:: seconds past slowly ::

i'm bored...

:: good intentions ::

Every year, millions of people gather around television sets to watch a giant ball slowly fall to the world’s most famous countdown. For one night, the entire nation watches the our favorite television stars as they ring in the biggest party of the year. The annual ritual is a constant reminder of new beginnings and serves as the perfect chance to drop old habits and adopt a fresh mindset for the next 12 months.

By midnight on Dec. 31, we’ve decided to lose that extra weight, spend less money, spend more time with God and let go of those nagging little tendencies that have plagued us until this momentous occasion. Despite our collective enthusiasm, January comes and goes and our pledges for new lifestyles slowly fade, and by the time spring roles around, we’re back to our old routine. The next year comes and our habits remained unchanged.

By now we should have come to realize that our goals cannot be kept without some form of accountability. So this year's New Years resolution is to succeed. To succeed at anything I decide to do this coming year and to be accountable to it.

:: those who say it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it ::

:: how rude ::

What I can't understand is why the day has to start before the sun has come up? Honestly, if you can't get it done while the sun is awake, what's the point? Seriously, does going to work before sunrise and arriving home after sunset really make sense? I don't think so. I say if the sun is sleeping, so should we. Embrase the pillow people! Switch to sunlight savings time.

:: purple'd ::

We'll I've been blessed with a black eye right before Christmas! Ya... and it's real pretty this morning. I think I might be able to tone it down a bit with some makeup, but I don't think there's much I can do about the swelling. Oh well. I've learned my lesson. Tickling your roommate is fun. Getting her elbow in the face is not.

:: Note to shelf: Roping arms down first may be beneficial ::

:: run over by a reindeer ::

*meh* I hate to say it but I feel like a bit of a Scrooge. The holiday season is starting to really wear me down. All these early morning/late night shifts... short tempered people... not enough time for my own Christmas shopping... Aaahh! I'm starting to wish I had gone on vacation with my parents (and now that I've thought about it... I take it back!). I thought this was supposed to be 'the most wonderful time of the year'? I think they're lying to us. Damn crazy people with their holiday schemes. "I won't buy your lies! And I won't buy you're sneaky holiday specials either!!"

Can somebody help get this reindeer off me?!

:: called to live ::

"Your call is to be a worship leader but not necessarily with a guitar in your hand. Your call is to befriend that funny little lady at the end of your street. Your call is to feed the hungry and to spend yourself on behalf of the poor, and to offer hospitality to strangers who just turn up in town needing a place to crash. And it's to fast. And it's to pray so long and hard that you run out of words and tears. Your call is to preach the good news of Jesus to every person who will listen and a few who won't. Your call is to go somewhere, anywhere, wherever, whenever, for Jesus, and never stop. Your call is to love people no one else loves and to forgive them when they treat you like dirt - or worse. Do your job to the very best of your ability without grumbling about your boss or whining about your colleagues. Your call is to pray for the sick, and when they are healed, to dance all night. And when they aren't, to weep with them and love them even more.

Your call is to honor your parents, pray for your leaders, study the Scriptures, and attend plenty of parties. Be a peacemaker in every situation: when the fight breaks out on the bus ride home late at night and when the gossip starts to circulate at church. Your call is to pick up litter in the street when no one else is looking, to wipe the toilet seat, to pull the gum off from under the desk. It's to get to meetings early to put out the chairs.

Your call is to make disciples and to teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded. And don't forget to minister grace to them when they sin. Which they will. Your mission is to baptize and to cast out evil spirits. Your call is to bind up broken hearts wherever you find them, and you will find them wherever you look. It's to visit prisons. And hospitals.

Your call is to listen more than you talk and to listen with your eyes as well as your ears. It's to do the chores again and again without grumbling. It's to buy ethical coffee and to recycle your bottles. And while you're at it, don't forget to leave anonymous gifts on people's doorsteps.

And when you've done all that... come back and see me, and we can spend a little time praying about Phase Two!"

:: Ezekiel 12:23 ::

So this guy comes up to me and says "What's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and the words come out like this...

The vision? The vision is Jesus: obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

And they are free from materialism - they laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday they wouldn't even notice. They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the West was won.

They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations, they need no passport. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light blockers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.

This is an army that would lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great "Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.

They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again, "COME ON!" And this is the sound of the underground, the whisper of history in the making, foundations shaking, revolutionaries dreaming once again. Mystery is scheming in whispers, conspiracy is breathing... This is the sound of the underground.

And the army is disciple(in)ed - young people who beat their bodies into submission. Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking with warrior cries, sulfuric tears and great barrow loads of laughter!

Waiting. Watching. 24-7 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules, shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide, laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fating essentials. The advertisers cannot mold them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late-night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive (on the inside). On the outside? They hardly care! They wear clothes like costumes: to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives, swap seats with the man on death now, guilty as hell: a throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses Jesus (He breathes out, they breathe in), Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.

Their words make demons scream in shopping malls. Don't you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdoes! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes! They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.

Their prayers summon the Hound of Heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.

How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God.

My tomorrow is His today. My distant hope is His 3-D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking, great "Amen!" from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself.

And He is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner. Guaranteed.

:: the michelangelo thing ::

"I think that the task of life - the best one - is unpeeling yourself. It's like the Michelangelo thing - the sculpture is in the stone already. And it's not that you have to become something. It's that you have to discover something. I really feel like I'm finding out who I am by doing this and going with my gut."

:: and the rain come down ::

Wow. You know what's really fun? Getting caught in the rain. Or better yet, getting caught in a terrential downpour!

I get on the bus to come home yesterday and it starts to rain. It wasn't too bad so I'm thinking if it starts to get worse I'll call LA and have her pick me up. And then it started to POUR. So I grab my trusty cellphone out of my bag and call home. Busy signal. "Crap. She's on the internet." I wait a few minutes and I try it again hoping that she might have disconnected. Still busy. "Super." So I get to my stop, step off the bus and brave the weather.

By the time I had stepped off the crub to cross the street, I had already gotten water down my sleve, swallowed by a puddle and felt the dampness through my underware. So then by the time I'd got to the top of the hill my pants were so wet they were sticking to my legs... and then it was just funny. So I'm walking along thinking about how stupid I must look to all the people passing me in their dry cars, when I'm stopped by what I thought was a large puddle. My mistake- It was a small lake! I looked up to discover that the street was actually flooded. "Can't go over it... Can't go around it.... Can't go under it.... Might as well go through it!" After trudging through the water Donald Duck decided to take up residence in my shoes. That's when I really started to laugh.

There's nothing quite like being greeted at the door with a nice dry towel!

:: amorous adventurer ::

"Carefree and fun, you are easily excited when it comes to new experiences - and that includes relationships. It's not that you see boyfriends as frivolous pursuits, but you enjoy the art of the chase, and you work to make sure that long-term relationships maintain that sense of adventure and surprise.

You may not be the type of girlfriend who spends every waking hour with her man, but that doesn't mean you're not thinking about him. You're just an independent woman, and its important for you to fell challenged and creative in most things you do. That's what makes any relationship an adventure."

Those seem like A+ results. There's only one question that remains... why am I still single?!

I'm normal. Please date me.

:: they're all gonna laugh at me ::

It seems my new nostrol has caught a cold... All I can hear now are the words of my friend Racheal saying, "Don't come crying to me when you get a nasty head cold and your nose gets so infected that you need a nose transplant!"

Thanks Rach... shut up and pass the kleenex!!

:: it was worth it... i think ::

Ahh, there's nothing like a spontaneous roadtrip. I went to London Sunday and ended up getting my nose pierced!! I've been wanting to do it for almost 3 years now. It was worth the wait, however I never expected a "near death reaction" would be part of the experience!

It all goes back to my childhood tramas and trips to the emergency room. As a result I've developed a thing for blood; especially if it's my own. I really didn't think I'd have a problem getting my nose pierced seeing as it was just a needle. Boy, was I wrong!

I was perfectly fine until the guy started cleaning my nose. I started to feel that I was bleeding and then I smelt it... and it was pretty much all downhill from there. All the color drained from my body and my breathing got really shallow. My friends had to lift me to another chair about 3 feet away so I could recline. (Bad idea by the way!) From there it just got worse. My hearing started to fade and I got really scared. Everything was muffled and getting farther away, and was being replaced by loud ringing. Next came the sweats and then the gagging. And even through I didn't think I was going to loose the lunch I had just eatten, I asked for the garbage can for safety reasons. Eventually the cold cloth on my neck started to actually feel cold and I came out of it pretty quickly after that.

...And that's how I got my third nostrol!!

:: to love ::

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possiblily broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, wrap it careful round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will be broken; it will not become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers... of love is Hell."

C.S. Lewis

:: a humbling experience ::

I'm an intern. Basically its just a fancy title for my volunteering. I've sacrificed a lot for it. I hold my breath each month just to see if I'm going to make rent, or to see if I have enough for food and other bills. On top of that my family lives 3 hours away. But the truth is, I wouldn't have it any other way. I live to serve - that's what makes me happy. An now a truely humbling experience has reminded me that I'm right where I'm supposed to be. God will supply all my needs and I need not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Cheers to humbling experiences!

:: risk ::

Ever come across a fork in the road in the middle of life? It's not fun, but it's often a good time to reflect and a perfect place to catch a glimpse of what could be. However, staying too long will only convert indecision into frustration.

Don't get me wrong, choosing the right path can be complicated and it usually requires it be done with no regret. Because with each road comes the risk of uncertainty, the fear of the unknown, and the demand that you risk it all. It's inevitable. There is no guarantee. Neither path will be easy and turning back is not an option.

Which way do you go? It is up to you; no one else can make that decision. That moment is yours. In it you define your future and in it your fears can become your greatest alli. Just remember this... Your first step is always one of faith. Know that He walks with you.

:: habit ::

"I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper and your heaviest burden. I will push you onwards or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do you might as well turn over to me, and I'll do them quickly and correctly. I'm easily managed, but you must be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons, I'll do it automatically. I'm the servant of all great men, and alas, of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I made failures. I work with the precision of a scientist and the passion of a patriot. You may run me for profit or run me for ruin; it makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will put the world at your feet. But be easy with me and I'll destroy you."

:: after awhile ::

"After awhile you learn the difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul. You learn that life does not mean leaning and company does not mean security. You begin to learn that kisses are not contracts and presents are not promises, and you begin to accept your defeats with your head held high and your eyes ahead, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child. You learn to build all your roads on today, because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans, and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight. After awhile you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. You learn to plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that (by God's sustaining grace) you can really endure; that you really are strong; and that you really do have worth!"

:: tough love ::

I've learned some things about myself that were hard to hear. I think everyone should have a friend like mine; someone who knows when to tell you what you need to hear regardless of how much it might hurt. Friends like that are rare and hard to find. I'm pretty lucky.

Thanks to my friend, my skeletons have been exposed to more daylight. And though they may still point and laugh at me from time to time, I know I'm not alone; now someone else knows the sound of their laughter. As for the fortress they reside in, it's only a matter of time before I own the deed and have them evicted!

Stone by Stone

I have a wall you cannot see,
Because it's deep inside of me.
It blocks my heart on every side,
And helps emotions there to hide.
You can't reach in,
I can't reach out,
You wonder what it's all about.

The wall I built that you can't see,
Results from insecurity.
Each time my tender heart was hurt,
The scars within grew worse and worse.
So stone by stone,
I built a wall,
That's now so thick it will not fall.

Please understand that it's not you,
Continue trying to break through.
I want so much to show myself,
And love from you will really help.
So bit by bit,
Chip at my wall,
'Till stone by stone it starts to fall.

I know the process will be slow,
It's never easy to let go,
Of hurts and failures long ingrained,
Upon one's heart from years of pain.
I'm so afraid,
To let you in,
I know I might get hurt again.

I try so hard to break the wall,
But seem to get nowhere at all.
For stone upon each stone I've stacked,
And left between them not a crack.
The only way,
To make it fall,
Are imperfections in the wall.

I did the best I could to build,
A perfect wall but there are still,
A few small flaws which are the key,
To breaking through the wall to me.
Please use each flaw,
To cause a crack,
To knock a stone off of the stack.

For just as stone by stone was laid,
With every hurt with every pain,
So stone by stone the wall will break,
As love replaces every ache.
Please be the one,
Who cares enough,
To find the flaws no matter what.

~Rachel N Bentley

:: dear God ::

"I have no idea where I'm going. I don't see the road ahead of me, nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I think I am following Your will doesn't mean that I'm actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always. Though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of the valley of death, I will not fear. For You are with me and You will never leave me to face my struggles alone."