sometimes there are no words

i don't really know what to write... i just know that I want to write... something... meaningful? absurd? both?

sometimes there are no words. i for some reason chose silence for the last four weeks.

sometimes there are no words, but someone's listening anyway.

God is not a human. Thank God :-) recently i've realized that i have a "bad habit" of equating God's nature with human nature... so when I do something stupid (and most of you know that i'm prone to that... cough) i have a tendency to assume that God feels the same way about me as I feel about myself... that He thinks i'm a failure or an idiot or that I'll never "get it"...

this, though, i think is part of this lifelong journey i somehow got sucked into at the age of fourteen... this journey of pursuit of the real God. who is He really? what can I give Him? does He need me? why do I need Him? how come its so hard to hold on? how could I EVER have thought this would be easy? and sometimes... really, sometimes... I think to myself, what was I thinking? I didn't sign up for this... pfff actually CARING about others and myself? actually trying to do the right thing? resisting temptation? Nobody told me any of this. I could generalize and say that all 14 year olds are idiots. . . . . . but sometimes I think its just me.

so here's to holding on tight for the rest of this wild ride called life. there are ups and downs and, i'm happy to say that right now, as surely as this wild wind rushes through the window and into my room, i'm on an up. one of the best ups i've experienced in a long time. the goal here , though, isn't to avoid the downs... because the next one's coming ... I wish I could go ahead and schedule it in my planner. No, its not my goal anymore to avoid the downs. not even potheads want to stay high, you know? ... my goal, instead, is to face the downs differently. look them in the face and make the choice (and it IS a choice!) to pray through them, hold on to my jesus instead of resenting Him in some way. stop blaming it on PMS. smile more. get over my self... all my worries, fears, pride...

get over myself...

to get over myself, i have to stay grounded in Him... he's real, i feel it, just like I feel that wind right now. just like i feel the sun, he's there and something compels me to open my mouth, my heart, to speak to him...even when there are no words.

Goals for my 22nd year on earth

Tomorrow is my 22nd birthday... yesterday I changed my mind again on when to graduate... I'm not going to graduate until December, as I had originally planned. Its better that way... because I'm not ready to pack up and leave yet... if I graduated in August, I will have been home for just one year and I don't think I'm ready yet. I have felt myself changing every single day lately and something tells me that as much as I want to get out on my own into the "real" world, its not quite time and I need to slow down a bit or I'll regret it down the road...

Also I'm going to visit my friend Lea in Australia (many of you only know her as "Mate"), whom I just love and miss so much... that's a big reason I decided against graduating in the summer... I could only visit her if I went to the Summer A term, BUT if I went to Summer A, I couldn't get my scholarship advance as I'd planned, since they have changed the rules so I HAVE to take summer B... and I thought to myself, in one year, five years, ten years, twenty years... I will NOT say to myself "wow, I'm so glad I rushed through college and didn't go to Australia to visit Lea..." no, I will say the exact opposite of that... I have this great opportunity, money and time to do it, and who knows if I'll ever get to do it again.

So I'm going to Australia, folks...

I want to take some time now too to write out some goals for my 22nd year on this planet... no particular order, some silly, some serious

1. continue growing the healthy4him ministry at river run
2. get my personal trainer certification
3. go to Australia and survive the flights there and back
4. finish watching all of the Lost episodes I haven't seen
5. rewrite my basic cover letter and optimize my resume
6. take some courses in grammar and more courses in writing
7. do the challenge course at UCF
8. maintain my weight loss and continue to build strength
9. be nicer to and more patient with people
10. be slower to get angry
11. pray more, keep staying in the word
12. make a lasagna
13. make my own pizza dough
14. run a 5k race
15. FINISH MY DEGREE!!!

thats it so far...