A walk to work.

I walk out the front door, welcomed by a light, sprinkling rain. My aunt describes this as pouring rain, but I know it as it is. She has spent too many years away from Texas to remember the passionate thunderstorms that truly pour. I gently turn the skeleton key in the lock to avoid setting off the alarm I've just set. Finally, I start off down the lane, which is set with cobblestone bricks. Each flat on this block has ivy inching up to its roof, enshrouding it in the tiniest bit of mystery. In the front gardens lush roses bloom, along with a million other flora, adding natural beauty to a bustling city.

I weave my way to the canal, which is my favorite part of my daily walks to the office. It is the part that makes me feel alive. I wander down the path, taking in both the beauty and ugliness. I take in the manmade waterfalls that flow at the end of each canal block. I love them despite the fact that someone engineered them this way. It is God who made the water so clear and perfect in the way it can entrance you. One more block up, this is where the birds rest. I glance, fleetingly, at the beer bottles that pepper the ground--next to the benches, out on the edge, they are everywhere. But they are clustered enough to leave space for beauty to occur in the places they are absent. I watch as a family of  moorhens struts about on their huge feet, which are almost larger than the bodies of the tiny black chicks. When I get too close the momma hen emits a low growl and starts too move forward, so I laugh and move along.

I step up the path that will lead me out of my peaceful space and on towards the streets, and the masses of people who, like me, are headed off to work. I walk past rows of businesses that are housed in what looks like old flat buildings to me. In true Dublin fashion each door is a different color--above is a peacock-style window. I get to the bank, looking ahead at the concrete row in front where I often stop to rest. I am not used to this type of walking, and so I break to stretch out my calves. I am up again and on my way in less than a minute. Though others rest on here, I always feel a bit of pressure that says "keep moving".

I walk past the man who is forever loading flowers out of his truck, and I smile at the daisies because they seem to smile back at me. Pretty soon I am passing the bench in front of an old locked graveyard. I hold my breath until I pass, because a homeless man often sleeps on that bench, and the smell of urine, body odor and vomit that have taken up residence there make me nauseous.

I am now at the edge of Stephens Green. The park is just across the street from my office, and it is a sanctuary for me. I am sad that the rains have begun again, because there is something perfect about lying out on the grass next to the pond on my lunch break. I pass the fancy hotel, and I watch as the doormen in grey tophats welcome a band of businessmen. I peek in the windows and wonder what it would be like inside with the chandeliers and plump couches. Finally, I reach number 14.  I walk up and enter the code, and ask my legs to do me one more favor as I begin climbing the five flights that lead to the closet that is my office. I am glad we are rearranging soon, because then there will be only 4 flights to climb, I will share an office with other people, and my window will overlook the park.

I settle in, working the hours away until I can escape into Stephens Green again and have a few moments to myself.

So, I am now 3 weeks into Ireland.

Its is amazing and beautiful, and stressful and challenging.

I am not good a change, this I know. Yet I force myself to change all the time. Maybe I am masochistic. I feel like a complete idiot if I compalin about this blessing I have been given, to spend a whole summer abroad. It really has been wonderful, seeing new parts of the world and experiencing new things. But I have also felt like an idiot 50% of the time.

I bounce between feeling hopeful and feeling letdown. At Suas, where I am doing my internship, I feel...worse than invisible. I feel like I am not invisible enough, and so I am a bother instead. They do appreciate all the work I do, but I'm pretty sure they must think I am such a wierdo. I am having such a hard time...I don't even know how to say it. I just can't seem to open up with them. I can't tell if I don't trust them enough or if I'm intimidated or what, and it drives me mad! Why can't I just force myself to be myself? I keep being quiet 24/7, I just don't know what to say! All of them say "How you gettin on?" all the time to me, and I always say "Good." And I feel like I should have something more intelligent to say by the 90th time I'm asked that. Usually in my life I have found that even if I have a hard time being open, there will be this one person I connect with who serves as this ice breaker to help me feel comfortable, but I just haven't found that yet.

Pppthh. Add that to the fact that I have yet to meet one Christian person. From what I can tell eveyone thinks God is an old wives tale. Alot of them go to church on Christmas, but thats it. For them, belief in God is "quaint".

I dunno, I just would really love it if I didn't have to spend the whole summer like this. I'm so annoyed with myself right now. I wish I could just be  happy with what I've been given.

Currently Listening Industry - Beautiful Disaster see related

Ireland

I am leaving for Ireland in less than 3 weeks, and I have no idea what I am doing there.

I imagine myself sitting on this amazing, grassy cliff overlooking a wild blue ocean, and its a really exciting feeling. But I am really really scared. I make these decsions without thinking. I got it in my head that I wanted to go to Africa, and then a couple of months later there I was. And when Amy invited me to live in Ireland with her I never hesitated. I didn't pray about it or agonize over it. It is afterwards that I agonize. I felt at first that maybe I could bring my aunt to see Jesus the way I do by exampling Him this summer. But that is a really daunting task for me. She is exactly twice my age. She has been in more countries and seen more of life that I can dream of. And to her, Christianity is a joke.

But I am not good at being a Christian. I get angry at God sometimes, and I don't keep a regular quiet time. I am selfish and yucky and I can really have a temper. I wallow in sin somedays and ignore the quiet callings in my heart. Is this who God wants to share his word?

Beyond all of this, I also have no plans all summer. I was supposed to get an internship, but I haven't. I've sent resumes and gotten some bites, but have nothing to show for it. What does Jesus want me to do with my days there?I feel like He is asking me for faith, to go forth planless, and that scares me alot. I am afraid He will ask me to do big scary things.

I want to be the girl I am in my heart. A brave, exciting, adventurous girl who is full with the Love of the Lord. But I am messy and sometimes my fire is more like a dying ember. I am brave in planning and timid in the carrying out. I am adventurous as long as I can be so with out looking foolish. And all that kind of leaves me in this really boring box.

I just want to do something unpredictable . I want to feel like I am out on the edge, and I want to stand there smiling. I want to be the Jesus me.

The Light of Day

For forever in my memory, I have been floating in and out of intense compassion and pull towards Africa, towards those in suffering.

I know that this is not a real forever, in reality the span covers a little under two years.

But still---my weeks and months are strung together by moments of revelation and exposure to what is beyond my own life experience. I find my heart bound in anger, fear, humility, love, and pain, in ways that sear into my soul leaving tattoos of the experience to forever claim thier passing.

Sometimes I run hard enough to escape the thoughts that dare to light in the day, but when I fall asleep small children are in my dreams, small cries for help left unanswered.

I asked God this past week to show me who it is that he wants me to be. And suddenly the running I had been doing was no longer fast enough to keep the calling away. "You are a doer" is the answer that I have recieved from my Father.

For most of my life I have sat in quiet complacency. I complain of it, I detest it, yet I find comfort it its familiarity. But I can no longer live it out, I cannot create a false reality when my heart is so desperately aware of  the pain that I am allowing in my refusal to act.

I'm not saying that I am going to hop on a plane and begin an exotic adventure.

But I am going to put my whole heart into growing and reaching out--to breaking free--until God says "It is time."

"what is it that makes my best friends the kind of people that people are attracted to?

What do they have that I am missing?

I want to be the person, for once in my life, that people want to be friends with.

It doesn't have to be lots of people, or certain types of people, or anything. Just someone. I want someone to meet me and say "hey. I would really like to be her friend. she seems like a fun person to know." or whatever.

I am tired. I feel today the same way I always feel deep in there. The girl that is too much, too little, too late, too soon, too quiet, too loud, too serious or too silly. I can never find the middle ground.

I just want to be happy."

....this is why I need Jesus. To remind me that He chose those who are unimportant in the world's eyes. He chose the weary and the weak. I most definitly fit in all three of those catagories. I need to learn how to keep my eyes on Him. Maybe then I could see past, over, or through this need I have for acceptance. I know I am loved, so what is it that I am searching for that cannot be satisfied by my Father?