Time on my hands....for once in my life.

Not totally sure what to write now. It's weird to be alone in the quiet so much. I'm the only one around on my floor this week. I'm staying around school til Wednesday-ish to hopefully get some homework done. I'm NEVER alone during school, and now I'm alone alot. It gives me alot of time to think....and I don't know if I like that. Honestly sometimes it's just not healthy to sit around and think, but I never do, and now silence is everywhere.....my brain goes crazy. It's been good actually. Good but weird.

I've been hanging out with Jenice and Kristine alot this year...and they're here for the break too. I love love LOVE those girls. We could talk for hours on end. Usually Jenice and I go over the same things and people we've been talking about for years, and Kristine and I "discuss" and sometimes rant about camp, worship teams, Africa.....everything. They really care....alot. It's weird for me in a way to tell people stuff that I never ever talk about and to have them accept and even love me anyway. It really just blows my mind and is SUCH a picture of Christ to me. So cool.

I went and played piano and sang today....it was SO good. I just want a grand piano like none other! Ho man. I opened the big black grand all the way and played for like an hour.....and the room I was in made my voice sound pretty stellar. :) I haven't done that in a long time, and it's so good to just be alone and worship God who is so incredibly good to me.

And....school is almost done for me. I have 25 days after Reading Break to get all my homework done....like more homework than I've had in the last 7 weeks. :) BAH!!!! I'm completely torn about being done school. I'm really excited and ready to start something new...but TERRIFIED at the same time. I feel like I should be doing something more than just moving out and working this next year, but I'm not seeing it....so...the plan stays unless something else smacks me between the eyes. It's going to be rough....but God has obviously taken me this far, and he is THE only one who has the slightest clue about what's going to happen for me. I must admit that right now I really hate that...but I'm really thankful for it, too. A wise man once told me that not knowing the future isn't a reason to fear, it's an adventure. :) Somewhat a different prespective than mine....as usual.

Anyway....I'm off to watch some video from our Africa trip. Oh joy...I'm so pumped. :)

Those who look upon him are radiant....their faces are never covered with shame....

*Yeama

Charade

Another day paints on the face that they expect to see
It's not all I want but it's all I've got to make this world believe
Nothing's wrong with me

I'm an artist of emotion a master of deceit
And the many faces I portray are nothing at all like me
How I long to be free

From this never ending maze
All my head's in a daze
Every time I think
From this over played charade
My heart's gonna fade
And I can't go on

It's a tug of war each moment to hide this pain inside
Or to open up and spill this cup of feelings that I hide
But what would people do and what would people say?
When they hear the truth will they turn and run away?
Will they throw a stone or lend a shoulder to lean on?

From this never ending maze
All my head's in a daze
Every time I think
From this over played charade
My heart's gonna fade
And I can't go on

It's not fair, I can't take this any more
Oh these tears have drifted me to shore
Is there hope for someone just like me?
And I hear a voice inside me say,

"I can set you free..."

From this never ending maze
I will be your strength
If you let me lead
So just take my hand and see
If you follow me
You can be free

-Charade - Amanda Falk -
*C. Natasha Rose

selflessness (and the day of romantic love)

Ok so....would it be really evil for me to change my mind JUST a little bit about Valentines Day? :) Yeah, I still hate the girly-girls and the emo-aloners...but maybe it's not all bad... Bah ha.

So...yesterday in my Family Studies class we talked a bit about the purpose of marriage. HoLA it was intense. Everyone, or ALMOST everyone, I'm pretty sure like 90% of people I know have a totally wrong view of what marriage is all about. Scary. I totally had a wrong view of it until yesterday, and then it was like, BAM! Truth in your face! It kind of sucked. Every girl has her ideals and actually a bunch of lies she's heard about how happy marriage is and all this wonderful stuff you get from it. BUT that isn't even close to what God intended for it. It's ridiculous really...to see how far our world has come from what God really wants for us.

Apparently my life in general is supposed to be selfless....servant living you could call it. You'd think this would be old news...but no. There's alot of stuff out there that teaches us exactly the opposite of Christ-likeness (which includes selflessness). SOOO much of this "marriage talk" included alot on serving and selflessness. I sort of always thought I was very considerate of others' needs. Wrong-o. From what I'm seeing and hearing in classes and from people I really trust and respect and admire, selflessness is a heck of a lot more than what I thought. Yippee!!!

It actually is kind of cool that I'm learning this....but also really scary. (Dang I say "scary" alot) It's good to recognize all this stuff that I have to work on ALOT....but it's so incredibly hard to actually work on these things. Believe me, the things I have to work on BOMBARD me every day of my life. It's kind of sucky, but I'm really really thankful that I'm open enough to see my faults now. That hasn't always been the case.

Anyway. I'm off to read...maybe nap....maybe do absolutely nothing at all. Mohebonep!

"Let me be locked in eternity with you....where your eyes like the stars glisten in the dark..."
Or something like that.... - Kerri's Song :) (definitely forgot about that til yesterday...mwa ha ha)

*Meg M.

rant-(ish)

Oh Africa. Why why why WHY will you not leave me alone? Why do I think about it so much? I want to go back so badly, but why? I have no clue if I'm "called" there or if I should just do something around here for the people there. I love telling people about it....is that what I should do with my so-called passion for the people of SL? I don't know. I know that I want to go back, but I don't know when or how or who I should go with or WHY. Brutal. I see pictures, I hear stories, I talk to people, and I just get so passionate about it. It's weird, because I kind of hated it when I was there, yet I loved it at the same time. I was just in the weirdest mental state ever...and now that I'm sort of normal (ish), I just get so fired up when I hear about SL. Who knows?

Valentines Day is tomorrow. Part of me wants to be all girly and pink and giggly and retarded and freak out about flowers or chocolate or a teddy bear, the other part of me wants to go emo and wear black and be moody and cynical and write a poem about how I'm all alone. Neither one of those would be true, I'm not alone in any way shape or form, and neither of those two people is me. Common sense says that I should do neither and just let it pass without going to either extreme of my split personality. Random!

I had a kind of revelation today. It's ok to feel like crap. :) Like I'm never getting anywhere or changing at all or that my life is hard. It really is hard....like REALLY tough right now. It is a lie that I'm never going to change, etc...but it's alright to be bummed out once in a while. God doesn't expect us to be happy all the time. Joy isn't faking it and never telling anyone that you're really truly deeply struggling and that you cry almost every day. Hurting openly in the presence of God is one of the scariest, most vulnerable and beneficial thing EVER...and it's ok. :) It's ok it's ok it's ok. I need some sort of tape recorder playing that in my ears all day. It's ok.

It's actually an odd sort of relief to learn to hurt before God and sometimes others. It's weird to say that learning to actually let myself hurt and feel something and identify that feeling is GOOD....or even amazing and wonderful and comforting. Try it sometime. Tell God how you actually feel. You'd be surprised how many people don't do this and end up not even knowing how they really feel. And "feeling" isn't just some lame cliche counseling thing. God gave us emotions for a reason and they indicate what's really REALLY happening in us.

This time around the hardness cycle (whatever that is) I also have more of a hope than I did before. My desires and pains and hopes and disapppointments and fears are still there and pretty much the same as always, but I'm beginning to have hope. I read a book for my Women of Faith class. It's called Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb and I wanted to throw it at the wall. :) BUT it's SOOOOO good. It talks about pain and the purpose/good of having pain. I hated it because it meant that pain WILL happen....I can't avoid it...It goes so far as to say that I SHOULDN'T avoid it. I hate that. But the whole focus of the book is how God works through pain and "shattered dreams". In alot of ways I feel like I'm in the midst of a shattered dream or two, but I am starting to see that hope that comes from perserverance start to come through the pile of rubble that is my heart. It's totally incredible, but so super scary at the same time.

I'm also learning about communication right now. Communication and how much I SUCK at it. :) Ha. That sounds brutal, but I really do. I'm so afraid of feeling anything and therefore afriad of TELLING someone that I feel something. Articulating my feelings and thoughts is ridiculously hard for me, and I'm starting to see why....and that's SOOOO hard, but SOOOOOOOOOO good. God is taking me on this ridculous and scary and incredible and rough and crazy and unreal journey...and I have to give myself credit for what I really am learning. Which I also have a hard time with, but I will NOT go into that now.

My roommate really opend up to me the other day, which is a huge answer to prayer and encouragement. My sort of long-lost cousin came over for supper last night and is asking about church and we laughed and played and talked together. I have a few people that I trust and can talk to. I AM changing. My brother talks to me. And I'm learning to feel and hurt and be honest about it. Praise God.

*Caitlin

.........

Hmm.....I hate having 50 billion pointless things to talk about and choosing only 2 or 3. Such is...not my life...just my blog. :)

I went to youth group at McLaurin last night and saw a few camp girls. I love them. :) I randomly talked with one girl that I haven't actually counselled for like, 3 years. But it was good. She's having alot of the same questions and doubts that I had for a few years...which is sort of scary, but I think it was good that we talked.

Youth Alert is next weekend, and I'm sort of excited...not really because I'm SOOOO tired and it's tough to have a good attitude about having people stay in my room to possibly keep me up late at night. :) Rachelle and I are doing security/fire watch one night from 2-3. :) We get walkie-talkies...that'll be fun. Thankfully Rachelle's brother Ryan signed up for the same hour...otherwise it would just be us and a random sort of creepy guy that yells our names across the dining hall.

I had a good talk with a guy from my Africa team the other day. He's been REALLY weird with alot of people from our team and I was super weird with him. For me it was different than most people I think.....he just wierds me out and definitely did on the trip. BUT I figured it was all in my head, so we talked, and he totally opened up about some of his struggles on the trip and with seeing our team now at school. It was sweet. We definitely talked a bunch on the trip, which is part of what worried me, but it's all good now. So we agreed we wouldn't avoid each other anymore. I think that's a step in a good direction. :) He actually is really awesome...so I'm glad we're sort of on speaking terms now.

The last few weeks I've randomly been feeling really old. Which is retarded, because I'm just NOT at all. But my next sister, Chanelle, is turning 14 tomorrow, my brother is SEVENTEEN now which just blows my mind. 17 wasn't that long ago for me...but it feels like forever. And I keep seeing all the people I grew up with and realizing that ALOT of them are done school, dating, or married. None of us ever dated in highschool except for one of the Ashleys, and she's married now. So to think that my friends are all out of highschool and moving and such....it's just weird. It's cool that we can all still hang out though. There's some kind of bond that seems to always be there even if we haven't hung out in months. It's cool.

Anyway. I REALLY have nothing important to say, my roommate and I were just sort of procrastinating.....yeah. Huzzah for totally pointless blogs and quasi-lazy Saturdays. :)

"Some hearts just get lucky sometimes..." -Carrie Underwood. Buy her CD. In the words of my roommate, "It's just FABULOUS!"

*CNR