Orlando and everything after

Its been a busy and crazy month. I've been traveling alot and that's going to continue - I've been to Orlando where I visited my brother, stayed with my friend Heather from college, and caught the Montevallo lady Falcons playing soccer at Rollins college. Last weekend I went to Florence, Alabama for a staff women's retreat. The CO directors surprised us by giving us all free massages (there's a really funny story that goes along with this- ask me). This weekend I'm hanging out in and near Montevallo. Next weekend I'm going home to visit the family in Marietta, GA and the week after that our whole staff team will be flying out to Minneapolis to attend the Piper conference on Postmodern culture (which I'm so excited about I could pee my pants).
Meanwhile, during the week I'm hanging out and meeting with different students at Montevallo. Its been a really good school year so far. There is just a ton of spiritual interest on campus and God keeps bringing girls that need to hear about Him across my path. I feel like God is just moving me into a new stage of life. It seems like my life has just been really well insulated. Living in the suburbs with my movies, my music, my friends, so many of these things were just a barrier between me and the harsher side of life. It's not like my life is all that hard but God is just making me dissatisfied with the things I normally turn to for comfort, happiness, and just as a way of escape. Its so easy for me to use food, crushes, shopping and a million other things to make me forget about what's really going on in my life.
I am really thankful for this time in my life, eventhough its kinda painful. Even training for a marathon is teaching me to persevere through pain. God really is using all of the dissatisfaction I feel to make my heart singleheartedly devoted to Him. He won't let me be satisfied with anything less than Himself.

For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the LORD has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you," says the LORD, your Redeemer. "This is like the days of Noah to me: as I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, and will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
(Isa 54:5-10)

“Pain is not something most people like. That is why we run from it as fast as we can. That is also why we aren’t free. Jesus hardly ever goes to those places where we run. When pain comes (or when we fear that it will come), don’t run away. Run to it, and you will find you have run into the arms of Jesus. In other words, buck up, face it, embrace it, and know that you and Jesus can deal with it. Then you will laugh and dance in the freedom and the reality of God’s sufficiency and the power that becomes awesome in your weakness.” Steve Brown, A Scandalous Freedom

“In essence, there is only one thing God asks of us- that we be men and women of prayer, people who live close to God, people for whom God is everything and for whom God is enough. That is the root of peace. We have that peace when the gracious God is all we seek. When we start seeking something besides Him, we lose it.” – Brennan Manning (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

Rough Draft

Here's a rough beyond rough draft of a poem I'm working on.

Illusions

Loving an idea, a theory
Like loving the dolls in plastic packaging
Well-groomed,
well-versed, well-dressed,
well- adjusted, well- prepared, and well-balanced

Cohabitating with shadows, shells
Beckoning them to life
Pulling strings and speaking words
As they whisk around with their heavy hollow heads

In smiling faces and warm hands there’s chance
Chance they’ll open the shiny paper of soul to find a plain white piece of paper
And me scratching hollow cavern bareness

Silhouetted ideals, they call to me
In crowded rooms, to silence
And in the car, convincing me to press ignore to stop the ringing
Grasping the blackness of elusive desert mirages with naked hands,
Until I know alone.