God bless the last ones

 nick vujicic is one of my heroes and i just like this song.

~My friend Taylor she's an angel Ten years old and beautiful She's a living, breathing miracle And she proves it everyday 'Cause the odds were stacked against her from the day that she arrived here And the doctors told her mom and dad she'd always be that way And I confess when I first met her I was thinking life's not fair But then she wrapped her arms around my neck And it all became so clear

God bless the last ones

One day Taylor sent me a picture from her Special Olympics race And I could tell just by the looks of it she was coming in last place But she crossed that finish line with a smile upon her face as if to say

God bless the last ones

Maybe the last ones are the lucky ones The ones who got this whole thing figured out 'Cause when they go looking for something beautiful They start looking from the inside out

On our way into the restaurant we passed a homeless man He was half drunk and half asleep with a paper cup in his hand And I confess when I first saw him I was thinking life's not fair But then Taylor reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck And it all became so clear

God bless the last ones

I wish we could all be the lucky ones The ones who've got this whole thing figured out Maybe the next time we go looking for beautiful we'll try looking from the inside out

God bless the last ones~

curly hair girls represent!

i don't care if anyone else in the world likes her hair, i love it. it's so free..... and genunine like her. beautiful.

and that song, it makes my heart roll back a bit.

it's kind of hard

to look on the brightside sometimes.

so... on and off over the last two weeks i have tried to see the good in some of life's unpleasantness... and have found surprisingly many.

i remember one such realization came the day i went to a retreat. i spent the whole 3.4 miles on foot (carrying 4 heavy odd shaped and overstuffed bags & bedding) UPHILL, also may i mention, beside a busy road with leering drivers--with improper footwear on, (and i don't mean the drivers had improper footwear, either! ....but they probably did. meanies.) to the destination where we would be leaving for said retreat.

all that very long sentence to say, i spent every step of that walk of doom saying in my head "crap, crap, crap, crap... " yep, every step. strangely, at the time, i didn't see a thing wrong with this. 

*okay. the hill wasn't so steep that the sidewalk had steps, but... ;)

it was painful, and hurt to be honest. also it was just plain humiliating. i looked like a dork carrying all of that and it didn't help to become expressly notified of this in chicer terms or worse doppler-effect laughing. plus, it's annoying in the first place to not just be able to have transportation.

it wasn't until later that night that i started thinking about my thought life. so somehow it was okay to basically curse every step of the way to a christian camp just because you're annoyed or humiliated? no. that's so obvious when you put it right next to each other. cursing on the way to christian camp?! yikes. cringe worthy.

+also did i mention my retreat had been paid for, i indeed had a ride--moreover one with wonderful people, my boss gave me three days off when i was scheduled to work, ....and when it comes down to it, i was fortunate enough to own things to carry, and what's more--had a set of legs to even let me walk up that hill.

...but it still hurt at the time.
so do we do that in life? refuse to be thankful?

case in point: 2:21AM: this morning: i'm the only one home. two drunk guys from the party next door pound at our door for a solid two minutes, and then peed under our door. i cannot see the brightside of this. anymeans. soaked our rug. as i clean it up, in our dark kitchen, half afraid, and half wondering what i ever did to them [nothing]. i cannot see any redeeming value.

i was angry all day.

until now, what? ten o clock.

i realize.... maybe i needed it to make me humble.

down on my knees cleaning up someone else's urine, you feel pretty degraded. but truely, God, i think i needed that. 

well

i'm in the lab, again. and shh! it's after hours, but no one is in sight. will probably be here the rest of the night.

...i'm not sure why i had to write that, just to document my life as it dwindles away, i 'suppose.

this happy little song came on my pandora:

reminds me of summer and france.

back to this totally extensive illustrator project.

quote

thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.   mark twain (1835 - 1910) 

beloved

place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. song of solomon 8:6

like dust blown away...

i'm sitting here on my bed just thinking, and searching the internet. my little black lamp is on. i just want to write and write and write. sometimes what i'm thinking about is a caged animal. i can only think about it and let it out when i have the time. one of the things i just keep thinking about is forgiveness. i randomly image searched forgiveness... it's the most beautiful thing ever. i think someone rightly said we are most like God, most divine when we forgive. it really is an almost incomprehensible supernatural subject.. that God forgives... us.. and that we can even somehow forgive. i clipped a couple images that make me think about what it is that i just really want to get out in this i guess... not that i understand. 

i challenge you to just look really hard at these pictures and see beyond them. read each picture before my silly words. these are just my thoughts~

#1 well the first, i am just struck by the seaming effortlessness.. when to forgive, for me, is oh so hard, but for God~ how light and airy what is forgiven floats away.. to nothingness, how He removes our sin as far as the east is from the west and remembers no more. also, this picture makes me think of how on our part, when we forgive, it is letting go of what you really cannot hold on to in the first place.

#2 all the medicine you need.. wow, is this true... i think of how the Bible says once for all He died for our sins. once! that is the most incredible cure-all. all that we have ever done and ever will do covered. when i look again, i think how we in this world take so many drugs, so many medicines... heart medicines, depression medicines.. we are crazy on pills. have a problem, simply pop a pill, maybe that will fix it. maybe we need to forgive. would forgiveness of others make us live longer and eradicate medical conditions? i don't know, but it will cure our heart of hatred and bitterness and hurt.

#3 i just get lost in this picture for a multitude of reasons. it really is so beautiful and i want to go there, moreover i feel like its meaning is staggering. the bridge of forgiveness. we go out on a limb when we forgive, we literally build something hard, and dangerous for us.. our effort for resolution could not reach a receptive shore, they might not be even sorry. moreover, if it is true forgiveness, we have to leave the bridge up and allow ourselves the possibility of being hurt again by that person we forgave. my mind is also drawn toward one other beautiful bridge... the cross. stretched across a chasm of eternal punishment, Christ laid down his life on a cross that we might be forgiven.

#4 forgiveness is choosing to not remember the ugly. even when it was real. when i look at this picture i think of a beautiful artwork of hearts~ created from the barbwire from a concentration camp. it's almost disturbing what and the lengths to which Forgiveness forgives... it chooses to bloody it's fingers, slowly bending the sharp painful barbs of wire that were once used to torture it into a piece of love.

#5 i think of humility. the words make a story unfold before me of a bitter husband raking his elderly wife over the coals for a simple mistake and how she simply and beautifully said... "i'm sorry dear, i'm still learning." still learning, ..being willing to learn when more than half of your life is over. this astounds me. how often i have come into God's presence and cried out "forgive me father, i'm just a child!" why do we not give others the grace that God gives us. humility is intertwined with forgiveness... you must be humble to ask for it, and able to be humble to give it to another.

#6 myself as a child at a chalkboard with a whine.... "how many times do i have to?" then the scene shifts as i stand before the chalkboard of life, where i must perform: this time with a far more insurmountable problem: forgive~ how many times do i have to? hmm.. i look at this picture once more.. i think of one more thing. my sins, oh my sins. they are many like chalk dust~... blown far away.

I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. isaiah 44:22

vendo-land

so God is no way a genie in a bottle or a slot machine we can just put our good deeds or prayers into an receive a reward... but sometimes, he works like vending machines. yesterday i was very hungry...starving even (more accurately malnourished on solely peanut butter sandwiches and noodles.. and payday is a long way coming) and stopped by the vending machines at school between classes. i had three dollar bills in my wallet. {uh oh.} i usually try to keep those un-spent in case i run into trouble, needed to pay a tip, cab, public phone, bad guy, ect. but i was just too tempted and vendo-land seemed strangely beautiful, (not to mention has an ice cream vending machine with a mechanical arm as well, but that's another story). i determined beforehand i would make good choices, so i bit my lip, and stepped up to the third machine on the right. yes, there, $2.75 was a chicken sandwich in a wrapper. shunning all other candy, delectable treats, and caffeine-induced energy; i put in my last three dollars. i needed this, i can't remember the last time i had protein.  i consciously thought, i'm embarrassed to admit, what was i going to do in case of an emergency or next time i don't have food at the apartment? the machine whirred and then dropped my sandwich down into the drawer. i thought about pushing the coin return button.. after all, it's my quarter, thank you very much! i didn't though, that's what i would have usually done. i just bent down got my sandwich out of the door. *clink, clink, clink... coins were dropping into the coin return. *clink, clink, clink, clink.. okay, i think that was more than the sound one quarter makes. i hear coins keep dropping. almost afraid, i just kind of stand there. did i break the machine? (quick look around) did i just hit the jackpot? no, i tell myself, it probably is just malfunctioning and giving me my change back in dimes and nickles (which it does deposit change in at times). it keeps dropping coins. *clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink..faster.. at this point, i don't open the little metal coin door because i don't want it to stop. *clink, clink... finally, complete silence. i open the door and not only all the money i paid for my sandwich was there but also a TON more change! not just any change, but QUARTERS! i couldn't believe it.

God provided for me. a wave of thoughts flooded my head. i thought of joseph~ returning all of his brothers money back with them in their bags of grain, of the children of israel picking up mana every day, i thought of the parable of the lost coin~how precious it was to her. He cared about me. my little~ He made much of. He gave me my daily bread.

He ASTOUNDS us with his goodness... and then! ...and then, how quickly we forget..

my memory apparently wasn't functioning well, at all. the next day, {today} i am drawn to vendo-land again. i think i'm thinking i'm going to "rub the bottle again and the genie will come out"...so to speak, create the same stimuli and get the desired response. {in case you're not getting it, let me spell that out for you: g r e e d.} something catches my eye, first machine on the left. a lemon vitamin water was stuck inside sideways up against the glass, apparently a machine error. i banged on the glass, it budged enough to fall leaning on a blue propel/gatorade or something. here's my chance another free thing! i shake the door, no luck, and then put in my money and hit C08 ~ the blue propel, thinking that will push the lemon vitamin water down as well, thus getting two drinks with my money! no such magic... no propel, no lemon vitamin water, no refund. arrg. this is annoying. it ate MY MONEY! i was mad. where's the customer service number for this stupid machine. i kinda tapped my foot even and sighed loud. urg. and my money too!, my money... do you know how poor i am, i could have used that!? i turned the phrase over in my head.... no, something wasn't sounding right... oh. oh yeah...my money?... wasn't this the same money that God gave me yesterday? the same quarters? i mentally slap myself. i'm so stupid. so ungrateful. why do i worry? its up to God anyway.

i just felt. i don't know, overwhelming [[trust]]. right then.

and not just about the providing me vending machine items, just in regards to a lot on my mind.... i turn around to leave. a man with olive green coveralls comes around corner. "hey, your machine got stuck? here, have some change."

...no joke. wow.................... God.