six days

The MDS is leaving for Mexico in six days. I am:

• scared
• not ready
• ready as i'm gonna get
• hoping to become more mexican
• needing to learn to give God more of me
• ready to have tamales for breakfast
• desperate to come back different
• challenging myself to pack light
• studying spanish
• excited

yea and the count down is well underway. I've written and rewritten my packing list, it's still in the works. ;)

goodbye 2007

Yeesh, this is not a year I'm going to miss. Due to something silly I did last January I seem to have spent a large chunk of it messing up relationships. So much drama, it was truly amazing.

I almost had my first boyfriend this year. (We practically were, I was just to freaked-out to call it that.) I took him five days to find a new girl after I decided it wasn't going to work and now they're pregnant. My roommate eloped and i helped her. I lived in three different places and one of my friends has been homeless most weeks since august when my sort-of-former-boyfriend got them evicted from their house. Drama.

However, the drama swings both ways. There was the bad but there was also a lot of really good things that happened this year. I think I learned grace, both for myself and for those around me. God did a lot in me this year that freed me in new ways from depression and some of it's effects. I had a huge jump in confidence with people because I worked as a waitress. (I now think that everyone should be a server for at least a few months because of all that you learn about people and yourself and generosity.) I did manage to reconcile every one of my relationships and learned the lessons on forgiveness, grace and humility that come with doing that. I also am part of the MDS which has been amazing and way better than I hoped.

I think I've grown much closer to God. He's reminded me we're still friends often through all the ups and downs. He also spoke clearly to me that He felt cheated because I was (early in the year) only attempting a relationship with Him because everyone expected it and I needed to be close to Him if I was going to pursue the things I felt He called me to. So God wants my friendship more than my usefulness. Like any other friendship it needs to be about love, not about getting something done.

Oh, and my friends threw me a surprise birthday party which I've always wanted! Such a good way to become twenty-four.

Well that was 2007, I grew a lot. I'm hoping this next year will see as much growth without all the crazy drama.

(I'm moving to Mexico in less than four weeks. Yay!)

blessed are.....

So we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount in the MDS. Very good study which I am much liking. (Are you allowed to say that in English? Oh, well.) After five weeks we have finally come to Matthew 5:6 which says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

I have read and even memorized this passage in the past but I'm seeing it in a new light this time. One thing is that the Greek word for righteousness can be translated either justice or righteousness. It's the same word in Greek. This is also true in Spanish and French. The word carries both the meanings. So the verse could read, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice/righteousness for they shall be satisfied."

Okay I know I'm more interested in linguistics than most people, but this is actually important because it gives the verse a deeper meaning than the English language allows. I usually take it as I need to be hungry to be righteous in my own heart and life. It also means I need to be hungry to see justice in the world around me, to see the oppressed freed and the hungry fed. Deeper no?

Now usually I just think about the first part of the verse and forget the second part. The second part is a promise. Those who hunger and thirst for justice/righteousness will be satisfied. They will be satisfied. Sometimes it's really easy for me to look at my heart and at the world around me and feel like I'll never see justice/righteousness. It's easy for me to feel like it's a lost cause today. Not only in my own heart but in the hearts of everyone in my generation. But here's a promise that those who really want it are going to be satisfied. That's big.

wearing thin

We live in the most opulent, glamorous society that has ever existed. Everything is easy, everything is instant, and everything is available. Why aren't we happy?

I think possibly we are one of the most unhappy societies that has ever paraded the earth. People are depressed in huge numbers. I have so many friends who've been suicidal or even attempted it. I've known a lot of people with eating disorders and a handful of people who've cut themselves. Too many. Why is it that my generation which has everything and more of it than any group of people ever before is the most depressed, most self-destructive, most suicidal ever?

I came up with this theory recently. It may be too simple but I'll give it a shot. What if humanity is nearing the top? Like we are all on this quest together and the things we're looking for are happiness, love, comfort, fulfilment, security, whatever. Maybe we're all looking for these things together. Maybe there's this internal list in all of us. Kinda like Maslow's hierarchy of needs we all learn about in Psychology class. Maybe humanity has advanced so much that we've scratched off most or nearly all of the needs on that internal list. We are coming to the end of the list and there's still this glaring... something. There's something beyond the list we all need.

But we've tried nearly every humanly possible option haven't we? We have security, everything we could ever need to want. We have connectivity and community. We are the most connected people ever. I have a blog, a facebook, a myspace, a cellphone, unlimited texts, email, snailmail, and too many friends to pay attention to. I can hardly get through a class without getting a text. What else are we desperate for?

If this little theory is true and we all as individuals and as a species have this internal list of needs, if we are nearing the end of that list, then maybe the state we are in today could be the results of an underling panic. We've tried just about everything and we are still incomplete somehow. What's going to happen to us if we can't find that thing we need? What happens if we remain needy and incomplete? What if when Jesus said that He is the way the truth and the life He really knew what He was talking about?

a mystery

So there's this mystery I've been trying to figure out this last week. It's really been driving me nuts. Why is it that we have the technology to map the human genome and walk on the moon but we can't figure out how to make NyQuil taste any better than awful?

david

Today was a sad day for the MDS. We have six students and today one of them, David, left for home. His little brother has been in a coma for over a year now and he feels like he needs to be with his family. Life is really impossible to understand sometimes.

I went to the church's highschool with David and he used to be in the housechurch I helped lead. He moved away about three years ago. It's been really good to have him around again this last month. The last three years have been super discouraging and in a lot of ways I don't live by the standards I used to or dream the things I once did. Having David around this last month has remimded me who I used to be, what I used to live for, and why. I had come to think a lot of that stuff back then was fake, just to please people, or me trying to be like somebody else because I thought I wasn't good enough. I was immature, but it wasn't all fake. Thanks David.

my life in the mds

Once again i neglect my blog. That's life, I don't currently own a computer. So much has happened since last I had the luxury of posting. The MDS (Missional Discipleship School) started on October fourth. It's been amazing so far. It was a little awkward at first. I think becase the shadows of everywhere I've been the last few years were hanging on. I wasn't too excited to be in anything that might cause me to be responsible for something of a spiritual nature. I used to be a houschurch leader and failed, and I frequently feel like I only make things worse. I came into this school sure God wanted me here but with no idea why.

Well, I'm LOVING being a full-time student again. (Yea, I know, I'm a nerd.) And the second week of school we went backpacking for six days. It was pretty awesome. I love all things camping (except the toilettes) so I was destined to have fun. We focused on holiness a lot. I think I've been kinda running from holiness, or just quit thinking of it as something that's very important. I did a lot of repenting for my bad attitude and for not really living for God and blaming Him for stuff that's happened in my life. Other than that this trip was the most challenging trip I've ever been on. It's the first trip I've been on where I wanted to be home. We had a day that resembled hell. You can see a video here. To sum up the backpacking trip was very worth it, super fun, and probably slightly life-changing.

After we got back from that trip we had one week to learn a drama for the retreat. Learning dramas and skits in very short amounts of time is quite typical of Immanuel Fellowship. (My church, which this missions school is a part of.) A video will be posted online shortly. I'll attempt to blog about it. I know I'm at risk of sounding a bit dramatic but this retreat was also slightly life-changing for me. A bit too personal for the internet though, sorry.

I really hate doing these I-haven't-posted-in-forever posts. They're always long and rambly. So I will sum up one more time and then say good night. God's been doing a lot in me through this school. It's great. Cheers.

nebraska, my favorite vacationland

Well I quit my job at my Mexican restaurant. I think the boss got confused (or possibly mad) when I gave my two-week notice and just didn't put me on the scedual for the next two weeks. This, in my eyes was a pretty awesome thing to do. I have been in some seirous need of a little vacation. So I've come to my grandparents' house in Nebraska. It's a really great place for me to calm-down, take a breather, and spend some time with God before I jump in with the school of missions I'm going to be a part of in about a week (is it really that soon?). My grandparents are pretty awesome.

rocks & trust

I took rock climbing this week with Scott, the same teacher who taught me to ice climb. He's a pretty good teacher. Last time I took his class I was the only girl. This time people joked that the class had more girls than any of them had ever seen together in one place in Summit County. Sad, but true. It's been awhile since I've gotten to hang with that many girls.

So last time, in Ice Climbing class, this big guy dropped me while I was climbing. It was on one of the first climbs of the second day. I didn't get hurt, but I was lucky that one of my ice picks held long enough for him to start paying attention and take up the slack in the rope or I might've been. This scared me a lot. I already didn't trust the rope or the belayer. After being dropped I climbed as if I didn't have a rope at all. I got so burned-out climbing that way and never got very far off the ground after this.

I realized my mistake and tried to correct it coming into this rock climbing class. Funny, I was only dropped once - every other time the person belaying me had done a wonderful job. Despite all my good experiences it was the one bad experience that has stuck with me over the past year and a half. (I haven't done any sort of climbing since then.) It was a lot harder to trust this time around. Did I mention I am also afraid of heights? Not terribly afraid. Just enough that see-through bridges and any kind of grill or screen that has to be walked over is a cheep thrill. (I fell through one of those once which makes them quite scary, but that's another story.) Those bad experiences just stick with us despite whatever good we've known.

One girl in my class had a much higher than average fear of heights. She also has a fear of ropes because her uncle hung himself a year ago. We started the day off with rappelling and she ended up crying and rocking back and forth with her face in her knees. I tried to encourage her but it didn't look good. Amazingly though, after Scott worked with her one-on-one she did end up climbing a couple of the faces we ended up climbing. She was never quite able to rappel or allow herself to be lowered in anyway opting instead to walk off the tops of what she climbed. I've got say I was pretty impressed. I think I'm going to remember her for the rest of my life. There are things that get me scared enough that I feel like curling in a ball and crying. I frequently back down. God's been speaking to me a lot about growing a backbone lately. There's a lot of areas in my life where I've been seeing I need more courage.

Her example actually proved helpful for me. I think after her I was definitely the most afraid of heights, and afraid that my belayer wouldn't catch me. Grrrrr.... Rappelling was cool and fun, though very, very hard - especially those first few steps. My real problems arose after I'd climbed whatever it was I needed to climb. At this point I had to let go of the rock, lean back into the rappelling position (For those of you who don't know when you rappel you lean back till you are nearly parallel to the ground, from this position it's impossible to make a mad grab for the safety of the rock if you get dropped.), and trust the person belaying me to lower me back to the ground. This not only scares me, it completely freaks me out. I'm not one who easily trusts the people around me to begin with. Embarrassingly, the teacher had to climb up beside me and gently talk me through this step.

This is very parallel to real life for me. You could say I've been dropped. I've been dropped a lot. I have a very hard time really trusting people. Often I have a very hard time trusting God. I'm always waiting to be let down, abandoned, dropped. I've tried very hard to be one of those people who is completely independent, or as independent as is possible. Even when I am open usually it's because I've been gossiped about enough that I really could care less. Last year in ice climbing class I noticed that those who made it to the top of the hard stuff did so because the trusted that if they fell they would be caught.

This is my second long post this week. My apologies. Almost done. Anyway I was determined to learn to trust the rope this weekend. At first I was pitiful. Then I learned a trick that eventually made me take great strides towards accomplishing my goal. Stupid as it sounds the only thing that made it tolerable for me to be lowered was to ask the person belaying me to just hold me for a minute while I leaned back, let go of the rope, let my arms fall back, and forced myself to relax for a moment. For some reason after this I was completely fine. After making people do this for me on every climb I did pretty well. I even managed to climb something people much better than me struggled with and not everyone could do it. Learning to trust the rope and belayer when I had no control allowed me to take the kind of risky moves that were necessary to take me to the top. It was one of those climbs that just didn't have safe, easy hand and foot holds. Sometimes it hardly had anything at all. Without trust I never could have taken the risks or jumped for hard-to-reach holds.

I've been praying a lot this summer for God to teach me a deeper trust. I hope somehow what I learned in rock class this weekend will get applied to the rest of my life. We'll see...

oh dear

I do believe it's been awhile since I last blogged. Four months actually. I know, it's a bit excessive. I however, am under the impression that I have a very good excuse.

I have spent the summer house-sitting. In a basement. Without internet. The fish decided to become anorexic and died. Not cool. I tried everything, I sweet talked it, cleaned it's water, dropped food near it, and I do believe there was more than one desperate prayer sent to Heaven on that stupid fish's account. Nothing worked and now it's dead. I flushed it down the toilet. At least the dogs are still alive and the plants mostly are. Ben moved back in today so if the plants finish dying before his mom gets back well.....

My bestfriend/roommate got married. Eloped actually. That was a lot of craziness when the news hit the presses. No more will be said of this. But her husband is quite nice and I like him lots. Anyone else and I would've had to drug her and take her to a faraway country or something equally drastic. I am 23 so it's not like Marie is the first friend to get married, but it's excessively different and weirder when it's your best friend and she's three years younger than you.

I have also managed to fix a lot of relationships this summer that I had thought were unfixable. In the process I've been very humbled and learned (once again) how bankrupt I am when it comes to relationships. However, this time around I think possibly I'm seeing myself grow so this is encouraging. God taught me a lot about having mercy on myself last winter and about grace. This summer I learned to apply the same to other people. Possibly grace is not complete until a person is able to apply it both to themselves and to those around them? And those who behave with the least mercy towards others are those plagued with a harshness towards their own faults deep inside?

None of us are perfect. Friends, parents, leaders, or ourselves. I'm glad I'm beginning to learn this now, despite my easy-going exterior I can be quite critical and unforgiving when hurt. This tendency generally screws up everything. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of the character flaw.

I worked as a waitress at a Mexican restaurant over the summer. That was a trip; I'll never be the same. I highly recommend being a server to everyone. Aside from learning a lot of Spanish curse words, I have learned to fake confidence. Now before all you advocates of genuineness freak out, I should tell you that I've also learned a huge amount of real confidence. I also learned to care a little less of what people think of me. What they say is unfortunately very true: "You can't please them all." Some people just want to be angry about everything. I think these people should have to pay a higher tax for their bad attitudes and all the trouble they put other people through. Also people who don't tip need to all be forced to work for tips for at least a year or however long it takes for them to get it. Remember, not tipping is very bad.

I should've tried harder to blog, now that I'm back at it I have a lot to say, to much to torture anyone with in one long rambling post. So I will limit myself to one very important thing. I have completely changed my plans for the next year.

Rather than go to CU this fall I am joining a school of missions that my church is doing this year. It starts in October. The first three and a half months will be here in the States studying missions, the life of Jesus, and the Bible in general. The last three and a half months will be spent helping a church that fizzled out get going again in Mexico City. After the school ends I will probably spend the summer with my grandparents in Nebraska and then go on to CU next fall. I'm both excited and afraid. I don't exactly feel ready for the challenge that this school will bring yet I feel very confident that this is what God wanted me to do with this year. More confident than I've felt about anything for a long time.

Well that's my summer in a nutshell. It was actually much more insane than it sounds here. This whole year has been so insane that I can't keep track of time in my head. (Did that happen two weeks or two months ago?) The crazy life of me. Hey I also went from having like two people I hung out with to nearly having too many friends. I almost feel popular which is extremely weird. I've always felt like the one that nobody noticed or the one who could easily be forgotten or left behind. I'm not sure how to handle this. Very strange.

peacemakers

I have been told in the past that I am a peacemaker. The person meant it as a complement. I guess I should think of it that way.

Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

This sounds lovely, no? However, peacemaking is not all it's cracked up to be. Being a peacemaker means conflict. Either your own conflict or that of a friend's. It means being the only person who is willing to make the sacrifice necessary to fix the relationship. This makes you feel like you're the only one who cares, the only one initiating peace, the only one who wants peace, the only one giving love, the only one allowing everyone else to steal from you and walk on you - all for the sake of making peace. It means a lot of work. It means untangling everyone else's emotions and having your own disregarded. It also means being at fault. If the peacemaking efforts fail it's your fault because you were the one attempting to create peace. The other parties involved recognize this and seem to resent you for failing. Seems like peacemaking ends in failure more than any other outcome.

Not so lovely. It hurts. It sucks. Most of the time all your efforts are for nothing. I was recently frustrated to tears over the realization that I have to be the peacemaker in one of my relationships. I've waited months and the other person hasn't done a thing, it's like I don't exist. So I'm stuck being the peacemaker again. Great attitude I'm having about it too, I'm so tired I'm not sure I want to, but I kinda have to I guess. I called up a friend today almost in tears I was so frustrated at the prospect of being stuck here again. I never quite got around to expressing anything, but it was good just talking to someone I'm cool with. I wish I wasn't so bad at relationships to begin with.

"... they shall be called sons of God." Not surprising. My attitude however is unlikely to win me that title. God please change my heart...

nebraska vacation

So I left Colorado and am currently on vacation in Nebraska. Odd, I know, but my grandparents live here making this a free vacation. So far it's cost me half a tank of gas (I love my gas-hatting car).

I quit my job (horray!!) because it wasn't going to work with my college classes this summer. This next semester is my last at CMC. I already walked in my graduation. This is exciting as it was my first graduation since preschool. I'm glad I decided to participate; I almost didn't. One semester of CMC left then it's onward to Boulder and a major in linguistics.

Seems like life has been so fast-paced this last semester, it's taken me a week and a half just to unwind at my grandparents' house. I suddenly gained a social life and I don't think I've been giving myself enough introvert time, lol. But it's been a fun/interesting semester.

Anyway I'm having an AWESOME time hanging out with Jacque doing mostly nothing. Reading, journaling, running, painting, cooking, ah so nice. She also has great friends who like to make fun of homeschooling so I fit right in. For a little excitement we've been creating mischief catching spiders, seran-wrapping cars, forking yards, and more.

where i go

I'm afraid to trust You
Take me and teach me
Who are You beyond religion?
Beyond our institutions
And tidy answers?

I fear Your power, love and mystery
I don't understand Your ways
Take me to the wild wilderness
And let me see Your thunder

Take my identity
Give me a name only we know
Take my dreams and direction
Let me wonder aimless
If it means I go with You

I don't want religion's safety games
Keep the labels and recognition away
I have failed You in everything
And I'm too tired and scared
To ever wish to play again
Take me somewhere I can trust

May my broken heart be Yours
Though I haven't the strength to give it
Let me learn the quiet of Your love...

freindships

My relationships are going through a very strange time. There have been several times in the past few months when I've wanted to entirely give up on friendship in general with most people. I guess I've been frustrated. For a very long time. And I'm tired of trying and trying to be friends with people and feeling like I'm banging my poor little heart against a smiling stone wall.

I have been angry lately and have quit caring little by little over the past four or five months. Totally frustrated with trying. Strangely, my relationships seem to be getting better. It's kinda bizarre. I get frustrated and decide to stop caring and quit trying to be friends and as a result, a lot of my relationships improve. I've also made a few new friends this winter. I wouldn't have guessed it.

I think one of the reasons why things are going better is that, for the most part, I've stopped groveling for friendship. In the recent past I wanted so desperately to be popular. However, popularity is a trap. It's something you have to stay on top of and hold onto. It also isolates people.

I personally have never been popular, but my sister Jacque was known and liked by tons of people at the Honor Academy. She said having so many friends spread her too thin and she ended up having a lot of shallow relationships. (Aside from her accountability group.) That seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Popularity makes it easy to hide behind many shallow relationships. I guess this is why popular people are so lonely. Popularity is a trap in a lot of ways. Maybe I'm just angry, but lately something in me wants to be unpopular and do things because I want to and not give a care if it makes me uncool or rubs people wrong.

I think what I'm going through is okay. Yea, I'm angry and generally this is not the emotion of choice for good little Christian girls, but I think I'm learning important things about confidence, relationships, and popularity and such.

It's been a strange ride lately....

experement

Marie and I did an experement today. It was inspired by Jacquie's day as a Muslim girl in Nebraska. My sister did not get a very good response from the general populace of her small town. You can read about her day here.

Marie and I went shopping in Denver and decided to try it. We're both olive skinned with dark brown eyes and hair. Perfect. We knew going into it that in Denver we'd probably would not get much of a response at all. This turned out to be true, aside from the fun and novelty of going out dressed as Muslim girls, (and getting to see what it feels like to go around veiled) nothing really happened. Everyone acted normal.

The only weird look we got was when we were in Borders and bought postmodern christian books. I suppose that is a bit unusual. We also attracted the attention of a Turkish guy who thought we were Turkish girls. (Oops.) And got into an interesting discussion with an Israeli girl who had moved to America to escape the violence in the Middle East.

Anyway, it's good to see that not everyone in America is weird about race; we've still got a ways to go, but there's hope for us.

new friend

I just got back from eating crepes (made by real francophone's, I got to speak French) in Breckenridge with a girl who's half Italian, half polish, and her parents were converts to Hinduism. So her name is Menache, like the Hindu goddess. She's very interesting.

The funny thing is, despite our different religious backgrounds we have a lot in common. Her parents, being converts to Hinduism were very Hindu. It's the same as when Christians convert at an older age, everything becomes all about the new religion and getting out of the world. I've noticed second-generation Christians tend to put more focus on being just as genuinely spiritual but try to find a less religious way to go about it all. Anyway, as a result of her parents' conversion Mena was homeschooled, like I was mostly until 10Th grade.

I had a great time eating crepes with her. We talked about the strangeness of homeschooling, not really fitting in to our homeschooling groups, being allowed to travel the world without our parents at a young age, finding our way in college, religion, being sheltered, cultural sensitivity, learning languages, and the movie Mean Girls that we understand since it is about, you guessed it, a homeschooler who has to survive a public high school.

Sadly Mena is in Physician's Assistant school and is only here on rotation for a few weeks. Luckily we were born into the age of the Internet. ;)

beads & new shoes

I finally got a much needed new pair of new running shoes. I think I used my old ones about twice as long as you're supposed to and they were falling apart inside. This makes for very uncomfortable running. Tonight was my first run in awhile.

Then Marie and I spent the evening with the house to ourselves making earrings and talking. Our friendship has had a rough couple of years. A few months ago though things were getting better, we decided to just kinda back off from eachother. Somehow that time took the pressure off and now we're closer than we ever were in the past.

Seems like we hang out all the time and never get tired of eachother. We're both in one of those slightly confusing times when you grow and change a lot. The great thing is that God's teaching us simmilar things lately which is cool because we can talk any time and usually we're completly on the same page. It's lovely that God's letting us grow together like this. I wonder if our friendship is a little bit of what community is supposed to be like.

new side of grace

I think I've learned a lot about grace these last few months. A few months ago I said I was frustrated with it. Possibly part of my frustration was because I saw grace as the means to become perfect. If a person is not clearly on the path to becoming perfect than that is a sign grace is not operating in their life.

While I still believe that grace helps us grow, I'm seeing a new side of it. Grace is also the strength to live with your weaknesses without being stresses over perfection. It's what keeps you from discouragement when you don't seem to be growing. (Hey, who feels like their growing all the time?) It's knowing God loves you and accepts you where you are. It's the ability to be merciful towards yourself when you fail.

I really feel like I'm just beginning to come to grips with this. It's okay to struggle, I don't have to be super-christian, have all the answers, or be on everyone's good side. I'm allowed to have bad days - even be depressed and I don't have to get all bent out of shape over it. God won't stop loving me, but in order for me to realize that I have to be gracious towards myself just like He is. This has been finally hitting home this last few weeks and it's like I can breathe. I'm hoping this lesson sticks.

till we have faces

I finished reading Till We Have Faces today. For the fourth time. It’s that good. It was C.S. Lewis’ favorite of all the books he wrote. I completely agree. (Agreeing with people as smart as him is a sign of smartness I think.) Like a lot of his fiction, this is a book that gives something new with every read.

I tend to read this book when I’m getting bitter and depressed. Yea, that’s been the story for about a month or more now. However, I don’t think it’s all bad. I’ve been very introspective and God has been teaching me a lot. As for the bitterness, well sometimes you have to admit (let yourself be real) that you are upset before you can do anything about it. But that’s another post entirely.

Back to the subject at hand. I read this book because the main character, Oral is very hurt and bitter. With the exception of her sharp temper, the two of us are a lot alike. We both respond to hurts by building walls around our hearts and making resolutions not to let anyone in, but pretend to be okay. She is also ugly and unwanted. Though I am physically pretty I tend to feel the same as her on the inside. Unlikable and unwanted. However, Oral becomes a very good queen and is loved by her people. She pretends to love back but is so consumed with feeling unloved that she can never really allow herself to be loved. Then at the end of her life she discovered that all the things that had made her bitter had been exactly what she would’ve asked for if she had been able to see things from the perspective of the gods with whom she was angry.

I felt like I understood the end of the book this time, and it made me cry for the first time, sob really. She spent so much of her life desperate for love yet completely unable to give or receive it. In her desperation to be loved she describes herself as a huge spider devouring everyone around her. I feel the same desperation in me, though I am too timid to assert myself like her when I feel rejected. I’ve also been seeing lately how the hard stuff that happened in my life a few years ago has been good. I’ve learned things and been freed in ways through it that would’ve taken years and years to do otherwise. Maybe some of the change never would’ve happened at all. Another commonality with Oral, except I get to learn it a lot younger.

is it okay?

God I don't know where here is
But it seems to be where I'm lost
Am I lost? I don't really know
This place has me confused

Is it okay if I walk through this part?
Can I be afraid, lost, and unsure?
If I stumble here will You lift me?

The times have turned lonely
And all I want to do is hide
Blot out every lost chance at friendship
And pretend my hearts not breaking

Is it okay if I walk through this part?
Can I be hard, withdrawn, and untouchable?
If I stumble here will You lift me?

My past still confusing
My future a grey uncertainty
My dreams are faded to nothing
This heart a bombed-out shell

Is it okay if I walk through this part?
Can I be cynical, moody, and unglued?
If I stumble here will You lift me?

I don't understand this journey
Or why You bring me where You do
Remember that I am dust
Change me as You will