. meaning? my fourth grade mission with screens in the windows, a kiln and fountain made of clay and plaster o' paris walls had to be chucked along with the cottoncandy pink tissue paper kite i made in third grade. its polka dotted blue tail with bows will be missed dearly. that being said, my mother gave me two bins to sort through. and it has been a joy to slowly mull over every single report card, award, picture, art project, spelling test, happy [insert holiday here] card my parents insist on keeping. there is this picture of my mother that is fresh and alive, that captures all my breath. i wish i had a scanner so you could see it. there is nothing like it in all the world.

i never learned how to ride a bike when i was younger. one fall, and i threw in the towel. that was when we lived in little mexico and our neighbors were samoan with children named after precious things like jade and ruby and pearl. my father said to hell with it and i never learned. earlier this summer i said that the streets will be mine. and after borrowing jenny's "miss huffy" bicycle and riding with michael yesterday afternoon i realized that the streets will not be mine. grass i can do with an exagerrated ease. but the pavement is strictly a challenge right now. a fear, if you will. it will be mine, just not right now.

and, as if this blog is not long enough, i vow to only purchase items of clothing that color me confident. items that i will wear a thousand times and still feel incredibly beautiful and immeasurably uncommon each time i wear them. that is all a young lady really longs for: to know how uncommon she truly is. and to feel it deeply.

where the counting doesn't matter

"dance with me,

oh Lover of my soul

to the song of songs

romance me,

oh Lover of my soul

to the song of all songs"

there is all sorts of flesh in me that longs for a man whose hands will grow old holding mine. whose lips will travel tenderly about my face. but it amounts to jealousy. miscommunication. insecurity. complete rubbish if i am not completely assured of this eternal dance. this dance born out of relationship. painstaking, rewarding relationship with the Most High God.

while making sure the lyrics i posted are correct i came across this:

Behold I tell you a mystery, the Lord does want to dance [...] the important part of this is that you be moved by He, the bridegroom. Not of your own accord, not of your own initiative, not of a certain body of teaching, not of a certain populatiry, not of a certain gift. For in the true dance of romance the bridegroom leads and the bride devotionally, and beautifully, and harmoniously follows.

i want this to be true in my life. i want to enter into this intimacy. i want Him to lead me because i am sure to misstep. and lose count. one two three. one two three. one two three. take me to the place where the counting doesn't matter. and where i am lost in Your eyes. in Your presence.

looking like a hoochie

trying on clothes is a dauting task. the kind i love. :) you see, there are dresses and skirts so exceptional, so fine that i fear i might soon give up my reservations about looking like a hoochie. all i ask for is two more inches at the end. then i could prance around town in an outfit so lovely i might be mistaken for someone fabulous. i kid. that would never happen. and i promise that is not what i am aspiring to.

so my plea to all the designers at stores i shop at the world round?

please throw me a bone and add some length to the clothes you sell.

i'd rather not hide from unexpected breezes that blow beneath my waist and strange men who gawk.

thank you.

allowing it to cover you

God is so good. and pure. and right. and though i've said it before and sang about it; it's all about His presence.

jumping into it and allowing it to cover you. your sin. your fear. your insecurity. your shame. your guilt. your sickness. your anger. it cleanses. it purifies. it delivers. it redeems. it heals. it is real. and everything it does: all of that gutting out of our flesh is real. take hold of the realness of His presence. because it really is that good.

operative word

dear children-whose-names-i-have-thought-about-already:

promises are hard to keep. and there are no loopholes. ever. :) but i pinky promise that i will try my best- try being the operative word - to never raise my voice without reason. especially if the reason has to do with my day. and my problems. problems that you could not alter with your greatest thought or action. my anger will not rub off on you and it will not knock you over. it rears its ugly head sometimes. but i am only nineteen and still have lots to learn. let us hope that by then, the well within me is overflowing with His joy and compassion. however, (you had to know this was coming. i do love my adverbs.) this does not mean that i am to refrain from disciplining you if need be. this also does not mean that i am to refrain from speaking sternly. the tone will change with purpose. not out of a fit of rage. but to teach you. oh, i want to teach you! but you will probably teach me. and that's okay.

sincerely,

a girl who despises unnecessary shouting and quarreling and who will avoid it at all costs, especially with those she loves.

can't even articulate it

ya know, this fear that makes sick every part of my being is so incredibly pointless when i think about God and His unchanging goodness and love toward me. for me. all around me.

i will expand on this later. because there is so much! hah. and right now He is so good that i can't even articulate it. wow.

"there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy dwelling places of the Most High"

psalm 46:4

the family i forge

i would just like to say that the family i forge will be entirely different than the family i have been raised in. entirely. and that i would very much like to get out of this house. soon, please.

because i am suffocating in here.

, like a million other things.

friday i hurried to finish a blog so that i could reward myself with a bonfire. but as michael, jenny, and i drove onward towards the beach we realized that no one had reserved a pit. we all gasped silently. i gasped harder on the inside. a fiasco, i thought. spontaneity, i can handle, but unpreparedness and disorganization, i cannot. but, trust me, i'm working on it. michael ran two miles or more (barefoot, i might add, because sandals were detrimental to the urgency with which he ran) down the coast in search of a bonfire pit that the whole group might enjoy. i applaud him. he got blisters from the scorching pavement and did not complain. he was a a complete doll (i love that saying). he got in the water with me and thomas. and i felt like i was swimming in a reverie worthy of a queen. it was like a warm bath. and i just wanted my toes to get prune-y.

i'm not much of a socialite. this is something else i am working on. i won't play volleyball, which this group does. it is all they seem to do. all they want to do. endless games of twenty-one and then they just "bump it" to one another. astonishing. incredulous! and i applaud them for their sportsmanship, for their spirit of competition. for the way they "take one for the team." but i just can't do that. i won't. and it's childish, i am sure. i am sure that one makes friends by participating in things like volleyball. that these tiny moments add up and after months, possibly years, of volleyball at the beach, one is laughing with friends. hardcore friends. the sort that just know. but i am working on it, like a million other things.

and on the way home, my aching bones wanted to cry. i have no idea why. because i feel things deeply. things i cannot explain. things that overwhelm. and nothing can assuage that ache but His love. not even michael buble singing his hit "everything."

oh, how i need His love. daily.

how silly this seems

and in commemoration of the thirty-first of july, which marks the near end of summer and the near beginning of the school year, i will write a letter to my future children. regardless how silly this seems. or how little time i have to do so (since i must be ready for the beach at precisely two o' clock)

dear children-who-have-yet-to-be-born:

i will try and give you more than toys or video games. i will read to you every night. including the nine glorious months that you will be swimming in my body. i will expose you to beautiful operas and folk music. and i will teach you about geography and aviation. i hope that you will fall in love with learning. but that said learning will not keep you from doing and living. that thought will not be the iron chains that imprison you. but a desperate and urgent stirring within to climb trees and dive into the deep end of the pool. these things are important. but they are nothing compared to the incomparable God who i pray you will serve wholeheartedly. i know you will. you are bound to. :)

sincerely,

a girl who is only nineteen but still thinks of what your favorite color might be and if you will like comic books

it is time to make a sandwhich and get ready for the sun!

wish

i wish today was saturday so i could go to yard sales.

:)

magically appear

today i watered my backyard so that i could see rainbows magically appear. i spotted seven. and they reminded me of noah - the one who God remembered. and a smelly boat. and a rebellious people. and a corrupted earth. and a grieved Saviour. who thought it best to start over. who released the fountains of the deep. and all flesh ceased to brethe. except noah and his family and those smelly animals. and when the waters relinquished a covenant was established.

and i am reminded that His promises are concrete.

and that He is faithful.

and that His word is a sure thing.

and their affection, transient

He is the Eternal Lover. and He allows no competitors. not that any thing or person could compare to Him. but we are human. and are taken for fools. and are often tricked with ease. i have tasted of lovers. have forfeited my will to them. they are without flavor, mostly. their promises are ephemeral and their affection, transient. they are people. ideas. things. practices. worries that i have bent my knee to. their fraility and fickleness have taken hold of me. but there is a Love that breaks strongholds. and i am glad to lean on Him.

take it all

just give me jesus

i don't want any other lover

all my devotion belongs to this Man

that mislead and oftentimes betray

twenty-one days have gone by and i am more aware of my helplessness. and His power. and right now, i don't feel much different. but i refuse to be discouraged by notions. sensations. feelings. that mislead and oftentimes betray. i have resolved to commit myself to His counsel: transcendent and infinately above mine.

"for My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your

ways my ways," declares teh Lord. "As the heavens are

higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than

your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

isaiah 55:8-9

all days cannot be like today

i've been avoiding this blog for a few days now. just because i can't think of what i want to say. and i know it might be emotional vomit if i were to write it on a whim. however, i do not promise that this will be clear or coherent. i also do not promise that it will flow logically or chronologically. and i'd like to add that it might read like a mess. but it isn't really. i promise.

i'm trying to remember that all days cannot be like today: quiet, forgiving, energized, full of breath. and that one day i may not know you or your eyes. i may even forget your voice. and the two, literally two, friends i hold dearest may not be my friends forever. because that is how time is and how change goes. and the things i thought unforgettable may be hard to remember. may be things i leave out unintentionally. like my first shooting star. and poems. and fat and bones. the last one is an inside joke. and i'm trying to detach myself. i've tried this many times. because what if i am too attached and you leave. or i leave. it is better to be apart and alone sometimes. it is easier to stay in your room and do your work and not connect. and it hurts to be friends when you want more and have memories. and yesterday i got into a car accident because i didn't check my rearview mirror and see the car behind me. i didn't hear him honk or anything. there was a seventeen wheeler coming towards me sort of and i was concentrating on not hitting him. but i hit someone else. and it all worked out. but i found out i was afraid of my dad. not because he hits or shouts loudly. but because of the way he says things. it reminds me of childhood. and disappointment even when i tried my best. and i can't get away from that fear. it's really hard. the incessant combat with inadequacy. and the other day i wore this shirt because i wanted to feel beautiful. and even though i know that i am not bad looking, i felt the need to prove something. because some girls are very beautiful. even without makeup. and everyone thinks so and just does not say it. and i imagine that i am not that girl. and never will be. and when you say i am beautiful it feels real when i inhale. and then i need to prove it to you again. to myself. to the world. and i exhale and push. and strive. and sometimes i feel like it is too late to make friends. and that i have missed all my chances. and that to many laughs have connected you and yours. and i cannot laugh like you do. full. content. bursting. no, i worry about my voice and how it may sound breathy the next day. sometimes i try not to talk all morning and afternoon so that i won't get nodules again. and i breathe in steam every morning. and sometimes i try not to pray too loudly or i try not to cry. because crying causes swelling in the vocal folds. but i've been crying too much lately. and like charlie, in "the perks of being a wallflower" (is that how you cite books? ms. mooney would be disappointed), it is panicky and overwhelming and comes all at once. and the world spins. this morning i started that book. and this evening when the earthquake happened (even though i did not feel it) i finished that book. and it is one of my favorite books i think. i will reread it again when the leaves turn yellow, even though that is a cliche thing to say. but i do recommend the book to anybody reading this.

my fast ends soon. and it is easy to not think about food. and to hang out with people while they are eating. there's still so much that needs to happen before it ends. i just don't know how. this not knowing part is a detriment to my growth. and i just need to get over it. but my head is noisy and i'm still trying. i really am. but i remember someone said that we need to stop "working" so hard to get into His presence and just allow Him to rest on us. and there is this song by misty edwards called "garden" and she talks about fellowshiping with God and creating a place for Him to dwell within her. what does that look like? in that book i referenced earlier they say that some people use thought to not participate in life. and i think the noise in my head is preventing me from that. from participating in my God relationship and my people relationships.

::sigh::

i think this is the longest blog thus far. but tonight i'm gonna let Him rest on me. and tomorrow i will see Harry Potter with my nephew. and i will continue to seek Him. because He's worth it. and i need to know His love. personally. i really do need to.