The side of the world I'm looking at

For some time I'd been talking about my restless feet being itchy, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm standing on the threshold of a new adventure.

I've been looking at the world from a new corner these days. I've moved back to Dallas, my hometown. I've been here for about a month and have gotten pretty solidly initiated into my new job. After a few near-sleepless nights, I made my first round of deadlines. I dyed my hair purple, and no one at work said anything about it, so it seems I got away with that one ;) In fact, my boss says I seem to be getting along OK, which to me says I won't be getting fired any time soon. 

I don't have internet at my place yet, so I've begun cycling through coffee shops, cafes, and just about anywhere else that's open until God-forsaken hours of the night. 

The strangest thing about this move is that I've only been here a month but I already feel more at home here than I ever did in Amarillo. I think it's because this is a place where I could put down roots if I wanted to. I probably won't know for a while if that will happen or not, but there's comfort in the fact that it could. I've also stepped into a great job I think I'm really going to love a lot. And there are definitely opportunities on the horizon, which is exciting. 

I've already fallen in love with Dallas, which is honestly completely unexpected. I don't consider myself a "Dallas girl." I'm not a brand-name-purse, white-picket-fence kind of girl. I expected to feel awkward and out of place in the fast and furious concrete jungle, but Dallas has managed to surprise me in that aspect. Maybe it's just because I've managed to settle in Lakewood, which is basically a small city trapped in the middle of growing Dallas. So there's a kinship there, I think. I feel at home with these people, in this anti-Dallas corner of Dallas. 

But I even love venturing outside of the East Dallas bubble. Aside from people being a little horn-happy, Dallas is still Texas. People still smile at you when you pass them on the sidewalk, and they still talk to you in the grocery store. It's not such a foreign place, and for that, I'm grateful. In truth, it's a lot of fun being young and single in Dallas. There's a vivaciousness here, an energy. I could drink it up forever. And who knows, maybe I will. 

A Hope You Can Hold

There are a lot of things I love about my job. I could talk about it for hours, so I'll spare you the gushy details and just get straight to the good part. I love my job because it allows me to constantly learn new things about the world I live in. I get paid to talk to people and write about them. I get paid to understand the human experience, to dig deeper into what we do and why we do it. Over the past several years, I've written a lot of stories about social issues. Words like: poverty, hunger, teen pregnancy, homelessness, prostitution, sex trafficking, and foster care seem to be a constant part of my vocabulary. In our world today, especially in our economy, those subjects would be difficult to avoid, but I don't really try. In fact, if anything, I seek them out. They're what fuel me to keep doing what I do, because I believe if I can understand them a little bit better, maybe I can tell people about them, and then they will understand them a little bit better too.

There's another word I keep running across: Hope. I hear it everywhere I turn. And I'm not talking about, "I hope things change," or, "I hope this makes a difference." I'm talking Hope with a capital H, the kind you can wrap your arms around, the kind of hope Jesus talks about in the Bible. Hope comes in many shapes in sizes. It's food for a homeless man, it's diapers for a desperate young mom, it's shoes for the feet of a small child, it's college scholarships for a foster kid. Sometimes it's little; sometimes it's big. Sometimes it's longterm; sometimes it's immediate. But it always makes an impact.

It's easy to look at the problems all around us and forget that there's is still capital-H Hope because there are still people in the world who desperately and passionately cling to it. What's funny is it's always the people who are at rock bottom, tirelessly shoving up the muck of society, who use the word "Hope" the most. Because they believe in it. They believe in the people struggling to stand beside them. They believe in each baby step that person takes towards firmer ground. And you better believe, the Hope that they breathe into each struggling heart, is the lifeblood that keeps them going. They're not giving people cans of food, they're not giving people infant formula or old clothes. They're giving people the kind of Hope you can hold in your hands.

I love that. I love living in a world where people still believe that each and every thing they do, regardless of how big or small it is on the world-scale, breathes Hope into someone's life. They might not have all the money in the world, or all the power, but their beautiful hearts make them rich in my eyes. So thank you to every person who has ever given Hope to someone else. May God bless you and keep you :) You're my hero.

A Moment of Distrust

I'm going home next weekend, which makes me absolutely ecstatic for a number of reasons. First of all, I get to finally meet the newest addition to my family. Second, I get to see a good friend of mine who I miss so, so much. And third, I just get to be home. I get to be with the people who love me the most for four whole days. Just the thought makes me cry.  

I think I've mentioned that I've been really, really homesick lately. In all honesty, I don't know if I'm homesick or just being a baby. Probably both.

It just dawned on me recently that I can never really go back. I can go home for a long weekend, or I can even move back to my hometown if I want to, but that's as close to going back as I can get. I guess, for the first time, I realized I have to be an adult for the rest of my life. The simplicity of childhood is over, forever. And forever is a really long time.

I have a great life, too. I have a great job, doing what I love with people I enjoy. I live in a Christian Utopia where there are three churches on every corner. I have deep friendships with people all over the state. I have a family that is always there to love and support me. I have everything I could ever want or need.

...So why do I feel like something is missing? Something big. Something important.

I don't know what God is doing in my heart right now, but it feels like complete chaos. He's asking me to trust Him, and I keep saying, "Of course I trust You. You know I trust You," but for some reason that feels like a lie, and I don't know why. I trust Him. I do... Don't I?

I've given every part of my life to Him. If He told me to walk out of my office, get in the car and drive, I would do it. If He told me to stay, I would do it. I just wish He would tell me something. I'm at a point of total surrender, waiting for Him to tell me what He wants... and nothing. Just, "Trust me."

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.