Noodles

Disclaimer. I wrote this a week ago, and I am only just now posting... Some things have changed I have a whole lotta joy and peace. It could have something to do with the fact of the matter that I just had a week long vaca with the best friends in San Diego.That I was just silly and able to laugh a lot. But also, through a very important life long mentor and friend of mine God spoke some sweet and peace filling words to me. So the following may be the peak of some frazzled emotions. You've been warned. Disclaimer over. Hopeful, Scared, Nervous, Worried, Relaxed, Annoyed, Exhausted, Excited, Frustrated, Encouraged, Angry, Happy, Peaceful, Freaking Out, Stuck, Exhilarated, Alive, Loved, Confused. I hugged my sister Hannah good bye tonight. I will see her again in a week. But I cried anyway. She's the nicest person I know. I never don't enjoy being with her. She's refreshing. She doesn't say mean things. Not even in a sarcastic or joking way. (Which most people do. I'm not saying it's bad, I even do it, maybe it is bad... anyways sometimes it gets to you. That's why she's like a breath of fresh air. She doesn't ever intentionally try to make you feel inadequate.) I'm going to California to visit Mary dearest. I leave Monday. I'm pretty excited! I like to travel. It makes me feel excited, invigorated, nervous and free. Everyone has an idea of what you should do. It makes for some complicated emotions. It's hard to figure out what you want to do. Much less what 20 other people want you to do. I once heard some one say "I'm so thankful that I'm not in my 20's anymore, they sucked!" My first thought "Well geez thanks for the encouragement!" My second thought. "Hey at least someone understands. Maybe this is even normal if other people have felt this way." I watched a video of a beautiful girl with a beautiful story of God's grace. She had a huge smile. She was vibrant with life. She has a blog. She lives in a different country. She works with a missions group. And she writes posts with quotes from Narnia. I have a favorite. It goes like this. Lucy- "Is He safe?" Mr. Beaver. "Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course He isn't safe. But He is good." I call this part of my life "The time of drifting.(Drifting here and there and wherever life takes me.)" I actually just think all that in my head. I don't actually say it out loud.I am currently reading a book called "Through Painted Deserts" By Donald Miller. I'm not even half way through this book but I am really loving it. The following are a few parts that stirred me. This first part was just a piece of the introduction. I think if the introduction moves you enough that you blog it then probably it's a good book. "And so my prayer is that your story will involve some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves,about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements. The setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it? It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out. I want to repeat one word for you. Leave. Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed." "Every body has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons." I thought this part was amusing. "It's interesting how you sometimes have to leave home before you can ask difficult questions, how the questions never come up in the room you grew up in, in the town in which you were born. It's funny how you can't ask difficult questions in a familiar place,how you have to stand back a few feet and see things in a new way before you realize nothing that is happening to you is normal. The trouble with you and me is we are used to what is happening to us. We grew into our lives like a kernel beneath the earth, never able to process the enigma of our composition. Think about this for a moment: if you weren't a baby and you came to earth as a human with a fully developed brain and had the full weight of molecular experience occur to you at once, you would hardly have the capacity to respond in any cognitive way to your experience. But because we were born as babies and had to be taught to speak and to pee in a toilet, we think all of this is normal. It is all rather odd isn't it, our eyes in our heads, our hands with five fingers, the capacity to understand beauty, to feel love, to feel pain." I'm a small town girl. Born and raised and lived for 20 years. Right here. I've done some good state traveling though. 26 of 50 down! Looking forward to hitting the next 24. Looking forward to finding incredible places, finding new things. Learning how to react and understand life out side my comfort zone. Learning how to interact with lots of new people, situations, ideas. The same friend as mentioned at the beginning of this post. Explained to me how men are like waffles and woman are like noodles. Men compartmentalize things in their minds and think about something and just that something. Woman are like noodles in that their thoughts all interconnect and twist and turn and almost give you a headache. I can think of probably 52 thoughts ideas, conversations, things I have to do, what someone said, why they said it, what were they feeling and what I was wearing all within about 2 minutes. I feel that this blog post was quite a noodling experience for you. I hope you don't have a head ache. In closing I will leave you with this quote. "It's all fun and games till your jeans don't fit anymore."