For Some.

For some,

Days like today are not filled with joy.

Instead it is a square on the calendar

That is marked with an ache.

A reminder of all that is not.

A pain that runs too deep for words.

Mothers taken, children stolen.

Love cloven in two, broken, and buried.

Leaving empty arms, longing to be filled.

Brave smiles are fastened on.

Even as all the world reminds you

Of all that you yearn for, but do not hold.

For some,

There will be tears instead of laughter.

Whispered, fractured prayers rising 

From wide gashes and deep cracks.

With shards of shattered dreams held in trembling hands.

For we live still in the sad middle chapter.

Hold on.

You are not forgotten, dear heart.

Your tears are collected.

Caught and held in scarred palms.

Till the day when all that is sad shall come untrue.

For you are dearly loved, always remembered. 

Grace

"I am not what I ought to be.
I am not what I hope to be.
But I am not what I once used to be and by the grace of God I am what I am."

~ John Newton

The Magic of Green

How can you describe the magic of green to someone who’s never seen it?

You must see green to understand and grasp the enormity of its existence. 

Imagine being born into a dim sunless world, only able to see sooty shadows. Unable to see, feel, or experience the reality of the solid things, only able to see their flat, inky stains. 

We can no more imagine glory unfiltered, than we could imagine an oak tree, if all we had seen and known was the dark smudge that it cast. 

Imagine living with eyes straining to see what was behind the shroud of darkness that obscured everything, knowing deep down there were colors and light—but never actually being able to see them, not even knowing their names. 

Chasing those shadows, knowing deep down that the beauty that you find around them...in them; is just a foretaste of the solid, untainted beauty that is coming.

Brighter than the sun, greater than good, more than real.

What if we are stumbling around touching, seeing, feeling the edges of real and there is something more than real that is lying just behind the dim veil that we find ourselves swathed in.

...what if every tree, star and sunrise is only a shadow of what they really are?

What if we’re all the man who has woken up but lost his sight and forgotten who he is--save for the deep ache inside his chest.

Wouldn’t it be wise to chase that ache until we found home?

We are to love this world because of what it mirrors, although darkly.

I love ever sunset, star and tree, not because I think they are the ultimate reality—but because I know they aren’t, I love them for the reflections, the shadows they are.

I like Puddleglum love the lamp and the cat, because they remind me of the sun and Lion that are just beyond the crust of the world that I find myself in.

What if every person we meet, is just a shadow of what and who they really are,? What if we could see ourselves and each other as we were created to be? What if we shook off all the chaff and burned away all the dross and were left with just the grain and gold?

What if all the beauty, glory and wonder that we experience here is only a shadow of what really exists?

Love

Here is something that I would do well to remember, given my deep love for good rhetoric.

Well formed arguments don't change people, only love can.

But I like arguments because I can control them, I can piece words together and form air tight logic, I can package them into bite size morsels to easily force on others.

Love on the other hand is good, but it is never ever safe. It's wild and fierce. It's raging and reckless. It breaks every box I've tried to shove it in. Love lives in the riddles of dichotomies. I can't tie up love into a neat little package, I can't capture and confine grace within words, for they both are messy and life shattering. Love is full of mystery. Love is rule breaking, paradigm shifting. Love demands all so it can give us more. Love isn't sterile and detached, for love crawls into the trenches, elbow deep in the muck of life and joins in the fight.

Love is the table turning Rabbi with a whip in his hand, Love is a King who bends down to wash the feet of His followers. And love is a roaring Lion who's breath turns stone statues with hearts of marble into laughing, singing, dancing throng.

Poverty

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, homeless and naked. But the poverty of being unwanted, unloved, uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
-Mother Teresa

Shadows or Mirages

We either chase the dim outline of something that exists or we pursue that which looks more colorful, captivating and enticing, but leaves us with hands grasping, fingers brushing-- on air.

Shadows or mirages.

I have run after the bright things that shimmer, waver, and glisten like the image of an oasis in the desert, I have chased them down and I have felt my heart drop and shatter as I grasped handfuls of empty air.

And I have chased the dark outline of beauty unseen. I have run my hands across it seams, and hear the rustling of truth and beauty that the wind whispers to trees.

Blind to the reality that lies behind the dark veil, I have pushed through the shadows towards light; for even shadows grow clearer as you draw closer to the blaze.  I have trace my fingers along the borders, marveling how the lines become sharper and more defined the closer we get to the light.

I exist for the moments when I stumble into the shadow of Beauty.

Shadows denote something real, solid and I will chase them until my heart no longer beats inside my chest.

Weary

Soul pounded, pummeled.
Shattered, splintered.
Beaten and crushed.

Heart crooked, twisted, and cracked.
Flung in the ditch.
Bleeding and stained.

Face filthy.
Eyes briny, bleary.
Tossed away, discarded.
Broken, weary.

Old fears haunt.
Cruel voices taunt.
"Grace a lie, Love a myth.”

Blood, tears, and sweat
Fists slippery, wet.
Clutching shards of dreams
Pounding on heaven.
Shrieks, screams

“Why,” stings your lips.
Trust fractured
Hope dashed
Faith slips

Dragon sneers a grin
“See, never enough.”
“Give up. I win!"

No! Struggle. Fight!
Stumble, trip over truth.
Run! Flee, back to light.

Courage Child!
Beauty born from ash
Love free and wild.

Every black thread
Woven into a story
Where evil is ripped into shreds

All the old stories are true!
Evil will lose, death will not win
For everything broken is being made new.

Shadow will be swallowed by bright.
For there is a Creator
Who loves, saves, redeems and delights.

So dance, sing, laugh, and spin
The story does not end
Here...it begins.

Life

Life is a crooked, bending road.
Each year we're here feels like a heavy load.
We often wonder if we will survive
When our soul aches from sharp pain like knives.

Grown up scales run and cloak our tired eyes.
Hiding glory written on blue skies.
And voices fill our hearts and minds.
Full of fear that steals and binds.

We long so badly to be free.
Once again to be a child
To laugh and play along the sea.
To believe in a grace that is never tame and always wild.

Rebellion

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” 

― Albert Camus

Aching

They are promising me Spring in the morning, but right now it's cold, wet, and after a rough day at work - the whole world feels soggy.

So to combat the dismal dismay I find I am going to write and post pictures, which I will delete in the morning when I wake up to sunshine and feel silly.
---------------------------
I am aching for a little house in a small town in Minnesota with memories tucked away on every shelf and echoes of laughter in every corner, laundry in the backyard waving in the wind, blue jays in the grass, and where I can hear my grandpa argue the rules of Cribbage and my grandma say, "Uff ta! Daggnabit!"

I am aching for the hours spent running in the woods and hunting for kittens. And for days and nights full of games and conversations with cousins tumbled on couches and across the floor. I miss them awfully bad.

I'm aching for green and trees, bike rides to parks, and getting lost in the blocks between the small house and library.

I'm aching for wide open plains where the earth stretches out to brush the edges of a blue sky with billowing clouds that sweep low and reach up high.

I'm aching to chase a midwestern sunrise, to catch the gleams and laugh for the sheer wonder and beauty of of it all.

And mostly I'm just grateful for the ache, because to ache for something means that at one point you held it, even for just a moment -- you held it.

Grateful

Think of the people in the world that you love the very most and remember--a world where you never meet will never exist.

At some point your paths crossed, your stories tangled together, and your life was changed.

Run your finger along the thin threads of story that brought you to that moment, see the twisted lines, trace the crooked choices, feel the knots and be grateful that we are not alone in this story.

Basic.?

(I try not to rant often, but sometimes I'm just so flabbergasted that I just have to, so please excuse me.)

I've never run with the "popular" girls. I'm not that kind of gorgeous and I didn't and don't care enough about my clothes, hair and make up. Plus I have never been terrified enough of bugs and snakes to ever make it in those circles. I don't have what it takes, nor do I care to try and obtain it.

I don't have a models figure, I never will, and I'm alright with that. I want to be healthy but sorry, I'm not going to starve myself just to fit into a size two. I want to look nice sure, but I'm not going to lose two hours of sleep to do my make up. I refuse to carry around a purse that's worth more than the money I carry it in, I like shopping in the clearance aisles, and I would rather shop for books than clothes. I am who I am, eat it.

It's like you have the cheerleader group and then you have Ming, with her glasses and stacks of books, sitting in the corner thinking to much, laughing, and eating cinnamon rolls.

Honestly, I forget people like that exist. I am so completely surrounded by the most incredibly kind and thoughtful people, that I forget that such mean, shallow, petty people actually exist in real life.

I was sharply reminded about this tonight. I sat listening to story after story of women my age who apparently never got the memo that there is more to life than what you see in the mirror, who sit and critic the world, and who believe the worst thing you can call someone is "basic" (side note: I didn't even know what that meant and had to ask for an explanation). I kind of sat in shock as I listened, just staring, not being able to comprehend that girls my age could really be that shallow and be such catty b's.

I'm sorry but I'd rather look "basic" and be interesting, fun, opinionated, idealistic and kind, than look like Helen of Troy and be mean spirited, catty, empty-headed, and self-obsessed.

There's more to beauty than good bone structure and the skin on our faces.

Goodness gracious. Alright now I feel better, I'm done.

Party.

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. -Frederick Beuchner

I woke up this morning before my alarm when off, well before dawn and as I laid in bed I realized that I’ve never really believed that, I swing between two extremes of belief that I don’t matter at all, wondering why I exists and berating myself for not fixing everything because I feel like every world problem is riding on my shoulders.

Life is a party and it wouldn’t have been complete without me….

Thanks to my Rabbit Room people…I think I’m starting to believe it.

I am here for a brief moment in this swiftly moving continuum we call time. Why? Because, the world needs my perspective, my laughter, my smile, my eyes, my tears, my hands, my feet, my quirks, my words, my heart…me. Because if it didn’t, I wouldn’t have been written, spoken, and breathed into being, I wouldn’t be here.

To much has been out to thwart my arrival for this to all be an accident.

Fact: I am wanted. I am needed. Proof? I am here. Out of a trillion different possibilities, I am here. I stand, I stretch, I move, I breathe, and what is my job? To be faithful with what is in front of my face. To love those that are put in my path, to search for those forgotten people on the margins of life, and to tell all the story of scandalous grace. I am not the savior of the world, I am a tiny piece of the puzzle that is tells an epic story, mind you a dark tiny broken piece, but nonetheless the picture wouldn’t be complete without me.

And here’s the thing, the exact same thing—is true about you.

You are here. You were written into the story, you were knit and woven together, you were spoken and breathed into being, because this crazy story wouldn’t be complete without you—you are wanted, you are loved.

You have hands and feet. You have eyes that see and you have quirks. You have laughter and smiles and tears. You have words and you have passions that light your fire. You are needed, for you are here, and the party wouldn’t have be complete without you.

Our paths crossed at some point and now we are in this together. We are needed, for we are here, and the party wouldn’t be complete without us.

Ready? Let’s do this.

When I Can't Sleep at Night

There once was a pretty wild flower who was buttoned up tight.
For she listened to voices that screamed in the night.
Voices that told her that she was too broken and bent to come close to the light
And that she was too dirty to ever be bright.

"You think you’re good enough to come closer?"
She heard over and over again.
"Who do you think you are? You’re a failure, you're a poser."

So she bolted the door and sealed herself in,
Just hoping they'd stop, she hid down deep in the dark.
And then the dragon wrapped round her with a snicker and grin.
Sneering at this tightly fastened little blossom, who was hiding her spark.

Then one day a soft wind carried a sound,
Filled to the brim with words that quieted those voices that hound.

Soft gentle words of a Gardener who said,
Don’t listen to your fear.
Ignore all those who sneer.
For it’s all a free gift,
This beauty and light.
You couldn’t ever earn it, not even if you used all your might.
Be yourself and open up wide.
For the very worst thing you could do is to hide.
Don't be scared I'm right by your side.

Show the world the beauty you see and you hold
Don’t shrivel up and conceal those petals of gold.
For all of that beauty is mine, not your own.

I’ve tripping over this picture for months and months, I’ve carried it around in my head, tucking it away, all but forgetting it’s existence and then something will make me think of it and I’ll stumble over it again.

I’ve wanted to capture how I feel about it, but my thoughts have hung like a stubborn water drop, refusing to let go, to let me flick it loose and capture it.

But now…I think I shall try nonetheless.

It’s the image of Oscar Pistorius, the man who had both of his legs amputated before he was even a year old, the man also known as The Blade Runner. It’s an image of him leaning down next to a little girl, a little girl also has blades for legs, they’re running, he’s smiling, and he’s letting her win.

It’s one of those wonderful images that stings your eyes, warms your heart, and restores your faith in humanity…until you learn that Oscar has been accused of premeditated murder of his girlfriend, shooting her, that he’s wrestled with anger problems his whole life, and then there’s the image of him, bending over, laughing and letting a little disabled girl win a race.

He hasn’t been convicted yet, but to me that’s besides the point.

Every time I think of that picture, it makes me ache.

What a stark contrast.

We watch videos online or strangers helping other people, giving their coats to a cold little boy, and we act as if humanity was something that was worth having faith in and then we look around at the world we live in, with suicide bombings, mass shootings, genocides and holocausts…and it’s sometimes hard to reconcile the two.

So we like to paint dark lines separating the two. We sanitize the heroes and we tarnish the villains.

We pretend that a person can be more or less than a person.

We like to do this with the Bible, we like to separate Moses from his mistrust, David from his affair, and both from their murders. We dissect Solomon from his concubines, Joseph from his arrogance, and Peter from his doubts.

We turn angrily and declare we don’t understand how people can do they horrible things that they do, and then we name a million horrible things that we wish would happen to them, revealing the darkness in our own hearts…

"There but for the grace of God go I…” sounds good when it slips from one’s lips—but do we understand the weight of those words? Do we realize how incredibly finite and helpless we are?

Had I been born to radical Muslims in the middle of a war zone, who would I be? Had I been given abusive parents instead of the loving ones I have...where would I be?

How dependent are we all?

Did we have anything to do with what DNA we were given or where we were born or who we were born to?

Let me take that serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine from your brain and let’s see how long you stay sane.

Let me zip of the childhood and genetic make up of another person on you and see if you do much better than they do.

This doesn’t excuse any amount of sin or ache, but may we…may I have humility and breath grace in all things.

There is a holocaust architect in each of us.

"Guilty of one, guilty of all."

Thank God for grace. Sweet, amazing grace.

Pride

Doing things because you want attention and not doing things because you’re worried that people will think you are wanting attention, are just different branches that come from the same root of pride.

Pretending you carry a light that doesn’t exist and covering up the light you have, both result in the same darkness.

It’s just one is more dangerous because it can easily be covered with a thin veil of false humility and you can feel like you are being a better person while you do it.

And that would be the one that I wrestle with the most…of course it would be…

I worry what people think about me, what kind of image am I projecting, what people think about me, and if I annoy people.

I’m worried what you think after you read that line.

The way I normally deal with this is I’m self deprecating, hand me a compliment and I’ll find a way to squish it and dismiss it--because I’m worried that it will go to my head or that people will think it's going to my head.

Ask me about me strengths and I’ll hand you a long alphabetized list of my faults.

I was talking to a lovely new friend yesterday and this topic came up. I asked a her, "How do you kill this type of pride?”

And she said, “I think you ask God to show you how to repent and you run in that direction.”

See…I write (copiously) and people tell me that I’m not horrible at it..and if I'm being honest they actually say I'm good at it. But I’m scared to own it, because I don’t want people to think I believe that I’m all that plus a bag of chips. I scared that people will dismiss me because they think that I write just because I’m an attention whore.

Maybe...repentance for me looks like owning the fact I've been given something I don't understand and that terrifies me. (I'm cringing on the inside as I write that)

But the end of the day…it doesn’t matter what people think or what my fears whisper to me. What matters is what the God who made me thinks…

I want to believe this so bad, I want this truth to sink down into my marrow and go pumping into my blood.

This is not for you, it is for me.

Life is such thin fragile thing, and most of the time I forget that. I act like what people think of me is going to matter for centuries instead of brief moments. I would do better to remember how incredibly transient and frail my little life is.

Life is too short to not be me. I have about sixty years left at most and I could even possibly have less than a day left.

So I want to do things and say things and actually live, even if that means risking people misunderstanding and not liking me, because the only way you avoid criticism is to do and be nothing.

And I’m so weary of hiding who I am because of a long list of silly fears.

My name is Ming,

And I am loved much more than I believe that I am and so are you. You see God, loves and likes us an awful lot way more than we think he does, not because we’re that cool or awesome but simply because he is that good. I want this to be my anthem.

I want to believe deep down in my core that grace changes people, I want to believe deep down that grace will change me. I am loved and I want it sink down, down, down into my bones until it becomes so much a part of me.

I want to believe that grace is big enough and wide enough for even me.

I am odd and I love Jesus. I like books and all the words they carry. I smell old books and I swoon. I am tall, a dreamer and an idealist. Trees make me want to dance and climb them, I've made friends with all the flavors of the wind, and I am a big fan of watermelon, cinnamon rolls, and laughter.

I am broken and worn and torn and bleeding.

I’m a commingling of darkness and light. I do wrong things and I do right things for wrong reasons. I pass buckets of grace around and then refuse to accept it myself because I don’t think I deserve it, because I know better. I am a firstborn and I beat myself up often.

I write but I only know how to write from the spaces between my ache.

I’m twenty plus three and in a handful of months I’ll change the three to a four. This means if I live to die at “old age” I have approximately 60ish years left on earth, and that’s assuming I don’t die from cancer or in a car wreck or fire or some freak accident involving man eating snails.

This means that most of the things I spend my time worrying about, honestly don’t matter, because at the end of the day I’ll either be laying in a pretty wood box with my face painted like a clown or encased a little ceramic jar as a small dusty pile of ashes.

This means that I can either use these moments I have left trying to be someone else, or I can be myself. God doesn’t call me to be an angel, He calls me to be His.

One day I will die. It won’t matter how much money I had or how smart I was or any of the million silly things we use to ascribe worth to people.

What will matter is how I lived, how I loved, and what the God who spoke me into being thinks of me.

And my Father is awfully fond of me. (grin)

Life.

This is not for you, it is for me.

Life is such thin fragile thing, and most of the time I forget that. I act like what people think of me is going to matter for centuries instead of brief moments. I would do better to remember how incredibly transient and frail my little life is.

Life is too short to not be me. I have about sixty years left at most and I could even possibly have less than a day left.

So I want to do things and say things and actually live, even if that means risking people misunderstanding and not liking me, because the only way you avoid criticism is to do and be nothing.

And I’m so weary of hiding who I am because of a long list of silly fears.

My name is Ming,

And I am loved much more than I believe that I am and so are you. You see God, loves and likes us an awful lot way more than we think he does, not because we’re that cool or awesome but simply because he is that good. I want this to be my anthem.

I want to believe deep down in my core that grace changes people, I want to believe deep down that grace will change me. I am loved and I want it sink down, down, down into my bones until it becomes so much a part of me.

I want to believe that grace is big enough and wide enough for even me.

I am odd and I love Jesus. I like books and all the words they carry. I smell old books and I swoon. I am tall, a dreamer and an idealist. Trees make me want to dance and climb them, I've made friends with all the flavors of the wind, and I am a big fan of watermelon, cinnamon rolls, and laughter.

I am broken and worn and torn and bleeding.

I’m a commingling of darkness and light. I do wrong things and I do right things for wrong reasons. I pass buckets of grace around and then refuse to accept it myself because I don’t think I deserve it, because I know better. I am a firstborn and I beat myself up often.

I write but I only know how to write from the spaces between my ache.

I’m twenty plus three and in a handful of months I’ll change the three to a four. This means if I live to die at “old age” I have approximately 60ish years left on earth, and that’s assuming I don’t die from cancer or in a car wreck or fire or some freak accident involving man eating snails.

This means that most of the things I spend my time worrying about, honestly don’t matter, because at the end of the day I’ll either be laying in a pretty wood box with my face painted like a clown or encased a little ceramic jar as a small dusty pile of ashes.

This means that I can either use these moments I have left trying to be someone else, or I can be myself. God doesn’t call me to be an angel, He calls me to be His.

One day I will die. It won’t matter how much money I had or how smart I was or any of the million silly things we use to ascribe worth to people.

What will matter is how I lived, how I loved, and what the God who spoke me into being thinks of me.

And my Father is awfully fond of me. (grin)

Grace.

Oh good, I’m glad you’re here.
I haven't slept in days.
I am beside myself.
Can’t you see these circles under my eyes?
And my hair is falling out in clumps!

Grace is getting out of hand...again. Every time I think I’ve got a handle on her—she laughs and spins out of my grasp, as if this was some sort of GAME.

See, I keep telling her she needs to hang out with Sacrifice, Hard Work, and Good Deeds, doing civilized things, but instead she keeps insisting on climbing out the window to run around with Mercy, Freedom, and Love—and I might add--they always seem to be hanging out with the most unsavory of characters.

I want to water down Grace, dilute and weaken her -- just enough so I can control her, because she doesn’t know what she’s doing—and clearly she needs start listening to me.

See Grace has this ridiculous idea that she can woo people in by just being her raw, unfiltered, stunning self. She keep trying to tell me that true change comes when people realize how dearly loved they are, just exactly as they are, not as they should be, because they’ll never be as they should be.

She wants to lavish her gifts on people who just honestly don’t deserve her attention.

I want to draw lines around her, put her in boxes, make her easy to understand. I want to make her palatable. But she keeps on being wild, erasing every line and ripping every box.

I’m scared that people are just going to use her as an excuse to never change and keep on making bad decisions... but somehow she doesn’t seem to be concerned about this…at all.

-------------------------------------------

Raw, unfiltered, stunning, beautiful, reckless, and wild Grace….Oh, how sweet she sounds.

There Once was a Man...

There once was a man who wore his sins as chains, a shackle hung from his right wrist and whenever he moved his left leg you could hear the clink, clink, clink, of those steel links. Two guards sat with him always...for his offense was not petty. Innocence had been stolen and dreams were crushed beneath the weight of his choices.

He’d been hurt and in turn he’d hurt others.

Broken little people, growing up to be big broken people who hurt and shatter the lives of other little people.

My mother always told me, “Ming, hurt people, hurt people." The older I get, the more I'm finding out how right she was...

I glanced as his face and I saw a little boy who’d been hurt and had turned the pain inward until it devoured all of his hopes and dreams.

I saw a man who swallowed whispered lies, a man who fed a desire that he believed would bring him satisfaction, and I saw a old man with chains of his own making wrapped around his ankle.

I saw the dragon sneer an ugly grin as he devoured it all. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

I looked at him….and I saw myself, for what are we but mirrors of each other?

"Guilty of one, guilty of all," is a nice turn of phrase when you sit in a church pew, next to people who look pretty on the outside, and piously bow your head.

But just for a moment…slide close to the murderer, the prostitute with dull eyes, and the child molester…sidle up next to the man with yellow skin and needle marks up and down his arms and sit next to the man who’s lying in the gutter reeking of urine and beer--bend down close enough to see their broken story and see yours there too... Look at them, broken, shattered pieces of humanity and realize that’s all you are too.

Put a gun in our hands at the right moment, pointed at the right person, and we would all pull the trigger.

We are all broken, shattered. We are all born and we all die. And as we slip into the atmosphere we all scream with new and aching lungs.

We call the architects of the massive pain and suffering, monsters, we try and dehumanize them, put them in a category and draw a line that separates us from them.

But look, I beg you. See them for what they really are.

What are they? Human.

What are we? Human.

Fall on your knees.

But for the grace of God, there go I.

Guilty of one, guilty of all.

Watered down grace will not work here, only the real stuff will do.

Shackles

There once was a man who wore his sins as chains, a shackle hung from his right wrist and whenever he moved his left leg you could hear the clink, clink, clink, of those steel links. Two guards sat with him always...for his offense was not petty. Innocence had been stolen and dreams were crushed beneath the weight of his choices.

He’d been hurt and in turn he’d hurt others.

Broken little people, growing up to be big broken people who hurt and shatter the lives of other little people.

My mother always told me, “Ming, hurt people, hurt people." The older I get, the more I'm finding out how right she was...

I glanced as his face and I saw a little boy who’d been hurt and had turned the pain inward until it devoured all of his hopes and dreams.

I saw a man who swallowed whispered lies, a man who fed a desire that he believed would bring him satisfaction, and I saw a old man with chains of his own making wrapped around his ankle.

I saw the dragon sneer an ugly grin as he devoured it all. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

I looked at him….and I saw myself, for what are we but mirrors of each other?

"Guilty of one, guilty of all," is a nice turn of phrase when you sit in a church pew, next to people who look pretty on the outside, and piously bow your head.

But just for a moment…slide close to the murderer, the prostitute with dull eyes, and the child molester…sidle up next to the man with yellow skin and needle marks up and down his arms and sit next to the man who’s lying in the gutter reeking of urine and beer--bend down close enough to see their broken story and see yours there too... Look at them, broken, shattered pieces of humanity and realize that’s all you are too.

Put a gun in our hands at the right moment, pointed at the right person, and we would all pull the trigger.

We are all broken, shattered. We are all born and we all die. And as we slip into the atmosphere we all scream with new and aching lungs.

We call the architects of the massive pain and suffering, monsters, we try and dehumanize them, put them in a category and draw a line that separates us from them.

But look, I beg you. See them for what they really are.

What are they? Human.

What are we? Human.

Fall on your knees.

But for the grace of God, there go I.

Guilty of one, guilty of all.

Watered down grace will not work here, only the real stuff will do.

I am a writer.
Dagfreakingnabit!
I am a writer.

I’ve listened to a particularly mocking voice that says,

“Who do you think you are?”

So I’ve tried not to write, I’ve tried to convince myself and the world that I’m the farthest thing from a writer. I am not a writer, I play with words like a five year old plays with crayons.

I’ve hidden my blog, shut Facebook down, tried to run away from my words.

I want a safer hobby.

But despite my best efforts to dam my words in, they escape. I have to write. My fingers itch to spin and coax these little black marks into lines, to capture the world as I see it, and to take ideas and give them shape and substance with words. Somehow everything in my heart comes tumbling out, no matter how high I build the wall to lock them inside.

So.

I’m done cowering in fear. I’m tired of corners and dining on lies and fear. The best way to fight back lies is with truth.

This is grace. I might never have been. I shouldn’t be here. The odds were against me—but I’m here. And I’m here because the party wouldn’t have been complete without me.

That as who I am.

The world wouldn’t be the same if I wasn’t here. Every choice I make ultimately matters and how I love the people in my microcosm is a big freaking deal.

Because this is how a master Author choose to write me into the story. And he smiled when He did it, not because I’m so awesome, but because I am loved. He’s awfully fond of me and of you too.

There has never in the history of the world been someone who has the voice that I do, no one has my history, my life, my head.

“Who do you think you are?"

Who am I?

I am small but I am a beloved daughter.

Who am I?

I am created, spun, and spoken.

I am loved.

Becoming Real

Becoming Real.

You’d do anything to feel
To jump and play and run
For just a moment to be real.
But you’re afraid it can’t be done.

You’re grown weary of all the stuffing
And your frozen legs and heart,
‘Cause you’ve seen those
people dancing
And heard their laughs as they cavort.

But I feel like I should warn you
To laugh means at times you'll cry
For flesh feels much more than granite
And only jaded eyes are always dry

You’ll get beat up and be crushed
As you learn to sing and run
You won’t escape from this unblemished
You will be broken before it’s done.

All you’ve know will be unstitched
So that Beauty can shine through
Nothing will be left untouched
He will straighten all that's skewed

The dross must be burned away
To reveal the glory hiding within
There is nothing done partially or halfway
For He aways finishes what He begins

Contrast

Contrast.
It's the black against white.
Snow presses up against the trees.
The dark collides against bright
As slowly the world begins to freeze.

Frozen Places, Quiet Spaces

Take me to the quiet places,
All those frozen spaces,
Covered with a shiny icy sheen.
And I will dream of growing things,
I will dream of green.

Take me to the quiet places,
All those frozen weary spaces,
And I will paint them in my head.
Vermillion with a splash of blue and just a dash of red.

Take me to those quiet places.
All those worn frozen spaces.
And I will laugh, because resurrection is just over the hill,
Quiet, if you listen closely, you can hear the warbler trill.

Lead me to those quiet places,
All those empty frozen spaces,
As we sit and watch the snowflakes fall,
We remember that we are greatly loved,
Though we are so small.

Life.

At times we all have an ache as we hold heavy questions in our hands.
Holes are wrenched into flesh as metal shells and shrapnel are flung.
Sirens shriek and people scream.
Frozen breaths are stolen as crimson blood stains fresh snow.

Mothers pound empty hands and the orphan cries herself to sleep.
The addict chases the thing that is their destruction and beautiful young girl can't see her real worth.
A son slams a door shutting out everything that would save him and sometimes parents scream words that echo for years that they don't even mean.

Life ends and you are in the shallow hole or left standing on the ground at the edge of it, and it feels smaller than the empty canyon you feel inside your heart. Sometimes we cry because we lose someone close and other times we cry because we've lost the opportunity to ever be close.

Sometimes in angry fury we rip schisms and burn bridges that we don't find out that we should have re-built...until it's too late.

Life is too short to feast on bitterness and clutch at grudges.

A Story

Tell me your story of a world born from chaos and disorder; a cosmos shaped from a tangle worse than a snarl. Do your best to convince me that this beauty that I find in the middle of the ache was born from nothing,

 Point to all this pain, ache, and death as evidence against a loving Creator. Hold those torn, tangled threads of human evils and offenses in my face. Knot together your broken bits and shards of a tale and serve your narrative with a slice of persuasive reasoning.

I will listen...I won’t argue, but I will tell a better story.

 I shall spin a story of a galaxy woven from words dropped from the tongue of a Storyteller, a brilliant Artist who uses stroke of human strife and pain as an opportunity to redeem and restore, a Composer who is not discouraged by our mortal cacophany but who instead swallows up every single note of discord into a resplendent refrain.

I will take all those thin, torn, frayed threads of pain and ache that you’re holding, and I will tell of a Rabbi who is making all things new, reconciling all of the pain, and who is even now, working together all things for good.

 For there is a Love who picks every shard of your broken heart, who looks at every mixed motive, every ugly wish and crippled passion, crooked good deed and lavishes grace on all of the whole mess of who you are.

So go ahead. Hand me your derisive laughter. Polish those disenchanted, jaded, bored eyes and scoff at my childish belief in life after death.

Roll your eyes at my infantile reasoning as you zip up tight around your neck that skeptical, practical, and pragmatic skin you’ve worked so hard on to create, as if it will protect you from ache that comes from the inside, inside the center of your chest. Discount and and reject all of my foolish and naive stories. You’re going to have to work hard though, because there’s something in you that really wants to believe I’m right, because just for a moment…all of those old stories....seemed too good not to be true.

Wanderlust

I want to go wander around England, I want to see old Ben and strain to catch Peter's shadow on his face as Peter heads towards the second star to the right, I want to run my hands over the old stones in Oxford, and I want to slip into that old pub that once held the minds that birthed Narnia and Middle earth.

I want to stand on the cliffs Ireland and watch the waves crash hundreds of feet below me, I want to dance on Prince Edward Island and see the red road that might just lead to Avonlea, I want to stand at the shores of Chincoteague and watch the ponies surging through the water on their penning day, I want to run up and hug an ancient red wood and drive along the Pacific highway, I want to travel to China and explore all the little corners that exist in even the biggest places, I want to go to Scotland, Russia and Norway, and I want to go to Venice before it sinks.

I want to go to places so steeped in history that it leaks out and runs down the walls. I want to run my hands over stones that hold stories that no one on earth knows and hear old wood whisper creaky ancient tales. I want to remember that I'm a stitch in this grand epic that is being woven..

Read children stories and you will whet their appetite for things bigger. Give them books and you've given them the maps and keys to unlock worlds.

Feed the wanderlust.

...but for now I'm going to go work for 12 hours.

Eggs

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg.

We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

~Mere Christianity

Children

Children believe they can do anything.

Children believe that they can be the next to disturb the moon's dust, they believe they can cure cancer, and that if they jump off of the roof with a cape--they will fly.

Children sing, dance, create, trust, love, and live with glorious reckless abandon.

Children are not born believing they are not enough, they are born full of courage, passion, and life, then life happens. Lies are whispered by words and actions, the people who were suppose to protect and love, destroy and neglect, and cracks are sent fracturing what they believe about themselves and the world.

Love twisted. Truth perverted. Innocent tainted.

Suddenly it's dangerous to trust, monsters live in the closet, and love means something that it was never intended to. Suddenly in a moment, they are handed the lie that who they are is not enough and swallow it whole.

That lie becomes the drum beat to which they begin to march, it becomes the anthem that is sung in the moments of loneliness, and the veil through which the world is seen.

Not good enough.
Not smart enough.
Not pretty enough.
Not talented enough.
Never ever enough.

Nothing you do will add up to anything, for who you are is not enough.

If the enemy can convince us that we are incapable of fighting, we give up. So the demons scream, fires of doubt and fear are fed with lie after lie, our imagination and vision are corrupted, shackles are clamped, chains are wrought, and we are crippled as our hope of a rescue is shattered.

I beseech you, don't believe lies, for grace and love win and a rescue has come.

Truth: we are enough; for we are loved.

You and I were created and breathed and loved--and we are enough.

Hand your list of failures, foibles, fears, despairs, mess, and dark secrets to the One you believe would never love you, with a trembling hand drop all that you believe disqualifies you and watch as He tosses the list in a holy fire that burns away lies to reveal what is good and true.

Your list has disappeared and in it's place in dark, bold words have been written. "Dearly loved, always enough."

Children

Children believe they can do anything.

Children believe that they can be the next to disturb the moon's dust, they believe they can cure cancer, and that if they jump off of the roof with a cape--they will fly.

Children sing, dance, create, trust, love, and live with a glorious reckless abandon.

Children are not born believing they are not enough, they are born full of courage, passion, and life, then life happens. Lies are whispered by words and actions, the people who were suppose to protect and love, destroy and neglect, and cracks are sent fracturing what they believe about themselves and the world.

Love twisted. Truth perverted. Innocent tainted.

Suddenly it's dangerous to trust, monsters live in the closet, and love means something that it was never intended to. Suddenly in a moment, they are handed the lie that who they are is not enough and swallow it whole.

That lie becomes the drum beat to which they begin to march, it becomes the anthem that is sung in the moments of loneliness, and the veil through which the world is seen.

Not good enough.
Not smart enough.
Not pretty enough.
Not talented enough.
Never ever enough.

Nothing you do will add up to anything, for who you are is not enough.

If the enemy can convince us that we are incapable of fighting, we give up. So the demons scream, fires of doubt and fear are fed with lie after lie, our imagination and vision are corrupted, shackles are clamped, chains are wrought, and we are crippled as our hope of a rescue is shattered.

I beseech you, don't believe lies.

Truth: we are enough; for we are loved.

You and I were created and breathed and loved--and we are enough.

Hand your list of failures, foibles, fears, despairs, mess, and dark secrets to the One you believe would never love you, with a trembling hand drop all that you believe disqualifies you and watch as He tosses the list in a holy fire that burns away lies to reveal what is good and true.

Your list has disappeared and in it's place in dark, bold words have been written. "Dearly loved, always enough."

Being Single

I rarely write much about being single (that's about to change), mostly because, if I'm being honest until recently, I've had this irrational fear that guys aren't going to like me for who I am, because I write and post essays on an almost daily basis, and am very opinionated and idealist. (this fear probably stemmed from the fact my prior boyfriend wasn't a fan of my idealistic, writing self...I should have seen the writing on the walls.)

//Side note: I'm over that, so if you're a guy and you don't like that I write, love books, trees, Narnia, stories, wind, laughter and everything C.S. Lewis, and paint my face because I love children's books, that's totally fine! We were never going to get along anyways. Because I'm not about to stop being, Ming.//

But if you will, allow me to climb onto one of my soap boxes for a moment, for while I am generally a fairly laid back individual--this is one of those things that lights my fire.

The other day someone tried to tell me that I should be looking for a guy, so that he could complete me.

I looked, smiled, and informed them that although I'd like to one day meet someone, no guy was going to complete me and that at the end of the day I would be okay if I never found a guy who was ready to deal with all of my quirkiness.

Their jaw went slack and then they tried to tell me that I was totally wrong in thinking this way. That I had to be desperately searching for someone to make me whole.
------------------------------------------------------------
I've been thinking about this a lot the past few days. I've been single for a decent chunk of time now, just a couple months shy of two years.

I'm long past the point of people telling me not to rush into a rebound relationship and I'm now at the point where my mom perks up if I mention a guy's name in casual conversation (and then I swiftly kill all questions before they are asked by stating all the reasons why she shouldn't be getting excited.)

Sure I'd like to find someone I like enough to date, sure I'd like to get married and have children ('cause I do like kissing and I adore children). But...I'm going to be okay if it never happens, because the world doesn't stop if I die without a boyfriend or husband.

Yes, there are times I fear that I will never be loved or that all the love I have packed up inside of me will never get the chance to stretch out and rest on another person.

But...at the end of the day, I'm going to be okay regardless of what happens, because the world doesn't stop if I die without a boyfriend or husband.

My worth and value isn't defined by my relationship status, which means, your worth and value isn't defined by your relationship status.

There is so much good to do, beauty to find, and truth to uncover in this great big wonderful world, and I am not going to sit down waiting for prince charming to come sweeping in before I start living.

Screw those shenanigans. Sleeping Beauty I am not.

IF I find a guy he's going to like me for who I am, long facebook posts and all--and if he doesn't, then obviously we both just need to keep moving...in opposite directions.

So I will smile big and bake often, I will spend time in libraries and quiet places, I will love people and pursue goodness and beauty, and maybe one day I will find a guy who's heading in the same direction as me. And then perhaps he'll slip his hand into mine and convince me that we should join forces and fight back the darkness with laughter and beauty together and then maybe we'll do just that.

But in the mean time I shall sing, laugh, and dance on this road we all call life and I shall care for, listen, and love all the people that I encounter on it, for life is to short to wait to start living.

A Case for Real, Heavy, Paper Books

One of the first questions people ask when they find out I am a bookworm is, "So, do you like Kindles?"

Kindles and ebooks are fine...I mean I have one and I like that I can download old books for free and listen to my audio-books on it...but...it's not the same. It's convenient, but since when are the best things in life convenient? I think life would become a dry, hollow thing for me if I did everything the sake of convenience.

Reading from a screen is not the same as reading a printed page. One of the reasons I love reading is because I love the experience of reading. I love the feel of the pages as I flick through them while nestled into couch corners with hot things to drink or sprawled out on hammocks swinging my leg lazily over the side to catch a breeze. I love the smell of new and aging ink and paper and I love running my fingers along the weathered spines of books as I peruse used bookstores. Books have been my companions and friends as I've grown up, one's always been near me, tucked under my arm or nestled in a purse I'd chosen specifically for it's book bearing size.

You can't love e-books to pieces and while this may be a good thing in some people's eyes...I don't like it.

I've bought books that had been loved to pieces, loved my own books to pieces, and they remind me of life. Want to live forever? Sit on a shelf, never open yourself up, never allow your spine to be bent or your pages to be touched, never let yourself be shoved in a corner or lost on a park bench, and you may look unscathed on the outside--but you'll be dead on the inside.

I think books and people must be read and shared and broken and loved in order to have truly lived.

A Case for Real, Heavy, Paper Books.

One of the first questions people ask when they find out I am a bookworm is, "So, do you like Kindles?"

Kindles and ebooks are fine...I mean I have one and I like that I can download old books for free and listen to my audiobooks on it...but...it's not the same. It's convenient, but since when are the best things in life convenient?  I think life would become a dry, hollow thing for me if I did everything the sake of convenience.

Reading from a screen is not the same as reading a printed page. One of the reasons I love reading is because I love the experience of reading. I love the feel of the pages as I flick through them while nestled into couch corners with hot things to drink or sprawled out on hammocks swinging my leg lazily over the side to catch a breeze. I love the smell of new and aging ink combined with paper and I love running my fingers along the weathered spines of books as I peruse used bookstores. Books have been my companions and friends as I've grown up, one's always been near me, tucked under my arm or nestled in a purse I'd chosen specifically for it's book bearing size.

You can't love e-books to pieces and while this may be a good thing in some people's eyes...I don't like it.

I've bought books that had been loved to pieces, loved my own books to pieces, and they remind me of life. Want to live forever? Sit on a shelf, never open yourself up, never allow your spine to be bent or your pages to be touched, never let yourself be shoved in a corner or lost on a park bench, and you may look unscathed on the outside--but you'll be dead on the inside.

I think books and people must be read and shared and broken and loved in order to have truly lived.

Ragamuffin

I watched Ragamuffin last weekend and I'm still thinking about it. Turning it over in my head.

I watched it.

I cried.

And I cried because it was so much like real life.

One of Rich's friends described him as, "like us, but more so." And I think that is true about his life, his life is like mine, but more so.

Most of time "Christian" movies seem to tie every fraying thread of story into a bow; every broken relationship is mended, every ache has a resolution, and it's like "Ta-da! Jesus just fixes everything!"

And a part of me wishes that this were true, actually all of me wishes this were true. I wish I could see everything broken made whole and every question answered, here, right now. I wish I was promised a resolution this side of the grave and a bow on every sad story.

But that's not how life works, sometimes it does and it's wonderful, but sometimes...often even, it doesn't.

Sometimes babies die and a mother hearts always ache.

Sometimes relationships are broken and never restored and sometimes the son never comes home.

Sometimes arms stay empty and sometimes winter is so long we forget what spring feels like.

Sometimes people we love walk away, leaving us broken and bleeding and sometimes they never come back.

Sometimes there are chasms are torn between a father and his child and sometimes death steps between them before it can be crossed.

Sometimes the heavens seem to echo empty as you beat bleeding fists against them and sometimes life ends with screaming brakes, broken glass, and warm blood soaking into asphalt.

We strain to see through a glass darkly and in the ache we all whisper the question, "How can this be good?"

Like everyone I have baggage woven in me. There are stories I don't tell for fear of hurting people and only making chasms deeper. And I cried because I realized that all these broken threads of story that I hold may have no resolution here. Everyone I love and I may breathe our last breath still holding shattered pieces and broken threads.

It's so hard to have faith in those moments. To hold on to hope and not give into despair when all you see is rubble takes courage that there is more to life that what you see.

I read this in a book last night,

"They found something richer than narrative--not just a chain of this, and this, and what happens next. Life was poetry, each scene woven through with innumerable threads. They could find glory in the moments that might seem like defeat to someone of lesser vision. This was one of those moments."

To have eyes that find glory in the moments that seem like defeat.

To have eyes that discern artistry in what appears to be pure chaos.

I want that so badly, it gives me an ache deep down. There is glory hiding, if we but had the eyes to see it.

Hold on. Hope is coming, Good is coming to sweep away all the ache and loss, for He has already begun the great reversal. He will turn backwards all pain and ache into joy, tears into laughter, loss into gain, and death into life.

I also read in the same book,

"She's not fleeing from death and darkness. She's trying to drag the world with her. To the mountain."

May I have eyes that see and love enough to drag the world with me towards the beauty they cannot yet see.

Trees.

Winter has revealed those twisted and gnarled branches of old trees that are reaching, reaching, reaching, as high into the heavens as their limbs will allow them. Those battered trees give me hope, for they have weathered storms, heard winds howl, felt the bite of ice on their skin, and yet, they are still reaching up.

These old giants have survived long droughts which made them reach deep, deep, deep down into this earth, in the end the lack probably saved them when those raging storms came around.

Shallow roots will never do when thunderheads roll and winds beat and batter against you.

These old dryads, year after year slip in and out of light filmy petticoats, soft deep vermillion green dresses, and brilliant ruby and burning gold gowns, until finally without complaint they shed them all and allow the bitter cold to display their faults for the world to see.

Not a one of them is straight and perfect all over, each has twisting, bent and broken branches.

They like I are crooked, even as they reach up.

Travel.

I want to travel.

I want to go to wander around England, run my hand over the old stones in Oxford, and I want to slip into that old pub that once held the minds that birthed Narnia and Middle earth. I want to stand on the cliffs Ireland and watch the waves crash hundreds of feet below me, I want to dance on Prince Edward Island and see that red road that might just lead to Avonlea, I want to stand at the shores of Chincoteague and watch the ponies surging through the water for their penning day, I want to run up and hug an ancient red wood and drive along the Pacific highway, I want to travel to China and explore all the little corners that exist in even the biggest places, I want to go to Scotland and Norway, I want to go to Venice before it sinks and I want to go to the Parthenon in Rome.

Then there's Russia and India and Jerusalem and Uganda and Ethiopia and South America and the rest of this big but small beautiful world we live it.

I want to go to places where the wood is so steeped in history that it leaks out of the walls. I want to run my hands over stones that hold stories that no one on earth knows. 

Some days I just want to go.

Days.

I'm feeling bad about how much I post on Facebook, but writing and taking pictures of things I think are pretty is not something I am going to be able to stop...soooo here I am. 

And I miss journaling.

So today my mother came with me to violin lessons, and by came with I mean she shopped at the Habitate for Humanity Restore while I had my lesson. 

I looked around as well (I like that store an awful lot, they have a bookstore in it). 

Here is what I found: 

Oh, this painting made me ache, I could almost taste the salt and feel the wind. I wanted to give it a home so badly...however, given the $300 price tag I had to walk away.

Old mirrors and ballet flats.

A couple of my spoils.

And look at this Carolina sky...

N.D. Wilson

"Whom did Christ fight? The leaders of His own religion, His professed management. The righteous. 

What did Christ do in the temple? He whipped people and flipped tables. Later He even ripped that big, expensive purple curtain. 

With who did He sit and eat? Whores. Thieves. The unclean.

From birth to the end, He never left the trough. Christ walked from insult to insult, from filth to filth.
Lepers. Prostitutes. Tax men. The Dead.

He chose fisherman to stand closest to Him, and from the educated He chose one great man--a murderer who didn't want to come and had to be knocked off his donkey." 

N.D. Wilson

“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”
-Steven Pressfield

You know when something hits you in the gut?

That feeling when you read something and it reverberates throughout your entire being as it bounces off the deepest corners of your soul sending echoes through your heart.

Yeah, this quote kinda sorta did that.

Confession:
Every time I write I’m terrified.
I’m terrified that no one else will understand what I’m talking about.
I’m scared that someone out there will think that I do this for attention. That all the black marks I toss out there are for a selfish need for validation…and I’m terrified that they are just exactly that.

I’m scared that I’ll be left alone clutching this cold empty fear to my chest.

Writing exposes who I am, it lets you all get to know me and all my quirks, and that is scary.

Because I’m not very balanced and not a single one of my friends has ever used normal as an adjective to describe me.

I write too much, and apologize too much, and read too much, and think too much, and take too many pictures, and worry too much, and I’m too idealistic. I am both too sure of myself and not at all. I am wracked with insecurity and prideful all at the same time. I somehow marry the very worst of opposites in this five foot ten frame.

At all the wrong times I seem to leap before I look and then take too long looking so I never even leap.

I’m a living paradox, a walking contradiction, a breathing antilogy, an antithesis with a glasses.

What makes me think that anyone would care what I have to say?

But I keep writing anyway…

Because I cling on tightly to this ridiculous idea that I have words that no one else does. That my life and experience and perspective have given me something that no one else ever has or ever will have. I clutch at the idea that I was created to be and do things that will somehow make a difference.

Maybe I’m crazy for believing in just a ridiculous idea, but you know, I’ve never exactly been known for being normal anyways.

And I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense my brain and head is still a little foggy from waging war against the microbials that decided to take up residence in my body this weekend.

Now I'm going to go and listen to the Frozen soundtrack.

Hope

Dear I've crawled through despair.

Lungs broken, gasping for air.

And I sit here crying and aching.

Wondering if I am even worth saving.

I've lifted up shattered dreams, 

Broken hands holding torn seams 

For every time I stand tall

I somehow manage to fall. 

This world carves hard lines 

This heavy weight curves my spine.

And the heaviest thing is often my lack and my failure.

For grace doesn't seem big enough to give me a waiver.

For I have always been told I know better.

Everyone is watching so don't you mess up! 

Goes that reel in my head that just won't shut up

Then the pain carves deep scars 

As all the ache hides the stars.

My lips have stung with all the questions I have flung.

Why do I mess up again and again?

How can this turn out for good?

When all I can see is my sin?

I hold out an empty grasping hand 

Asking, begging to understand.

Look at the world, all of her lacks.

Line up all the horrors.

And if you look long enough 

Hope begins to slip between cracks

But despite all of my ache, pain, and fear.

I'm learning that in order to see I must chase for pain and mistakes require a much deeper grace.

If after beauty and grace you hound 

Everything lost will again be found.

All those shattered fragments of your soul once again will be whole.

Though this ache and the pain may make me weep 

But I will laugh in the end because grace, even for me runs so deep.

Love has come and laughter like a river always follows 

Filling in all of these deep and dry empty hollows.

Rant.

(I try not to rant often, but sometimes I'm just so flabbergasted that I just have to, so please excuse me.)

I've never run with the "popular" girls. I'm not that kind of gorgeous, I didn't and don't care enough about my clothes, hair and make up. Plus I have never been terrified enough of bugs and snakes to ever make it in those circles. I don't have what it takes, nor do I care to try and obtain it.

I don't have a models figure, I never will, and I'm alright with that. I want to be healthy but sorry, I'm not going to starve myself just to fit into a size two. I want to look nice sure, but I'm not going to lose two hours of sleep to do my make up. I refuse to carry around a purse that's worth more than the money I carry it in, I like shopping in the clearance aisles, and I would rather shop for books than clothes. I am who I am, eat it.

It's like you have the cheerleader group and then you have Ming, with her glasses and stacks of books, sitting in the corner thinking to much, laughing, and eating cinnamon rolls.

Honestly, I forget people like that exist. I am so completely surrounded by the most incredibly kind and thoughtful people, that I forget that such mean, shallow, petty people actually exist in real life.

I was sharply reminded about this tonight. I sat listening to story after story of women my age who apparently never got the memo that there is more to life than what you see in the mirror, who sit and critic the world, and who believe the worst thing you can call someone is "basic" (side note: I didn't even know what that meant and had to ask for an explanation). I kind of sat in shock as I listened, just staring, not being able to comprehend that girls my age could really be that shallow and be such catty b's.

I'm sorry but I'd rather look "basic" and be interesting, fun, opinionated, idealistic and kind, than look like Helen of Troy and be mean spirited, catty, empty-headed, and self-obsessed.

There's more to beauty than good bone structure and the skin on our faces.

Goodness gracious. Alright now I feel better, I'm done.

Oh, it's a new year...

(If it makes you feel any better--I tried really, really hard not to write this. I had determined it was to cliche and I was not going to do it....andddd here I am anyway. Forgive and love me regardless? Still friends?)

Last night I stayed up way too late talking with my mom recounting everything that had happened in the last 365 days. It feels like 2013 flew by, but as I sat remembering everything that had happened it all of a sudden seemed incredible how much life was squeezed into the year.

As I traced lines around all the craziness that had happened, I just started laughing. I laughed because I have such an incredibly short term memory. I often forget how incredibly good God is, but as I sat looking at my life now I began to piece together all the things that led me to where I sit now and I saw this incredible picture emerge.

This year I have grown closer to old friends and family and I have met dozens and dozens of incredible people, who I now count among my dearest friends. I just wish I could convey to them how much I adore them, I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm going to keep trying.

This year I've grown into my own skin a little bit, owning who I am, I've poked holes into fears that I've held for so long, I've chased after beauty with bright zeal, I've erased the lines that I didn't realize I had drawn around grace, I've been hunted and hounded by Love and grace, I've cried bitter and painful tears and I've learned in the middle of pain that joy born out of heartache has a substance that it wouldn't have otherwise. And laughter slips from lips.

There's something about walking through difficult things that forces us to wade ever deeper into this ocean of grace.

So raise this glass of life to your lips and let us all drink deeply of this new year. Happy twenty fourteen my people.

Love much and much love,

Ming

Poem or something.

Dear I've crawled through despair,
Lungs bleeding, broken, gasping for air
For this old world carves hard lines 

And this heavy weight, it curves our spines.

I've lifted up shattered dreams, 

Broken hands holding torn seams .

And my lips have stung

With all the questions I have flung.

Look at the world, all her lacks

Hope slips unreachable between the cracks

I hold out empty grasping hands 

Asking, begging to understand.

But despite all of my ache, pain, and fear

Something is becoming clear.

I'm learning that I must chase

For pain requires a deeper grace.

If after beauty and grace you hound 

Everything lost will again be found.

All those shattered fragments of heart and soul

Will once again be beautiful and whole.

I stand outside on the soft loam

Crying loudly, "I am not yet home!"

This ache and pain will make me weep 

But I will smile for grace runs deep.

Love has come and laughter follows 

Filling in all of these empty hollows