a crazy wonderful gift

Happy Friday from a hotel somewhere in North Carolina with comfy chairs and oatmeal cookies. After a long week of school and trying to remember to breathe and write answers that make sense, I'm going to write for five fast minutes and see what pops into my head, even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Those of you who want to can link up here at Gypsy Mama and be a part of this crazy thing called life and friendships and love.

Here goes
Gift
I just spent twenty hours straight in a car with the people who have known me my entire life. Or theirs. We're tired from sitting down all day and being with the same people, and as we ate our Subwy just now we were halfheartedly snapping at eachother all the way to the hotel. My whole family is spending the night in one room. What are we, crazy? To go through something like today and still like, let alone love, eachother? But what would I do without this? Crazy enough, these four, nine, twelve, however many we are people are my family and lifeblood. They're the ones who have borne the brunt of my moods, anxiety, absentmindedness and ability to lose pretty much everything and somehow will still be there tomorrow when I wake up. Amazing. And the day we just spent together? Not too terrible :)

Watching my cousins play in a sketchy gravel parking lot in Ohio as a storm rolls in

Ordering chili spaghetti only to find that Skyline Chili's definition of chili spaghetti is basically cheese and spaghetti.

Eating my weight in oyster crackers

Scenery with factories, mountains, pretty trees and rock blown up with dynamite

Driving through my first interstate traffic jam

Finishing a good portion of my homework with my sister laughing at me for doing my homework during spring break. Yeah. Just wait till next Sunday

All of this ---the good, the bad, and th ugly---in twenty hours. Sometimes I forget how life has a sort of simple beauty of just getting up and the moments that come afterwards. Some of them are huge moments where the world seems to fall into place, but others are little tiny things that happen while I'm still thinking about what happened yesterday or last week or this morning that I miss once they disappear. Life isn't always full of the big and beautiful but small and and soft  and bright, That's how he speaks into this life. In the subconscious, when all else is quiet and without thinking, I slip into worship or prayer or simpy just sit and be. And that's what life is. A confusing intoxicating gift of the
temporary and eternal and loud and quiet, full of arguments and hugs and showers and bed.

A gift.

i am a flower quickly fading

Five Minute Friday:Loud

My school's bathroom graffiti is actually extremely profound. Like this one I saw this morning and went back to copy

"There is beauty in impermanence,beauty in a flower that blooms and dies but leaves an impression of eternity in the minds of all who saw it. Better is a flower that is only temporary than a plastic one, all done up with fake and gaudy colors

It's true. And living fake is possibly the dumbest thing I have ever done. I know I am a sinner saved by grace, but I think sometimes it loses meaning to me.Every single time I've screwed up, I was pretending to be someone else, someone braver, stronger, wiser. I wrote probably the most honest post two weeks ago and deleted it within the hour. I'm downright dumb sometimes. I probably lost my Kindle, and have broken at least ten pairs of earbuds. I mentally commended myself for being modest this morning with my adjusted tank top, not too miniskirt and babydoll sweater when a girl got called out for wearing a low cut dress to school. I was pretending to be higher, better, more holy than the girl in front of me because of how I dress and what I don't do. I may think I've redeemed myself by my typing these things, but I'm still a screwup.

But maybe one who's being used for a purpose bigger than herself. Better an impermanent life roaring faith and love and Jesus then to live forever with a fake stem and gaudy colors. Better that we live while we still have today than saving all our real life for tomorrow. Better we scream what we believe until our throats ache than go one more day with could haves or should haves. I want a life like that. One that's not easily forgotten, not because of who I am, but how God has revealed himself in me. I want to be able to lose myself in giving him praise in ALL things, not just at church. I want to be able to get lost in prayer even when I know people are looking. I want to get entirely wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ, so much so that I'm not afraid of death or failure or the tough conversations. How I wish I wasn't afraid of being left behind, excluded, being unimportant or unheard. I wish I had never sent that email or posted that status  or judged that person or watched that movie. But I have and it's a part of who I am. Just like this blog and reading and the things I know God is doing in my life. I'm trying to live unafraid, presenting not just my good side, but those times where I pull at my hair and make others do the same. I'm trying to say or do the right thing and be honest about where I fall, but I know that I'm not there yet.

feeble arms and weak knees

OK, y'all. I'm back on the bandwagon for good. Here goes five minutes when I'm compltetely honest, even if it doesn't sound great, and NOT hit the delete button afterwards.

Gypsy Mama
Around here we write for five minutes flat on Fridays.
We finger paint with words. We try to remember what it was like to just write without worrying if it’s just right or not.
Where your words are welcome, just as they are!

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Meet & encourage someone who linked up before you.
OK, are you ready? Give us your best five minutes on:

Brave
Maybe being brave isn't what I thought it was at first. Ive heard so many people saying that it's not courage if you don't do it afraid, I've heard stories of amazing people who've given all for something they believe in, and sometimes I'm tempted to look at my life and ask "Is this it?" A mousy sixteen year old girl trying love her God and others on top of trying to keep her head afloat in school and serve her family. No martyrdom for me, huh? I've been rereading A Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers for the bazillionth time this week. Amazing story. If you haven't read it already, it takes place right before the decline of the Roman empire and centers around Hadassah, who's probably about sixteen or seventeen. Before she gets captured by Romans, she's quiet and shy and she can't understand why her father wants to go into the streets thst could so easily kill him to proclaim the Gospel. This girl makes me regret ever complainng about finals and speeches and friends. In one day she loses her mother and brother to Roman soldiers, her sister to starvation and her father to the mob. She's taken on a hellish march through Jerusalem to the heart of the Roman empire to be sold as a slave. She's sold to a Roman family as a maid for their young daughter, Julia, who is basically a selfish spoiled brat. The first two books relate her story and love affair with Marcus and the whole trilogy is chock full of stuff to think about and relate to and stuff it deep into your heart. It's one of those books that makes you glad when you look up and realize you aren't actually part of the story, but you just want to go back and back again to soak the truth up straight from the pages.

Sometimes I wished I lived in the pages of a book..any book.  What woundn't I give to meet people who had seen Christ, to meet the giants in Scripture like Peter and John and anyone who had met or talked to or touched Jesus. What I woudn't do to have faith like hers or a man like him, tried and true and plain as day to everyone around her. Real life is so slow. It's harder to talk about Christ because we've never actually met him and there's no one who has. We have the Bible, but we know we're not supposed to bash people over the head with it, so we just don't talk. We turn our eyes from the ugliness going on and the people with them, and try to lose ourselves in worship with unbearable pain just in our backyard. I remember reading the series Diary of a Teenage Girl by Melody Carlson and wondering why everyone Caitlin knew became Christians within a year. I know I've had a conversation or two where I don't respond the way I should have and later played it in my head and kicked myself for not saying what any given character would in any given situation.  Turns out, it's hard to imitate a character from a book. I constantly fall short and kick myself and try again,, only to begin another vicious cycle. I hear an amazing testimony or read this blog and try to match mine to it.  There are going to be similarities in the truths we discover in the community, because it's Truth and something God himself wants  to make clear. Like our beauty, our identity in Christ, our irrevocable salvation---we know all of that, but we need to be reminded and to remind others.

But still.  It's amazing to me how I don't like who I am, even after all this time. Maybe I'm still not sure how to do this thing on my own. Maybe I'm still afraid to hear my own voice. I'm learning, but I'm still confused. I'm living but not always the way he wants. I'm terrified of college and the unknown and getting into what I shouldn't. But I'm still here and breathing and looking towards God and home and tomorrow. And all the while, I'm trying to learn to say let Your will be done. Because I think he's a heck of a lot more brave than I could ever be.