You know you need glasses when:

"What does your sweatshirt say: An octipus lost in the woods?"
"No, mom... it says: actions speak louder than words."

A real life conversation between me and my mother. And no, there was no alcohol or drugs involved.


Word of the day: impetuous

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
‘Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
‘til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand

For Ryan

Word of the day is: exquisite

—Definition 1. of special beauty or charm, or rare and appealing excellence, as a face, a flower, coloring, music, or poetry

—Synonyms 1. dainty, beautiful, elegant

E: Ensnaring
X: eXruciatingly beautiful
Q: Quiet admiration
U: undying grace
I: Intelligent
S: Steadfast
I: Interesting
T: True
E: Everlasting friendship

Huzzah!

I am in an amazing mood! I feel like dancing (okay, okay. I'll be honest here, I've been dancing around my room for the last half hour.) Gwen has gotten so annoyed at me that she left her spot in the sunshine and left to go lounge about in the hallway. You can know that whatever this is has really gotten to me. Today I giggled. I mean I freaken giggled!!! There is something wrong with me when I giggle. The only time I ever really get like that is when it's like 3am and I've had 2 liters of Mt. Dew and eaten a large portion of a lasangna. I've had the largest smile on my face all day long - I've had more compliments on how pretty I looked today, and what a nice smile I had then... well, just about any time I can remember.

Oh! and I'm going to California!!!! I'm so excited about my trip; I'm going to be going to the Getty Museum, Disneyland, the Queen Mary in Long Beach, going to a concert in LA (maybe, the details haven't been worked out yet.) AND as it turns out Conner, the middle school youth director is going to be having brain surgery at UCLA to remove a tumor the kicker is the surgeon is going to do it for FREE! I'm going to be able to visit him in the hospital and be a face from home for him and his wife to see. It's absolutely amazing the way all of this is coming together that is allowing me to be there for them. It's just a "wow" feeling.



Song of the day:

My soul cries out with a joyful shout
That the God of my heart is great.
And my spirit sings of the wondrous things
That You bring to the ones who wait.
You fixed Your sight on the servant's plight;
And my weakness you did not spurn.
So from east to west shall My Name be blest;
Could the world be about to turn?

My heart shall sing of the day you bring;
Let the fires of Your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near;
And the world is about to turn.

Though I am small, my God, my All;
You work great things in me.
And Your mercy will last from the depths of the past
to the end of the age to be.
Your very Name puts the proud to shame
and to those who would to yearn.
You will show your might; put the strong to flight;
For the world is about to turn.

From the halls of power to the fortress tower
Not a stone will be left on stone.
Let the king beware for Your justice tears
every tyrant from his throne.
The hungry poor shall weep no more
For the food they can never earn.
There are tables spread; every mouth will be fed;
For the world is about to turn.

Though the nations rage from age to age,
we remember who holds us fast.
God's mercy must delivr us
From the conqueror's crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forbears heard
Is the promise which holds us bound.
'Til the spear and rod can be crushed by God
Who is turning the world around.

Acetaminophen

It really hit me today how strange of a family I have. You see, I was just coming in from a long, tedious day at work (normally it's pretty good, but today involved only one thing... entering in credentials into the database) and I walk in the front door, say hello to my mother and she burst out with "Pick a drug! Any drug!" I paused for a split second wondering if my mother had finally gone mad, then said, "acetaminophen." She got all excited over the fact that I had given the drug's generic name instead of the name brand, Tylenol. Creepy, eh?

Now, there is a very good reason that my mother was asking me this question, but it rather ruins the shock effect: my mom just got new software for her PDA that has the "nurses drug handbook" or something like that on it. Now she can look up any drug at any time and see all the side effects, the dosage to prescribe, and what exactly the drug does. Very cool, if you're a nurse; a little freaky if you're an innocent bystander.

Don't forget me

I've been thinking a lot about things recently - love, life, etc. I'm not sure what conclusion I've come to, only that sometimes I think that I would be better off alone because I'll never be satisfied for life and I'm tired of causing good people who deserve better a lifetime of heartbreak. My whole life men have been falling in love with me one after another, and while I've always appreciated the sentiment, I think it's time that it stops. I'm tired of causing pain when my heart starts to wander away from them. I never stop loving them, but I start to grow distant and I slowly walk away without ever looking back so that I don't have to deal with the devastation. I'm not trying to brag about anything or inflate my own self worth, but I know what it feels like to have someone you care deeply about walk away. It is so painful and heart-wrenching that I hope that most everyone doesn't have to go through that more then once in their life. I don't want to be that one time in people's lives. Maybe I'm just in a contemplative mood, or maybe it's the combination of Death Cab for Cutie and Dallas Green, but I can't shake this feeling that it's time for me to walk away again, this time from something much larger then a single person. "There is something I must confess to you tonight, and that is that I expect that nothing less from you tonight: save your scissors, for someone else's skin."

I hate the feeling that I have this thing in me that is so beautiful and eloquent that needs to come out. But whenever I try to let it out of me and put it onto paper, it never comes out quite the way it should. It is always less elegant and deep that I imagined it. Perhaps that is the divine spark in all of us - that while we are made in God's image with some of his attributes, we are also fallen, we are twisted, we are no longer perfect, we are no longer as beautiful as we could have been. We are only a spark, a flickering of light from a gutting candle. Soon the light will be snuffed out and we will die, we will no long exist. "No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white, just our hands clasped so tight waiting for the hint of a spark. If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs." I've always wanted to write something beautiful, something soul shattering. Something that changes the world, or even a single person. I have this thing inside me that wants to come out, that wants to say this profound thing - this truth. Very few people have ever told the Truth, said the Truth." I've never known how to say how I feel. Those three words are said too much, but not enough. If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world? Forget what we're told, before we get too old. Show me a garden that's bursting into life." I feel like something inside of me has changed. I know that this change will be short lived, and that by tomorrow morning I will be back to who everyone thinks I am. Back to who everyone who thinks I am... that's the real issue isn't it?