in real life

here's shauna in my head: she likes to take long runs to relieve her stress and doesn't ever complain, doesn't let anyone run over her ambitions but kindly speaks her mind with boldness. kids love her and people want her in charge. she can strike up a conversation with anyone and bring it to God within the first few sentences, and knows how to make a statement without saying anything at all. her words are usually few but delicately valuable. she knows when to listen, when to say little and when to comfort with carefully chosen words that soothe. she's practical and happily silent except when words are necessary. she loves with a careful consideration of the costs.


here's shauna in real life: she likes to take runs, usually punctuated by frequent walks, and will usually complain of the heat when she's finished. she has ideas in her head which are spoken boldly to third parties but are carefully and apologetically molded to suit the fancies of others. she believes children are a true blessing and longs to have a family of her own... but finds it difficult to take charge of other children due to chronic pushoverness. people put her in charge because she is easy to agree with (considering her own ideas are usually moderated to suit others) and she finds organization, responsibility and agreeableness to be her strong points. sometimes she avoids casual acquaintances in public because of her distinct dislike and fear of casual conversation (if the conversation can't begin with a hug, you can count on it being extremely awkward). she believes herself to be a good listener and usually has good advice to give, but also seeks advice on every remotely important decision she makes. she loves indefinitely, immeasurably, without boundary or practicality. she possesses a hopelessly romantic spirit whose sole purpose on this earth is to love and be loved with the best she can give.

i find me more and more every time i do one of these

real conversation

i love frank sinatra and big parties and snuggling in my chair with gone with the wind and my reindeer blanket and scarves and togetherness and painting

i wish all year i could wear snuggly clothes and drink a ridiculous amount of coffee and have long mom talks. i like long nights because nights are when i'm most myself and when i feel like i can have control. i can paint or read or watch friday night lights on netflix or just have a real conversation. i feel like life would be so much more fulfilling and everyone would just feel better if they had a real conversation at least once a day, the kind where you ask questions you really don't have the answer to and you meditate on the how and why more than the who and where. sometimes i feel like those are the only ones that really count, the challenging and provoking and sometimes uncomfortable conversations that stay deep in your mind even after it's over, leaves you itching with even more questions than you started with and makes you wonder if you've really had it all wrong all along. no sugar coats or "well let's change the subject"... sometimes i think we hold ourselves back by changing subjects. pet peeve of mine.

random tangent, i forget how many things just get stored up inside my mind until i start typing. moral of the story: have a real conversation with someone today. i hope it either warms your heart or keeps you lying awake for hours tonight, either way it just feels like living

freedom

i think i have come to realize that much of my life is spent in constant complaint of the unfairness of our civilization and the distractions that Christians have to constantly face in a nation that is "falling away from God" and slowly God is being removed from every place where He used to belong. perhaps i am so used to the joys of southern american comfort and never having to worry over anything more strenuous than a chemistry test or my iphone dying and now it seems that the silliest discrepancies threaten to completely quench the flame of my faith

certainly i would love to see our nation unite and serve God with all the vigor and excitement of a battlefield but i don't reasonably expect that to happen, and maybe my focus has been a bit strayed. i really believe it has.

i cannot honestly read and examine the scriptures and expect my life to be easy. i am so blessed to be able to even mention God at all to my friends or at school or post scriptures online without fear of imprisonment at best and death at worst. i can't change the world but i can change me and hopefully spark a change in people around me, who might spark a change in people around them, who might be presidents and congressmen and might just change our nation, or our world. i would be ashamed to be in a conversation with paul about hardships and say "well life is just hard because speaking of absolute truth and total submission to God is just really frowned upon in my society and i like for everyone to like me and be comfortable around me" how lame does that sound? hopefully i'm not the only one who does feel that way sometimes though

there are people fighting every second for the right for me to just speak my mind and speak the truth and maybe it's time i stop waiting around watching the world change and waiting for these opportunities to one day be gone