psalm 118:24

i cannot be afraid to be happy.
rather, i cannot be afraid to feel happy and afraid to be joyful
and when i have joy, i cannot be so anxious waiting for the joy to "go away" that i don't enjoy being "in" joy.
i will not let him take my joy.
i will not live in worry and thus not live.
i will choose joy. and if the other shoe drops, then i will joyfully catch it.
but i will not wait to be disappointed.
in any day that my God has made,
i will rejoice
and be glad
in it.

ready

You say "the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few"
which implies that with eyes open i will see the suffering and the pain that surrounds each soul covered by flesh that i encounter on a day-to-day basis
ready to be plucked
or picked
or gathered from the field of the world and placed in the basket of Your kingdom.
You say.
You say "the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few"
meaning those ripe for the picking are screaming
picketing the current world around them
ready
to commit to a new union
done
with being used and reused
ruined and re-ruined by the field around them.
You tell me "they are ready".
am I?

dear words

hello friends! yes, i know, it's been too long. but i recently wrote a couple of poems and would like to post them somewhere. so here they go. i hope that you are all well. i'm learning a lot. God is very faithful and He's for me and wants me to grow. i hope that i can trust him enough to let Him work his will in me (in spite of my fears and my pride). for more on that, shoot me an email! but for now, some poems for your enjoyment (and feedback).

dear words

dear words.
i forgot how much i love you. you see
i'm so used to you taking the form of things tat overwhelm me and attempt to drown me.
my thoughts come in words - too many for me to handle, too much for me to process.
so i sleep
and play games
in hopes that they will run their course and run out of room on the page of my mind
but they never seem to use up all the canvas.
in the form of words, thoughts inform my emotions
emotions transform my thoughts
and now there are more words, more things that i don't understand that sit over in my mind.
it's too much.
dear words.
i forgot how much i love you. you see
i'm so used to you taking the form of self-condemning sounds and syllables that hammer away at my fragile self.
soft and affected. should i become hard against words that are voiced in my own voice against me?
nothing makes them go away.
it's as if i'm tortured by you.
by me.
by you.
dear words.
i forgot how much i love you. you see
because there's never enough time to express and get you out. there is only a small hole
like a sewing needle poked in a bottle filled with gallons and gallons of watery words that can only come out this tiny pen point.
there are too many.
and i am too harassed
by what i thought i loved.
what i do...love.
dear words.
i forgot how much i love you. you see
because i remember the way you allowed yourself to be manipulated by hurt and pain and used on me.
how you gave yourself to others so willingly to be thrown back at me
with meaningless "how are you"s and shallow statements about my earrings, when you had the power -
have the power
to pierce my heart.
dear words.
i forgot how much i loved you.
i forgot how much i love you still, you see,
because you have the ability to get me out of the bottle. out of the shallow
and in to the deep waters of a page.
you give me an out.
the way they come in is how i can release them. you are my friend too
available for my use
to combat the enemy words with my dear, dear words.
so with you, dear words, i must choose to express.
i must choose to fight those not-so-dear
words.

being made

hello to all! i know that it's been a super long time. i recently went to the american leadership and new england christian conferences and heard a really inspiring message that reminded me that God is still making me. in short, i think that i often feel far from where i expected myself to be at this point in my life and with that comes a thought that maybe God is done with me. i know that this can seem ridiculous, but i can look at the ways that God uses people in the campus ministry and feel like "those were the days that i was supposed to reach my full potential! and i didn't, so now i'm done". but that is not true. God is still making me into the women that He planned for me to be. even through the trials and the challenges, God is still making me. and He is still making you too. 


i hope you enjoy this poem.


i'm a lump of clay.
a lump of dingy
brown
clay.
that is me.
a lump of...
WHOA!
wait.
someone is touching me.
picking me up and squeezing me
and ripping off chunks
and putting them where they don't belong.
"STOP!" i cry out.

                                                           but hands have no ears.

they just keep working me and working me.
and working me and working me.
and softening me.
and softening me.
and softening me.
and softening
me.

man!

i didn't realize how tough i had gotten!
i had no idea how hard i had become!
so
hard.
but getting
softer.
and softer.
and softer.

OW!

what is going on?!?

OW!
AH!

"STOP! PLEASE! i'm soft enough!" i cry.

                                                    but hands still have no ears.

they do not hear as they rip me apart.
replacing parts of me with other parts.

i thought i was soft enough...

"stop..." i barely manage
then up i give.
up
i
give.
"i'm a lump of clay," i say; then                                            "No!
                                                                                              I am making you!"


                                                             the hands speak.

                                           the no-hearing, part ripping hands speak.
                                                             they reply to me.

                                                                                              "I am making you."


i ask, "making me what?"

                                                             the hands go mute.

"making me what?"

only silence. i muster up my lumpy strength and cry out,
"MAKING ME WHAT?!?"

                                                             the hands stop.
relief from the pain of pulling.
                                                             the hands put me down.
i have been set free
                                                             the hands put me down.
i have been released!
                                                             the hands put me down.
i have been set fr...
fr...
fr...ee...what is happening to me?
what
is
happening?

i am getting harder.

unable to be worked.
harder.
quickly getting unable to be worked.


                                                                                          "Let me make you."
"into what?"
                                                                                          "Let me make you."
"into what?"

                                                                       silence.

i had forgotten this was not a conversation.
                                                                          hands
                                                                                have
                                                                                      no
                                                                                         ears.

it slips out anyway.

"in...to...what?"
i await no reply.

                                                                         then
                                                                               hands
                                                                                       speak.

                                                                                           "Into more than a lump of 
                                                                                            clay."

don't hate me...

wow! please don't hate me. i am SO sorry that it's been so long. i find myself planning to write something and then the time flies and i don't even know where it goes! well, happy resurrection sunday! i'm grateful that the story does not end with Jesus' death but with his triumphant arising. and i'm grateful for what that means for me in my life. anywayz, i suppose that there's so much to update you on but i'm gonna have to pick and choose. so first things first, i'll definitely be in beantown for another year! in march i was officially accepted to serve as a city year senior corps member for the 2011-2012 year! i'm super excited and very nervous. i hate failing and i have this fear of messing up. i know that it's stupid because of course i'm gonna mess up. but i can't shake the fear. i think it's something that i'm starting to realize about myself: how afraid i am of messing up and how that relates to me not understanding God's grace. i'll let you know how that goes. fears aside, i'm grateful to have the opportunity to serve another year with city year. 

i suppose the newest update that i can blog about is stuff concerning transitioning and all. we had a singles' retreat in march that was pretty incredible. it was definitely much needed and i was grateful to get to spend time with singles' and see people from beantown, jersey, new york, and connecticut all spending time together. one of my best friends beth came to visit me from colorado that weekend and having her here with me was amazing. i've been really working on giving my heart more while i'm here in boston and trusting God with the process of building friendships. i'm learning to be patient - both with myself and with others. i didn't realize how new this would be for me, building friendships and giving and all these things that come with transitioning that i honestly didn't know or expect. but when i think about it, i mean, i've never really done this before. i've never moved to a whole new ministry before and so obviously, different things come with that. anywayz, what i wanted to to let you guys know is that i sang and beatboxed at the singles' retreat and have recently begun singing here in the downtown region of the boston church. i love it - singing. i didn't realize how much i missed it. it's been two-fold because i've been enjoying myself and also learning the songs here. oh! and i've been meeting more people! like married people with children. so yea. three-fold =-)

so these are just a couple of things that i've been up to and that i'm excited about. i hope that this blog makes sense. maybe i'll do a video blog soon. like really soon. okays. i love you all! later =-)

God is good

hi guys! it's me again. i'm sorry that it's taken so long for me to write something. february has gone by SO quickly! it's crazy. but i wanted to just drop a quick note and let you know that there is much more to come. tonight i had the privilege of attending my first protest/rally. The government is looking to repair the deficit and in order to do this the proposal by the house of representatives is to drastically decrease Americorps funds or cut the programs all-together. this is really difficult for me to imagine because i truly see the benefits and the need for national service as a way of uniting this nation and employing diverse groups of people with the passion and desire to help and make change, especially in the area of education. it's what i have the honor to do through the americorps program that i'm with and it's what others in the hundreds of americorps programs in the united states have the opportunity to do as well.

so what does all of this have to do with God being good?

well, gratitude. you see, in the tiny little realm of my life and my universe, this rally - my first - was just one thing on the list of the things that i am grateful for. i'll definitely tell you more about the protest in a later post; but for now, in no particular order, here is a list of 20 things/people that i am grateful for.

1. music

2. theatre

3. city year

4. my team at city year

5. mercedes mccurdy

6. my relationships in new jersey

7. sue and terry folker

8. prayer

9. the bible

10. my family

11. josiah

12. pride and prejudice

13. food - good food

14. stick shift cars

15. the disney channel

16. the jonas brothers

17. the twilight series

18. the harry potter series

19. the universe that God has created in the most bombastic way ever

and lastly, before i get ready for sleep,

20. second chances

it helps me to think of the things that i'm grateful for. i should do it more often. it reminds me of all the little things that God has done for me or given me or chooses to share with me in our relationship. i think that remembering things that i'm grateful for is God's way of helping me smile and laugh about things that we share. that excites me, that He wants to engage my heart like that. in addition, gratitude has a contagiousness about it in that once i think of one thing, i find that i'm grateful for many others. and after having a long day, it also helps center my mind and calm me down. it reminds me that not only is God good, He is good to me. 

i would love to hear about some things that you're grateful for! for now, i'm going to get ready for one of the things that i'm extremely appreciative of and that's sleep. till next time. goodnight!

farewell facebook

hi all! i hope that you're all doing well and that exciting things have been going on with you so far in the new year. there is SO much that i feel like i could talk about. maybe that means a bunch of blogposts in a short amount of time. we'll see. but for this entry, i wanted to talk about something that has been a little interesting for me. so from december 28th until about half an hour ago, i had not been my facebook account. i was kind of taking a break--i say "kind of" because when other people were on their facebooks i didn't like turn away and run--from the social networking beast. close to the new year i found myself on facebook a lot and just decided that i could and should take a break from the connections that facebook sometimes provides as well as the one's that it can convince me i have in hopes of focusing on some other things.

the first few days were rough. i realized just how much time i spend just sifting through my friends' profiles or writing on their walls. i can honestly say that i was used to checking my facebook like over 5 times a day. it had become like a pandora or any other music streaming site in that i would just go on it and leave the page up in different tab while i was doing other things. now, i'm not saying that that is a bad thing. i just know that for me, it was something that i was not as aware of until i decided to take a break. and this was important for me because it helped me learn some other things about myself too.

for example, the thing that i love about facebook--that i can so easily feel connected to people--is sometimes, how do i say, a fallacy. thus i feel deeply connected to all these people, but the depth of our connection is an illusion. like, i know all these things about them--what they did this past week, what they may be doing next week, what they're thinking about certain things and how they've been feeling even, but these are just strands of connected. it's like in some world wide webby cyber way i actually am more connected to certain people than i would be otherwise, but in the reality of the real world, i'm not. i mean, i haven't spoken to them personally, they don't really know what's going on with me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. taking some time away for the book of faces helped me to realize that feeling connected and actually being connected to someone were two very different things. this also helped me value real world contact with people and appreciate phone calls, texts, and emails of even the smallest degree.

i think the other big thing that i realized is that i really need deep connections with people. i have a hard time with shallow relationships. and i don't say this to say that i need a deep connection to every single person around me. but i don't know that with my friends, i need more than a status update. like, our friendship cannot thrive on status updates and wall-to-walls and comments on my pictures. don't get me wrong: i love those things and prefer some connection to no connection at all. but my break from facebook reminded that i need more.

all that being said, i'm back on and trying to make sure i regulate my time on the site. also, i'm trying to remember that nothing beats good ol' face time. so next time you're thinking about droppin' a comment on the facebook wall, do something in addition to that: drop a text, or better yet, a phone call. it won't only be wonderful for the person receiving from you, it'll be uber wonderful for you too =-) until next time. i do have much to tell you so stay tuned!