"Count it all JOY!" [James 1:2]

So, last night, I found out something mildly disturbing:  People actually have been reading my babbles.  Good heavens.  (1)  Makes me a bit nervous, and (2) makes me feel guilty because I haven't put much time into this as "life" sort of "took over."  Nonetheless.  Think of me like Britney Spears, minus the whole wackadoodle marriage shenanigan, misfit for mothering, and shaved head ordeal.  I'm back, people.

I won't lie and pretend the gap between my last post until now has been easy.  It's been a stressful few months filled with dedicated obedience...even when I wanted to do a million other things but study for the LSAT.  Needless to say, one stomach ulcer down.... the test is OUT OF MY HAIR!  I'm thankful that it is over, for the most part, and that I am able to set focus to new areas and new things.  This season has been one that has really challenged the core of who I am in several ways...but the most telling...is that it has been seemingly, from the surface, void of joy.  [Please don't call the crazies on me... I laugh people.. sometimes... I even snort when it gets a little out of hand...but JOY is so much different than happiness.]

This past week, I lost a very close friend.  She was a beautiful young mother of three incredible kids, all under the age of four.  Since I received that phone call- I have been perpetually angry.  I've been angry at myself, at her, at the circumstances, and yes, even at God Himself.  [Lightening bolt strikes NOW!]  I keep running through my head all of the horrors involved, all of the unknowns, all of the little things I have little to no control over... hoping that through this scavenger hunt for answers... that I will miraculously... be happy at the end result.  No fat chance.  This anger in my head and in my heart- has only perpetuated further anger.  I find myself more upset at the end of my rampages, than I was when I started them.  I find myself less at peace with all that I will never understand... than content in the present.  In this scavenger hunt for answers, I've been forced to switch my game plan.  I am now... on a scavenger hunt for joy.

I hope you are picturing awkwardly sized bunny rabbits hopping sideways as they hide sparkly little surprises in the water drains on the sides of your house.  I could, for sure, find joy in that, [all but the adult in a animal costume thing- not going to lie- it's always freaked me out.  There is something incredibly unnatural about a human in a costume of an animal... that is COMPLETELY out of proportion.]  Anyways.  This has been my new call: to find true joy in the little things I am presented everyday.  With the death of someone so close to your heart- this call becomes difficult- but not impossible.  I am able to pull from memories I had with Lindi.  I remember the way her eyes light up to an almost baby blue, if the sun hit them just right.  I remember her laugh...full of complete joy and happiness.  I remember her strength in times of adversity in her life.  I remember feeling so proud when she put her foot down on situations that were unhealthy for her, for her family, or for her children.  I remember thinking she could change the world.... if that's what she wanted.  These things certainly don't mend the pain or the darkness that comes in the later hours of my days, but it reminds me that she was in my life to teach me lessons through her actions, and that I must be intentional in remembering them... so that her sweet children can remember that their Mommy was full of joy and strength.  I will paint them the picture of the woman they will, one day, crave to know.  The lessons her life has taught me, can now be placed as a roadmap to help them.  There is a glimmer of silver in this tragedy of my heart.

With all of the arrangements surrounding her passing, the one place I wish to be... more than any other... is HOME.  When I first came to school, I remember latching tight to a quote from the movie Garden State.  He talks about how, at some point, we each fall into a state of homelessness.  Though the houses we grew up in may have stayed [scarily] exactly as we left it, we are unable to regard it as "home," in the same way as we left it.  We have changed.  We have seen things that cannot be unseen.  We have been broken.  Home will not hold that same comfortable welcomeness, as it once did, because the man or woman it is embracing... has been altered.  At some point, your parents live in one place, you pay rent somewhere else... and the word "home" simply refers to this proverbial place that houses all your "stuff."  And it remains, as such, until you build a new family for yourself...and a new idea of home is made through hard work, sacrifice, and unchanging love.  It is then we can find comfort again. Is this why the twenties seem so unbalanced?  Is it why it seems that we are always focused on the next step, or the next plan to push our careers/education to the next level?  Is this why... I am so incapable of being PRESENT?

There are certainly those people in the world who fly by the seat of their pants, don't stress about keeping a steady job or house, eat what they can when they can....and spontaneously live.  Some people, including myself, call these people "hippies,"  in the most politically correct way possible.  For my father's sake... we can thank the Lord that I am not one of these people.  I fall on the direct polar opposite.  I plan too much.  I make multiple to do lists for a specific five minute period.  I hate to be late. I plan how I will plan something... before I even get to plan it.  It's embarrassing, really.  But because of this...because of my ever-forward thinking....I very rarely have those moments where I look around, feel a tickle in the back of my throat, and get teary eyed in sheer awe and wonder of the joy happening all around me.

I remember being very little and getting this feeling.  It usually happened in places with a large crowd of people... like airports, or high school football games... places where I felt wholly invisible.  It was as if God placed his index finger on the pause key for about thirty seconds...just enough time to let the enormity of the world slowing down to hit me so hard I could hardly breathe.  The clocks slowed down, people would turn to flash genuine smiles and my mind snapped beautiful black and white pictures of them... full of contrast and delight.  It was this feeling of being present that made the planning worthwhile, almost.  Like each goal that was achieved was all working towards a single moment like that one...just a glimpse to remind me what was important in the world... and to place the purest of joys in that gift.  During this season... I feel like I just keep working for the goals... without any cognizance of being alive, of beating, of being present.  Without that thirty second pause... I know that I must pull the reigns back in on my desire for control.

So, for now, until God puts his index finger back on that pause button....I take time to pause things for myself for awhile and ponder who I am.

So who or what, am I?  I am a woman...who, strangely, feels more like a little girl.... like the little girl who would ride her horse at full speed ahead trusting every element that surrounded her.  I was a little girl who was fearless.  And somehow, along the perils of adulthood, forgot how to live that life.

Just a girl, cantering on her horse through Indiana cornfields...asking God to hold the reigns...
Kami