very tired indeed.

I haven't been writing much and I need to get back into the habit of it. I think I stopped because I have nothing to write about except for complaints, and well- even complainers get tired of complaining.

I have so been in the mood to travel lately. I think it's because I'm used to not being in St. Cloud at this time of year. As August rolls over into September I keep feeling like I need to go somewhere because I've very much liked leaving home after three months of summer. The fact remains, I want to road trip so bad. Maybe once I get a new tire I'll be able to go places and do things. I'm a little annoyed that my left rear tire finally blew yesterday, but I'm glad that it means I can get a new one- which means I can finally get out of St. Cloud- which means I really AM visiting Morris on the 15th :D I'm excited.

That's probably enough for now. I have to get up early tomorrow for work and I'm so tired already because I didn't sleep well last night. I need to take a great many pictures tomorrow- I am so behind and I HAVE to get caught up before September starts. Oh motivation, where have you evaporated to??

Goodnight, blogger world.

walk with Me

I don't know why it's a foreign thing- why it seems new to me to picture Jesus looking at me and saying "walk with Me..." I think I have lived my christian life as if I expected God to walk with ME- as if He didn't before.

"I run for dear life to God, I'll never regret it." -psalm 70:1

I want a deep lasting love...the kind Bruchko and the Motilones talked about...the kind Classic Crime are floating around in this song. I feel like there's so much missing in my life and me and my family keep trying to find something, keep searching for something we don't know. Why do I search for something I have? Do I really have it if I'm running around frantically trying to find it somewhere else- anywhere else?

There is a need for the real thing. The real You I keep hiding from and running around. For some reason I feel like I can't bear You- I can't handle You and I'm scared to let You really change my life and me. I'm afraid to let go of me. I'm afraid to be totally Yours. I'm afraid to change. I'm afraid to have all of You. Maybe it's a control thing. I need help finding You again, or finding You for the first real time. I'm realizing that my relationship with You never seems to stick- if I'm happy I love You and if I'm angry I hate You. If things go right I love You and love me, but if things go wrong I hate You and try to destroy me.

But all You want is to love me. All You want is me. Completely me. You want me to walk with You. You stand there, pleadingly, "walk with Me..." You can give me the kind of life I can't imagine living- the kind that matters, the kind I genuinely want to live. I can't stand this half-hearted relationship with You, and You can't either. I think we both want all or nothing. I feel like I have no love for You. I feel like if I really really loved You, I would want to spend time with You- I would crave that need everyday. I mean, let's look at my daydreams and how I imagine it would be to be in love- why do I feel like it shouldn't be like that with You? Have I ever taken You that seriously? I love me more than I have ever loved You. I want things to go my way. I want things selfishly from You and get so confused when You delay in giving them to me. My life isn't about You at all. It's only about me.

My life sucks and has been sucking because I choose myself repeatedly over You. When things go badly, when I suffer, I curse You instead of clinging to You for dear life, thinking it'll make me feel better but it never does. It hasn't worked. I don't want to waste another three years of my life hating You and being angry at everything You do or don't do. I think it's time I just start doing what You tell me to.

It isn't weak to change. It isn't weak even to be wrong. Humility isn't weakness. Why would it be weak to grow?

I keep skirting around the edge of us because I'm afraid. Relationships scare me- including this one. Being vulnerable is something pretty unfathomable to me in this time of life. And the choices I've been making have really been getting in the way of us too. I'm sure that's half the problem. I've been grieving You, Holy Spirit. I don't remember You anymore, after all this distance and fighting. I need to know You. Really know You.

a different kind of jungle

I'll be honest. The attitude change thing has helped a lot the last few days, but looking at tomorrow...makes me want to cry and runaway. Despite the attitude change, I still don't want to do it. Not as often as I'll have to the next two weeks anyway. A week like last week I'll do. It makes me feel like such a complainer though, after reading Bruchko. He went through things I probably never will, and it makes me feel like the things I complain about and am upset about are stupid. I feel like I ought to be tougher. Working at the pharmacy isn't life or death, isn't hinging on the chance of contracting amoebic dysentery or intestinal worms or being injured in the jungle by five inch thorns or jaguars. I don't want to say that I feel like I shouldn't be there, because I don't know if that's true...it's really that I don't WANT to be there. I don't WANT to do it. And, I guess I don't want to have to work there. I want to do something I love. I want to believe that I have just as much of a pointed purpose for my life as Bruce Olson with the Motilones. I don't know why it has never felt like that for me, or for most people I know. I don't want to be numbed down enough to just get by, just do what I have to to pay the bills. I feel like in the modern world it's extremely difficult to do anything with pointed passion. I feel like I can't escape the modernity of life in the "real" world, whatever that actually means. I feel like I can't really live with all the demands of what it costs to possess such a life. That doesn't seem fair at all. It's all feeling more and more like a venus fly trap- like the walls are slowly moving in and before I realize that- yes- they ARE in fact moving in on me, it's too late to climb out.

That's not really how it is, is it?

It's really hard to see the sun through the clouds. It's easier to point at the dirt and say, "hey- what's with the dirt? that stuff isn't good for me and it hurts" than to see the skin beneath it and believe that it's still there and can be healthy again. We focus on the gross things, probably because we have a natural feeling of animosity toward anything we think isn't right- toward anything that hurts us or causes us pain. And being that at least half of us are "fixers", well, our attention is immediately guided to what needs fixing. For me, though, I tend to focus on it so hard that I forget there's anything else. Instead of fixing anything, I end up getting stuck in it- so much so that the dirt becomes reality and normalcy for me instead of the salve that is health and happiness. It's a brutal battle.

Bruchko may have battled sickness, fatigue, death, and outside threats, but I battle self-induced isolation, depression, anxiety, hopelessness. I guess this is the jungle I live in, and the people I need to reach may look differently and have different experiences and backgrounds, but they're not different from me deep down. Jesus loves us both the same. I may have to risk mental and spiritual sickness, fatigue, death, and outside threats when running to and from the jungle. It's going to suck. But I do know that, while it seems unlikely in the present and we doubt, God takes care of us. He looks after us and will protect us and guide us if we call on Him for help and trust. It's a different kind of jungle, but it is just that. A jungle.

On top of all that, I still need help. And that's okay.

oh help.

Well. It's been rough since I last posted. Turns out the whole Portland thing makes my parents think I'm foolish. Yeah. Foolish. I just love how much they support and encourage me. So there goes that, Portland, I mean. Reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is good though. It's a good book.

So I have a question. And I'm not being rhetorical. Is it foolish to think that a conference is what you need to be inspired to make necessary changes in your life? According to my dear old dad, it is. According to him, I already have everything I need to know inside me- everything I need to make changes, right in there hiding behind all the junk in the way. I think he's come to believe that because he's pretty much a recluse. In that kind of lifestyle, you HAVE to believe you have it all in there somewhere, because you don't give yourself another option, another place to find it.

This year has been especially hard for me. It took a retreat in the spring to jolt my heart back to life again- to spark enough clarity that I could really see the truth instead of blindly trying to hope for it. I honestly believe that I wouldn't have gotten out of the whole atheism thing if I hadn't gone to that retreat. I guess I'm worried that I'm in a similar state now, for different reasons- though the reasons feel the same as the other ones. I have the kind of mind that can only be interrupted by physical changes- things that physically happen- things that aren't the norm- things that are supposed to be special- things that are supposed to change you. Without them, I continue on in a haphazard kind of stumble. I need something to stop me. Because I'm almost incapable of stopping myself- when my emotions overtake me- when I reach my breaking point...it's all over. It only goes downhill from there, and usually it's the kind of downhill that you don't get skis for- the kind of downhill that is so sheer you can hardly keep your footing- the kind of downhill that has jagged rocks jutting up right where you have to put down your foot.

It's one thing to fall apart during school. It's another thing to fall apart in the "real world" where making excuses could cost you your job, and then your credit, and then your life. I thought there was pressure in school, but there's more out here. It's lonelier too. I don't know what I'm doing. Why I thought it would be better to leave. It seems that it isn't just school I can't handle, but life in general, too.

This is getting old. No one wants to hear me go on and on complaining about my life no matter how I try to change it. It isn't doing anyone else any good to read this. I don't know why I feel like I can't be one of those people who rise despite their adversity. So much of me either just wants to quit completely or do something amazing. All or nothing, apparently.

I asked God today why there couldn't be good things that are easy. If He could give me just one good thing I didn't have to kill myself to have. I don't think that's how it works though. I just wish everything wasn't a struggle. The fact that I struggle so much more than my friends makes me feel like a failure. Defective. Broken from birth. I don't want to see another counselor, even though I've been considering it. I don't want to try prescription drugs, even though I've been considering it.

I don't know what to do.



"Misery, though seemingly ridiculous, indicates life itself has the potential of meaning, and therefore pain itself must also have meaning." -Don Miller (paraphrase of Victor Frankl)

Living A Better Story

For the last three years I've been at the University of Minnesota Morris, studying English. It took me three years to figure out that I had no heart for being an academic, that I was there because I didn't know what else to do, because it was the safe option after high school and because none of my friends weren't going to college. I went for the experience, but I can't say I loved the experience I had. It was three years of heartache and confusion as I fought my way to the surface, to reality.

Now that I've decided that I won't be attending UMM for my final year and am home in Sartell for good, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my life. Maybe it's because I'm German, but I've always felt uncomfortable with wanting or needing things. I don't like to ask people for things, and it's taken a lot of brave introspection to get to the bottom of, well, my life and me.

I've always thought I was meant to do something important. I'm sure most people feel that way, but when I look at my family, I can't say the same for them. Part of me wants to be successful just to prove to them that it can be done- to show them that they can't give up, that there's hope and meaning and purpose. That trying doesn't mean failing.

I work in a pharmacy in town. I'm still new. I feel the impending sense of responsibility that comes with no longer being a trainee, and I have to say- I am dreading it. So much. I can honestly say I don't want to work there for the next five years or even tomorrow. I'm realizing- fully realizing- that I don't want to work a job that has no heart. I need something to put my heart in. I need to do something that matters.

This isn't what I want my life to look like, and it's killing me. For most of my life I've stepped back from the spotlight. I've listened to my family tell me I can't; I've let them talk me down from every inspired idea I've ever had. I've let them convince me that having a stable job (whether I like or want the job or not) is more important than anything else, no matter how amazing the other opportunities. They've taught me to always have a plan, and well- for the first time this spring, I had none. And I still don't.

I feel like it's all coming down to it now. I need to start making decisions, making choices, getting excited about things without allowing outside influences to talk me down. I don't want to be talked down from the ledge of inspiration and hope anymore. I need to believe that I can live a life that isn't boring and safe and mediocre. I don't believe I've ever desired to be a mediocre person who does mediocre things. I want to show my family that there still is hope for living the kind of life they've always dreamed of living. I want to show them what it is to live.

If my life were a story and I was the author, I would write about a character who met with challenges and had enough bravery to not back down. She would be determined to make things happen and be kind to strangers. She would be like a pawn on the chessboard of her life, being moved where God instructed. She would work in a church, planning and organizing church events and retreats. She would play guitar in worship on Sundays and use her pictures to help promote the church. She would be a source of hope and comfort to those within the church who are hurting by making them realize that they are not alone and are not crazy because they don't look like the average joyful Christian. In her spare time she would write short stories and perfect her cooking skills, to the delight of her small group. She wouldn't be afraid. She wouldn't shrink back from blessings because she feels she doesn't deserve them. She wouldn't reject love because she doesn't understand it, but would turn for clarity to her Friend and Savior in trust and love.

Ultimately, I need a way out. I need to get out of the rut I've always been in. Risk breathing for the chance I might choke. I don't want to live like this anymore. The thing is, I'm finding that I have no idea how to go about living a new life. I'm used to having a plan, remember? A step-by-step guide would be nice.

I guess the closest thing to that would be this conference in Portland that Don Miller's putting on in September. I told my mom about it last night and I got the usual response. I think deep down my parents would rather I did nothing if it meant I risked nothing. Success doesn't come without risk, right? It would be ridiculous if I went, because I don't do things like fly to Portland for three days in the middle of my non-plan plan. But honestly, I've been thinking about it so much and it's been making me think even more about my life and where I want to be a year from now, or even a week from now. For me, Portland has become a sort of symbol of hope to me, that life can be more than it has been for me over these last 21 years. I have a lot of faith that Don Miller and his ideas about living a better story could really help me. I've been very shy this summer in asking God for things, but Portland is one thing I have directly asked Him for.

The thing is, this conference is expensive. The whole shindig would set me back at least $800 when you throw in airfare, hotel, registration, and meals. But- there's this contest. If I win, it's all free...which would solve my dilemma. AND I would get to travel on a plane for the first time, with a friend. I think I need this, or at least something like it. When I told my mom about it, she asked me if there was anything else I could do to get the same result that I would from the conference. I told her Don's book A Million Years in A Thousand Miles is kind of what he's basing it off of. She suggested I just read the rest of the book and leave it at that. I told her she was missing the point. I think my family, in general, is missing the point- and I don't want to miss the point of life anymore. This is one thing I don't want to let her talk me out of because I have so much hope that it could change the course of my life. With that kind of clarity hinging on this conference and this contest, I put my faith in the fact that God knows best. That I've entered the contest with a deeply prayerful, wounded, and in-need heart. I pray He would give me the direction I need to move forward in His plan by attending the Live A Better Story conference in Portland. I genuinely think that He has things to say to me there that I need to hear. I keep feeling more and more that I want to escape my current life, and I think an experience in Portland could help me gain new perspective and the tools to change my current life into something that is fulfilling, valuable, and important. For those of you reading this, I ask that you would pray with me for this event! If you want to know more about this conference, go here: www.donmilleris.com/conference

Also, here's a video about it: http://donmilleris.com/2010/07/15/win-a-trip-for-two-to-portland-for-the-living-a-better-story-seminar/

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.

Move

Don Miller is making me think today. Seriously think.

I thrive on being inspired. It picks me up off the ground enough to see what could be on the horizon, and gives me perspective on where I left my footsteps back on the ground. But, what a waste it would be to not act on such inspiration. Right? That's like being content with being in love with love versus being in love with a person who loves you back. What a great risk, life is. I've been content on yearning, on being inspired to inspiration, instead of being inspired to action. Inspiration moves me, but doesn't make me move. I guess I have yet to introduce myself to Courage, Inspiration's counterpart.

What am I willing to risk? What stakes would I raise to take Courage's hand and MOVE? What kind of life am I looking to live?

I'm getting better at admitting what I want without feeling bad or wrong about it. I need to be honest with myself if I'm going to do anything of great importance in my life.

I'm pulled in several different directions- between things like TWLOHA and authorship, photographer and musician, world traveler and homebody. There are a great many things I put value in.

I'm realizing that maybe it's time to grow out of old attitudes. The old ones that keep me back. I feel like shedding that skin. I feel like embracing new ideas, new possibilities, new opportunities.

Over the last couple of weeks, a few things have become more clear to me. One of them being that I'm the one holding myself back. I always fear what other people will think, but most of them really do believe that I can do what I dream of. I think I need to start believing them too. For me it keeps coming back to the whole walking on water thing. He can't make me get out of the boat. But He believes in me- He knows my potential and He knows what He can do with me if I let myself become someone He and I can both respect. Peter believed God could do anything, but didn't have that kind of faith in himself- that he could do miraculous things because God believed he could, because of his faith that Jesus wouldn't ask him to walk on the water if He wasn't God, if He wasn't in control, if He wasn't capable of catching Peter when he started to sink.

And in this moment, sitting on my bed, looking out the window, I can hear this small voice in my chest and feel the tears in my eyes as I say to God, "please, please, please, please, please..." and I watch a bat fly by in silhouette with a smile, "...ask me to come out to You on the water...I want to know what it is to live." The lamps in the room smile their warm light on me, even to the corners of the room, as my 53 second song becomes louder than the water around my small boat.

He wants me to move.

53 Second Song

I watched 500 Days of Summer. I'm a bit surprised that I liked the concept behind it. I guess for me it's kind of summarized in this song from the score of the movie, called Train Ride Home (because it plays during a scene in which the characters are, ahem, riding the train home) by Mychael Danna and Rob Simonsen. It's only 53 seconds long. But I think it sort of embodies, to me, what the movie it about.

It's about what I love: inspiration. It starts on a blank canvas of quiet sounds, and builds with the piano and strings into something uplifting and hopeful. It lets you see into something that you couldn't see before, and then- it ends.

As I go along in life, I'm realizing that I'm starting to measure the time passing in years. I look at things and want to parenthesize everything into segments of organized and logical time. But life isn't meant to be measures that way- time is just how we keep track of it, like ledger lines. This 53 second song is an idea that encompasses the whole movie- 500 days. I'm thinking that maybe there are moments in my life- only brief, passing moments, that encompass my life to date. Maybe there are brief less-than-a-minute melodies floating in and out of the years I anally keep track of. I think those melodies are important, and I think that maybe I should be writing them down.

He sketched skylines. He took what he saw and put it down on paper. He created and moved. He used his heart- poured everything into what he believed was true. But isn't it the case that sometimes, no matter how badly we want something to work...it just isn't meant to? It seems out of place and unexpected for something to build so much and then just stop. I don't know why that's what I like about this movie, this 53 second song. The 500 day journey Tom went on with Summer were human, and some might say that in the end, it was all for nothing.

But there are melodies there in the bylines of the pictures we take. There are driving beats and thoughtful piano that belong to the moments we can't forget.

Maybe a 53 second song is worth 500 days of...yearning in the wrong direction, for the wrong person. Take the melody with you. Leave the rest.