Well. ...yes. I hardly know what to say. Just when you think you know how it all goes, EVERYTHING changes.
Freedom is intoxicating. Joyful, painful, hopeful, wistful. Desire in its truest form is, all on its own, a stunningly beautiful thing. I can already see you wince when you read that, especially if you are well acquainted with desire. "Longing is a good thing? What can she possibly be thinking?!? A longing unfulfilled is horrible!" It can be, yes. But think about it once: what happens when you're in love? I'm not talking about butterflies in the tummy, or about physical interest. I mean real commitment... the kind of love where you are willing to give all of yourself away to the other person, no matter what it costs. What happens? You show love to each other, and the result is, you're more in love than before! Giving results in the wish to give more. Love breeds desire. Somebody tell me why this notion has not penetrated the foggy theological brain of the Church, as of yet. I'll tell you why: it's a concept meant not for the brain, but for the heart; and a large portion of the Church (at least in America) focuses on either brain or emotion now, and not the heart itself.
We were born to desire. Why do most of us spend our lives trying to either kill it or fulfill it? Because sin has messed things up so badly that desire itself is subject to the enemy's manipulation and corruption. However, desire is also the opposition's greatest weakness. And they know it... hence the amazingly obvious but unfortunately effective campaign to do anything that confuses the issue, to distract the heart in any possible way from realizing that it won't be satisfied until it knows and experiences the Love That Breeds Desire, regardless of what it has to sacrifice to get that Love. When that happens, the enemy has lost the war.
Desire is the key to that abundant life Jesus was always talking about. Why else would the enemy be trying so hard to crush it with apathy and disillusionment? You can't have life, real life, without desire. As C.S. Lewis wrote:
"It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from." -- Till We Have Faces
WOW. Maybe taking caffeine-laced medicine and drinking caffeine-laced soda simultaneously was a bad idea. Particularly when my body isn't used to that much caffeine in one sitting. It does help kill migraines, though; and since I got my first really bad one yesterday and it was there but sleeping this morning, I decided I wanted to put an end to its potential. Thanks to Excedrin and cherry coke, that seems to have worked.
Soda?!? What the heck! It's "pop" not "soda"! Earth calling Tot's brain which has clearly lost it... WAY too much caffeine. I'm wide awake over here. I haven't felt this good in weeks.
Okay! Schoolwork's behind me... after this week, my evenings and weekends will be my own. What next? First on the list is to find some outlet for my creativity, which has been sky-high lately. Music is my best bet, but it will be some time before I know enough to get anywhere on composing with my keyboard. The urge to write has been simmering beneath the surface for some time now. I'm not sure I can commit to developing a whole story yet. Might start with poetry. Normally I suck at poetry... every now and then, in a fiery explosion of innovative energy, something worth keeping finds its way to the page (or to wordpad as the case may be). I need to dig up my old stuff for inspiration. It should still be on my home comp.
The most important goal is to stay on the path I'm currently traveling. If I do that, my sixth sense will supply me with plenty of inspirational material for creative endeavors.
Thank you, Ghost In The Machine. Trance music is a good way to come off caffeine. I have found its mellowing influence to be quite helpful for mood mediation. I love music! Yes I do.
So far so good. Clearly, whatever strength is carrying me through this is not my own, or I would have stumbled by now. On the whiteboard at Curves, last week someone had written something about how continual choices to respond to the Spirit were the way to break habits of the flesh. It's quite true. Not to say that God doesn't sometimes take His people immediately out of their chains; but there are rewards to standing up and doing some of the fighting myself, and perhaps that is why He's letting me go through it. Cleaning a frying pan is only a temporary solution if you don't coat it with some kind of non-stick surface. Otherwise it will just get blackened and ugly again. Temptation is a part of life as grease is a part of cooking. (Weird analogy I know, but hey, it works. It's Monday and I can't be bothered to think of anything better.)
Monday... wow. Tonight will be the last time I have to go out to my college. Hopefully, anyway. There may be more paperwork yet to turn in. Graduating is such a mess. Ah well... after this weekend it will all be over. I'll have my diploma, and I can put school behind me for however long I wish to do so. No school, no homework. What a beautiful concept.
The Star Wars universe and Timothy Zahn's creative imagination make a wonderful pair. Just so yall know.
I am absolutely sick and tired of staring at a computer screen. So, after a full day at work and a busy night of homework (on a Friday night nonetheless), you might wonder why I'm CHOOSING to stare at my computer screen some more. Sad, isn't it? Ah well. I felt the blogging urge, and had no willpower to resist... or was too lazy. One or the other.
It's coming. I'm waking up again. Opposing forces rise in nearly equal strength to war within me. Which of them is really stronger remains yet to be seen. Physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual struggles mesh together as my past surfaces to haunt me and my emotions threaten to overwhelm my control. Where did all this junk from my past come from? I thought I'd dealt with all that. Apparently not.
Well, fear not, I haven't given up yet. I'm still the new me. Hopefully the new me comes out of this unscathed, or at least breathing. Yeah. Breathing would be good.
Gmail! It's a wonderful thing. At least, it looks like it will be. I guess I should use it for awhile before offering my sentiments on the matter. One certainly can't complain about a whole GB of storage space though. That blows hotmail's lousy 2 MB out of the water about half of 1,024 times. Exactly half, for that matter. Heheheh. I'm so hilarious early in the morning.
Actually it's not that early anymore, but it feels that way... despite the fact that I've already gone for coffee break with my coworkers. I don't drink coffee. The muffins, however, are less than half the price of the hot chocolate I usually get; so they are my new occasional morning habit. Mmmmm... blueberry. Yum.
"'Cause every perfect now and then, I caught a glimpse of Aslan's mane and I longed for his treasure..."
"Something in his mystery was drawing me, to love the Author of my own biography..."
Chris Rice knows what life is all about, and his music has been reminding me of it. Thanks man, I owe you more than I can express.
These two weeks before college graduation are the busiest days I have ever had to endure in my entire life. The last month or two of my high school senior year comes close; but my current situation definitely takes the cake. What a crazy mess. I get up, work out if it's the day to do so, spend four hours at work, run home to eat and breathe for a few minutes, run back to work for another four hours of boredom, run home and eat, bury myself in homework most of the evening, spend the rest of my time running errands/moving more stuff/cleaning house/meeting my zillion-and-one other obligations, and dive into bed for a precious few minutes buried in Zahn's more recently published addition to the Star Wars story line before dropping off to sleep. The sleep I do get is often interrupted, thanks to my kitten's penchant for getting into trouble in the middle of the night. I haven't quite adjusted to the change in sleeping environment, either, including the now ever-present interstate traffic noise. *sigh* What I need is a significant bit of both peace and quiet, and I'm going to get neither until graduation is over and done with.
Yesterday, I made a small decision that will have a huge impact on my life. Or at least, I'm hoping it will. I find it difficult to describe this situation since it involves aspects of my personal life that I don't care to share even with my dear readers. Take no offense, however, it's nothing against all of you; I am merely guarding military secrets like a good soldier should. Sometimes the journey appears to be smooth when in reality it is about to take you across far more deadly terrain. I am now seeing the landscape for what it is, and have begun the process of arming myself accordingly. Lock and load.
So... what next? First, a bit of a scrub. I must rub away the dirt and grime before I can see myself clearly to take stock of the situation. Then, once I know what I have to work with, I will plan my travel accordingly. I need to choose my supplies and my weapons, providing for sustenance and defense; then I will pack for the journey, take my things and go.
No wait... one last step. I place my hand firmly in my companion's and give him the lead. He's got the map, after all.
This isn't going to be an easy journey. There will be sorrow, suffering, and sacrifice along the way. But my mind is now filled with a vision of the future, and from that I receive my assurance that it will be worth it... not just at the end of the road, but along the way there as well. Now if only I can keep my focus on that, I will not lose heart. Yes... just gotta stay focused...
What a broken world. Switchfoot's right. Everything's broken and nobody's moving. Someone I don't know named Steven Weinberg said, "The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy." How right he is. We are living in a tragic story, Rapunzel in her tower... or actually worse, since in this tale Rapunzel has given up hope, and no longer even knows she's trapped, or is only vaguely aware of the fact. Or is running from the truth. Not only that, but her prince is beating down the door and she can't hear him knocking... or she thinks she's just hearing things. How utterly heartbreaking. Reality is the myth to beat all myths, the greatest story ever told, the soap opera above all soap operas. And we're all walking around like zombies, trapped in the Matrix and most of us completely unaware of what's really going on, completely unaware that the life is being sucked out of us and our kin.
Pardon me my reflective moment. I can't always stay quiet with such a secret as this to tell.
Wow. It's been almost a month... feels like longer than that, because of all that's happened.
I am in my second week of apartment living. I found my apartment in late March, moved in on April 3rd, got my cable internet yesterday and am hoping for a real TV within the next month or two (my dad's TV card will do for now). Hazel and I are finally adjusting to the huge change in environment. It's a lot different living alone, rather than in the family setting. My sister came home for Easter weekend and we did a lot of family things together, so I don't feel quite so orphaned now.
My walk with God has been rocky lately. I seem to have the hardest time believing grace covers everything, even though I know it does. He has humbled me through certain circumstances, and I have accepted that; now if only I can find a way out, a way to go on. How do I balance a call for purity and godliness with the understanding that in order to reach people I have to go where they are and do what they do? I hate popular culture and want to retreat from it, and I know I'm better off as a Christian when I'm not constantly being inundated and bombarded with it. At the same time, everyone I know involve themselves in it regularly, and I can't relate to them if I cut off my connection with it. What am I supposed to do?
Other than that particular dilemma, life goes on... busily, at that. I graduate in two weeks, and I have a great deal of homework and paperwork to deal with before then. Life will be much much better after May 1st. NO MORE SCHOOL NO MORE BOOKS!! NO MORE-- yeah, you get the picture. I will be extremely delighted to be free after 16 years of it.
Off I go to do more almost-nothing. Happy belated Easter.
