A closer look

There's been a lot of thinking being done lately on my part about certain things in my life. Taking a semi-brief look at it (my life currently), it's kind of average I guess. Some good, some bad.

But when I actually look at it knowing that there is some good and some bad, I realize just how much of each there is. I know that the beginning of this year seems to have been pretty much a miserable time, and for a lot of people around me too. People's lives lost, jobs and school taking their toll on oneself, directions blurred. These are the big things that people tend to focus on more, but I was talking to a good friend of mine (she is leaving Calgary in 8 hours:(...moving to Ontario) and she told me about something good that had happened the previous day. It was one of the first real good things she had shared with me for a while, among the many trials she had been and is currently going through. It made me realize once again that although there are all of these things weighing us down...where is our focus on the little joys in life? For me they are the way a friend's eyes crinkle and tear up when she laughs really hard, the time in my day during which I am able to just sit and let my music flow into my ears in bliss, delicious and long breakfasts with beloved friends, mom telling me to get lost when I force a hug and kiss on her while she's reading the mail, the moment the macro on my point-and-shoot hits its focus on the point I want it to be, a lovely and unexpected generosity, a toddler just clutching his dad's forehead for dear life as he sits on dad's shoulders, the way my grande half-sweet white mocha tastes when it's just the right temperature, the vibration the guitar emanates when I have time to jam by myself, random lunches with Gdi, random visits at work from some of my favourite, favourite people...and just friends who make my heart smile. :)

Where have we lost sight in the fact that our generous God gives us so many blessings that take place every single day? Life is so much more enjoyable and amazing when such things are appreciated and treasured. It should happen more often.

Backtracking

Today I finally worded something I'd been trying to for over a year out to someone. Yess I think this is the beginning to something. Cryptic blogging ftw, lol. Anyways...

Raw-ish lame time again. About hearts lol. I know...hearts. Ha. Ha. Ha.

I haven't blogged in a while now eh. Buuut...some of you guys probably know I have a sketchbook that I kind of half turned into a notebook that I write things for myself in...things that I learn. Things from sermons, from bible studies, from SYC (Summer Youth Celebration...it's coming up again soooooon:D!!!), time alone with God, Sunday school classes, retreats, random thoughts, life, whatever. I've had a couple but I started using this one more during SYC last year when Glenn Watson was the speaker. I was just looking through it and remembering the things that I had learned from certain things that I had written and one of the things was something God said to Carl that he shared with us when he telling us his testimony: "I want your heart to show on the outside." I find this such a struggle sometimes...not because I always have a hard time (partially:P) showing it, but because...what about the whole "protecting your heart" aspect? Although you may learn to protect it to a certain extent, what about the people who happen to find the gate in the fence that is around it? I always hate it when people tell me about whatever wall they've built up around themselves and the isolation they trap themselves in, but really, if you think on the contrary...the balance between having the heart "show on the outside" and (for lack of a better way to say it) letting people have maybe too much(?) access to it is so hard to keep for me. For friends, for the guy/girl if there is one for you, for coworkers and other peers....for these people to have access to your heart...is it too much vulnerability? Can it get to be too much? For both of you in that relationship? Over the last two years...looks like it can sometimes.

I think probably a lot of people could agree with the fact that sometimes, in the last few years, mine has kind of gotten to show on the outside. I know some would say it shows too much and is maybe too easy to get to. I would have to sooort of disagree with that (although friiiggn...those who actually really get to it, seem to never lose that access or something=( even after prolonged periods of time...), because you know what? It's changed up a bit. So please stop with the hating. I'm workin' on it, kay?? Gosh.

P.S. I know I didn't really elaborate on what I think God means when He tells us to show our hearts on the outside. But I can't right now on account of my brain being outta whack.

Kthxbai.

In the eye of the beholder

You find all of your ugly meanings
in all of the things I find beautiful

You perceive all of these things
I’d never have known.

You painted me in pastel,
colors that don’t tell of any boldness.
That’s the way you’d love to see me:
so delicate, so weak, so little purpose.

Body in a box

I regretfully cannot, although I had known her pretty much all my life, say that I was heartbroken at her leaving this world to join with the Father up there. I just...didn't share a closeness like that with her. And I feel that, not even thinking about the extremity of paradise in heaven, it's just so much better up there for her than...down here. But I think this was and is a case of celebration, because she has gone to a place with no sickness, no pain, no restrictions. "Eternity...where death is just a memory and tears are no more." Albeit the sense of loss, there is also a happiness there, for she is with the One her heart yearned to be with all along.

However, in terms of "down here," I can still say that this one was still heartbreaking...seeing mom go up there to give her eulogy. It was the worst...the pain in her heart bursting through her eyes in the form of tears that were forcing their way out, in spite of the immense effort to keep them in. I had never seen her that way...even if I'd seen tears from her in the past, this was much worse than I imagined :(. And the things she said to me...what am I supposed to do =\...? And what to say? I am at a loss.

Man...this weekend has been a taxing one to say the least...

Bittersweet

Today was a good but sad day.

Goodbye Ang. We'll miss you very dearly.

:(

Struggles

"I'll set You as a seal upon my heart...
as a seal upon my arm"

Turning points

It's strange...strange how things can change so much in such a short amount of time. It's just like what I was saying two(?) posts ago, where you can be just enjoying life in one location yet somewhere else someone of relation to you is doing the opposite.

I guess I might as well just come out and say it. She's gone...

But there are two sides to this. There's our side, and there's her's and heaven's. Although on our side, grief, loneliness and mourning reign...I know that it is safe to say that God and the angels are up there with her, partying. She's ultimately in a better place, a joyful place with Him in paradise. Especially in comparison with a depressing hospice where your sister repetitiously assumes aloud that you'd be unable to "do that," your nephew shows up just to play on his DS or watch things on the lobby TV, and your best friend can only show up on occasion. Where you painfully sat out the rest of your days knowing that you'd be sitting out the rest of your days in pain. Praise God that she had peace in her last days knowing she was going Home.

I was in a car the other night and a song came on with joyful lyrics announcing His return to be coming soon, which is sooo exciting. But with this coming also comes the end of the time we have to share His good news and His love with others who need it...are we up to the challenge? "Yes" we say, but then how many of us actually have been taking the steps to be fishers of men? Fishers in the time of Peter didn't "go fishing" like some do now, with all the time in the world and a single rod, waiting for hours on end for the fish to come to him. They pursued and gathered and put a lot of work into it. It's not always going to be cases like this, where the deceased had already entered into the salvation of Christ, and I know that there are ones in the past of whom have been mourned all the more, knowing that they would not be one of the people I'd be able to see up There. Yet I've been finding it an unnerving struggle to step outside of my "comfort zone" where I just "live the life of a Christian" with everyone around me knowing that "I go to church Friday and Saturday nights, and Sunday mornings." They all know that I have about 30-35 kids, all of whom I love immensely. They all know I'm not a swearing kinda girl. They all think I'm "really nice." But how do I take the further steps?

I'm scared.

But it says in Matthew that faith the size of the tiny mustard seed is enough to move mountains - your mountains of doubt, fears...of whatever hindrances they may be. I have to ask myself whether or not I've been forgetting that it is God who works, speaks and changes, not I. It's been too late before. Lives are at stake. The words of Leeland continue to stand true: "This is an emergency."