a brandon heath after school special.

give me Your eyes for just one second.

give me Your eyes so i can see.

everything that i keep missing.

give me Your love for humanity.

give me Your arms for the brokenhearted.

the ones that are far beyond my reach.

give me Your heart for the ones forgotten.

give me Your eyes so i can see.

i wonder.

i wonder. is it illegal in the world of blogging for the blogger to delete an old post simply because he or she is no longer confident in the words once written? because this blog isn't interactive and you, the reader, can't respond in real-time, i guess it's my prerogative.

if, in the coming days/weeks/months, you notice that a once-beloved (ha!) post is missing, rest assured that it is not a technical difficulty but rather a blogger difficulty.

what is with me and my inability to stay confident in my words? i will write and send a letter only to soon after become anxious, analyzing every written word that i can conjure up from memory. emails are the same. i curse the send button for being so prompt.

dear gmail,
maybe, after hitting send, a prompt should appear asking the sender if they are certain they really want to send their feeble words.

signed,
disgruntled in kansas

reliant on relient k.

i have a tendency of zoning out while i drive. good music will do that to a person.

my sister sydney and i were in the car earlier today, and we literally went a good half hour without talking. we were singing along to the music on the radio, just taking in our surroundings.

when we got to the chorus of chris tomlin's Your Grace is Enough, i laughed when i realized that sydney and i were both methodically drumming along to the beat -- i on the steering wheel and she on the dashboard. in that moment we connected (as it is sometimes hard for siblings with ten years between them to do), and a conversation about grace ensued.

i shared with sydney how i had just recently come to really understand grace. it seems that the word is often times used interchangeably with other words such as mercy and love. she gave me her 14-year-old definition of grace, one that really could be categorized as either mercy or love.

i wanted so much to emphasize the importance of grace, to show her that really it is an attribute that is so set apart -- not greater than mercy or love, but different. as we talked, i struggled to find an example that she could relate to, something that would really make sense. after a few failed attempts, i shared with her a line from a relient k song, lyrics that had really made me think and finally understand the true meaning of grace.

from the song Be My Escape:
"the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair."

then, almost instantly she got it. and to be quite honest, in three years of teaching high school, this "light bulb experience" that i witnessed with sydney was greater than any i had in the classroom.

Romans 6:23
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

how awesome is the grace of our God who forgives our failures and overlooks our inadequacies. we deserve death, yet He in all of His grace and unfairness (thank you relient k) gives us life eternal.

mae yao jeh huan.

i had a nice chinese dinner with one of my single friends the other night.

the food was good.
the conversation was great.
but the fortune cookies really made the night.

immediately prior to the cookies we had been discussing life choices - big and small. we talked about several decisions we are currently praying about. we talked about being single and how our life circumstances differ so much from what we had expected.

she opened her cookie first and her usually quiet self seemed to disappear in an eruption of laughter. the learn chinese portion of her fortune instructed her on the pronunciation of the word "girlfriend." we joked that maybe it was a prophetic fortune.

after our laughter had subsided, i opened my fortune to see the phrase mae yao jeh huan. the interpretation, in large bold letters, read, STILL SINGLE.

the inner dialogue in my head went something like this: way to state the obvious, mr. fortune cookie. i never liked you anyhow. all these years i've merely cracked you open to see what was inside and left your stale remains in what was left of my egg drop soup. besides, who are you to teach me chinese or predict my future?!? pssh.

on the opposite side of my hopefully-not-prophetic, learn chinese phrase was my fortune:
Avoid the opposite sex today. Yeah, right!

apparently my fortune cookie was bi-polar.

in a funk.

let me start by saying that i am more than thankful for the ideology behind the phrase "april showers bring may flowers." once, my friend bethany asked me what may flowers bring, and i responded, "pilgrims." she thought i was clever. clever i am; however, i stole that answer from a bubblegum wrapper.

back to the "funk" this post's title eludes to.
nothing is particularly wrong. don't worry yourself on my behalf. still, nothing is particularly right. maybe this "funk," this unrest, stems from the uncertainty i seem to be swimming in:

graduate school. no graduate school.
pursue. wait to be pursued.
step out in faith. wait in what is comfortable.
is it You? is it me?

daily i struggle with disbelief. i believe Christ's words to be true. i rest in His promises and am thankful for His sacrifice. yet, i know too well the face of disbelief. it shows itself in restlessness, heartache, worry, and regret. where is my peace? where is my belief when i find myself struggling with decisions yet to be made? the cry of my heart is like that of the father in mark, chapter 9.

"Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." Mark 9:24

and so i wait. i will wait for the flowers that april promises to bring. and, who knows what may flowers will bring. maybe pilgrims... maybe so much more.

ditto.

my sisters and i made the three-hour journey to oklahoma city on saturday, and as we waited for the concert to begin, we were able to catch a pre-concert glimpse of the band. we got to listen to and see the bands do their sound check, and later on, we watched needtobreathe play a friendly game of golf before the big show. it was all quite exciting. the three of us were first in line, and we got great spots on the front row. bear, the lead singer, caught my eyes and held them for several seconds at a time. we no doubt had a connection. here's to connections, and here's to needtobreathe. cheers!

a mess of nothingness.

this post has the potential of becoming a mess of nothingness. still, i type on...

last night i got a phone call from a friend i haven't talked to in eight years. one would think that might be awkward, but it wasn't in the slightest. we talked for nearly 90 minutes, and at times we were talking over each other as if we couldn't get the words out fast enough. i'm a lover of surprises, my favorite kind being an unexpected note or call, and the dialogue i shared with my friend last night was not only unexpected but really good. i think i'll make it my goal this week to surprise someone else in my life... if a random note or call will make someone else as happy as the call i received last night made me, then i think it's worth the effort.

...and so this post becomes the mess of nothingness i mentioned earlier...

driving home from work today i followed a school bus for several miles. typically the stop-and-go drive would have been frustrating, but i had good music on and lots to ponder. each time the bus stopped i waited to see who would emerge from the yellow beast. let me just say, little kids are cute! one boy in particular stepped off the bus only to immediately put on a baseball cap. i watched as he wobbled across the highway with his book bag obviously making his attempt at speed quite difficult. the bag was four times the size of his little head that was lost somewhere inside his Atlanta Braves cap. although his entire journey from bus to front door consisted of me hoping aloud that he didn't topple over, it was by far the cutest thing i saw all day.

...one more piece of nothingness that really is somethingness and then i'll stop...

this month's issue of a magazine i read often had a great article called Love Rules, a synopsis of the art of submission. the information in it was really good and applicable to our relationship with God and with others. i underlined a few lines that really made sense to me:

Submission is active. It's not a passive resignation but a purposeful OK. It means we no longer live for ourselves. -- Beth Clayton Luthye

isn't that good? it makes submission seem attainable, even enjoyable. so often we're taught (girls specifically) that to submit we must sit back and let someone else do the talking, the decision-making, the everything. but luthye says submission is active. submission means you are still a part of the work at hand... it's purposeful. i like that.