BUT I am awake... which is typical these days. I can't seem to get myself to fall asleep easily or stay asleep once I do. I dream weird, and while not disturbing, I always wake up and it feels like creepy de ja vu.
In the process of settling back into my house in Virginia I have had the opportunity to also procrastinate by reading/looking at items shoved into boxes or tucked away in drawers. This evening I pulled out of a box three moleskine journals. One from the summer of 2007 beginning with my arrival to California. The 2nd was from Matty to document and record Thailand. The last one began at some point last year. I am now nearing the completion of my fourth, and while its taken the longest (writing in the past year has been infrequent and difficult: that should have been a very large warning sign to myself about my stability!), I still love what the pages contain.
I opened up Summer of 2007 journal and I began reading just now. A few things struck me:
1) I have been using the same type of pen for years now and I love it still.
2) My handwriting. I really like it. I wish I could make it into a font.
3) The things I struggled with then are the same exact things I struggle with now.
4) I recognize me, but I am thrilled that tonight I can say that I have grown up and beyond the version of me on the pages and that I am more at peace then I have ever been.
5) I write about the same people as I do now. Matty, Mandy, Julie, Family, Tex is in there (oh those early days before complicated friendship ensued), Emily, Jesus, etc. This particular point brings comfort that I am still loving the same people today as I was then.
6) I was really anxious about my Thailand trip, and while I didn't speak of it, there are pages where I am just praying and stressing about it. Strange that of all the places I have been, and things I have done I was most broken there. And yet, when I read through the Thailand Moleskine I don't yet know it. Documentation is funny. In the midst of the train wreck... sometimes we have no idea. (that feels like the story of my life pre-China... and soon we can laugh about that, just not yet).
7) A favorite quote from a book I was reading in October in regards to living with Christ:
"When you run ahead of me, you end up doing what I've asked you to do in your own strength rather than mine. Instead of being cloaked in the sweetness of my spirit, your efforts are cloaked in your flesh. And sometimes my dear daughter, your flesh ain't that easy to receive."
8) My last entry in this book comes December 4, 2007. I write about a sermon I heard about Mountain Top experiences. I have had SEVERAL experiences on top of some amazing mountains in my life, and most especially since the beginning of this Summer 2007 black book. I am humbled and amazed by the boldness Christ has given me to pursue time away with Him alone in the river close to home, and the salt water in Oceans far away. The 2nd of these quotes I wish I knew in my mind then just believing its true in my heart.
"We don't live on the mountains. We live in the valley. The valley is where life is."
"What He says about us is true. Amidst what I thought about myself or what others say, If Jesus is sufficient we wouldn't always try to live on the mountain tops. Yet we spent so much energy trying to recapture them."
9) I need to remember to write. Sometimes I stop because I don't want to read later what I had to say. Other times its because people cheat and read the blog before pursuing me. Most of the time however it is because while writing is cathartic and its a discipline that I hate and love equally, I don't always push myself to put words to things I think and instead act out instead of living. I have thought about changing the blog address, putting up some boundaries by invitation only, and better protecting the space in which I have found here. Yet whenever those thoughts come there is usually one random person who had bookmarked this place when I began and had found their way back, and just wrote to say hello or to comment on something I had to say. The world in that moment feels instantly smaller, and I remember that words have power, words are important.... and that I need to remember to write more, and write still.
10) The last thing that struck me about this little black book filled with scribbles, sermon notes, song lyrics, desperate pleas in prayer, and just random thoughts about life and the past was (besides that I wish NO ONE to ever read them), is that life isn't safe. There are few guarantees. In this book I was sitting on my bench on the pier in Santa Monica for the first time. I was revisiting Bakersfield after 2 years away. I drove between points on the West Coast with all the windows open and the air conditioning on because it was so hot. I came home and claimed September 6th to be the day to radically change the course of a friendship. I had an insanely inappropriate conversation with someone in the midst of a Margarita night in Florida. I laughed until I cried. I drove home on 64 following a Black Silverado. I went and saw many friends, and made many new ones... and I boldly chose to see the world because I knew that this was the time. This book is pre-Thailand, pre-BB&T, pre-silent treatment and pre-family meltdown. It is before all that shaped the year that follows it happened. It is simply me- jumping and believing without a single shred of doubt, that Jesus would catch me.
I need. To. Remember. Her.
(and I need to write more).
More to come. I promise.
Love.Love.
No comments:
Post a Comment