Bullet Ballad

There's a song my roommate plays on her iHome almost every evening while she reads her history book. It goes something like this 'I wanna see your bare feet on my dash, the night wind blowing your hair back, slide across that seat and sit real close, baby, let's go.'

It's one of those songs that makes you want to shoot yourself in the face and simultaneously run down a sunset beach in your bare feet with your white dress flowing out around you while the love of your life runs to meet you. It's a pretty apt song for my roommate to play. She seems to make me want to simultaneously shoot myself in the face and hug her because she's just so. so. Well, really the only way to describe her is to picture a big, fat, loud, motherly Italian cook with her arms open wide and flour dusted across her beaming face. But then take away the big, the fat, the motherly Italian cook part and you've got. My roommate. And who doesn't love a big, fat, loud, motherly Italian cook with her arms open wide and a smile for everyone?

College of the Ozarks is probably a lot like heaven will be like when we finally arrive. After all the searching, after all the waiting, after all the hoping... *now* I understand. It's just so stinkin' simple, once you're there. But looking at it from a distance, it sure is deceiving.

My third dorm room, my third roommate, my third 'first day' feelings. But the difference is that when I stepped onto CIU's campus, I felt like I wanted to puke from the sheer magnitude of what I was getting into. When I stepped onto Berea's campus, I felt like I had just been thrown into a vat of pure evil and told to swim. When I stepped on CofO's campus. I felt nothing. Because you don't feel a sense of revulsion or a tingle of thrill when you come home after a long journey. You simply sink onto the couch and let the absence of new and exciting feelings remind you that you're okay.

I haven't made a bunch of friends and found all the hot spots on campus to hang out. I haven't beasted all my exams and turned in all A papers. I've only been to the cafeteria three times in the past two weeks, and I can hardly make it down the hill after work every day. And when I do finally get off work, somehow find myself at the bottom of that hill and miraculously make it through my dorm room door, my roommate, talking a mile a minute, is always there to greet me.

And every time I'm tempted to curl up in a ball and sink through the minuscule amount of floor space we have, I remember what it feels like, talking to my Public Speaking professor with another MK, long after everyone has scuffled out of the room and into the cold, night air. I remember the look on my work supervisor's face as he introduced me to the man who asked me to speak at his staff meeting. I think about the phone in my back pocket, that buzzes every single day to remind me exactly how much I'm loved by the King and Savior of this huge, massive, glorious universe. And somehow, I feel a little bit better as I heave myself up onto my top bunk and curl up under the covers, allowing myself to be lulled to sleep by the sound of my roommate's music, whispering about bare feet on a dashboard.

When it comes down to it, you can either give in to the urge to shoot yourself in the face. Or you can run down the sunset beach and into the arms of a God who loves you more than your tiny, human, squiggly-grey-lined brain can comprehend. What'll it be, children? Will you be the bullet or take the bullet?

Fragmented Fiction

Well. I did it. Again.

Isn't there supposed to be some sort of epic feeling that wells up inside of me and blacks out all of these other not-so-hot emotions?

I guess the tricky thing about NaNo is that it's supposed to push you to lengths you never thought you'd be able to reach. I think, my dears, it's time for me to move on to something a little less psychotic, and a little more challenging. Like selling Tupperware. Or learning a foreign language.

Or maybe the little place inside of me where sane emotions are kept has been sealed off for a little while because someone very... very near to my heart has forgotten who I am. Do you know the feeling? When you're walking along one day and you think everything's going okay. And then you blink, and it's all over.

The girl at the desk who signed my College Clearance Form had an engagement ring on her finger. It was beautiful. It made me feel like weeping, it was so beautiful. Is this what happens to us? We live our lives, almost floating through each day, and the years pass so silently we almost forget they're gone. And then we wake up, or we're dropped on our heads, and we realize everything we've missed.

I don't mean to sound like a suicidal 15 year old. It's just shocking, to wake up one morning and realize that where you stand in life is not the place you thought you would when you looked into your future as that depressed 15 year old. You saw grandeur and laughter and friends that had your back. College and maybe a cute guy who's obsessed with your eyes. Life.

But that's not really what it comes down to, is it? When you really get down to reality, when you stare in the mirror at the person you are, you realize tomorrow never really came. You're still stuck in today, waiting for whatever dreams you have to materialize before you. I guess that's what I learned this month, writing NaNo each day, reaching that 1667 words every night before I went to bed even if it killed me. I suppose it comes when you stop fixing your hair in the mirror and start looking at the person staring back at you. It changes things.

Funerals and weddings and doctor's appointments and immigration offices. Life is so beautiful and so gloriously hard. Did you notice that when you woke up this morning? Or were you too busy analyzing the bags under your weary eyes?

Wake up and notice that it's raining outside. Longfellow had it right, I think. But that doesn't mean you stop waiting for the sun to come out. Go play in a rain puddle, my loves. Go sledding in the snow. Walk through a mud field. Run while you can.

Run through life, people. Run until your heart breaks.

Oh, October.

Have you ever woken up one morning and realized, suddenly, that your life is slipping away from you and what's lost is lost forever?

It's October 1st. October is that random month stuck in between the important ones like September and November. No one ever remembers it until it's upon them, and even then, it goes by so quickly it's hard to remember while it's here. Sometimes in October I get that funny feeling that life isn't what it seems, and somehow or another if I just paid a bit more attention, if I hung on just a little bit harder, October would tell me something about life and reality that I'd never quite grasped before.

But then it's gone and out of my head and I'm left feeling like I forgot something that can never be remembered. Oh, October. The dragon sleeping softly below the mountain peeks as the snow clouds gather and plot. One could go a lifetime never know, never understanding what it means to be in wait. To hunker down in the cold, cold stone and wait while the whole earth continues on without you.

But October understands. I woke the dragon and now there's no going back.

Berea Blues

I couldn't help it. I had to. I went back and I read my post about my first day of college last year. And you know what? It helped. It helped the butterflies fluttering in my belly. It helped the pain throbbing in my temples. It helped the darkness seem a little less black. And pushed the threatening tears just a little further back. And it might even have helped with the aching that seems to have become a permanent part of my heart.

Sometimes when I write, it hurts. The pain just gushes out and splatters itself in perfect little blobs all over a page somewhere. Other times, it numbs my feelings. Still others, it helps me come to grips with what exactly is happening. And what *is* happening is really quite simple.

God is taking an awkward, lumpy rock and turning it into a beautiful, shimmering jewel.

I don't mean that in a bragging sort of way. I just mean it in the 'wow, God really is a big, awesome God.' way. Because that's what He's doing. Every day. Every time I want to cry and scream and yell at the world for not letting things go my way. Every time I say goodbye, every time I give something up. Every time I smile at someone I don't want to talk to in the least bit. Every time I hang up the phone, knowing that words can't express my feelings. Every time I remember something I wish I could forget... It's just God, shaving down another corner of this jagged lump of grimy stone.

And I hope that at the end of this semester, or at the end of the next four years, whatever happens, wherever I end up... I hope that I can read through my words and know that, even though I make mistakes, even though I do spend way too much time feeling sorry for myself, even though I do wish with everything inside of me that I was with my family and loved ones... I haven't missed the purple cow.

Maybe I should put up a sign on my wall. A big, white poster with a purple cow right.smack.inthemiddle. Don't miss the purple cow, honey. It'll save your life.

It'll save all of us, if we let it. Who would have thought another useless fact out of my little brother's mouth would stick with me like this. What purple cow, Micah. What in heaven's name are you talking about.

The purple cow, Boo. Everyone notices a purple cow.

A purple cow is taking the same-old-same-old and making it new. It's taking a Bible verse we've all heard a million times and actually listening just this once. It's taking phrases like 'oh my god' and turning them into prayers of grief, love, awe. It's walking ALL THE WAY ACROSS CAMPUS to get to a lounge that may or may not have transfer students in it. And remembering with ever crunch of your little bare feet on the pavement that you, yeah, you. You are loved by a great, big, crazy God.

Don't miss the purple cow, honey. It's sitting right there in front of you. Calling, begging, pleading. Just come home, my child. Just sit still. Just listen to my voice.

Just rest in my big, purple cow arms.

Broadway Bound

You know that feeling you get on a long drive, when your eyes just won't stay open another minute, and as you keep telling yourself you're not tired enough to sleep, all of a sudden your mind is so full of thoughts you didn't think yourself capable of creating and then it's too late because you know you're asleep and nothing could change that.

Until something does, and you realize very abruptly that you *were* tired enough to sleep and you *did* want to. And then you arrive at your destination and you're expected to somehow entertain people with stories of afar before you're given any sustenance or even so much as a bathroom break. And then when 11 pm or midnight finally does come along, and just about everyone in their right mind (and out, obviously, because you're including the people around you) has decided it'd be okay for you to be allowed to see your place of rest for the night... you realize you're more awake now than you've ever been in your life and you couldn't *possibly* be expected to just go to sleep after a day like that.

This is why I love my life so very, very much. It's days like today that remind me exactly why I adore traveling, visiting, moving, sightseeing, trailblazing, and babysitting all in one breath so much. It's like a breeze down your back after you've been slaving over the weeds for the past two hours. Like the smell of fresh bread being baked in an oven, knowing that you'll be putting those smells into your mouth ever so soon to be turned into delectable textures that ooze down your throat with some homemade strawberry jam.

God took me through a year of Bible school. I graduated with a shocking GPA (nevermind what kind of shocking we mean here) and am currently enrolled at a wonderful(ly free) college in Kentucky for the fall. I'm so pleased to be able to look back on the past year and know that it was 0.00% me and every inch of the 100% God that has brought me to the green couch I am currently lounging on with three fans pointed directly at me.

In two weeks I'll once again be on a bus headed into Mexico, a direction both familiar and yet so radically different than I ever expected. I'm going home for the summer, packing my bags and heading back to where it all began. The combined sense of relief, awe, and ecstasy I feel is unexplainable. Let us just say that God is a *very* big God.

I did what the doctors said I could never do.

I spent an entire year somewhere without moving.

I have a permanent address.

I found an old friend and made a new one.

I am certified to be a missionary with any mission board across the world.

I am going to college.

I am going back to Mexico for a few months to be with my family.

My life is not and has never been my own. Some days I am more okay with this fact than others. Today is one of those days where everything just feels a lot better when I realize that it never was my decision to make, my responsibility to fix, my problem to undo. It's just me - another set of features in a sea of faces. This one just happens to be smiling a lot more lately than some.

My hope is that someday, somewhere, someone will look at my life and see what continues to take me so long to notice. That God chose me, formed me, loved me, saved me, and guided me every step of the way, from the nanosecond I was conceived to the very last breath I breathe. That for some reason, His reason, He picked me for all of this. And then He held my hand while He lead me through each and every obstacle.

And maybe somewhere in there, someone will notice that He can do it for them, too. 2 Corinthians 4.

Bellybutton Blessings

I had two thoughts gently floating around my doped up head when they finally admitted me into surgery. The first, obviously, was that I could not even begin to conceive of what had lead me to this point in time. The second, even more obviously, was to wonder what an appendix looked like and what, in heaven's name, it ever did for me, anyway.

I never thought I would be that person. You know? Like in those movies where at the end, everything goes into slow motion as the car pulls up and a girl in a white dress comes running toward the door that's slowly beginning to open. And then the stutter, as the camera shows three different shots of three different people. The doors opening, the footsteps coming closer, and then the one foot coming out and stepping down on the blacktop. And somehow, in all the chaos, everything comes together and in a single moment the whole awful procedure, an entire movie's worth of emotions, comes to a peak as the music gets louder and the credits start to roll.

What they don't show in those movies is that after girls in white flowy dresses come to meet you, they help you into bed and sit around making you clutch your stomach in pain as you laugh hysterically at all the things you felt like crying about in the hospital the night before. What they don't show is that it's more than just a welling up of emotions as people show they care. It's the actual fact that so many people *do* care, and they're right there, waiting to remind you.

If there's one thing I'll take away from this whole (painful) ordeal, aside from a deformed belly button and bragging rights, it's that blessings really do come through raindrops, and sometimes those raindrops - lightning, thunder, hurricane - are just God reminding me of what I seem to keep forgetting. He didn't place me on this earth to see how many things He could take away from me and still get a smile out of it. I'm here to have a smile for everything, even when He takes some of those away.

And sometimes, like now, the things He takes away are pinky-long, inflamed, infected, and rotten appendixes that I don't really need anymore, anyway. And now my slightly-less-drugged thoughts linger on the nurses and doctors I've come into contact with over the past 30-something hours. And how almost every single one of them had something to say about my smile and my attitude through this whole ordeal. That's the kind of God I serve. The kind who changes a person so entirely that they can smile while they're waking up just out of surgery. The kind who transforms a life so completely that they can gently laugh along with the doctors while waiting patiently to be released from the tubes and straps holding them down.

I serve the kind of God who reminds me of the pain He dealt with a couple thousand years ago when a doubter just like my surgeon stuck a spear into His belly. Reminding me that this life is not what it's all about. But tomorrow? Tomorrow really is what it's all about. Because love is way too much to give us any less.

Happy Easter, everyone.

Run Recklessly

There's something euphoric about finally completing a project. It's like watching the clouds clear up after a rain shower, or listening to a baby giggle. The snip, snip, snip of your last stitch and final knot. It's glorious.

Especially when you become aware of how many better, more exciting projects you can start now that you're done with the last one. It does something to the mind, this new found sense of freedom. Sometimes it even tricks us into thinking we want to start the last one all over again from the beginning.

This is a feeling I have begun to apply to my schoolwork. We start a section in a class, we learn all there is to learn (or so they say), we study, we take a test, we (hopefully) pass. Then we groan and complain as we once again delve into the next section of teaching. Sometimes it feels like my brain can't fit one more fact or list before it'll explode into pitiful little bits of brain mush. It's like saying your 180 gig iPod is full. Yeah right.

There are a few people in this world that assume my need to do something with my hands during lectures is simply a sophisticated way of zoning out without actually taking a nap in class. I listen better when I'm concentrating on something tangible. There's got to be some kind of statistic out there that proves that they are wrong and I am right.

Either way, sewing in class is my new hobby. My grades keep me accountable, so slacking off isn't an issue. But I've gotten a lot done over the past few weeks during class. A bunch of blocks, a bag, a throw blanket, part of a t-shirt quilt. I finished the t-shirt quilt over break, made a pillow case, and started my next quilt - a real one. I was told by a trustworthy source that people who make things with their hands have a lower susceptibility to depression than those who don't. Which is cool.

But I think mostly why I enjoy making things is because I'm the one doing it. It's the work and time I put into it that causes the little squares to grow and create a bigger picture - a piece of physical evidence that not only I can see. Maybe it's because my life is so *not* in my hands that I relish the opportunity to have something that is.

Life has always been likened to a clock. Ticking away; always forward, never going back. The pendulum swinging back and forth, back and forth. Never stopping, never slowing down no matter what we do to convince ourselves otherwise. But my life is like a clock because I get hypnotized by the monotonous swaying of the little golden bulb - everything shifting from one side of existence to the other without so much as a by-your-leave. Maybe I'm watching it come toward the middle, sliding back out of whatever extreme I found myself in over break. Maybe I should be readying myself for the other side of existence.

Maybe, in the end, it doesn't really matter how fast or how slow the clock is ticking, the pendulum swinging. Because when you get right down to it, it's the memories of yesterday and the hopes for tomorrow that are going to hold you up when right now is falling apart. And that might be why God gave us our past, even the muddy puddles we found ourselves in, as well as the future, with whatever soggy messes we'll discover. Because He knows how it's going to end - and He's okay with it. And if God's okay with all of this, I can be too.

Muddy puddles, soggy messes, and all my twisted, foggy plans for the future. If God's not worried about whatever roller coaster I just got myself into, why should I be? College or no college. Health or no health. Friends or no friends. As long as that clock is still ticking, as long as there's still air to breathe, I plan on doing just that.

Enjoy your life, my dears. The wonder, excitement, and adventure placed before you isn't nearly as daunting as the trauma you make for yourselves every day as you fight it. Let go, look up, and live a little.