Big Bird Brings Spring to Sesame Street

i can't remember the last time i sat down and wrote for myself, not in cryptic poetry or song lyrics to be read into, but simple prose that mapped out my heart. i've written away bits of my heart to my friends in emails or facebook messages or texted about them or packaged them in pleasant sounding mysteries here and there, but really journaling, it's been a while. ever since i decided it was futile that night a few months ago, that was probably the last time, and even that was the first time in another long time. and now, i wouldn't know where to start even if i wanted to. and like i was telling you, i'm scared to start journaling again- i'm scared that if i do, i'll drown. and maybe, even more than that, i'm scared that i won't drown, i'm scared to find that there's nothing left. 

i feel like big bird in that one book where he buys a bouquet of flowers early one morning from mr. macintosh and then gives each of the flowers away on the way back to his nest. at first, he feels sad that he has no flowers to brighten up his nest, but then he realizes that it's okay because this was the way it was meant to be, this was better than keeping all the flowers for himself.

journaling is hard to pick up after you stop for a long, long while. your heart gets all out of tune or maybe, it's the same old tune, but you just forgot what it sounded like. so i sit here, and i close my eyes and hold my breath- lest breathing causes me to miss a heartbeat, misinterpret a heartbeat. 

i wonder how long this will last. if this is only because we're people who love moments so deeply, so intensely. but intensity doesn't last, if it did, it wouldn't be intensity. intensity is by definition temporary. i don't want this to pass. i don't want to bemoan time and space alone. and as much as i'm convinced for me it won't pass, maybe for you, but not for me, for me this is the real deal. i've seen it pass. or at least i convinced myself it did. i just want this to be it.

absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire. i wish i could take credit for coming up with that, but i can't, it belongs to francois de la rouchefoucauld. and it makes so much sense.

well, i've made up my mind that i want you to be the one-
the one i wanna be with when i'm ninety-two.
- plain white t's

our love was

so comfortable, and
so broken in.

how did i ever for one second

think that anyone else would do?

:(

apparently,

i have absolutely nothing figured out.

oi, heart,
what does that mean again?

i want it to be you-
i want it to be so bad.

it definately has to be you.

as iron sharpens iron

isaiah 25:2,4
you have made the city a heap of rubble,
the fortified town a ruin
you have been a refuge for the poor,
a refuge for the needy in his distress,
a shelter from the storm
and a shade from the heat.

besides loving the last few lines,
the last one especially because it's such a silly little human thing-
a shade from the heat.

it's like my bug repellant and alarm clock thing-
jesus cares about all my little needs :)

anyway, something cool that jumped out to me tonight in the midst of all the shelter-related terms whether regarding the upkeep or the destruction of is that yeah, God may tear things down- cities, towns.. but HE has been a refuge, HE has been a shelter, HE has been a shade. what is a city or a town or a nation compared to Him! it's like He rips down a lean-to and in its place builds a mansion. it's a good thing :)

you helped me fall back in love with God's word and once again, i'm so hungry to know His word inside and out and left and right. it's so alive! or as timothy wrote in 2 timothy, God-breathed.

not God-written,
not even God-spoken,
but God-breathed-
what a God.

road to recovery? :)

p.s. if you happen to ever be reading this, probably not in the here and now, maybe one day, the answer is yes, i wrote this after our conversation :)

i waant it-

i want it so bad.
have i ever wanted anything so much?


i just want to be your friend.

i don't know why i care so much.
i don't know why it matters so much to me.
i don't know why it's so hard.

you know how to brighten my day
i just want to be that girl again.

blessed are the poor in spirit

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

blessed are those 

who are entirely dependent on God's grace every single day,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

i finally get it.

"just like you can't impress a NASA engineer with your paper airplane, no matter how far it flies... you can't bring your goodness into the presence of God and be proud of what you have to show. God's goodness is so great, God's love is so immense, God's patience is so unending, God's virtues, well, they're limitless- they make whatever it is that we have to share completely shy in comparison. so when people truly encounter the living God, they immediately feel poverty of spirit... if anyone still feels pride in the presence of God, well, then they haven't really been in the presence of God."

- pastor dave swaim, 7/12/09

i really, really miss highrock :(

in the belly of the unnaturally large fish

so, i was reading the first chapter of jonah today and two things that may or may not have been new, but were things i needed to be reminded of, jumped out at me:

1) by running away from God, not only did jonah mess it up for himself but also the people around him- whether it's people we know and love or just people that happen to be in the same hypothetical boat as us.

2) "but the Lord provided a great fish to swallow jonah." now i wasn't there for it so i can't say for sure, but i'm willing to bet that having been thrown overboard, jonah was probably praying for some water-wings or a raft or a lack of sharks and maybe a conveniently close island to wash up onto, well that and the "ah, God, i'm so sorry!" that must've been on loop in his head. so when God sent a giant fish his way he was probably not feeling too overcome with thanksgiving. he was probably kind of upset, nervous, frightened out of his wits, looking behind his shoulder to see if maybe the fish was headed to swallow the guy behind him, praying for deliverance from the fish, but little did he know, this was God's deliverance! and so, the lesson there is pretty point blank- His ways are higher than our ways. what we expect is sometimes so off from what God has in store for us and sometimes what God has for us might seem like a bad idea, but He's got it under control. so jesus, thank you for the fish.

happy birthday, mommy

i love you- you are my world.

this might hurt

it's not safe

but i know

that i've gotta make a change

i don't care

if i break

at least i'll be feeling something

cause just okay

is not enough

help me fight through the nothingness of life

consuming fire, fan into flame

take me all the way

who can say if i've been changed for the better..

every time i see you, i regret letting you go

even though i know it was the right thing-

we're not right for each other.

maybe if i'd never moved to shanghai,

if i'd never known that life,

if i'd never met those lives,

i could've been happy with you-

you could've been enough.

but then,

maybe i wouldn't have been enough for you

because shanghai was what made me-

all of this, shanghai wasn't just where it happened,

it was what did it, well, jesus in shanghai.

and the fact of the matter is,

i did move to shanghai

and i fell in love with that city

and i fell in love with jesus in that city

and i met the most amazing people in that city

and somewhere between the green taxis and blue taxis,

the trodden cabbage leaves and billowing laundry,

the old men's toothless grins and bared bellies,

the 2 kuai 葱油饼 and the 55 kuai moon river bbq burgers,

i found myself-

and nothing would ever be the same.

..but, because i knew you, i have been changed for good.

why are you striving these days?

why are you trying to earn grace?
why are you crying?
let me lift up your face-
just don't turn away

why are you looking for love?
why are you still searching
as if i'm not enough?

you are enough-
you are more than enough.

hey, heart-
stop forgetting.

the best thing to hold onto in life is each other

- audrey hepburn

in that case, 

i must suck at life.

i keep hurting people

and losing them.

and asdf.

i'm sorry

i'm sorry i'm sorry

i'm sorry for all of it

all of you

blahhhh.

i get so caught up in flailing about all my love for everyone and everything that i don't even realize when casualties occur. and then when i realize, it doesn't even matter because it's too late- the damage is done. 

我这个人啊。

no one should ever take what i do or say seriously.

and they especially shouldn't read into it.

i don't mean to.

God has a lot of work to do in me yet.

and maybe it's the rear-view-mirror-distortion or maybe it's all the madness and loneliness in all these endings but i miss you, i miss us, i miss how much sense it all made to me.

i'm tired of being all alone

and this solitary moment makes me want to come back home.

i hate waiting

i hate checking my phone every five seconds.

i hate putting my phone on silent and placing it far, far away from me so i can't check my phone every five seconds and so that my ears can give it a rest.

i hate trying to drag those five seconds out into five minutes.

i hate the disappointment that follows when i check my phone and see that five minutes weren't enough.

why do i keep getting myself into this situation.

what is this situation anyway?

that's what i want to know.

that why i need you to reply!

roar.

and no, contrary to what my shirt says

that's not dinosaur for "i love you."

if you're happy and you know it

clap your hands!

except,
it's not that easy-

i'm not always sure what i'm feeling.

sometimes i have absolutely no idea.

sometimes i wonder if there are feelings our hearts are capable of that we haven't felt yet. most the time, i just wonder about the names of all the feelings i am feeling and find myself searching in songs, in books, in quotes and conversations for some reassurance that i'm not alone. i search hoping that these feelings will recognize themselves and procure for me an identity that i don't have the words to provide. i just feel them and i hurt and i love and i close my eyes and try to make out some semblance of an outline before my heart puts a stop to it because it can't take it anymore. but i never find the words for these lonely emotions. they feel so heavy and fresh to me, like i'm pioneering some extraneous new-fangled emotions that God decided to give me to test-drive. and even though sometimes i'm left feeling completely isolated, i know i'm not alone- i can't be. but it sure feels like it when i prattle on to people about life and goldenness and beauty and when my emotions resemble splashes of color more than coherent words and when i'm drowning in my memories and nostalgia and acute awareness of how little and fleeting i and everyone i love so intensely are. but maybe none of that is anything unique or strange. after all, we're never as special as we think. but maybe there's a frequency of feelings that escape most people's radars, like how dogs can hear high-pitched sounds that we can't. or maybe there are some people who are the super-tasters of emotional taste-buds- super-feelers. or maybe everyone feels them, these lonely intense emotions, but we all keep quiet because every time we try to open our mouths and identify them, the emotions surge up from where we had thought they'd finally settled, perhaps somewhere behind a kidney, and they steal away with the words we'd finally found to describe them.