Beginnings

I'm engaged.
Can you believe it? I think I'm still in shock, so don't feel bad if you are amazed too. It's a huge, wonderful, scary step. A new beginning for me. What will the future hold? I have no idea, but it sounds like fun to me!
Lately my fiance and I have been working on his house. It was once a disaster, but he bought it knowing what he could do with it. Now, it's gorgeous. The kitchen is nothing short of spectacular and we cut and stained our own wood trim.
So now I have been blind-sided by a marriage proposal from my best friend and am very suddenly immersed in wedding plans. We are shooting for a March wedding, so the mothers are pushing ahead full-force. Thankfully! I feel like a bug running around in a box with all these plans. Useless and goofy looking. So very glad to have these two wonderful women in my life.
And my bridesmaids! It was so much fun asking each one of them to do me the honor of standing up with me at my wedding. Their individual responses were priceless. My friend Kaitlyn gave a similar reaction to the one I'm sure I had when Jake asked me to marry him. Haha! It was awesome. I seriously cannot wait to have a blast with those girls. They are each a treasure to me and I'm so grateful for them.
Mom keeps telling me not to stress, things will all work out. Does anyone else think that a bride not stressing out seems impossible? But I see it as a glorious challenge! I will be that bride. Ha!
But in all honesty, I'm just better at things like collecting and naming various random bugs, like Stan the YellowJacket and Carl the StinkBug. Sid the Slug was a glorious find...till Jake stepped on him. (I'm still curious whether that was truly an "accident").
Anyway, getting shoved and squeezed into lacy, complicated contraptions like wedding dresses are miserable experiences in my opinion. The gown associate seemed personally offended that I didn't want to buy the entire store. But I'm not into the million dollar wedding stuff these women think is necessary. No thanks. I'll stick with my jeans, hoodie and books.
I don't even like flowers. They are pretty, but smell heinous. Besides being obnoxiously expensive, they are only decorative for a day then they die. Ok, I'll admit it...the reason I am so frugal is because I just see spending money on a truck as more practical. And a glorious library, but that's neither here nor there.

All in all, things are going well so far and I'm glad Jake loves me despite my weirdness. I can't wait to be married!

To be transparent

Transparency. Webster's classifies this as one being without pretense or deceit. I want to be transparent.
Today's culture makes it so easy to have a secret life, to live as a double-minded man. What have we lost in our pursuit for a specific and admired identity? Our desire for self image has strong-armed our authenticity until we are no longer sure who or what exactly we have become. All we know for sure is that it is ugly. Ugly on the inside.
It breaks my heart. We were born to be so much more than that. Instead of living for eternal things we are absorbed by petty concerns that matter so little in the scheme of things. We have undone and deceived ourselves.
God is not far from those who call upon His name. There is yet hope for living transparent. It's only through Him.

Dreams, stars and AIRPLANES

Do you ever wish you were a world traveler?
I do sometimes.
There's so much that you can learn just by reading and listening to other people tell their experiences; their stories. But inside there always seems to remain a piece of me that just longs to see the sights with more than just my imagination. I want to go to England and see first-hand the places that Dickens wrote about in Our Mutual Friend and David Copperfield and Martin Chuzzlewit. I want to meet Augustus Snodgrass and Eugene Wrayburn and adopt some of their idiosyncrasies.
I'd also love to go to P.E. Island and see the "Lake of Shining Waters," that Anne Shirley was so fond of.
Or Egypt. Blow some dust off a wall of hieroglyphs in an ancient pyramid...and just grin. I think that would be so cool.
If I had an extraordinary amount of money I'd go buy a castle in Ireland or somewhere...find a nice big one that had history and integrity to be protected. Archaic buildings are always more fun. I'd even sacrifice my burning desire for a moat full of crocodiles and just be content with some bushes and a few great danes. Think of all the fun you could have playing hide-n-seek in a castle!
The Netherlands is another place I have always wanted to visit. My family is from the Netherlands and there's just mass amounts of family history there waiting for me to go experience it! I'd visit Maasland and take a thousand pictures of windmills.
There are too many places to visit! Italy, Africa, Australia...it just drives me crazy when I think too much about it. I keep telling myself to simply focus on the experiences and adventures that I do have...right here and right now.
Here's one:
Once, when my family and a few of our friends were out camping we all laid out on our backs on an amphitheatre and watched a meteor shower. It was amazing. Shining fire beams shooting across a pitch-black sky, I love it. There's something about the stars...they are so glorious! And they are everywhere! So, no matter where you travel, you will always be able to see them. It's like one experience God wanted everyone everywhere to have. So amazing.
The one experience that I've always longed to have is FLYING. I just think it's extraordinary. I've been told that flying is dangerous, or it's mundane, or even nauseating. I don't know what it feels like, but I just wish I could experience it and see for myself. Something I can't name tells me I'll love it.
I want to fly. :-)

Choices

Choices.

That word can cause more fear and havoc in my heart than most words that are far more sharp and biting. Life is long, but short. Life is structured, scheduled, yet so messy. Life is confusing. Life is what we are given. Life is a gift. A privilege. Life is terrifying.

People come up to me with questions all the time. Asking me about what choices I will make. What I will do. They are watching, waiting. I am sort of an unusual person. Rare, I suppose. Sometimes I can put my finger on why exactly I am like this and then other days I'm clueless. I can't see me from outside of myself to tell anyone what makes me so...unusual. 

It was all God's doing, really. Even when I was a really young child I can remember His voice speaking into my heart. He was always in everything. In my family, my friends, church, in my schooling, at the dinner table, in my dreams...all the corners of my soul. Almost like He had gone through and stamped "mine" all throughout my heart and soul. I am so fortunate that He did. 

Because of that, I was never able to pretend. I could not be or do what I didn't feel was right. I can understand exactly how Atticus Finch felt about doing the Tom Robinson trial. It was a matter of conscience, going down to the very core of who he was. The very idea of being false in any way is detestable. I never wanted to be that way either. I wanted to always be true. That God would be proud of what I am made of.

Truth. What do we really do to pursue truth? How do we live it out day-to-day? Is there a formula for it. As far as I can see, it is the same as anything else you pursue. You put effort into it. Like building muscles. You deny your body what will hinder it and you work to build your muscles to their potential. 

Same thing applies with pursuing truth. We get so absorbed in the media, it's disgusting. What are the movies and songs and blogs and YouTube videos all about these days? Just about everything God-less. It draws our hearts away from him. Imposes false theories and ideals where real ones were supposed to grow and thrive. It makes us fake. 

Turn around. Turn it off. Stop.

That is what I tell myself. But really, that is not the solution. The solution is to pursue truth. Life. GOD. Then those sources of false-ness won't be turned on in the first place. You'll be too busy finding life. REAL life. 

Let the cake rot. Eat the good stuff instead. Let God fill you and all the rest will fall cold and dead. 

And you will be more alive than you ever were before. :)

I love this crazy insane life....

Well it's been far far too long since the last time I "blogged." Hmmmm.
Allow me to explain...
I got found by this certain guy that seemed to find the fact that I adore trucks irresistible. He also didn't run away when I planted my pontiac in a whole mess of mud in the yard.
Odd.
I gotta keep this guy!
The only hangup is; I get very little done these days! My existence has undergone an extreme change and I'm oh so not used to this. I love it! Me...the "perpetually busy one" is spending so much time actually enjoying someone else's company with no particular job or purpose in mind and It's AWESOME!
He has lots of great stories that I am dying to write about too! Seriously. Could it get any better? :-) Anyways, besides being very happy and slightly worthless lately I have been wanting to write more. And the only way to do that is to simply do it.
One of my absolute favorite things to do is going driving. Not necessarily to any place in particular, but just to drive around for a long time. Not the most practical hobby, I know. But you get to see new sights and just talk.
If you want to get a taste of the culture in America, go driving. You will learn a lot. There are a wide variety of  "homes" and just different places that are unique with their own stories and flavor. I know that we like to slap labels on things, but there is always a deeper story behind the twelve broke-down cars in that guy we would call a "redneck"s front yard. Or the baby crimson king maple tree growing beside the house. A pot hole in the gravel driveway; a young mom chasing her muddy kid through the yard; an old German Shepard lounging on the patio, following your progress past his turf only with cloudy brown eyes...life is made up of these mundane and mildly moldy details and we see them everyday.
There's a thousand stories there. I love it.
So run out and snatch up those quirky details...those odd scenarios and look deeeper...sometimes that's all it takes to just make your whole week completely different. Don't miss out on what's right there behind the screen of ordinary. :-)  

Cleveland--part two

That panic gripped him, grappled with his heart. Cleveland wanted nothing in the world but to be able to turn around and high-tail it back home. He didn't like snakes. Scratch that, he hated them. Not because of what they were essentially, but because he feared what they could do. Hate born of fear is a deadly thing. It wants nothing to do with the object of it's terror, so the two options are usually run or kill.
Cleveland's hand traveled slowly down to the canvas-covered bag hanging at his side. The jar. Grandma Rea's eyes flashed before his face. That deep, wise penetration sliced into his heart. He couldn't run. Not today.
But his strength and his speed were not enough to kill, either. What could he do? Courage is found in unlikely places, they say. At the very moment where Cleveland decided he would get past that snake or die trying, a sparrow, of all creatures, flitted out of the brush onto the path before the snake. Immediately the snake struck out at the bird. That small sparrow darted back just in time, leading the snake after it and, consequently, away from the path.
The little brown bird twittered and flirted with the snake, almost arrogant in the face of such grave danger. Cleveland was amazed. And somehow he felt that it was for him. For his sake. But, that would be silly; they were only creatures...like the butterfly.
As soon as the snake was beyond striking distance, Cleveland rushed forward along the path, past the dreaded snake. He ran at a steady clip, flying over the rough, weedy terrain. The panic still pumped through his blood, keeping him from slowing his pace for some time. He wondered about the sparrow. He hoped the bird had not been caught. He reflected on his own fear, his own lack of courage, compared to that of the bird. What boldness had possessed the sparrow? Maybe it was just a crazy bird, or one that liked danger. Bewildering.
He tried to tell himself that Grandma Rea would have been proud of him if she had been a witness to the encounter with the snake. She would have thought him brave and strong and smiled for his courage! But something inside him knew better.
Grandma Rea would have smiled at the sparrow.

Cleveland--the beginning...

Once upon a time there was a determined little boy making a long journey up to the top of a mountain. He was just eleven years old, but anyone could see there was a profound spirit deep within his large brown eyes that far surpassed his years.
The boy was daring; his little calloused feet were always bare and his eager face was tanned from constant exposure to the sun. He was determined to get to the top of the mountain, come what may.
The boy's name was Cleveland, and all he had with him was a dingy bag bearing a most unusual and precious cargo; a jar with a butterfly. It was not just any butterfly either, it was a butterfly that no scientist could ever have identified, for it was the only one of its kind ever found.
Cleveland, being the clever boy that he was, had miraculously come across the creature and captured it for his grandmother. Her 91st birthday had been the perfect occasion for his special gift. When he had presented the beautiful butterfly to his dear grandmother, larger tears had welled up in her aged hazel eyes. She had taken the jar in her old, withered hands and gazed at the butterfly with an expression of sorrow that Cleveland had not expected.
"Cleveland," Grandmother Rea had said, "why have you caught and caged this poor creature?" The young boy's heart had dropped at her softly spoken reprimand. Her words had stunned him, as she held the jar out to him and again spoke. "Look deeper, Cleveland. This is a free and flying creature. Yes, it is very beautiful, but that is no reason to trap it so."
Cleveland had looked and tried to see what was so evident to his grandmother, he had told her he was sorry that he had not realized what he had done. He couldn't quite understand it, even though he wanted to. Grandmother Rea took his small, sun-browned face in her hands and had told him to take it to the top of the mountain, set it free, and that would be her gift.
So Cleveland, filled with redemptive determination, set out on a journey to the mountain top. To release his prize...the captive butterfly. It was a long way up to the top of the mountain, but Cleveland fixed his eyes upon the summit and began his hike. Over rocks and roots, and through weeds, thistles and trees he climbed. But this he was used to, the wilderness and the wild brush were like old, well-worn paths to the child.
It was warm, with the sun shining golden upon his smooth brow. The wind swirled about the mountain, whispering wildly through the leaves. The air tasted cool and crisp, its sweeping motion soothing his spirit like a dear friend. With the wind urging him onward, Cleveland smiled to himself. There seemed to be no opposition, just encouragement for the journey before him.
Off to the side of his path, a small sinister slither caught the corner of his eye...hoping it wasn't a snake, Cleveland turned fast to see a long brightly-colored cord weaving through the bushes. A darting panic shot through his brain as he analyzed the diamond-shaped head. Instinctively drawing his foot backwards, a strong breeze tugged at his body. His eyes were pinned to the snake, a cold shiver of fear racing down his spine.
....