+ rest +

I'm terrible at resting. I'm terrible at knowing why I'm terrible at resting.

Have you heard that most weaknesses are just strengths taken too far? My strength is diving headfirst into things that wrap their fingers around my heart, and working hard to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. I'm not passive. And I take it too far. I'm proud of the strength, and ashamed of the weakness. I'm ashamed of the cost.

I'm still learning the cost of the weakness. And let me tell you, there is a great cost.

What has it cost me? Health. Peace. Relationships. Friendships. Seeing truth. Hearing God. Seeing God. My memory. Quality of work. Love. Joy. Wisdom. Invaluable experiences. Emotional stability. And on, and on, and on.

I recently watched a documentary called, "Stress: Portrait of A Killer." It's on Netflix, and you should watch it.

I wish I could say seeing the science behind stress and the destruction of brain cells was my breaking point, but I'm a little more selfish than that.

On December 1st, I woke up at 3:30am and realized I didn't have any interest in getting out of bed that day, which would arrive in a couple of hours. Everything on my plate were things I had chosen: A good job (not involving physical discomfort and more than paying my bills), school (which I love) and a major I'm interested in, editing photos that I took because I adore photography, writing the mission for Love Bomb, and a handful of trite activities. None of these were miserable tasks that I'd been forced to complete, none of them were long-hated obligations that I'd been silently swearing against for years.

So why was I dreading the morning?

For the past two weeks, I've been searching for this answer. And I found it. It is because I do not rest.

Skipping a class and sleeping in an extra 2 hours because your entire body aches is not rest. Taking a day off work to catch up on overdue commitments is not rest. Splurging on more coffee at 10pm is not rest. Fighting against the guilt of being a month behind on housework and triumphantly choosing not to do them just yet is not rest.

If you are working relentlessly out of guilt or self-inflicted obligation, stop immediately.

If you think maybe you're working relentlessly because of guilt or self-inflicted obligation but aren't quite sure, stop immediately.

The actions that fill your days should come out of health, joy, love, peace, and heart.

If you've lost your passion, drop everything, and for the love of God: Go find it.

If you are trying to play savior to others, or to yourself, you don't know Jesus as well as you thought you did.

Rest is physical, emotional, spiritual and mental. The cost of not resting affects all three of those areas as well.

I am the poster child for anti-rest. I have taken it upon myself to destroy that quality in me. This past week, I have let go of the majority of my obligations, much to the dismay of the world I decided that I could save. Yesterday, the moment I was off work, I came home and crawled into bed. Yes, at 2:30pm. I slept for four hours. I woke up, read some, wrote a letter, talked to a friend, half-watched a documentary, and went to bed early. I overslept this morning. My entire past 2 weeks has looked like this. Lazy? No. I am resting. I am catching up on 8 years of rest that I never had. I am cooking real food and lounging on the sofa for an hour while I watch trash TV and eat my dinner. Lazy? No. I am resting.

Three days ago, a marvelous thing happened. I woke up from a nap, sat up, and said to myself, "I miss my friends!" I went downstairs, turned on a documentary, sat down at the table, and wrote a handful of letters. While I had my envelopes and stamps out, I wrote a letter to the girl I sponsor in Zimbabwe, and paid some bills. IT WAS FUN. I loved it. These were all things that normally are on my to-do list; things that drip with guilt. And in this moment, I realized why they drip with guilt: Not because I don't want to, but because I am too tired.

My body, mind, and heart have been screaming at me for years, and I just now heard them.

I will throw a brick at the next person who says to me, "I'll sleep when I'm dead," and consider it a service to humanity. I realize this is extremely hypocritical of me, but we preach best what we need to hear most.

I understand that it's hard. I understand that some of you are soldiers on multiple battlefields. I understand that for some of you, being "sister, mother, daughter, wife and friend" is not just some cute little description of you that hangs on a plaque in your bathroom. I understand that some of you are paying for others' mistakes. I have a word for you from God, the one who created you: "Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest." (Exodus 34:21)

I beg of you to rest.

If you cannot yet rest physically, rest spiritually. Know that, “my Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." (Exodus 33:14)

If you cannot yet rest physically, rest emotionally. Know that, "the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders." (Deuteronomy 33:12)

If you cannot yet rest physically, rest mentally. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matthew 11:28-29)

And if you cannot rest physically, ask yourself the hard questions. Why have you committed to certain people? Why are you consumed with X, Y & Z? Why do you chase after the things you chase after? What are you doing that is your security blanket? What will you lose if you work less? Why will you miss what is gone?

The cost of not resting is great. If you don't believe me, do a word search for "rest" in the Bible. Or go watch "Ink" on Netflix.

Give yourself grace. And rest.

- - -

"Very well then,
with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people,
to whom he said, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest”;
and, “This is the place of repose”— but they would not listen.
So then, the word of the LORD to them will become:
Do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that;
a little here, a little there—
so that as they go they will fall backward;
they will be injured and snared and captured."
Isaiah 28.

+ october re-cap +

October was killer. November will be a different kind of killer. A much better one.

Excited for the death of the former and the arrival of the latter.

However, I'm not going to talk about why October sucked. Paige Baker knows all these reasons, and I am excited as hell for a phenomenal month to make up for it. Instead, I'm going to recap some of October's best moments. And damn. I just realized there are a lot.

- - -

Best photos:


[ colin + andrea's engagement shoot ]

[ lyd, theresa, bahareh + myself in chicago ]

[more coming when I get home]

- - -
Best Of Tumblr:








- - -

Best quotations:

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others. - Leo Rosten

The praise of the unlettered by those who are highly educated is one of the primary themes of ‘elitist’ literature. But, the importance of the praise given the unsolitary, richly passionate life is that it simultaneously reflects the value of reflective life. - Richard Rodriguez, The Achievement of Desire

Because education seeks to impart past knowledge, when you are trying to create a breakthrough, you have to create new knowledge, and there is no way to teach that. - Peter Thiel

What must you face? What fears haunt you? What failures have marked you? What darkness has consumed you and stolen from you, robbed you, sucked out of your soul the dream God created you to flesh out? Maybe there’s a dream buried deep inside your soul and God is waiting to reconstruct it, to put the bones back together. If he commands you to act and you trust him, you will see all of creation move in concert to accomplish in you what you were created to do. - Katie Holley-ish

We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing. - Mother Teresa

- - -

Best realizations/insights, expressed via my Twitter:

You are a brand. Treat yourself as such. Ground your product, visualize your identity, network your life. Be open to growth.

Your world is what you make it, so make it a world in which you want to live.

Stress is a decision. Decide to not be stressed, because you cannot change what is, and you cannot create time.

We cannot feel what is real when we are asleep.

Withhold your truth until you can speak it in love, lest you embitter what is sweet.

I will never apologize for knowing what I want and what I don't.

Don't ever compare yourself to someone else. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday.

Never let someone else's perception of you keep you from living fully and joyfully. Love always.

Grace is not logical, rational, or fair. And that is why it fixes problems that you cannot.

What incredible people we would be if we talked to God as much as we talked about him.

- - -

Best things on the Internet:

Visual mapping of emotions, via WeFeelFine

Finger-painting with Sound, via YouTube

Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex, via OkCupid

Love Bomb Update, via yours truly

"The Initiated Woman" via Danielle LaPorte

"You just broke your child." A must read. Via Single Dad Laughing

Stats say social media is increasing face-to-face time, via Mashable

"Brainwash", via Seth Godin

TeuxDeux browser + iPhone app to-do list, via TeuxDeux. Changed my life.

- - -

Summary: It was a hard month, but doesn't pruning spawn growth? I learned more about myself in the last 31 days than I have in a long time.

- - -

Crooked mouths, quiet down;
let your fists come undone.
Miscarried love will be reborn.
The war that we're fighting has already been won.

+ gifts: intimate, all-consumed, enraptured. +

Before I get into this post that accidentally turned into a book, look at these photos! As a little girl, I was captivated with water, and would sit in the tub for hours splashing, pouring and watching it. Oh love love love.




In my minds eye, I can see "a perfect relationship." Not in terms of place, time, success, looks, or circumstance - but emotions, joy, trust, honesty and openness. Oneness. Thanks to hundreds of movies, we all have the image of a woman running at a man, full-speed, and throwing herself into his arms - ecstatic and all-consumed with the heart that is before her. Nothing else in her line of sight. Joy painted across her face. It's almost a renewed form of innocence. Love does that.

Anyway, I was thinking about these things as I drove home late last night after hearing a teaching on marriage and oneness at JHouse (such perfect timing for me, somehow - even though I'm as single as it gets) - bouncing images off the walls of my mind. I was a mess when I had showed up at JHouse and Kelly was a doll and spent the first chunk of the service praying and crying with me in an empty hallway.

Forgive me as I piece these thoughts together poorly.

Months ago, someone gave me an image of God offering me a wedding band - he is my husband, my faithful. The whole God is my husband/boyfriend thing has always really irritated me, by the way. It wasn't til I switched out the traditional word for what that relationship WAS to what it MEANT - what I needed and wanted in that relationship - my faithful, my rock, supporter, encourager, helper, provider, lover, companion and confidante - that I realized that yes, this is who God is for me. It gets harder still when we're also told he is our Father, and then that Jesus sticks closer than a brother - a strange sort of family that clearly wouldn't work in human terms. But remove the limitations of relationships defined on earth, and think about what your heart desires. That one heart to cleave to, run to, fall back on, love on and be loved by, trust wholly, to teach you, to provide for you, to listen to you, to lead you, to sit with you, and forever on. The point is that God more than fills that unrelenting need in all ways, and in ways we can't understand.

Anyway, I've accepted that he is the other half in this all-encompassing relationship for me, but in no way has it matched up with that first "perfect, beautiful relationship" I described at the beginning of this post. Some days I've felt let down. Disappointed. On bad days I beg him to show me where that relationship is. Eventually, I think we all get to the place where we decide it's not worth it. If being in a relationship with God is just for the sake of being in one, and having that relationship spot filled, then meh. We could just do without. I could always come back. Oh, that line. (Would we ever want to leave someone that fits that 'perfect relationship' description? Would we ever want to leave when we are crazy-in-love? Food for thought.)

As I was thinking through what Kelly had prayed over me and what we had both heard from God, I got stuck trying to complete this image of God being one who watched over my heart at every minute of the day, and showed up with gifts for me just when he knew I needed them. Why does this not satisfy? Why do I not see the gifts as real gifts? Why do I swallow them down as either "I deserve this," and give him no thanks, or "I don't deserve this, let me work harder," again, with no true thanks. I kept fighting through to try to mesh the image of God's love and provision with my 'perfect relationship' image, and finally I found yet another wall my heart had still standing. It has no name, and a cause unique to no one. It's what develops as a result of flawed relationships with the people in our lives that give to us, added onto the fact that we ourselves have flawed hearts and minds.

This wall - more like chains, or a mask - has kept me from being myself with God when he gives to me. It's kept me from being a woman in love. This mask has kept me from understanding why gifts are given to me and what my response should be, making them not gifts at all. (Isn't that just how the deceiver works? Taking something beautiful and making it into something that it's not?) One of the greatest lies we can ever believe about God is that he doesn't really give gifts.

Gift: something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone; something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or without its being earned.

Let me put it this way. When a man brings a gift to his beautiful woman that he knows she will love - what is his greatest reward in giving it to her? What does he expect in return? He expects no *thing* in return - this is what defines it as a GIFT. But it is given with a hope - a hope of joy, ecstasy, love, thankfulness, and total satisfaction with him. The hope of that 'perfect relationship' manifesting itself in all of its glory. I finally meshed the images together.

When God gives me a gift, he desires nothing from me - but that I throw myself into his arms and tell him a dozen times over how much I love it, how happy it makes me, how much I love him, and how treasured and loved I feel.

Any man reading this, I am sure, will agree with me. That when he brings his girl any gift, there is no greater reward than to see her eyes light up and be completely enraptured with what he gave, and her repeated thanks - attested by the joy on her face. That it pales in comparison to her giving an expected thank you and offering to do something for him tomorrow in return. Yes, men?

Women (and men), if you feel you don't deserve a gift, know that you've already forgotten what a gift is. Begin to learn to be crazy in love with Him. Be ecstatic when you receive your gifts. Because that is why they are given to you.

I hope this made sense.

This is my prayer - that we learn to be the woman enraptured with our gifts. That we learn to abandon the lie that tells us we have to make up for and repay our gifts, and by doing so, disappoint the giver and devalue the gift. Because don't you know that the gift is given because he wants to watch us be delighted?

I have no theological evidence to support this, but I would humbly submit that perhaps the more often we respond to our gifts in this way, the more he will love to give to us. <3>

- - -

You will be made rich in every way
so that you can be generous on every occasion,
and through us your generosity
will result in thanksgiving to God.
2 Corinthians 9:11

If you, then, though you are evil,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts
to those who ask him!
Matthew 7:10

+ fix your eyes. +

Mmmmm. Blog time. Let's see what's been going on in my head lately.

Joy is what's been going on. Let's talk about joy!

What is joy?

The dictionary says, "the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated."

What does the Bible have to say about joy?

It says a lot. A whole lot.


- - -

"He prays to God and finds favor with him, he sees God's face and shouts for joy; he is restored by God to his righteous state." Job 33:26

"You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound." Psalm 4:7

"The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song." Psalm 28:7

"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy." Psalm 126:5

Nehemiah said, "Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength." Nehemiah 8:10

- - -

Joy. We all want it. We all wish for it. We all remember the times we had it. Mostly as kids, when we were carefree, or for a brief period when life was overwhelmingly good.

Unfortunately, the majority of us don't have hearts filled and overflowing with joy. We aren'treaping with songs of joy. We are grieving. Because life is HARD. And painful.

It's difficult to have a heart overflowing with joy when we wake up to texts from people we don't want in our lives, when our bodies are shaking with sickness, when we remember what happened yesterday. Joy evades us when the majority of people we talk to in a day drain it from us, when we hate our jobs, when we don't have a job, when we realize how old we are and how far we are from where we thought we would be. With no ability, still, to get there.

I am going to tell you how to have joy. Instantly.

Are you ready?

Here it is.

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." - 2 Corinthians 2:18

Perception. Vision. The Unseen.

Where are your eyes FIXED? Notice it doesn't say glance. Or look. It says fixed. We fix our eyes on what is unseen. Daily.

Go back and read the joy verses. And the things I listed that suck the joy out of our hearts. Do you see it? Do you see the sharp contrast?

"The joy of the Lord is your strength." The joy OF the Lord. His joy. It comes from him. He is our unseen. He is what we fix our eyes upon. "YOU have filled my heart with joy." When we see God's face, our hearts are filled with joy. Joy comes from Him.

What grieves us? People. Things. Our lives. Our struggles. Disappointments. Hurts. Abandonment. Failures. Worthlessness. Loss.

"But I have Jesus, and I still don't have joy." I've been there. Do you know what's wrong? My eyes were not FIXED on Jesus. Fixation says the eternal is our focus, what we keep in front of us at all times. All times. Locked on the unseen. We lose our joy when we slip from this.

Grief is temporary. Joy is eternal.

When we learn that eternity started before we were born, and not after we die, we will realize that there is an unseen world that exists within our reach. This is the world in which we will find joy.

Fix your eyes on it. Fix your eyes on Jesus. When we fix our eyes on Jesus, our perception changes. We find what we have, not what we do not have. We find what we've been given, not what's been taken away. We find who we are, not who we aren't. We find love, not abandonment. We find that we revolve around our Maker, and not he around us. We find that pain positions us for purpose, and purpose gives birth to joy. The joy that was sown in tears. But we reap only when we learn to fix our eyes on the unseen.

Before I end this, let me remind us of what joy is: the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated.

Our Jesus is exceptionally good. Exceptionally satisfying. He is the source of keen delight. He is who we should greatly value and appreciate.

When we fix our eyes on this, we experience the emotion.

Fix your eyes.

+ learning, growing, healing, joy, engagement photos. +

what i learned this weekend:

- vintage schwinn bikes have incredibly small posts
- routine relieves stress
- god takes $80 expenses down to $5 when you ask
- god hasn't forgotten what happened to you when you were 8 years old
- i'm way more of a southern belle than i thought
- the holy spirit moves when we do
- there is ALWAYS someone going thru what we are, & god brings them to us when we ask
- there is power quite literally in the name of jesus. speak it more.
- god can use death cab to remind us of his presence in the present AND the past
- i am crazy different, and that's okay.
- when you are real, you are present. learn to be real. (thank you, christen)
- we don't always have to understand our brokenness before god can heal it
- joy is a shield.
- wherever it is that you are, god brought you there. not yourself or someone else.

i took photos for stiffler and caitlyn's engagement yesterday, and they are adorable. sneak peeeeek. Also, if you live in Columbus, I am hosting a $15-20 Portrait Day In The Park at Goodale! Invite your friends, and come if you'd like!





"You did not choose me,
but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit —
fruit that will last.
Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
This is my command: Love each other."
John 15:16-17

Pain: What I Learned From Depression, Grief & Brokenness.

It is just outrageous how much I've been growing. You know the first day you feel better after being horribly sick for awhile? You wake up and think, "MAN. I feel so GOOD." It's like that. I am in absolute awe of how good life is lately, and so grateful that God follows through on every single promise. My circumstances have not changed - but my heart has. I am proof that with God, all things are possible. Proof that faith reaps a great harvest beyond what we can expect or comprehend. Proof that healing is real, not just a code word for acceptance of your shit situation.

One of the things that has been breaking my heart lately is watching so many friends and beautiful people go through devastating loss, heartbreak, pain, confusion, betrayal, self-hatred and various struggles - and to offer no greater help than to say, "Go to God. He loves you more than you can ever grasp, and will heal every hurt and answer every question." Because I know that it is one of the hardest things in the world to decide to believe in the midst of all this that God will heal. God will comfort. That one day, we will get to the point where we are on the other side, and become grateful for the pain we went through. Yes, grateful.

Note: I say pain a lot in this post. What I am talking about is the heartwrenching, deepest ache, numbing, debilitating, lonely, hopeless, rock-bottom, can't move, can't function, have-no-one-to-go-to, can't breathe because your lungs are being crushed, utter desperation and despair type of pain. If you've been here, I am talking to you. I know pain.

We talk a lot about healing, about moving on. Growing up, 'getting over it.' By the time all of us go through about 20 years of life, let alone 30 or 40, we're like children that have been hit by trucks on the highway - broken bones, internal bleeding, psychological damage, permanent handicaps, lost limbs. We cannot help but talk about healing, and we operate through our injuries.

We learn to forgive the truck drivers, over and over and over. As we should. But healing? For this we must submit ourselves to the surgeon. We MUST put our bodies, minds and hearts under the lights on the operating table and say, "Fix me. Please, fix me. I cannot."

The last time I checked, surgery was never enjoyable. Stitches aren't fun. Having chunks of debris being picked out of your flesh is excruciating. Having bones re-set is pain upon pain.

But tell me this: Why do you not submit yourself to the one who can heal you?

I didn't, because I was terrified of learning to walk without my crutches. We grow to love what slows us down. I didn't, because I didn't trust a surgeon I couldn't see. I didn't, because it meant that I would have to lie still, and trust hands that I didn't understand. I didn't, because I thought I would get a cookie-cutter Christian treatment that didn't fit me and my unique pain. I didn't, because I thought I would die if I experienced more pain. I didn't, because I thought healing meant, "God will use this for good if you learn to live with this hurt." I didn't, because I didn't think God offered healing as the dictionary defines it: to make healthy, whole, or sound; restore to health; free from ailment.

I didn't, because I didn't want to be healed; without wounds. Because I wanted everyone to see what the truck had done to me. To remain injured and in pain meant that everyone would know - and when we are broken, we have a desperate need for others to know. To be validated in our pain. Because usually, those that hurt us are those we love, and consequently, those that hurt us are the ones that do not validate our pain - so we become living, walking messes of cognitive dissonance, silently begging for comfort from those who tell us that we either are not in pain or deserve to be in it. In my experience, I would accurately describe this as hell on earth.

I remember at a low point telling my friend Kelly, "I don't even want to be happy."

I have found that the greatest obstacle between us and God is pain.

Why? Because we are STILL like children in hospital. Crying, shaking, sobbing, and hiding...begging the nurse to not take us to the doctor, because he has needles, knives and scary looking tools. Operating rooms are terrifying.

An interesting thing about humans is that we never change from child into adult. It's not linear. We simply add to and expand ourselves, until one day the calendar says we are an adult. The core of us is still a child. In order to get ourselves to that operating table, we must either choose to believe (faith) the adult that tells us it is for our benefit, or be sedated and held down. Faith is being a child, and choosing to believe something that scares us because we do not know it.

Last night over dinner with Julie, we were talking about my family, and I explained how grateful I was for all the pain I'd been through. Why? Because I have learned to trust the surgeon. I have experienced some of the most difficult pain, and come out alive. I have a compassion and empathy and love for others in pain that will never leave, that has been anchored in the depths of my heart by pain. [ You know we rarely remember exactly what was said or done, but we always remember how it made us feel? Emotions carry a greater weight than specific words and actions. ] I am grateful for pain.

The greatest lesson I have learned through pain is the character of the surgeon.

I have learned that it is his nature to HEAL. His heart to LOVE. His way to COMFORT. His purpose to make us WHOLE.

The second greatest lesson I have learned through pain is to trust what He says over what I feel or know.

He WILL restore; nothing is beyond recovery or worthwhile purpose. He is not harsh, he is not rough, he is not a punishing or angry healer. He will never send you away because the pain is 'your fault.' The pain WILL lessen, and it lessens through patient, steady, often stupid-looking faith. It takes time, but we must hold out, and believe. It will come. It's a promise.

It is easier to trust a doctor with our bodies than with our hearts and minds, but I beg you to trust him.

But trust him wholly. His medicine, his procedures, his love, his way. We cannot half-ass healing, lest we end up worse than where we started. Always go back to him. When it starts to hurt, go to him. Again. And again. And again. When it doesn't make sense, go back to him. When you freak out again, go back to him. When the result doesn't look how you thought it would, go back to him. Always go back to him.

And there is no guilt or shame in asking him for painkillers along the way. But his painkillers, not ours.

I have glimpsed the other side, and it is good.

- - -

"This is what the Lord says:

Your wound is incurable; your injury beyond healing. There is no one to plead your case, no remedy for your wounds, no healing for you. All your allies have forgotten you; they care nothing for you. But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, declares the Lord. Because you are called an outcast for whom no one cares. I will restore life to you and have compassion on you, a city will be rebuilt on your ruins,and the palace will stand in it's proper place." Jeremiah 30

It was I who taught her to walk, taking her by the arms; but she did not realize it was I who healed her. I led her with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from her neck and bent down to feed her. - Hosea 11:3-4

I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten. - Joel 2:25

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29:13

+ living & pretty things +

An excerpt from my journal, back in March 2010:

"I think my missing secret may be to perceive life holistically, and not to compartmentalize. I need to stop limiting, dividing, standardizing, closing, expecting, sectioning and drawing lines. My life is whole, not in days or years or places. I live in the center of a sphere that becomes more fully developed, not a dot moving forwards along a linear path.

When God created us in His image, he meant, "in his image." When He says "I Am," we have an element of his Being. Active being. Time, place and other restrictions on us are illusions to keep us bound and blinded with a focus only on moving forward, and to keep us from experiencing that we are, and we are whole in our existence. "

- - -

Darling Katie mailed me this adorable...well, I certainly can't call it a letter or a card because it is neither. It made me cry. I think I'm going to start documenting my mail, because I believe I get the best in the world. I am so blessed.






Tom lent me an amazing movie which you should all see, called Frida. I'm warning you, it's beyond depressing. But one of those movies that "everyone should watch." I can't help but make little pretty things all the time, so I taped this on the DVD when I returned it:

+ lessons from my mini sabbatical +

[ credit : parker fitzgerald ]

This won't flow. It is all blips and pieces of fragmented thoughts that came to me over the 72 hours I spent without a phone or computer. Some are more developed than others. The photos above were to prepare you for the words below. Enjoy.

.:. we have trained ourselves to look for beauty in other lives, not our own.

.:. we create relationships for ourselves. they are never forced upon us.

.:. the majority of conversations should take place in person, not via text.

.:. the moment technology stops being a resource and becomes a liability, it needs to be re-evaluated. immediately.

.:. social networking should be re-named theworldinyourbedroom.

.:. i have a new ability to see through an online presence and measure the true life content of a person.

.:. we are so dependant on our gps and maps because we live in a constant time crunch. i didn't use my gps this weekend. result: i had to turn around multiple times, and took several 'scenic routes.' i also saw many parts of my city for the first time, and had a few 'well let's see where this road goes' followed with 'oh my gosh here i am!' i put the puzzle pieces together. i feel rebuked for my desire to travel when i haven't taken the time to see my own city.

.:. the majority of my stress is a result of mis-managed relationships and poorly chosen staples of my daily life.

.:. my brain has invented some type of obligation to "finish" everything. pursue things forever. never drop something i began. if i follow a blog, i feel obligated to read every post, eternally. i've placed my interests first, and myself second. how ridiculous.

.:. our thought processes become influenced by the words and images that float around us, even if we do not consciously accept them. saturating ourselves in high-speed communication and heavy content input environments will launch us into a collective lifestyle that no individual could or should live in or up to. hello, stress.

.:. we don't write nearly enough.

.:. if you "don't write", then let me clarify: we don't reflect nearly enough.

- - -

Thoughts on social networking: (you knew it was coming)
We value communication over content. Let me break this down a bit more. We value the relationship over the person. And a bit further...

Social networking is a tool; nothing more, nothing less. It betters a good purpose and exacerbates a poor one. And like any tool, it is only healthy in moderation, and when the master controls it to fulfill the purpose. There is an inherent flaw in humanity that twists everything to be self-seeking unless we acknowledge it and choose to live differently. This manifests itself primarily in our relationships. It is so easy to "have" relationships for the sake of having a relationship with that person. We become tempted to "own" relationships for self-seeking purposes, even if they are as innocent as to fill our universal need for acknowledgement, validation, and worth. Our value has come to sit not on the actual person, but on the connection we have with that person. I even drew a picture to explain.




This is what I mean when I say that social networking either betters or exacerbates. If our value is misplaced, it magnifies our weighty mistake (and selfishness) to a point that we are beyond excuse, and it is recognizable to the naked human eye.

I will say it again: value first the person, not the relationship.

Social networking should exist to plant, nurture and grow our relationships with people (and content, too) that we value. Maybe it would help if we referred to other humans not as people but as lives. NOT to enable us to feed a self-focused desire to multiply all sorts of various fragile and thin "barely-there" relationships with people and content that we only want to care about. Our time is truly limited. Deal it out wisely. Brushing fingertips is not a handshake.

- - -

Hard questions:

.:. If you didn't blog or tweet for a week, who would notice or care? This is not rhetorical. Go name them.

.:. When was the last time you stepped outside of the internet to interact with that person(s)?

.:. How few texts could you get by sending each day?

.:. If you use Google reader, and had a folder for "friends" - what would your ratio of friends to various blogs be?

.:. What do you obligate yourself to that is an illusion?

.:. What have you wanted to do or not do that has been sacrificed for the draw of spiderweb-thin relationships?

.:. Do you seek to document beauty in your own life, or are you guilty of simply coveting beauty in others? (There is a secret hidden here: It exists everywhere, and is found only when documented.)

- - -

the world is too big to be your own.

so find your corner.

water it and make it grow.

and occasionally, take extravagant field trips.

- - -

My final thought: I need more than 3 days of living like this.

- - -

P.S. I got glasses. Seeing is awesome.

+ growing up, shedding skin. +

I'm shedding some skin.

Through an intricate and elaborate merging of personality, childhood, life circumstance, and necessity, I have slowly become a woman of Everything.

Like anything else, this possesses some weighty pros and cons.

This past week I have come to three difficult realizations of Self:

.+. I am an ADD perfectionist

.+. I am a highly introspective extrovert

.+. I am a dreamer with a heavy dose of Fear [ realistic idealist? ]

All three of these have set me up to succeed, and succeed well, while also to fail, and fail hard.

And I haven't even mentioned that I seem to be equally left and right brained. Which complicates all decision making, and how exactly this skin-shedding will go about.

So, this weekend appropriately being Labor Day weekend, I am taking a mini-life vacation.

Saturday, Sunday & Monday: No phone, no computer, no work.

I have made it a point to have no expectations, eliminate the desire to accomplish anything, and plan nothing - save an 80 minute massage therapy appointment on Saturday morning - oh hallelujah.

If you are someone that usually contacts me personally, I will check my phone once a day for emergencies, as well as my email. If you don't have *urgent* or *emergency* or something similar in the subject/intro, it won't be read until Tuesday morning.

I. Am. Excited.

That being said, I am open to suggestions for beautiful places in Ohio to go see, great relaxation advice, and gifts. Haha! Leave them in my comments, or email me before Saturday: laurennicolelove[at]gmail.com

But seriously, for you crazy girls that send amazing letters and postcards like it's your job: If you'd like to send me one for this weekend, that'd be sweet. [ I realize this looks like a ridiculous request to those of you who don't partake in this creative penpal movement, but really, we love it. ] If I get one from you this weekend, I will mail you a letter back - because I will have TIME! You can email me for my snail mail address if you don't already have it.

Love you all.

P.S. Ohmygosh. Can I have all of it?
P.P.S. Adorable September calendar for your desktop from Oh, Hello Friend.
P.P.P.S. Great truth from this man.
P.P.P.P.S. I want this jacket.

+ ache +

there is an ache that never goes away. never ever.

i used to think this was you refusing to heal me, refusing to comfort me.

refusing to be the god that i need you to be.

proof that you are not the god you say you are.

but now i see that it exists to bring me to you, in desperation.

because you knew how human i was. and am.

you knew that if you comforted me the way i asked, i would never come back to you.

thank you for the pain.

for having enough compassion on me to allow me to have my heart ripped apart so that i would be able to seek you and run to you.

not because i wanted you, but because i need you.

+ influence. +

who : : is : : under : : your : : influence

- - -

think about it. and tell me.

+ photos from washington state, & thoughts on grief +

This has been a week for wrestling with new things, and very old things. The old grief, the new self-doubt, and new eyes. Grief is a strange thing. There is no feeling like it. It is debilitating and consistent only in it's inconsistency in appearing. It scares me that visually, grief sits at the base of my heart and joy is at the top. It permeates a level that joy has not yet touched. I realized I've sought healing in addition to grief, instead of in it's place. More on grief here.

Oh the mysteries of the heart.

P.S. I miss the Pacific Northwest and it's rawness. The "closer to God" effect. I found the photos above from Deception Pass, Washington when organizing my library and am excited to go back again this year.

+ movement. girl: sold. +

spindly legs
just like the spokes
uphill
down
so much up
so much down

freckles, spindles
long and lean
clean
so much clean
so much clean

just like that
no just like this
blue
so much blue
always, always blue

eight miles
two thousand and eight miles
two thousand and five, miles
miles
so much coming
so much going

spindles sold
spindly sold
sold
not enough girl
too much, girl

girl: sold.

+ i'm back. +

I know what I miss. I miss my imagination. I miss fairytales. I miss the story telling, the make-believe. I miss creating worlds and colors in my head. I miss using my hands to build a prettier place. I miss the beautiful things. The real ones. I miss feeling everything with my whole body - when the senses were still new - when I could find things I hadn’t before. I miss picturing what I wanted without being miserable that it wasn’t possible. I miss being able to escape reality. I miss knowing that life is what you make of it - in your mind, not by actions. I miss feeling. Wholly. I miss when the colors were brighter, the touch was heavier, the breathing more clean. I miss the universe as something astounding to be explored, not corrupted to be avoided. I miss my childhood mind.

+ c.s. lewis +

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

+ question: why are we an aesthetic people? +

bloggers: i'm sure you've stumbled on someone's blog and left it before reading anything because the design instantly discredited anything they had to say.

web designers: i'm sure you've gotten so fed up with horrendous fonts and layouts that you decided it wasn't worth even digging around a site to find what you want.

bookworms: i'm sure you've passed up hundreds of books because the cover art looked like it was designed in paint.

musicians: i'm sure you've clicked off a myspace page before you got 10 seconds into their default song because their layout screamed either buttrock or isuckattheinternet.

and everyone: i'm sure you've never spoken to someone or not considered a friendship because they just didn't look how you want your friends to look.


if i'm being painfully honest, i am guilty of all these things. but for some reason, only the last causes a consciencious twinge in the core of your heart. and it should. or should it?

isn't this all the same? isn't this simply judging the value of content by the quality of the visual?

why is it justified in every single area, with the exception of people?

this is something that is clearly built into us, and i'm sorry, but it is not a symptom of our culture. yes, society places too high of value on the surface, but that is only pushing a few steps further what already is by nature. so,

why are we such an aesthetic people?

if beauty is found only in the eye of the beholder, and if you should never judge a book by its cover, and if looks and brains rarely come in the same package, why do we always choose the aesthetically pleasing over the not?

- - -

look in these eyes
we know each other like our own skin and bones
we know the scars,
how they got where they are,
in places no one else knows.

I'll watch you falling from me
when you hit the ground maybe you'll see
the only way to fall is down
and I'll be up in the stars
but I'll be anywhere you are
just say you need me and I'll come down

- - -

today's playlist [perfect fall music]:
swimming with dolphins, lily allen, lydia, the maine, myriad, sleeping at last, copeland, as cities burn, edison glass, i can make a mess like nobody's business, death cab for cutie, brightlights, carolina liar

+ sick for what i've lost +

- - -
i don't know which i like best.

+ growing. +

i want to be the girl that makes everything beautiful simply by being present.

+ here to stay. +

---

more of this photo here.

---

the danger of a broken heart is not the pain.
not the tears, or anger.
not the ache, not the loneliness,
not the quiet, the empty seat, the bed now much too big.

the danger of a broken heart is what we have to repair it with.
mistrust, hopelessness, faux comfort.
independence.
the oaths we take. what we swear to ourselves.
the danger is self-reliance.

the danger is that these stitches in our heart don't fall out.
that they are there to stay.
because they must.

the danger is that we know it isn't about love anymore.
and,
it isn't about how perfect we are in our world.
it's about how perfect we are in theirs.

the danger is that two became one.
and a half of one...
well.

half is not whole.

but now we must make it so.

+ ugh. +

how
do
you
love
someone



when
five
minutes
on
the
phone



makes
you
so
angry



and
so
hurt



you
almost
black
out