Timing is Everything

I Like This..

Yum

I think my new favorite combination has to be powdered donuts and sweet tea. Not everything has to be profound, right? It's going to be a great day.
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12:54am -- It was a great day!

Peace

A really good friend of mine and I were talking the other day about how there are certain times in your life where you wake up in the morning with an uncomfortable weight on your chest. There could be nothing really wrong with the day itself, yet somehow, there is. It's a weird and uncomfortable feeling for me. And it's hard to explain. The best way i can is simply to say that there must be something in my life that isn't/wasn't right.

I am excessively stubborn. So when I have this feeling, my first response to it is to shove it off. In my mind I say "I can deal with this later" or "I can figure out what this is later". No one wants to hurt. And there are many times when even though I know the right thing to do, I can't do it. Because "not hurting" sounds better than any alternative, especially when a decent alternative seems unimaginable.

After that, I start arguing with God. These arguments go something like this:

[" Kate, You know that I know what's best for you, and if you'd just trust me, I'd blow your expectations out of the water. Just trust me. You've done it before. You know how it works"
" Well, Lord, you are great. And I love you. But this hurts, and I'm a thinker...so you know I've sat around and thought up any other kind of alternative that could make me happier than this...and I can't...so it'll be ok for me to stay where I am. at least for just a little while longer, ok? I promise. i'll be ok."]

So after about 578 of those ^, I break down. To make a long drawn out, monotonous story shorter, I do the right thing. And eventually, after feeling like I'd rather die than live most days, I start to heal.

And that leads to today. For lack of a better explanation, I'll just say I have an overwhelming amount of peace inside me. I have hope and i know that I am going to be ok. It's sad to say that this isn't the first time I've finally given in and trusted that God knows what's best for me more than I do. It's not even the twentieth time. I can't stop thinking about how wonderful it is to have a God that sticks with me and my stubbornness, right down to the 578th try...and then some...and then some more.

Doggy Treats

For some reason I can't seem to find a way around describing my life metaphorically. That being said, this is today..

Have you ever seen someone who has one of those dogs that does that "treat on the nose" trick? The owner will tell the dog to lay down and then he will slowly set a dog treat on the dog's nose. Then, he'll proceed to make the animal lay there for at least one excruciating minute until finally he will say, "ok" and the dog will flip the treat up, and eat it.

That is the best way I can explain how i feel now. I have no idea what direction my life is going in. I do, however, have enough (just enough) faith to know God has placed some sort of treat right on my nose. And I am just laying here, waiting. It's not comfortable at all being in the in-between. All around me I feel like everyone has so much more than I figured out, and that I'm behind. It isn't easy, and I hate it more often than not. But I know each day I am uncomfortable in this way, I am being built into someone completely different, and much better. I've never in my life taken so much time to continually dive into love with Him like I am now, and I hate that it's taken so long to get to this. Over and over again He has proven me wrong in thinking I need certain things to feel as if I'm moving forward. So for today and for who knows how long after, I'm going to make my best attempt at being "still".

For Musical inspiration (because I am obsessed with musical literature)
(click this) "Maybe What You Need is a Different Kind of Love"

I also recommend this blog: Pete Wilson (Pastor at Crosspoint)
Specifically, for it relates to my own, January 17th

The Beach

I think what I love most about the beach is no matter who you are, it remains the same to everyone, for the most part. When I am here, it's wonderful because everyone around me is loving it too. Maybe it relaxes me so much because your whole life, you are told that that is what the beach is supposed to do for you. When I started this blog, I named/titled it what I did with the hopes of having it become something better than that (because it's always easier to exceed a low expectation, right?) What I've figured out lately is that it won't be, and more importantly, that I don't care. Speaking only for myself, I think that oftentimes we say little or nothing at all if we don't feel like it is relevant or interesting enough for someone else. At least that's how I felt (how silly am I?:P) I've thought about having a "thought of the day". Maybe that would be somewhat entertaining. Especially coming from a scatter brain like me. However, if that was how I had decided to do this, it would probably go something like this: Day 1: "Taco Bell is like the bad boy of men...you want him so bad, he's fun and enjoyable for a little while, and then he does REALLY bad things to you" Even writing that knowing I thought it sounded the least bit profound at one point in time is embarrassing. (I will consider this a baby attempt at vulnerability...go me [see previous post])

Because my mind has the tendency to shift on a minute-by-minute basis, I eventually redirected towards these thoughts that I couldn't put away. Too often we say things like "It could be better" instead of realizing how much worse our lives could be. I won't say what spurred this on, but I am thankful God gives me the wisdom to see it. This isn't the first time I've come to this conclusion, but each time I do, it embarrasses me a little more. My church has helped open my eyes more. I feel like this may be a bad thing, but sometimes I don't even like to credit the "church". At least not out loud or in a context such as this. A large number of people I know can hear/read that word and instantly their brain shuts off to anything that follows. That aside, it HAS helped, me.

Recently, Pete talked of how we've grown to only compare ourselves and other aspects of our lives with those in our so-called "brackets". In other words, our social class. We measure up our problems and justify our faults against our best friends' and our significant others'. I'm only reiterating any of this because it's immensely true of me. So many times I forget that there is a whole world out there. There are families who's greatest concern is whether or not they will get to eat that day. And here I am SERIOUSLY worrying about how I will afford a bigger apartment. So that I can fill it full of more stuff. The truth about my life right now is that I am rich. I do not need for a single thing and yet still, I am being blessed with more.

I have my own version of what my kind of Heaven will be like for me, but at the same time I can't help but assume that I am already living someone else's picture of it. I wish there was a way to maintain that sort of perspective. It makes me sick that I lose sight of it more often than not. I think it is definitely something I can pray for, though. Those are the kinds of prayers that seem to be answered the quickest for me. Anything that concerns self-improving for that matter. I feel like the answers to those prayers are probably the closest God will ever come to responding with a, "Well my dearest Kate....Hell Yes".

Do You Believe In Magic?

I have put off posting something in here because I was waiting for some profound topic that people might be interested in reading to come along and........... it's been about a month, maybe two, now. Now I've figured, I really only wanted to start a blog to record some of my random thoughts (and there are lots). Maybe, someday, I could then come back to them and laugh or something like that. I guess I could just keep a journal, or a diary of some sort. The truth is though, it makes my hand hurt and heck, maybe if I put stuff on here then people will give me attention. "Hoo-rah".

For now, I will just start with today. It was almost 70 degrees today. Call me crazy but the weather greatly affects my mood, and today, I was perfect. I got up 20 minutes before I had to leave for work (instead of my normal 15), I let 3 (above average) cars merge in front of me on the way in, and when I got there, I loved everyone. Up until lunch I listened to how the protagonist in my audio book was not only rescued, but also "un- brainwashed" from the cult she was conned into joining. After that, I got to enjoy our gorgeous weather outside with an amazing KFC pot pie, and a favorite friend. After lunch, I started on yet another audio book. This one is about a realistic imaginary friend that the character falls in love with (or will soon, I hope).

All of my happiness combined with being submerged in seemingly realistic non-fiction got me to thinking. Surprise Surprise. This time around, it was about why it is that we do get so wrapped up in all of that "mushy stuff". I have to admit that I mock it to annoying extremes sometimes, but that is mostly just a front. The truth is, I am probably the worst. I average watching "You've Got Mail" about 3 times a week. No joke. I've never really understood the term "hopeless romantic". Should it not be "hopeful romantic?" This is why I think that big Mr. Fox books and Kathleen Kelly click: It's all about honestly and rawness. Seriously, how many times do we have conversations with our seemingly significant other that goes something like, "Hey, how was your day? • Good, yours? • Good. What are you doing? • Nothing. What are you doing? • watching tv • oh • yep • I'm tired • Me too • What are you doing? • Nothing • I think I'm gonna go take a shower now"---. I think what I really like about the movie is Fox's persistence. Well, I say that. But if there was a guy that really showed up at my front door after I had repeatedly asked him to go away, let himself in, and started making tea in my kitchen, would I really like it? Maybe I would. I would like to think that I would. Back to the matter, RAWNESS. I definitely believe rawness is key. I'm not a big fan of small talk. It seems that rawness is what the movies have that reality lacks. No man is really going to go up to a girl he has never met and say, "You're beautiful, and I like your laugh, let's go get some Starbucks baby". No one will cancel their wedding because they have a slight gut feeling that the person they met two years earlier is their "soul mate". Things don't just happen like that. We are not that raw, and we certainly don't make ourselves that vulnerable. Because we are insecure and sure that if we did, we would be chewed up and spit out, probably. At least that's how I function, or more properly put, don't function.

After all of this nonsense thinking, I ultimately concluded that "rawness" is something I would like to strive for. I want to come out of every five minute conversation I have knowing more than what the other person thought of the weather that day. I want to give everything that has the slightest bit of potential a chance, and I want to be daring enough to take risks. I would like to figure out a way to love a part of everyone I spend time with, and bare my vulnerability so that when someone does decide to love a part of me, it will be disgustingly real and maybe even "movie-esque". As many times as we are relayed the message of "Life is Short" (I'm so tired of hearing that), it is kinda impossible to get around it. A decent comparison would be to say that our life is like a day. Our world is like Disney World. And we spend so much of that one single day sitting on the couch in our hotel room thinking about how we could never possibly do everything in 24 hours.