I want to go out
into this gloriously beautiful world
open my eyes
and really see it...



Trevi Fountain, Rome




Spain




The Louvre, Paris, France




Röthbachfall, Germany




streetlamps...Italy




Tuscany




Greece




Milan, Italy



The Monch, Switzerland

Gwen

I'm sitting here typing on the glossy little black keys of my brand spanking new laptop, Gwen....*sigh*...I am so completely stoked to be curled up under a blanket and clickety clacking on this thing. For me, Gwen is a huge memorial of change in my life...the winds of change are finally blowing, softly and gently...but they are blowing.

I am also incredibly excited to be writing more. I have realised that regardless of the media there is nothing quite so beautiful as being able to effectively and yet indirectly communicate a thought or an emotion to anyone willing to recieve it....like music or sculpting it is absolutely lovely when it is real and deeply personal. I love how we are made in this way, to need to use the gifts we have been given. It is a gloriously sweet thing that he first creates the passion..that burning need...and then uses it...to change us.

Blows my mind, people.

I leave you with a glorious lil snack of a song I'm completely in love with by Aqualung. If you don't know them, you will love them, I promise.

gnight... <3 jacks

Washed over the waterfall
I got swallowed by the undertow
I twist, I turn, but I know there's only one way out of this
So honey if you're listening
Press your lip to the overflow
Cause I'm just down here praying someone hears my SOS
I'm drowning, reel me in

Hind sights 20/20

I just finished painting my fireplace mantle. Seriously. It's painted, new tile, and grout....finished. I thought I'd never see the day. This is the room I ripped apart the week I moved into my crazy project house just over 4 years ago....4 years 3 months to be exact. I remember the very 1st week, using my dads electric chisel to rip out the fireplace. Working through the thick mortar I removed stone by stone, the sorely outdated grey face. The cos tic dust filled the whole house, quickly choking out the clean air, but no one could make me put that thing down. The rocks cluttered the floor and spilled out onto the deck and even into the backyard but still I pushed on. I remember the feel of the tool as it vibrated my hands to the point of numbness. I remember feeling cloudy and my mind slow and heavy, but I dared not stop. I remember thinking that if I did stop.....there would be emptiness...and silence. Neither of these was I prepared to deal with.

That week marked the beginning of the end of the woman I was. From there everything changed. I remember waking up day after day and thinking maybe, just maybe...it had all been a sick dream. That the last week had not happened. Soon that week became weeks...and then a month, and then months. The hollow feeling in my chest, that hole I felt carved in my soul slowly swallowed me. The initial shock eventually gave way to comfortlessness....the comfortlessness gave way to emptiness...the emptiness...gave way to the complete and utter lack of hope....


This is my dark place. I'll be honest, it is a place my heart frequents. The shadows are deep, and my times here have been long. I would like to say that I will never go back, that I'll shake the dust off my heart and never return....but in my experience a raunchy ugly, god awful long, scary dark valley always, always, always precedes the summit.


We've all heard the cliche saying, "Time heals all wounds." *pats hand* Well, I strongly and wholeheartedly disagree. Some wounds are simply not designed to be healed. Some things will always hurt. We get used to the pain and life continues to fly on around us, but our hearts and our lives are forever affected. Someone once tried to tell me, "Life moves on...."......that's all I remember because I can smell a pat answer a mile away, and promptly blacked out to prevent myself from beating her face in with the love of Jesus.


That's just plain naivete. The truth is life "moved on" for everybody else but for me life "changed forever". *I* was changed forever. Ultimately the for sure things, the guarantees of my life had failed me completely. In four and a half years I went from being a mother and a wife......to being single and alone. I loved Jesus. I made hard choices. I served. I prayed. I read.....and so much had been allowed to rip through my world.

It's easy for me in that position to take a gander to my left and then to the right. What better way to see what went wrong than comparing your life to everyone else's....annnnd while I was shamelessly gandering about I happened to notice people that have it by comparison, so bloody good. Stuff handed to them. Blessings and wonderment and joy and blah...blah....blah......and as the anger(vomit) rose from the indignation I felt while gazing at their lives of "quiet and ease"......that still small voice whispered, reminding me of a basic fact that I had forgotten or disregarded a long time ago......My Son is your only guarantee...and in Him and Him ONLY comes your hope and your help.


For the 1st time in a very long time everything slips into perspective. I can look back at the last four years and see it as I haven't been able to. God permitted a lot of extremely difficult things into my life and he allowed someone else's sin to do exactly what my sin does.....destroy. But more than all these things He and ONLY He picked me up....all two thousand or so bloody chunks of me and carried me through the darkest days of my life. Somewhere along the way he put me back together, set me on my feet and taught me how to walk again, all while piecing my heart back together........when I layed down and refused to get up, He waited patiently for me. When I threw myself to the ground and refused to continue, He loved me right where I was. When I was tired and couldn't lift my head anymore, He held it up. When I repeatedly tried to settle, He showed me time and time again, my true value. When I cried, He listened. When I doubted, He proved me wrong. When I was unfaithful and unloving.......He loved me still.

He in His infinite wisdom has allowed very hard things that I will carry and struggle with until the day I die.....but He in His overwhelming compassion has never failed in carrying and leading me through them. I have a guarantee. I have hope. I have help. And in these....I lack nothing.

I'm glad I'm not who I thought I was

I went to the doctor today. We're still trying to clean up the mess from that idiot that T boned my car. Its been almost 3 years since that crazy night. 3 years. Wow. It's amazing how much can change in that amount of time. I find it unbelievable how you can be moving in one direction and then suddenly everything that you consider the foundational and unchangeable aspects of your life are rearranged, replaced.....or just gone. Suddenly you find yourself in a dramatically different place. Moving in a direction you could never have seen yourself going before. You see things entirely different as your perception couldn't help but be altered by this complete change in circumstance and direction. On the one hand you feel the same and yet...you know that you're not. Whenever I look back, I can't help but feel like I'm looking in on someone else's life. I'm intruding on her intimate thoughts and feelings. The shock and unfathomable heartbreak. The crushing weight of disapointment. The denial. Peeking into the windows of her heart, I can feel everything as if I am there and yet, I see it all so differently now.

A very dear and wise man once told me "The best part about my past is just that....it's passed. Every day forward, it gets just a little farther away.". I agree with him. I wouldn't go back for anything. Would I change things? Yes...and no. Part of me would give absolutely anything and everything in my posession to have specific events turn out......well, differently.

But then I think, there's a perfect plan here where I'm at. I have no clue what it is, try as I may to figure it out. It doesn't smell, feel, taste, or even bloody look like much of a plan. It has been anything but pretty. And I assure you, it has been above everything, the hardest thing for me to remain. To get up and continue to do the next thing......and then.....to get up and continue.....and then....to just get up. Despite or maybe INspite of these things...there is a design.

I have learned soooo much through this indescribably hard and many times, seemingly endless road. I have learned how to quick fix a fence and patch concrete. I have learned and honestly am still learning, how to stand up for myself, and to say what I need to say in love. I have discovered that I am so much stronger than I ever thought I was. I understand now that despite how good it feels at the time...throwing large chunks of glass at people's face's (typically), will not change a fricking thing. I know that roses have root systems and they must go with the "green part", when transplanting. And I now thoroughly understand why there are so many alcoholics in this world.


However, above all these things, I know that I know when He says, you are mine......He means it. I knew it in my head before, but never so thoroughly and completely have I understood it's meaning than I do now. It's not a feeling or even anything I can see, at least not on a consistent basis. But the absolute truth of His statement "You are mine.", resonates in the deepest parts of my heart.......DEspite everything He allowed to happen. DEspite the way that I feel. DEspite the fact that I'm not doing this perfectly. DEspite the fact that nothing in my life is as I would have willingly chosen it. DEspite my lack of trust. Despite all these things, the absolute truth is.......His promise has not failed me......not once.

I will remain.
In my heart I may not "get up and continue" everyday and honestly my heart may not even "get up" everyday......but I will remain. Not out of obligation or because it's right or good or any other equally rediculous reason. I will remain because the creator of the universe, who formed my heart and who at any given moment of the day knows the number of hairs on my head...He calls me His own.


I am my beloved's.

Happy Hannukah

Dictionary.com defines Gift as: "Something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor towards someone."

This is one of my favorite possessions. And for oh sooo many reasons. Hours upon hours upon....hours went into this. This was my very 1st sculpture and I remember being amazed at how it just flowed for me. The minute I found the direction, the mounds of kneaded red clay, that stains absolutely everything, began to change under my fingers. The 25 lb blob began to take shape first at the hips and then at the ribs under a butter knife and spoon, my new favorite tools.

I had always struggled with my painting and simply never felt I was good enough at painting to do much with it. This was more of an awareness than an insecurity. I could see my work compared to others and new I could paint, but something was missing that kept it from being amazing. As a creative person I have always needed an outlet and painting was simply all I knew. I can't really explain this outlet concept, I think you either have this in you or you don't. But, its like....I have to say something, visually. Communicate an idea and an emotion to you, but when I painted it, the message tended to get lost between me and the canvas. This right here though, was different. I meant to say everything that was said right here in this piece. And I've been in love ever since.

This is my gift. I say that with more incredulity than pride as it still amazes me that I can actually do it. Further proof that I didn't come from a mold, and that my future is not from a cookie cutter. I was designed this way.....and I love it.

"Good God, if your song leaves our lips, if your work leaves our hands, then we will be wanderers and vagabonds. They will stare and say how empty we are, how the freedom we had.....turned us up as dead men." -UnderOath