Hold you head up you silly girl ...

look what you've done
When you find yourself in the thick of it
Help yourself to a bit of what is all around you
Silly girl

take a good look around you

I've had that song stuck in my head for days now.

Wow. I'm very tired. But i'm happy.
For the first time in a few months i can honestly say that i'm okay with what's going on in my life right now. A few months from now...?
We'll see. But this is good for me! Despite the weirdness inside of me, i'm learning ever so slowly to accept what providence brings my way. Otherwise, i'm just a miserable, brooding lump of crap. And it's totally my fault, which is so frustrating.
Do you know how selfish i've been with everyone around me...including myself? It sickens me. The way i expressed my anger, the way i neglected relationships, the way i thought i was a hopeless case.
Unfortunately, i still try to justify my behavior in so many ways...but the truth is, there's so much i was...am...still not willing to do to remedy the darkness in me.
I think part of it is that i'm having a hard time telling people what's really wrong with me. I'm not even sure myself...it's so strange. I realized i have to stop dwelling on it. Thinking about all the things that are wrong with me are not going to bring me to any new or enlightened understanding of my self. Not ever.
I'm not quite sure why i wrote this. I guess i'm just so fed up with only writing when i'm upset. It's not a good reflection on me, or the Lord, and on what He's doing in my life and the lives of those around me. I pray i can do better.
I can always do better!

rolling in my sleep...

So here i am in Sedona with my friends. It's been so relaxing and gorgeous. No rain yet, though. Maybe tomorrow! Please Lord! It's about 1:15 in the morning, and i was sitting here staring at the screen saver on my uncle's computer. It flashes digital pictures stored in the computer every 5 seconds or so. It's fun.

Everyone is asleep...i think. The boys may still be up giggling in their room, but everyone else is surely asleep. I made Pip and Andrew laugh tonight, harder than i've ever seen them laugh before, and that's saying something! Not that i'm trying to give myself any credit...i only did it because they prompted me. Actually, they probably would have laughed at anything at that point...but it was definitely a highlight of the trip.
We're leaving on Friday, so i'm not too happy about that. Things at home are too crazy right now, and as much as i love my family, escaping them for a week has been really really nice. I think i worried my mom when i talked to her on Monday.

Anyway, i'm not sure why i'm writing this, i guess i just feel bad i haven't written anything in a while. I really wish i could put pictures up! i'll get Andrew to help me do that. because i'm incompetent!

i also hope that i won't get depressed the closer i draw to home...wherever that is.

i can't remember who coined this...

"The genius of natural man is
to make his small things great,
thus rendering His great things
small."

...but i like it.
I'm not even sure if that's how it really went. Note the capital "H" on the second "Him". It came from one of the messages i heard at a Conference i got home from today. The Western Christian Conference is an annual event that my church hosts in southern California, and i've attended it my entire life. It is always such a blessing, and really the only time i see some people that come from sister churches all over the country. I was only disappointed a few of my friends couldn't seem to make it.
Perhaps in the future i'll share some of what i've learned, as it's changed -or more accurately- solidified, the way i think about a lot of things. I'm still not sure what to do with the wealth of spiritual blessing and truth i've been drenched in since Wednesday. I don't want to be the same person i was, i don't want to talk the same way, i don't want to think the same way.
I just want to change so badly.

sorry, cat

You know what's interesting? The way seemingly unimportant, miniscule things can be so influential...such a part of what makes you the kind of person that you are. Something like maybe one of your ears is higher than the other, or whether you hair is curly or straight. The way you mother cooks, the way your father treats waiters, whether or not your brother or sister likes the way you laugh...

The other night I was scratching my cat's ears, and i think i was frustrating her because all i could use were my blunt fingertips, since any of the white part of my nails have long since been bitten off. And i thought about my hands. They're of normal size, i think, kind of square; they're strong. From my mom's side. I looked at them and noticed that they aren't ugly, but they aren't very pretty either. My sister has very delicate hands. They're slender with long, elegant fingers, the opposite of mine really. My friends and family know all about my bell nails. I wonder whether or not they would be straighter as they grew, but i'll never know because they break so easily. I also crack my knuckles. It's really gross.

The way my hands look doesn't bother me too much, but the other day i was thinking of how i would look with pretty hands and i realised it would change a lot about me. If the skin on them was smooth, and my fingers were long and elegant, i probably would be much more averse to soiling them. If my nails were long and straight, I would probably be less afraid to attract attention to them, i might color them or something, or at least i wouldn't cover them up when i'm around other people.

But because i have no reason to be concerned about them, i can oil paint without gloves, i can garden without worrying about getting dirt under my nails, i can write notes on my hands and let my sister draw all over them and not give it a thought. I can't put keys on a keyring, or open a sodacan easily, but i have friends to do that...(;

The last time i ever had a manicure was for my 13th birthday. My mom took me, and i was so excited to see how pretty my nails would look when they were done! Yet I remember being disappointed because my hands didn't change...they still looked the same afterward as they did before...except for the pink nailpolish.
Even now as i type, i look at them and see the faint freckles, the smears of red hair dye from coloring my sister's hair, and the single ring on my left hand, where a wedding ring would be, and i can't imagine them looking any other way. They are a part of me, completely unique, as i don't know anyone else that has hands like mine. Sometimes I like that, but most often i admittedly don't. Most of the time, as i mentioned before, i'm embarrassed, even a bit ashamed of them.

It's hard to accept what's different about us, whether we like our "imperfections" or not. I consider imperfection to be one of the greater contributors to a person's individual beauty, male or female. And yet everyone want to change these lovely, God-gived perfect attributes on their physical frame. It's mysterious, it's amusing, it's tragic.

But that's the way we are.

O Lord, do not rebuke me in
Your anger,
Nor chasten me in Your hot
displeasure.
Have mercy on me, O Lord,
for I am weak;
O Lord heal me,
for my bones are troubled.
My soul is also greatly
troubled;
But You, O Lord--how long?

Return, O Lord, deliver me!
Oh save me for Your mercies'
sake!
For in death there is no
remembrance of You;
In the grave who will give you
thanks?

I am weary with my groaning;
All night I make my bed swim;
I drench my couch with
tears.
My eye wastes away because of
grief;
It grows old because of all my
enemies.

Depart from me,
all you workers of iniquity;
For the Lord has heard the
voice of my weeping.
The Lord has heard my
supplication;
The Lord will recieve my
prayer.
Let all my enemies be ashamed
and greatly troubled;
Let them turn back
and be ashamed suddenly.

Psalm 6