Day 7: The Desire of My Heart

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” -- Psalm 37:4

It’s amazing how quickly things I once thought were guarantees in my life can be shaken. I wouldn’t consider myself to be an ungrateful person. I believe God has given me a lot, so I do my best to serve Him with what He has given me. But it’s funny how I’ve come to rely on the things He has given me and have, in many ways, come to expect them – health, financial stability, friends and family, safety – when really, none of those things are guaranteed.

Lately God has been reminding me that He never promised to give me any of those things. He never promised to give me a job or a place to live or even food and clothing. He never promised health. He never promised stability. He never promised friendship. He never promised family. As I write those things, the entitled American in me is throwing a toddler-style temper tantrum. I mean, God loves me, right? He promised to take care of me and give me the desires of my heart, right? Yes. He did. He promised to give me the best thing imaginable – Himself.

When I delight myself in the Lord, He becomes the desire of my heart, and that’s one thing He will never deny me. When serving Him becomes the most important thing in my life, everything else becomes circumstantial. Do I need financial stability to serve Him? No. Do I need health to serve Him? No. Do I need to be in a specific place doing a specific thing? No. I only need to be willing to serve Him wherever I am, and follow Him wherever He leads me. Everything else is secondary.

Face Value

Passing lights streak through my vision, but they blur through a kaleidoscope of thoughts. I hear you ask what’s on my mind, but a smile, an elusive shrug, is all the explanation I offer. It’s best we just enjoy the car ride, carry on in conversational tones, and fill in the blanks to “How was your day?” with a funny story, the latest drama, and a rerun of the same old, tired exchanges.

It’s best you glance me over, sum me up, and give me a blanket rating — a Face Value that lands somewhere between one and ten. Because, you’d never admit it, but all you really want is a leggy chick with a pretty face. It’s best you go on believing that you’ve wandered the open highways of my mind, that I’m sweet like peaches in summertime — a simple, southern sweetheart with an accommodating smile and a voice that trails on like an afterthought, a girl you can take home to your mama. You think you want to see my naked mind, to strip back all the complicated layers. But it’s best you never realize you can’t handle the unspoken conversations that linger in the fringes of the girl I secretly love to be.

It’s best you believe I’ve got my daddy’s views on politics, and my mama’s views on religion. When you give voice to your black-and-white thoughts, it’s best you believe I worship every golden pearl that falls from your God-fearing lips. And although contradiction hovers in the corners of my mind, watching intently through the holes in your argument, it’s best I channel my views into a leatherbound book locked securely in a wooden box beneath my bed. It’s not worth the darkening glare, the biting reply. Or worse, the condescending smirk that says: “It’s cute that you believe that.”

As we navigate through crooked streets, I’ll watch the passing scenery and let you interpret my silence through your own clouded expression. And when you drop me off at my front door, it’s best you kiss me goodnight and leave me to wander through my kaleidoscope of thoughts. 

In My Dreams.

In dark of night,

Beneath cotton sheets,

I find my memories of you

Complete.

No shadows hide

Your face from me,

And in you, I find

A sweet reprieve.

But when I wake,

The tears that grace,

In lines they wash,

A child’s face.

I hide beneath

My cotton sheets,

But no comfort do I find

From these.

I plead for sleep

To meet me here,

To meet you in the night

Somewhere.

To touch the face

That in my dreams,

Is comforting, still
To see.

Day 5

My veins are thick and waterlogged in the wake of your storm, and I’ve been wringing your good intentions from the folds of my soggy hands since the night you kissed me on my doorstep and I watched your boots stamp heavy footprints on the rain-soaked sidewalk. Even your tortured reflection that danced — twisting and writhing — in the mirror at your feet, wished it had never met you.

Day 4: My City Is An Island

Sometimes I feel like I’m stranded on a concrete island in a sea of grass. To the East, a full tank of gas will get me to Oklahoma City. To the West, it will get me to Santa Fe. On days like today, my car becomes a vessel of freedom, and my heart becomes a compass, pointing me onward.

It’s not that I’m unhappy here. I have no reason to be unhappy, but for some reason, my happiness feels shallow, like craving a lungful of air but getting a dozen quick, short breaths instead. I need more.

“You’re a battleship in a fishing village,” a man told me once, and I cried because I wanted to believe him so badly. “You reek of fish,” he said.

Lately I've been feeling something I can only describe as homesickness. I want to go home, but I don’t know where home is. I've been praying for God to send me to the place where I can throw down my anchor. He hasn't told me where that is yet, but I have a feeling it's just over the horizon. 

Day 3: Peacemaker

Lately I've been learning to fight my own battles. As a peacemaker by nature, it's not an easy lesson.

I'm an aunt! ...Again :)

My new niece, Hadleigh Kate, entered the world at 3:51 this morning! Does that mean she'll be a morning person? Everyone else gets to be there, except me (boo!), so I've been bombarding my family texts, trying to find out more info and pictures. All I've gotten so far is that she's 5 lbs. 10 oz. and healthy, everything went well, and my fam is hanging out with her now. Lucky!

After a little pestering, my daddy sent me these pictures...

Isn't she precious!? Look at her sweet little cheeks! Can't want to see her in a couple of weeks!

I'll give updates as they come. In the mean time, I'll be at work... working... while everyone else is at the hospital playing with babies. Not jealous at all.

1001 colors in Santa Fe

Someone told me Santa Fe is a place for black and white photography, and it's true there are textures and patterns everywhere you look in the beautiful southwestern city. But after spending the weekend peering through a viewfinder in Santa Fe, I have to disagree. If the culture in Santa Fe is its source of life, then the art in Santa Fe is the flush in its cheeks. Santa Fe does more than exist. It's a place where beauty thrives. I feel it would do a disservice to the city, and the people who give it life, to bleed it of its vibrancy.

  

 

 

...to be continued.

Remember

Remember that night on the docks?
When time held its breath,
And the water's glassy stare
Reflected the blood red sky.
Remember when I took you there
With a tiny weapon in my pocket?
And I watched you choke
On your own mistakes.
Remember you cried?
And you said the tears were for me,
But the only truth in your tears
Was the water,
And the salt.
There was no real remorse
Falling from the brooding dark
Of your eyes.
Remember you threw your letter
Down at my feet?
A letter to tempt me,
But it was only words --
Words that spilled like ridges in the sand,
Footprints left by troubled waters.
Remember I told you,
I would not be bound to you,
By the weight of a single chain around my finger.
Remember when words
Were your heaviest weapon?
But your words were only paper and ink,
That night on the docks.

boxing up yellow memories

I sit on my bedroom floor, staring at the boxes and the chaos that will soon be packed neatly into them. I wish I could compartmentalize myself like that. This is the happy memories box, and this is my cry box, this is the scary-angry-things-go-here box – it may seem small, but don’t be deceived. But no, I’d say my heart looks more like the chaos that’s strewn about my room, hanging from my bed, piled in the corners. When I came off to school, I think I was searching for stability – something solid I could depend on. But stability just wasn’t in the cards for me. Today the same boxes are out, waiting to be filled with all my most precious belongings, and in a few years they’ll most likely be sitting in a similar state on the floor of my new “home.” A part of me likes it this way – the restless part of me that craves adventure. But another part of me is exhausted, and just wants rest. We never want what we have, do we? At least I know I don’t. Maybe that’s because I don’t really know what I want. Or maybe I do, but I don’t know where to find it – so I keep searching.

I think I’ll miss this room the most. The people who came and went from this room – they felt the most like home to me. I certainly never missed Chitwood. And Knapp, even though it was comfortable, it always felt temporary. But this room, I put too much of myself into this room not to miss it. The amateur artwork and photography on the walls – it all goes into the boxes. Ready to go. But to where?

I told God: I’ll go where He wants me to go, and I’ll do what He wants me to do. But how do I know what that is? Everybody has a different answer, a different way of “hearing” God’s voice. Some people say, just take a step of faith and trust that God will make it happen. Some say, go wherever the open door is. Some say, don’t trust your feelings; go where God leads you. But where is God leading me?

This room, it reminds me of yellow. The memories I have here – they all seem to be cast in a honey-colored hue. Wherever I go next, wherever God takes me, I hope it feels yellow, too.