More Like a Measuring Cup and a Watering Can

I don't pray as much as I should.

Prayer is a loaded word, because it sounds so spiritual, but really it is just talking to God and truly believing He hears. Well that's what I consider prayer to be. So I guess it is a little "spiritual" in the sense that it calls for a measure of faith- well actually it calls for more than a measure, more like a measuring cup of faith.

If I am honest about it, prayer kind of eludes me. I don't know how powerful it is, because I can truly say I have never been one of those prayer warriors, who sets aside hours of their day to be on their hands and knees in prayer.

The title "prayer warrior" is such Christianese too. It's a term that seems to be reserved for those elite members that have direct lines into heaven. I used to know someone who would stand on the street outside of our house and pray while cars would whiz by. That kind of stuff makes my skin crawl.

Maybe I shouldn't feel that way , but it's never felt natural to me. The thing that is most strange about prayer is that you are basically talking to someone you have never seen, shaken hands with or audibly heard- and yet you divulge your deepest needs, biggest dreams, and largest shortcomings in a way that gives you freedom from yourself.

I used to journal my prayers, and sometimes still do, but have found that speaking out loud, or thinking a prayer to myself has been more of the route I have taken lately.

This morning as I was half mumbling and half out-louding my prayer, it occurred to me that we all have half parts darkness and half parts lightness in us. I find that the ratio of darkness to light is dependent upon what you do with the light and the dark. This morning, I was praying that my darkness would be overshadowed by the light, since I was feeling a heaviness, my dark was winning a little.

That is a prayer I should never stop praying, because my darkness- my self-interest, my hurtful behavior, my stupidity, my addictiveness, my fears- always seems to infringe upon my light if left alone too long.

The longer I go believing that I am full of light, the quicker I can be overtaken by the dark.

I was reading 1 Corinthians this morning and I read something in a new way. Paul is talking to the crazy Corinthians and he says "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God that gives the growth." And then he wraps up this by saying, "You are God's field."

I like this because it gives me a little bit of direction. This gives me a purpose, and a small glimpse of what my role is in the big plan. I know I am not a planter, and I sure as hell know I am not God, so that leaves me one option: I am a waterer in the panoramic scope of God's field.

I am not a torrential downpour, I am more like a watering can, but I am a waterer none the less. We are all good at different things, I imagine that planters are better at standing on the street corners and praying for the world to see, and waterers, like myself, are the ones who watch from inside while working out their own measure of faith- one cup at a time.

It's a different journey for everyone. But we are all a part of the same field. We are all blades of grass that dance in the wind, get beat down by the storms, or bask in the sun. Some have deeper roots, some are newly planted, and some are on their way to dying.

Prayer is water for my soul. It keeps those dark times from taking me underground.

Like God says, "Let light shine out of darkness".

We are capable of great things, and not because we are talented, or beautiful, or smart, but because we have been given all the tools we need to grow.

I know I am growing. I know this because it is painful to shed the old shadows and take on the new sun scape- and I feel the pinch. Not changed, just changing.

I know this blog is a little heavy on the preach, but I needed to be reminded that I am a part of something. I am a single plant that makes up the field, and so are you. What I do does matter, even if all I do is exist to grow.

So all this talk is just to remind myself to pray more, and to cheer each other on- Go Field!

Emotional Rollercoaster

Today I got to work and had a strange twist in my stomach.

It wasn't sickness, it wasn't nervousness. It wasn't fear, and it wasn't excitement.

My senses felt oddly alert, almost neon, radiating outside of myself. It was almost as if something was happening around me in the shell of my everyday that I was missing. Something was different, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I could hear a low buzz (one like those blue fly traps that emit a lullaby to lure unsuspecting insects to their death) humming in my brain.

Was I a fly on the way to my death?

Probably not.

However, last night I was apprehended by the strangest dreams.

I am not a stranger to disturbing dreams, I swear I had a solid year where I never had a good dream- just car wrecks, pregnancy scares, and a few anxiety-mares about showing up late or getting lost for some important date.

Last night was one stressful dream after another. For instance, I had one dream that was like a flashing image over and over of a couple using my blender to make smoothies, but they didn't put the lid on and so everything spilled out in a spray of pink and yellow. Whoever was manning the blender was in hysterics. I was not.

And then I had a dream about a file folder. One that was so full, and so time sensitive that I didn't know where it went or what I was supposed to do with it, but I knew it was important. I remember feeling my fingers clutching it like my last dollar bill. And so I just held onto this overstuffed file folder, looking at people in suits passing me by wondering if I should ask someone if they could identify why this file folder was so important, and why it was causing me so much stress, and most of all why in the world I had it!

So I tossed and turned with these snapshots of annoying cul-de-sac dreams, waking up unrefreshed and worried.

I know that dreams may mean nothing, but sometimes I wonder if they are more powerful than we give them credit for.

Today, something changed. I am not sure what that will look like for me in the future, and at this time I am not at liberty to give details, but the truth is that I am tackling some big issues about what in the world I was created to do. What is my point? There is one right?

Jesus came to serve. That was his biggest message. He didn't come to get, he didn't come to be the next American idol, and he didn't die so that he could be in a movie about his life thousands of years later that would make him millions.

He came to give. To sacrifice. To humble himself.

And this is where I get completely confused.

I know what I am good at in this life, but if I don't have opportunities to do those things, then what am I supposed to do?

Quit my job, and run into the hills to make music and write books and screenplays for an audience of one?

No.

That's not giving, that's selfish.

But if you want to add another very politically incorrect layer to the cake, what am I supposed to do with those people who think that women shouldn't want to be successful in the work world, especially if I greatly respect those people, and honestly love them?

Could I perhaps find a purpose in a job- one that is to put myself aside and serve others? To show up to a place everyday where I don't get the glory, where it is never nor will ever be about me and what I bring to the table?

I was told once that any employee is just as important as putting your fist in a bucket of water. If you put your fist in and find that when you pull it out there is still an imprint of your fist than you are irreplaceable. If not, don't ever think you can't be replaced.

Not so comforting.

I don't want my emotions to make important business decisions for me. I don't want my lack of excitement in my life to be the determining factor of if I am where I should be in this world or not.

I don't want to hide out, or more accurately, hide behind a desk if there is something else that God is calling me to do.

But the phone lines on this matter have been silent, and so I am just going to keep on keeping on until that changes.

In the meantime, I think my dreams last night were prophetic, since I may be taking a detour on this crazy ride called self-discovery, and I am holding a file I am afraid to open, or more accurately afraid to close.

Confessions of a Closet Attention-holic

This is a hard blog for me to write.

Nobody likes revealing ugly truths about themselves. But if the truth hurts that means that there will be a period of healing, so I guess I should tell it.

First of all, I am not the type of person that wants to be the center of attention all the time. In fact, being center stage makes me break out in uncomfortable nervous sweats, and yet I find myself in the spotlight more often than not. Sometimes of my own accord, and sometimes I am forced.

I like attention, and yet I hate it at the same time.

It's a strange dichotomy.

The truth is that I am a shy person by nature, and because of that I can come across as aloof or inattentive, but really I am so self-conscious about things I say and do that I just try to stay out of my own way.

Except for when I drink wine.

I do not think that having a drink is bad, quite the contrary, I am hoping to open a vineyard. Which I have named Six Stone Winery (and I already have a label idea), on my dad's farm. This is where I plan to retire, sipping wine and watching the sun go down.

The problem is when I drink wine in social environments where I feel uncomfortable. This is usually when my husband has business events, or when we hang out with a large group of people we don't know very well. And then, well I don't sip wine, I drink it. When I drink too much wine, I want all eyes on me. I all of a sudden become a one-liner generator, I laugh too loud, talk too much, and generally make a scene.

It's the strangest thing. And I hate it.

I hate it because that's not me. Its me pretending to be the girl that is comfortable in her own skin, but instead I am just comfortable drowning in the skin of a dozen grapes. This is escapism at its worst.

For instance the other night, I was escaping into a comfortable quieting of my inner insecurities, and someone called out that I should play the guitar and entertain them. Of course, this is a bad idea. First of all, I am a horrible guitar player, and secondly this type of on-the-spotness will require more imbibing. Suffice to say, it was a horrible rendition of some song I made up on the spot, and everyone kind of sat there blinking at me. To which I replied, "Can I have another glass of wine please?"

This is what I am sure in psychiatry is called a coping mechanism. In my world, I think it is a sin. Christ is the cope I need. First of all, there is nothing wrong with being the quiet girl that keeps to herself. But for some reason with my background in acting, pageants and music I feel like I have to deliver stellar answers like a good little pageant queen all the time. Blech!

I feel inadequate because I never graduated college. I feel inept because I am not as funny as I try to be. I still struggle with old, bad body issues. Ones that Hollywood gave me and that used to show themselves in very disturbing behavior.

But God truly saved me from myself. He truly took all the pressure off of me, so that I could finally say, "I am not that funny, and who cares! I am not perfect, perfection is boring!"

Somewhere along the line I forgot that He did this for me. And as a result have been taking the mic on too many occasions to try my hand at "look-at-me" karaoke.

This is not a self-bashing blog, I just needed to work out this issue in writing, since that is true therapy for me. People-pleasers is what I am told defines my problem. Why do I care so much about what strangers think?

I think everything somehow stems back to childhood, and I still remember being embarrassed by my home life. My dad sold Amway, we drove nice cars and my mom always had on red high heels. Growing up in a town that didn't even have a stoplight, we were the talk of the town, and I am sure the butt of more than a few jokes. Ever since I started noticing people treating us differently, I wanted desperately to blend into the background.

I still remember when my dad picked me up from school one day in a shiny new corvette, I was so embarrassed that I hid down by the floorboards and cried. Cried! Because my dad was successful, when I should have been proud of the kind of life he was giving to our family, and had worked so hard for.

I am not sure if that relates to what I struggle with today, but I feel like it might. I want to hang up the phone on this desperation that I have to please people. My coping mechanism is not helping me cope at all, its just revealing how truly flawed I am. The joke's on me.

At the root of it all, I need to get back to the real me. I need to cultivate the soul shyness, and dial back the white lies. I embellish things when I get nervous which always results in my husband having to reel me back in. What a catch he is. I am sure I have embarrassed him on more than one occasion with my blurting out-and-about, but he is patient and is willing to help me mold my integrity as a woman and as wife. It's not easy.

I need to pray when I get in situations where I am trying to look as normal as I am not.

All of us have this fear of being found out. Whether we are hiding the good or the bad in ourselves, we all wear masks somehow. But I am tired of mine.

I realize that I claim that I hate attention, but if alcohol truly is the elixir of truth, then in times of utter honesty I have this basement need for pats on the back's or affirmation from others. So I am recommitting myself to stop trying so hard. I am giving myself free reign to be quiet if I need to. Even to the point of awkward.

Self discovery is such a buzz word. Like we are all on this maiden voyage mapping out places of our souls with black X's and pin pushers. But since I have been in Nashville, I feel like I have been growing as a person. I am being tested, stretched and shaped. Growing pains are just that, painful. But lately I have been making discoveries of my own on my life-map. And in doing so those bits of me that I want to eradicate are getting weeded out and those I want to prune and protect I am beginning to treasure.

Addiction is such an ugly word, and yet it applies to everyone. We all have something we keep going back to, whether its weed, a bad relationship, a memory, a favorite song, a place...we all have good and bad places of escape.

I am just reminding myself that I need to escape into the arms of Jesus. Sounds trite? It might be, but you are not the one I am trying to please.

Not anymore.

Black and white and where the heck am I?

Tired, Tired and my Cat's on Fire

Last night was one of those nights where my entire body and mind were absolutely exhausted by the time I got home from work.

The previous night of restless sleep did not help much. It was one of those convoluted slumbers in which I could feel the slow, creeping dawn of yet another Monday awaiting me on the other side of awake.

However, after I had faced the day, done my duties, and slurped coffee like, well...a Slurpee, I still felt a heaviness on my shoulders. Tiredness tugged at my eyelids. My skin was a fresh shade of fluorescent-beaten ash, and my eyelashes had left fuzzy imprints of themselves in staggered, flakes of day old mascara.

But even as my car puttered home, I still could not shake this sense of ever doing, never done. I am in the midst of a strange time at my job (lots of work and not lots of hands to do it), it didn't energize me- it depleted me in every sense of the word.

Stumbling into my house, all I could dream about was drawing a hot bath. Letting the water work its way into my weariness while thumbing through a few of the new books that I was reading, sounded not too short of heaven.

I knew I had a few little chores to do around the house first so I took the clean sheets out of the dryer and made the bed. With every pull of the fabric, I felt my muscles knotting and cramping, and the bathtub whispering sweet nothing's from the adjacent room.

I loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, falling asleep once in the middle of a coffee-mug put away.

I poured my ravenous self some salsa and dipped turkey and tortilla chips into it. Not quite comfort food, but fatigue punched me in the gut every time I even imagined chopping, dicing, or cooking- let alone doing the dishes (again) after the feeble feast was prepared.

After it was all done and the emails were checked, and the blackberry docked- I finally made a bee-line for the bathroom. I lit candles, collected my books, grabbed a fluffy towel that was still warm from the dryer, and watched with anticipation as the level of the bath tub water began to rise.

And when the time came, I slipped in.

A soothing, "Ahhhh..." muttered from between my lips and an exhale soared through the room. Tension melted from my shoulders, and slipped out from between my toes. I drank in the scent of my Gardenia Lavender candle that was quickly spreading throughout the bathroom.

I reached up for my book, and slowly read the pages. Drinking in the words, getting lost in the story, analyzing the writing style, identifying the themes. I was taking my time. (Which is a departure from my usual speed reading which I do when I am trying to jam brain-food in on my lunch break, or when I am on the couch trying to read with the roaring boil of TV commercials or Friends re-runs competing for my attention.)

Speaking of, if I hear another Free Credit Report.com commercial I swear I might throw my precious book right through the plasma! Seriously, how many angles about some guy with bad credit can there possibly be? The guy has now worked at a seafood restaurant, and played at a Renaissance fair? I guess you have to give them kudos for absolute absurdity, but the commercials aggravate me to the point of muting, or yes, literary violence.

Anyway, my cat, Mojo, is absolutely obsessed with water, so after I had filled up the bath, he bounded over. Carefully stepping around the edges of the bath, he would dip a paw into the water in awe. Petting him absentmindedly, I was feeling quite cozy. Mojo likes to butt heads with me, much like in The Lion King when Nala and Simba roll around in the jungle- I imagine it is their way of giving kitty kisses.

So he leans in for a little loving, and I turn my head to "kiss" him back. His eyes were closed, and his purr reverberated through his little chest. I smiled at him, and watched him gingerly round the tub again. But this time, as he waltzed by, I noticed a billow of black smoke curling into the air from behind him. And then I sniffed...my cat was on fire!

I instinctively threw water all over my cat, and stuck his tail into my bath. Which caused a thousand little balls of black cat hair to accumulate across the surface of the water. The stench of burning human hair has nothing on burning feline hair, it is combination of kitty litter and finger nail polish remover. Gac!

Mojo of course freaked out and ran into the bedroom, dragging black tufts of wet, singed cat hair all along the bathroom floor and onto my carpet.

And then there I was. Stunned.

The candle was snuffed out by tails-end, the bath water was now thick with a layer of black, crusty cat hair, my book was drenched like a prune. The whole unexpectedness of the scene was permeated by a smell that couldn't possibly be choked out by my gardenia lavender candle, it just hung in the air like something from Pepe Le Pew.

I had two choices:

1) Stay in the tub, re-light the candle, spray some Oust and try to ignore the floating pieces of smoldering kitty tail, and just enjoy the night like I had planned, and had needed in so many ways.

Or

2) Pull the plug. Pack it in and just call it like it is- death by Felis Catus sacrifice.

And just like that, I laughed. A good old fashioned, "life is so ridiculously annoying, it has to be funny" laugh. It was then that I noticed that I had been taking life way too seriously.

So with that, I bid adieu to my evening of relaxation, and just chalked it up to another life lesson learned.

Cats are sadistic.

Bad Moods- Reflections on the Detrimental Effects of Twilight

I am in a bad mood.

Not that I should be.

Not that I have any good reason to be.

Not that I need to advertise an emotion that will pass as briefly as my terse obsession with Sugar in the Raw. (I tried to substitute it for Splenda for about 2 days and, um, not gonna happen- it does NOT sweeten, which is the entire reason for its existence, and it becomes a gelatinous layer of brown goo on the bottom of my mug without fail).

So why blog about my bad mood?

So why admit, that amidst my quest for becoming a woman of God, I am struggling with some of the most basic twists of human defectiveness in the shape of envy, coveting, and discontentment?

Because as I was spending way too much time thinking about myself in this last 24 hour period, I have been trying to pinpoint my gray cloud. Where did it come from?

Last night I watched Twilight for the second time. I watched one my favorite stories of all time unfold before my eyes in the comfort of my own home with LC. I watched an explosion of a love story and I felt myself get sucked in through the breathless whispers of forever love, forever protection, and forever pursuit. I watched an ordinary girl get swept up by the most extraordinary man.

And I was jealous.

I still am.

Jealous over a fictitious character? Over a fable? Over a vampire love story? Give me a break!

My humanity drives me crazy sometimes.

But the root of the matter is grounded in our culture's obsession with creating our own personal Hollywood's within the walls of our ordinary lives. The truth is that we are all chained to an average, battered, disappointing, endless dirty counter topped, overflowing laundry piled, weight gained and coming of aged, broken world.

I know I can not be the only Twilight obsessed girl, that fell head over heels into a delicious stew of star crossed love. So I wonder if I am the only girl who compares Edward to her man? My Lord, this is so shallow, but it is striking a very dissonant chord in my heart, because I am wired for romance and for pursuit, but I think I have the characters in the story wrong.

I want to have someone head over heels in love with me, no matter how clumsy, forgetful, ridiculous, moody, and fantastical I am. I want unconditional attention and adoration. I want someone to worship me. Me, Me, I , I , want, want, NOW! I am like the little blueberry girl in Willy Wonka.

And aside from sounding preachy, because I will no matter what, that is a sin. I am in sin, I want to be a little god to someone.

This makes me feel so vacant. First of all, because this type of thinking just produces dissension between my adorable husabnd and I. And secondly, that kind of love will never exist for me in this lifetime. Two humans can't create supernatural love. It is impossible.

Last night, my unsuspecting husband came home from playing Frisbee. With the Twilight drug still swimming in my veins, I had images of him throwing the door open, walking across the room with a sense of urgency, pulling me out from my chair and kissing me with such tender need. He would stare into my face and say, "You are my life now."

Instead this is the way the evening unfolded: He walked into our house sweaty, red-faced, distracted and starving. Pulling a pizza out of the freezer, he slammed himself down on the couch, turned on ESPN, and began scrolling though his Blackberry. I sat at the table watching him. He munched away on the pizza, mouth open.

Does he not notice that his bride is sitting by herself at the kitchen table? Doesn't he see my ordinary sweat pants and disheveled hair through a love lens in which I am transformed into the most beautiful creature that ever walked the planet? Can't he see through the surface to the heart of me?"

And then he speaks, "This pizza is really good."

And then I stomp off into the bedroom. As I am dissecting all the things that are wrong with me, wrong with my simple life, and even shamefully wrong with the way I feel so comfortable with my husband. (best friends we are, obsessive-lust soaked lovers...we are not, well not everyday anyway), I wonder...what happened to us? What happened to when he was nervous to even call me, and would stumble over his words?

I will tell you what happened. Our love deepened. Our love became cemented in the real and not in the ethereal. We started a life together, and along with that came the destruction of those walls that keep the ordinary out.

When you date you can hide unshaven armpits, bathroom behavior, smelly breath, your forgetfulness, mask your temper, tame your tongue. When you marry, those are the things that you see and hear most of the time.

I am still a Twilight fan. Probably always will be. And Edward is an excellent character, but he is just an extension of the author's imaginary perfect man. And I often wonder if she created him to fill that vacancy in every woman's heart, as well as her own, in which we long for this prince charming to love us with all of our scars. Much like the final scene in Slumdog Millionaire, when he kissed the scar along her face with the sensitivity of a saint and with the passion of a man bound to endless pursuit.

So, my bad mood.

I think I have worked this one out. I can already feel it melting away from the edges of my tense jaw.

So how do we coalesce the desire we find stitched into our hearts for the endless pursuit with the reality of the roadblocks we find in life? The little things, like dirt under our fingernails, that will never be completely ridden. The open-mouth pizza chewing, and dirty socks behind the dryer?

Perhaps, let me get behind my pulpit, we will never find that kind of love in this life. I think there is a reason for that. Maybe God is saving such a culmination of unadulterated belonging for our first face to face. I imagine He is. Otherworldly love can only be found in some kind of heaven, perhaps the real one.

Yes I believe in heaven. Yes I believe in God's unconditional love for all of us. Some may call it blind ignorance, the type of which bliss is associated, but I just call it truth.

So instead of love being a glittered, golden, faultlessly proportionate corner of perfection driving a fancy car in designer clothes- I think that love is more like your favorite pair of jeans, the ones with a rip in the knee, soft and cottony, warm and familiar. The pair you would put on when riding a two-seater bike down a dirt road with a breeze in your face.

And for my final point, let's not forget that Edward is undead, which means that the heaven I believe in, he will never pass through this life into it. Aside from him being completely fictional, which means that he is caught in a story which is neither real nor fake, even his character is not alive.

I still believe that my ordinary life is going to lead me to an extraordinary love.

And that is not fiction, that is a matter of fact.

No Time to Call My Own

Work has been über busy, so I have neglected my blog. But I have a lot of reflections gathering in my head so I apologize in advance for the long-winded blog that will soon be penned. In the meantime as a follow up to my last blog, this pretty much encapsulates number 7 on The Things I Like List.

Blessings,
M

First Image Courtesy of: LeLe Green

Tally Time- Things I Like, Things I Don't

Don't:

1) People riding my butt in 35 mph zones. I mean seriously, the turtle pace is due to the little children or pups that may wander out into the road unexpectedly, and I have extremely slow reflexes.
2) Guys who wear foundation, straighten their hair, or use words like, "hang" and "bro".
3) Skinny jeans. Period.
4) Legalists.
5) The noise that buses make when they pass you on the street and make you momentarily deaf.
6) The never ending gathering of cat hair in the far corners of every room in my house.
7) Toby Keith
8) People thinking that since I like country music I must like Toby Keith
9) Shortcuts that are long cuts
10) Humidity

Like:
1) The smell after the rain
2) People who are experts in trivial pursuit, personal heroes.
3) The way my husband smells, that delicious boy scent- its a mix of laundry detergent and faded cologne.
4) Red wine on a date night, white wine at a BBQ
5) Sleeping in
6) Girls with guitars
7) Little girls who wear princess outfits to the supermarket
8) Old men in newsboys caps
9) The Seattle Skyline when you can see it
10) Jesus


Photo Courtesy of: Laura McConnell

The Greenhouse Effect

A few months back I wrote a long blog about how I thought that online communication through Myspace, Facebook, texting, blogging, twittering (which I still refuse to engage in), and even emailing is cutting off the circulation of human-to human connection. I also touched on the fact that we are becoming reliant upon these nomenclatures of correspondence in lieu of the written word, a phone call, or a face to face coffee chat.

One of my friends, let's just call him Bolt, approached me months ago after reading my blog and said he strongly disagreed with me. I couldn't understand why. What is wrong with trying to reach out to those we can, physically, wholly, and in real time? What's wrong with refusing to become robots of response in a world that encourages us to keep a rapid fire digital diary?

Well, I think a retraction is in order. I think Bolt may have a point.

I do still believe that humans need interaction. People need to hug, to cuddle, to talk things out, to get mail, to hold hands, to whisper, to laugh- in person, BUT for those of us that are chained to our desks, (me...) we spend the majority of our lives disconnected from reality. We don't feel the wind, we don't hear the rain, we don't feel the sun from Monday through Friday, 9-5pm, It's sad, but temporary. Truthfully, I don't even know what the weather is like outside most days, unless I can accurately judge the way the shadows glow on the building outside of my office.

This harsh reality makes it difficult to feel anything beyond the blue cast of our computer screens, let alone the warmth of someones hand or the reassurance of someones voice when we are at our respective places of employment. A lot of times it is in those moments that we most need a kind word. So where else can we get that much needed encouragement besides what my Great Uncle calls the "interweb".

This is where my fellow bloggers, my Facebook and my Myspace friends have fused the digital with the real- I am convinced that even though there are trillions of data exchanges and keyboard combinations talking place in the course of one day- I can still feel the thump of a human heart beating, I can see the tilt of a concerned head, I can feel the effects of a heartfelt prayer, a whisper of understanding, a smile of joy.

Lately, I have been candid with emotions, struggles, failures, and fears. I blog because I really feel that those who read and respond care...most of these people I have never met and may never meet, and the others are those who may be miles away from me, or even down the hall in which they feel compelled to stop by my desk and make sure everything is ok.

This is exactly how we off set the unsubstantial effects that can be developed through flat, thin, one-dimensional robotic responses, by using words that do not simply "advertise" but empathize.

Miss Green sent me this link: Walk On, and really inspired me to, well plainly, shut up. We all have obstacles, some much greater than others. Some obstacles are mentally disabling, some are physically disabling. Some of these obstacles are imagined road blocks. I know sometimes I create "I can't-isms", to give myself an endorsed reason to shy away from my full potential.

After watching this video, (and sending it to my mom), she sent me an email asking what my "final day on the PGA" would look like. What are those moments that I am waiting for? She said that she wants to celebrate these milestones with me when I overcome the fears that hold me back.

So here is what my "final day on the PGA tour" would look like:

-Have my book on the New York Times bestseller list
-Watch my daughter finger paint her first piece of art and frame it
-Be in a period film by a renown producer
-Celebrate the day I begin "working from home"
-Hear a song of mine in a film that is playing in theaters nationally

Big goals? Yes. Crazy? Maybe. Perhaps impossible? No. Anything is possible.

I encourage you to allow your online relationships to be real. I know I am lucky enough to feel like mine are. I get encouragement in the most important of times, when I am in the middle of a mundane Monday or caught in a long spans of the same. We can all grow by being honest, open, and willing to invest in the "mist" of online companionship.

Besides, if you work full time and spend the majority of your life in the same place, it is the mental traveling that gets us where we need to be.

Who knows maybe our offices are acting like greenhouses incubating our potential. You can't fully appreciate anything in life, unless you know what it's like to be without it. In order for us to fully enjoy and drink in what the earth has to offer us there is a season for us to be controlled, pruned, and locked inside. When we finally get the opportunity to be planted where we belong, we will appreciate the open spaces, the blue sky and the soft dance of the rain.

Continually believing that you have something to offer, a story to tell, and one that is worth reading, listening, or even, yes...twittering about- means that you are still alive, and keeping your eyes up, searching for the patches of blue in the sky.

Thank you to all of my bloggers, Facebookers, Myspacers, and my family and friends that encourage me to keep my head up, I promise I will always do the same for you.

Fragile Heart- Fraying Around the Edges

For lack of an original thought, I will quote the ever world-wise words of the sunny pop-princess, Colbie Caillat and agree that "It's kind of tough getting older".

As time continues to march across my face and across the calendar, I can't ignore this knotting in my chest. This still small voice that seems to taunt me, nagging at the edges of my life, pulling at the unfinished threads that are being twisted in the wind, and asking me, "Is this it? What are you missing? Are you not looking hard enough? Not trying hard enough?"

I don't think the voice nagging me can necessarily be answered or hushed with a solid, tangible answer. I don't think it is as simple as solving equations to discover what this "something" is that I find subtracted from my life. It's an overwhelming sense of heaviness- a heaviness that I have deduced to call depravity.

But before I get all emo, and depress the rest of this blog into a thin line of "pity me, please", the depravity of my humanity isn't depression or sadness. It's a realistic understanding that life isn't heaven. It's just life.

And my life's continual sense of lacking will never be completely filled. That makes my heart a little heavy. Can I become momentarily satiated? Surely. Completely assuaged? Never.

My frailty, my tendency to fail, to slip, to trip and to fall is just as normal as breathing, laughing, loving- this hole that sometimes seems blacker than other days will always be. It is called imperfection.

The world is flooded with images of so-called perfection which enhances and increases the cavernous divide between myself and my intangible discontentment. It's a spiritual matter. I need God. He fills in the hole that I have crammed full of putty. A quick fix that didn't fix anything is now marred with flecks of dirt and grime, from foot traffic and clumsy behavior. He caps off my nervousness, he pops the pithiness of my bubbling white lies. He silences the nerves that cause me to jerk away, and to be a jerk.

The hard part about dealing with emotions in a practical way, is that emotions, feelings, premonitions, and wonderment can not be spit out of a gumball machine in round, shiny balls of matter of fact. There is no machine. Being a human that is both parts science and spirit, is a constant conflicting rendering. When I try to compose the exaction of what my feelings compute, what they mean in real time and space, it just comes out sounding like a humming bird. Too fast to understand, and too monotone to translate.

This weekend was a strange one. The weather was nice, I felt relaxed and I had a normal time. Hanging out with friends, being with my husband- drinking coffee and eating salsa and chips-, it was great. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that could have prepared me for my emotional crash.

But some times the movie set of all it all, just falls down, and I see the stage for what it is. A facade. Dust covered, and dark. My fantasies and selfish ambition, is just putty in the hole.

The real problem lies deeper. Inside.

This is a little more personal than I like to share, especially on a blog- but I think it is necessary for me to just be honest. For me. I slept on the couch this weekend for the first time in my marriage.

There was no huge fight, there was no devastating problem, there was just a trillion little paper cuts that added up to a huge gaping wound.

We talked it out, but not until the morning after. We spent three hours discussing some things we would like to change about how we interact, who we interact with, and how we spend our time. It was very necessary but arduous.

When you move thousands of miles away from your friends and family and are trying to decipher who you are as individuals and who you are as a couple, it can result in some wear and tear. And without the buffer of friends and family, you are kind of standing naked in the wind, trying to figure it all out. Trial and Eros, troubleshooting a clay pigeon.

Which is good. That kind of figuring produces growth not just facts.

But I still have a little splinter in my heart, and not because I don't think my husband and I came to an understanding, and worked some stuff out, but because I know that this is just the beginning of a life time of stumbling through the dark, trying to define spiritual pain in a physical world.

I am grateful for grace. I am grateful for slits of sunlight in a boarded up room. I am looking forward to the ever after, days on end with sparkling lemonade and uncovered truth that carries no sting.

Until then, I will keep marching on. Love conquers all, however I am beginning to understand it's not an instantaneous defeat. Its a continuous time line of plotted victories and defeat, a wearing down of your defensive lines and a blurring of battle and peace.

I am blessed to have a husband like I do. I am saved and kept.

But we all have to guard our hearts, since they are so fragile. We all have to hem ourselves in, since just a single fray can make it all come undone.

"And I feel you here
And you're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But you are able
And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars and more like
Character" ~ Sara Groves