Just throw a wrench at my heart, why doncha?

I love that kind of music that has an effect on your soul before you even hear a word. I just found a new band that does that to me...He is We. Oh so good. 
This week I realized why this semester has been so hard socially for me. My friends and I are growing in different directions. The majority of them want the American dream, they support military action to keep or engender peace, and they want a job and house of their own in a quiet safe neighborhood. I want adventure, not stress. Interdependence, not independence. I want risk and not safety so that God can show himself. I want simple, but not boring. I want love and not war. 

I know it sounds like I'm glamorizing my point of view, and some part of me is, but at the same time I know that I was not made for normal. I am quirky, unusual, and stubborn. I'm really struggling because I talk to my friends about my dreams and get some considerate replies that come wrapped in disbelieving or disapproving facial expressions. I love my friends and they love me, but they don't understand me. I hate that. Really hate it. Thank God I do have a few friends here that understand, but those friends are the very ones that I see and hang out with via planning every two weeks or so. 

I long for community and faith and love and concern and openness and whole conversations about the wonder that is our God. I want to look at nature and say "Oh God, look what You've made! You are so beautiful" and that not be unusual to hear.

Lord Jesus come soon. 

That's when all this will happen for sure and for ever. But I'd like to start living like it is already here! Is that so bad?  

SIMWs #3

While talking to one of my roommates, she told me that she had a conversation earlier with a mutual friend of ours about my extroversion, general craziness, and specifically how I enjoy mismatching my clothes. She told him how one day I had to quick change shirts before I left the dorm because I matched too much. It's a true story.

SIMWs #2

SIMWs....Sim-dubs....Smiles in my Whiles...

I like that.

While avoiding homework, I took it upon myself to look around my room. My piece of gum is still on the wall.

While doing homework, I listen to Christian gangsta rap. And dance in my seat. Because both my roommates are asleep. And neither of them dance...or seem to ever cut loose and just be free...

(that one was a smile and a 'hmph'. sorry)

While preparing to stay up very late tonight to do work (son!), I went to the Keyhole to get coffee and stay-awake snacks. The cashier girl is starting to recognize me as "the girl I always give free coffee to."

Smiles in my Whiles #1

A lot of things have happened that made me smile.

While I was packing to come back to Liberty I forgot my hairbrush. Finger-comb it is then.


While trying to drink my coffee before tiredness set in, I burnt my tongue fiercely last night. I succeeded in my venture nevertheless and was up until about 3am doing homework that wasn't done over break.

While currently sitting on my bed, I look to my right. I see the piece of gum that I stuck to the wall after it got stale. That thumb-punch to the wall happened last week.  

Hopefully more to come.

Ninth.

I saw the most beautiful thing today.

I wish I had my camera with me at the time so I could show you. But I'll tell you as best I can.

I worked at One Body In Christ Horse Ministries today, like I do every Saturday. Today, though, was different. Today was the annual Fall Festival. Yard sale, petting zoo, grillin' and chillin' in the riding ring with turkeys, miniature horses, goats, rabbits, a lamb, and a VERY pregnant donkey. Corral rides on the big horses for the short people, and trail rides on the big horses for the tall people. Kids were chasing, catching, and petting the turkeys and wishing the mini horses weren't feeling grumpy and lazy today. It was sunny, breezy, and only a few wispy cirrus clouds in the sky. Families were coming and going here and there. I was able to hang out with and talk to people I didn't know, people I do know, and people I now know. Perfection. LIFE.

As glorious and reflective of Christ as this was, it is not what I wanted to tell you. My beautiful sight was of an elderly woman. She walked using a walker. She breathed with a nebulizer at her side. She was wrinkled. She was white-haired. She was weathered. She was beautiful.

She had her daughter carry a folding chair into the riding ring for her. She sat in it for a while, but soon got on her knees on the dusty ground with her face in the seat of the chair. I wasn't sure what she was doing until I walked by her. This lady was praying fervently and nearly silently for the success of OBIC's ministry and for the souls of people. She had her eyes closed and her brow was more wrinkled than usual with intensity and earnestness. 

This was that beautiful scene I wish I could have taken a picture of. 
But then...her daughter came over and told her that it was not good for her knees or her lungs to be on the ground. She told her that people were looking at her. She made her mother get back up into the chair, but soon enough, she was right back down. This happened a few times before I was transferred to the corral rides. 

Maybe sometimes what is "good" for us is not what we need, not what is "best" for us. 
Maybe sometimes propriety should take a backseat to authenticity.
Maybe sometimes I wish I understood how to more thoroughly apply this to my own life. 

I hope to be as fervent in my faith as this beautiful daughter of the Beautiful Father was.