abercrombie models

break has broken me.
today my mom was kind enough to not only come to the mall with me, gracing me with her company, but she also bought me new clothes for new years. tuttle mall was insane. i like to go to tuttle for a few reasons...
1) it's where i grew up going (besides city center-->where people die).
2) i know where everything is and it's close.
3) sometimes i feel bad for it. it is becoming little bit run down. it's glam has worn off and polaris and easton are taking all the glory.
today was worse than before christmas--it was after christmas. the time when everyone runs to the mall to return, exchange and buy as many things on sale as possible. as we waded through the crowd--kids running from their parents, husbands waiting outside talbots, women frantically sifting through clearance racks--we passed abercrombie. looking inside, thinking about how i would love a new sweatshirt, i glanced at the gigantic picture of the half naked male model sitting in the entrance.
(this sentence kind of sounds like there was an extremely overweight naked man standing in abercrombie, if that's the picture you got...it's not what i meant.)
my thoughts shifted from, "oh wouldn't be nice to have a new sweatshirt that's soft and smells like abercrombie..." to "hm...that man is really attractive."
(i so badly just wanted to type..."oh wouldn't it be nice to have that man that's soft and smells like abercrombie" haha. so there. i did. but it wasn't what i was thinking.)
i started to think about what makes things beautiful. who decides. how can people possibly be thrown into a category. beautiful/not beautiful. it seems like a pretty ridiculous binary. as i kept walking, on my mission to reach macy's, i began to see people differently. my eyes stumbled upon a man probably in his early thirties, scruffy beard, winter hat, large coat, glasses, and i thought to myself...i could think he was beautiful. he could be really beautiful. not like i had a thing for him but seriously why do we think we get to decide what is attractive and what isn't.

parallel to this i am learning a lot about myself. basically because i'm pretty insecure and look to other people to decide my purpose and worth. i pray that i would know God's love. i pray that i could be secure in how he sees and knows me. i pray that i would be confident in my relationship with him when all else fails me. i beg for dependence on Christ.
freedom. i want to stand in a place where i am free. i want to know who i am. i want to see myself through my God's eyes. i want to learn this. to learn what satisfaction, complete and full, in the Lord looks and feels like.

because this is beautiful

words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
they slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe
pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,
possessing and caressing me.

jai guru de va om

images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes

thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
tumble blindly as they make their way

sounds of laughter shades of earth are ringing
through my open views inviting and inciting me
limitless undying love which shines around me like a
million suns, it calls me on and on

because love cannot be forced.

gloria

christmas eve and my heart is rebounding in triumphing love.
the lord has been teaching me a lot about love recently. [i feel like this is something i am always learning a lot about; basically because my view is so disorted to reflect the world.]
my eyes have been slowly peeled open to community. what it means to love in fellowship and enjoy people. what it means to dance with victory for my brothers wins and weep for his brokenness.
the lord is constantly challenging love for me. how can i find joy in denial of self? satisfaction?
i feel like very small child a lot. needy. selfish. prideful. "why aren't people serving me the way that i want and expect to be served? don't they understand the gospel?"

-->why don't i understand the gospel...

i am learning how to love people. i am learning how my god loves me and how deep forgiveness flows.
i am learning what it really means to be a friend. a best friend. a sister. a daughter. a leader. a housemate.
i am learning how the love of christ--the real, pure and beautiful love of christ--penetrates the soul. how the cross is powerful.
i am learning that i am weak. what i think i know i do not in fact understand. what i want to know i cannot grasp on my own.
i am learning that my relationship with the lord is so dependant on my obedience and passion for prayer. and as i pray my view of people changes. as i pray for my friends my heart breaks for them. the way i treat them and act around them changes.
i am learning that my attitude towards things and people is entirely dependant on my prayer life for them.

[encouraged.]

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. [galations 1:10]

merry christmas.

because its winter break

missing comfort and not pursuing it is easily my hardest cross. to know that the things that the lord created to be good and fruitful war against us producing thorns. to know that the cultivation of my hands is sinful. to know that no matter how much i try and love something it doesn't mean i am glorifying the lord.
what is love? how do i give it? what does receiving real love look like? feel like?
i care about some things, some people, so much but i can't seem to love them in the right way. what is the right way? what does my purpose look like here?


...because it's winter break i have easily stayed up until 3:30 every night.

as the world turns

fudge covered hands--tupac beating on the bowls.

"Though I walk thru the valley of hell the shadow follows me
Wisdom hard to swallow tomorrow expect apologies
You probably panic, stranded in search of a better planet
Realism hard to understand, we stand slanted
and still stranded, merciless thieves stole the best of me
I pray to black Jesus to please take the rest of me
And still, the best of us build, and reach monetary gains
Some of us kill, but still, most of us can change"

i dyed my hair a dark brownish red.
we made fudge for christmas tonight.
pants and i danced it out on the kitchen floor.

today is a jewel day.

we'll sit on the front porch, the sun can warm my feet

you can drink your coffee with sugar and cream, i'll drink my decaf herbal tea

pretend we're perfect strangers and that we never met

my your remind me of a man i used to sleep with that's a face i'll never forget

oil streaked daisies covered the living room wall

he put water colored roses in her hair

so they sat down and made a drawing of their love, they made it an art to live by

the plaid dress

Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear?-
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence high judgments given here in haste;
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

No more uncoloured than unmade,
I fear, can be this garment that I may not doff;
Confession does not strip it off,
To send me homeward eased and bare;

All through the formal, unoffending evening, under the clean
Bright hair,
Lining the subtle gown...it is not seen,
But it is there.
-millay

i'll probably write about it.

i spent part of saturday night with two of my favorite people.

leigh wroble--we are just starting to be friends and it's fun. hanging out with leigh is refreshing. i like her a lot.

meaghan agnew--i feel like meagh's and i understand each other in a way that doesn't really make sense to me a lot of the time. i get asked frequently why meaghan and i are so close and, to be honest, i really don't know. but i love her and at ohio state, she is my comfort.

intentionally bypassing the osu game leigh and i drove around with meaghan for almost thirty minutes trying to find a parking spot. it was beautiful.

laughter.

meaghan's frustration.

donuts from starbucks.

being helpless.

freedom.

donuts from starbucks.

new friends.

being away from everything except these two girls. in which there is life, beauty, and joy. i am grateful that i got to sit shotgun in the mina and experience this moment unfold.

i remember turning to meaghan as she said something like, "thisss suckkkss. i just want to park!"

and in response, "no meagh, it's great, i love it, i'll probably write about it."

liberation

i found this entry in my journal. it was written february tenth 2007. a period of time in my life where everything was unclear. the feeling of waking up everyday and realizing you don't know how to ride your bike anymore and you have to learn again, from the beginning, everyday.

freedom itself has been an entirely suffocated idea that perplexes and strangles my mind. i'm starting to wonder it liberation looks less like abandoned fields of corn and snow angels in the park and more like eleventh avenue. the thought of becoming has entirely stifled the actual act. stationary in my thoughts is where i am, where i will be until i can perceive the gospel. when the gospel runs through my veins, is my breath, my food. when the grace and redeeming love are shattering in my soul, it is there that i will feel the sunlight of the field and the sweet sweet taste of decembers flakes. 2/10/07

that i might take a sip.

poured out. that's how i feel. God has been pouring out himself all over me in the past year. i hesitate to say that i lead young life sometimes because it's unreal how often the Lord brings people to my feet. yesterday the Lord brought me to a place, floating down a river somewhere in southeast ohio, surrounded by his faithfulness. let me try and describe...(i waver in deciding whether or not to talk about these girls, because i would love for them to be able to read this and not come to the conclusion that i really am as creepy as they once thought.) but it's where the Lord has brought me and continues to bring me, and i love them.

natalie.

i don't even know where to begin. nat is one of the people that the Lord has used to help me rethink and reaffirm prayer. something about it begin snowy and playing lacrosse--then picking her up from the airport, delivering her champion. my God delivers.

she questions and listens.

i am just excited that Jesus is working in her heart. excited that somewhere somehow he is showing her what love is.

and as i watch the Lord change her, using me only because he can not because he has to, i am learning. learning what love is, how to give it, how to receive it, where it comes from, and where it goes. i am learning that my God is big enough to use anyone and personal enough to use everyone.

faith.

this past spring i learned that faith is real. she struggles and hurts. she isn't perfect. something inside of me was relieved, maybe it's because my heart bleeds for the broken, maybe it's because at that moment everything became very authentic. pain. heartache. emotion.

encouraging is an understatement. sometimes i laugh briefly to myself, [not one of those laughs that comes from your stomach and makes your whole body gasp for air, but the laugh that simply makes your lips curve slightly upward and then joy dances in your heart]. i laugh because faith spurs me on in just about everything i set out to do. she gives me feedback about everything and loves young life. more than that, faith loves Jesus. she seeks and questions. she is teachable and dying to be taught. she is God's beloved and one of my best friends.

and i cannot wait to see her change the lives of people around her as she clings to the cross.

ali.
i cannot be around her and not simply love everything that she is. Jesus has got to be at the head of that. she is fun and she cares about people but somewhere deep inside the world has broken her. there is something very genuine about being with ali. her heart and soul speak in a way that i have never experienced and to put words to the love that the Lord has given me for this girl would be unfair.
i cannot wait until the day when my God captures the depths of her. i cannot wait until he captures the depths of me...

this is a piece of our God. and i...i am being poured into, by my God, through everything.

this is not my soul.

previously i have tried to let the journals define myself. steal my life and create a new me. a me that only exists somewhere in the lost world of the internet where almost no one-and yet everyone can find it.
so here i am proclaiming, this is not me. it is pieces of me (not to be confused with jewel's first album). it is a frame. a frame that hangs diligently. pass it by. examine it. repaint it. rework it. it's still just a frame. different memories slip through the edges of good frames. this, is mine.