right now i want to be at the beach. the sun. the water. the sand. the fun. the walks. the palm trees. the swimming. the waves. the fun restaurants. the time right after getting ready and reading or watching tv while everyone else gets ready and the sun is still out but is close to going down. the sunburn. the time in the morning before any one is really on the beach except the old people walking and holding hands and reading the bible and seeing Gods beauty right there. little families playing and building sandcastles. jumping the waves. playing frisbee. all of it. i love it. i want it. i need it. now.
growing up we always went to south carolina beaches, hilton head mainly. then once i moved to tennessee and alabama i always went to florida, destin and seaside in particular. i miss it. i miss my college friends and my college yl girls. i miss the red bar. knowing how to get anywhere between destin and seagrove. seeing all the other college kids from other places around the southeast. making fun of club la vila. good talks on the beach. publix. all of it. i miss it. i love my life right now, but there are times when my heart just misses my old life too. besides my parents and brother, i dont think i have really known what it is like to just miss someone or something so much it aches, until i moved to college, then on to auburn, now to dallas. and yes, i miss people in my life, but i miss glimpses and phases in life more.
if i hadnt spent all last night on a bus of middle schoolers i would hope in the accord and drive straight down to destin just to put my feet in the sand. maybe the bus thing is just an excuse. so, who's up for it?

tonight is bus tour! when i woke up at 7 this morning my first thought was, this time tomorrow i will still have not slept. please pray for me. i like to sleep a lot.

this was a fun dessert saturday night at tillmans with lindsay and alisa.

my favorite song lyrics right now:

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don’t know where I am
I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I’d let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you'd just woke up
And you said “this is the first day of my life
I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you
But now I don’t care I could go anywhere with you
And I’d probably be happy”

So if you want to be with me
With these things there’s no telling
We just have to wait and see
But I’d rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery
Besides maybe this time is different
I mean I really think you like me
-bright eyes
first day of my life

here are some good ideas of what to do with collections of things. i feel like these ideas can translate to anything you may collect...birds (that may or may not be what i collect), records, stamps, cool pens, scarves, etc.

happy weekend whether you are frolicking outside or doing laundry this saturday and sunday :)

i am so ready for spring...
warmweather. lillypulitzer. cookouts. thepool. seersucker. longwalks. greentrees. pleasehurryup:)




(notice the pretty rinoculus on the side table)

lately i seem to be stumbling across the same idea in much of my reading: that our souls are cracked. they arent perfect. they are fragile and broken easily. as we live with a cracked soul we (and by we i mean i) try to glue it back together ourselves. we try to hide the crack by overexposing the together, the fixed, the healed parts of our souls. this has been a theme for much of my life. hiding the cracked, broken, dark, imperfect parts of who i am and allowing the perfected, tended to, pretty, pleasing, nice parts of my soul to shine for everyone to see. but, what drew me close to the heart of Christ was that he loves people that dont have it all together (because none of us do). he desires for us to look at the cracked places and allow him to come in and patch up those places with his grace, words of truth, hope, and love. why do i continue to live in a place where the cracks are looked down upon, where i try to conceal them, where i know the truth but dont live my life as if i know who He says i am and allow the world to define i am. thank you God, that you sent your son so i dont have to live a life spinning my wheels for the world but get to rest in the midst of life with a heart filled with cracks in the process of being mended by you.

"suffering causes the mirror to crack. as the pieces fall away, we see what is hidden behind." -michael casey (toward God)

"we are cracked mirrors who dont reflect the image of God back to him. - jonalyn grace fincher (ruby slippers)

some pictures of love that stir in my heart.

this is going to sound so christian womany but i just cant help myself. i long for my middle school friends, peers, and my own heart to really know this:
"i know my soul has been hurting. it whimpers that something isnt right, and it tries to warn me that our cultures obsession with appearance is cutting into me, that i need more than im currently feeding myself. Jesus said we must first clean the inside so that our outsides may become clean as well. Jesus might say our contemporary culture gets it backward: cleaning the outside with another book, another coffee, a new job, a new home, a new guy, a new meal, a fresh outfit, a new pet, a new devotional book, even another Bible study, but we neglect our souls.
in our obsession with beauty we neglect our very selves...perhaps we need to live as if Christ cared for more than our bodies. what if we lived as if Christ wanted to redeem our souls? what if we paid attention to the insides even half as much as we accessorize our outsides? what if we turned our attention away from the mirrors, away from others comments, away from over-regard or disregard of our bodies, and began attending to our souls?"
-jonalyn grace fincher ruby slippers

it is valentines week!





"my way is all of trust and love, i dont understand souls who are afraid of so loving a Friend."
st. therese of lisieux

for all you faithful readers out there, i apologize for my absence from the blog world. so to make up for the lack of blogging i will give you my highs and lows of the past week or so. lets start with the lows so as to end on a high note :)

lows:

-by far and away the top low is accidentally erasing everything off my ipod. did tears well up in my eyes? yes. did i cuss in my head? yes. did i want to take back the previous 5 minutes in time more than almost ever before yes. am i making it? yes. am i very thankful for pandora? yes. am i wanting all you readers out there to send me cds of your favorite indie, pop, folk, hymns, and any other tunes you love to me? yes.
-migraines. i had one almost every day for the past week.

highs:

-the fact that there arent too many lows on the list.
-ruby slippers by jonalyn grace fincher. lame name for a book but a very honest look at the soul of a woman. i highly recommend it both to girls and guys.
- american idol. go scott mcintyre! i am a sucker for the sappy stories.
-chuys and tillmans twice this week.
-wyldlife club starting back. i love hanging out with my middle school friends. i have gotten to go to the school a lot the past week and the Lord gives me life through being in ministry to kids. oh and the hpms play was pretty hillarious too it is definitely a high.
-this picture: