best love story ever

"He made steps up to the front porch, seven real wide, shallow ones. When I asked him why so many small steps, when four would have done the job, he said, Well, children have short legs, and he grinned. Luckily I was standing real close to him when he said it, because the idea of it made him want to kiss me again and I was glad to be handy."

"I wonder if we are just a little part of the world, like that rooster, and that the real things go on around us while we strut in our own yards trying to take charge of things."

"Our children weigh hard on my heart, and thinking about them growing up honest and healthy, or just living to grow up at all, makes a load in my chest that is bigger than the safe at the bank, and more valuable to me than all the gold inside it."

"It seems there is always a road with bends and forks to choose, and taking one path means you can never take another one. There's no starting over nor undoing the steps I've taken."

"Mostly I just raise my children and cook and clean, flirt with Jack and enjoy his company, and read aloud the books he gives me for silly holidays he makes up. Like, Oh, here's a gift for The Third Tuesday in October, didn't you know that's a holiday? Well, I bought you a book. He is amazing."
 (that pretty much describes the perfect life to me and I can't wait to have it)

"My life feels like a book left out on the porch, and the wind blows the pages faster and faster, turning always toward a new chapter faster than I can stop and read it."

"I've been a hard man to live with, I know, he said, but I've always admired you and loved you. You are some kind of woman. You'll be fine. You keep your powder dry, and an eye on the horizon."

- from These Is My Words by Nancy Turner. Read it.

my God is so Big.

twitter and devilish social networking sites

You know, I think twitter is the most tempting thing to me right now. It's my biggie. It's like my Godzilla of temptation. And I'll tell you why.

If I get a twitter (as I've been inclined to do lately), I'm sure I will end up saying things directed at certain individuals( though indirectly, without using their names) but that should either a) be said to them in person or b) not be said at all. It's all too easy to let off steam through that "indirect verbal attack" that people like to use on Twitter (and Facebook statuses too) and pretend that no one will ever know who they're actually talking about. That's immature, but tempting. Because while we're trying to act Christlike and love our enemies and give blessings to those that curse us, we still want the attention from others of "hey, that person did you wrong and you have a right to be angry, I'm on your side". But letting off steam in this way just isn't Christlike at all. It hurts other people and it hurts us. And I know this because reading things other people have posted, and knowing that it's directed at me, hurts worse than if they'd even really said it to me. But if I go to this person and question them about their feelings toward me, it only seems that I'm trying to stir something up. And I'm not a drama stirrur upper.

I don't know, maybe that's what I do through this blog sometimes. I need to let off steam and the typing feels so good under my fingers and maybe it wouldn't feel so good if I didn't know someone was going to read it and sympathize. But what if the person who reads it believes I'm ensuing a verbal attack on them? I don't want that. I want selective readers but that can't be guaranteed at all, can it? It can't.

But anyway, I've become so attached to it, an addiction, of reading what a certain person says and figuring out how they really feel about me. That shouldn't be the case. First of all I shouldn't even be that concerned about other people's opinions of me, but second of all it only continues to hurt. I need to stop it. I'll never forget if I don't.

So this is why Twitter is the devil.

delirium

remember when i said i'm trying to rediscover the version of shauna baker who doesn't always have to have her phone on her because she isn't obligated to text anyone anymore and how i'm trying to fill my empty places?

i found her. she likes books


"You know you can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes, right?"

"Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That's what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side."


- both from Delirium by Lauren Oliver, a book about a dystopian version of the United States in which love is seen as a disease that must be driven out by government intervention. And a girl who chose to love anyway.


"You have to understand. I am no one special. I am just a single girl. I am five feet two inches tall and I am in-between in every way. But I have a secret. You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope, and without fear. I love you. Remember. They cannot take it."

"Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are course; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity."

- Margaret Dyreng Nadauld

"Only a few hairbreadths make the difference between this face and faces I have seen many times before I knew you; yet what a difference- the difference between everything and nothing at all."


- The Return of the Native

yay

me. "we're pretty legit matchmakers, it's weird how we're actually the ones who are single though."

other person. "yeah, but i'm single by choice..."

yeah, thanks. life is grand

people change a lot. it's like right when i think i've got it figured out, this whole thing about connecting with people, cause it takes practice. i finally get someone figured out and then they change. and i have to learn a whole new way to connect with them again, or maybe i just can't. i have to watch from the outside and wonder if i'll ever be inside again. but sometimes the people who you could never connect with before suddenly come bursting through your door like "hey! we're alike! we can connect!" and those are some pretty beautiful moments. but i guess the only perfect thing that's made to last forever is God. and everyone can't fit into your house at once.

i got rid of my labels

i feel like i'm preparing to be rewritten, and i wanna have a clean slate for when that happens

dear life,

you crack me up.

dear freakishly bipolar and annoying body,

i would love to be able to work out really hard. just once. without random shooting pains that remind me that you hate me. i mean pains that are associated with the exercise i understand, like after running two miles maybe my legs would hurt or i would be out of breath but nooooo. that's not what you do. normal people don't double over in pain after exercise. exercise is GOOD FOR ME. just no more random and freakishly intense pains. i would really really like that.

sincerely,
the soul inside you that has no control over you whatsoever obviously

(this rant directed at my own body is a testament that yes, i am definitely going crazy)

a book I love

"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."
- Amir, The Kite Runner

kony 2012

imagine you go to sleep tonight and in the middle of the night you are abducted. if you're a boy, you are now a soldier. not by choice, by force. if you say no, they will kill you. if you try to escape, they will kill you. you are now part of a rebellion. you are ordered to murder your own family.
if you're a girl, you are now a sex slave.

imagine all your life, you knew this might happen. you lived in fear every day. imagine that life.

now imagine that for twenty years, people knew about this man. joseph kony. they know about him and the 30,000+ children he has abducted in Uganda and other countries. people know. and they do nothing.

but now, it's time for this to end.

it's time to care about humanity: not in self defense. not because it is our own affair. but because we are human. and we care.

troops are currently deployed because of overwhelming support. watch this video

Make Kony famous.

angels

i'm rediscovering how to be a version of myself that never has her phone on her because she isn't obligated to text anyone. surprisingly, that's hard. i never knew how much time that consumes. now i'm always looking for things to do, always busy but never busy enough.

but right now i feel like i'm the most of myself that i have been in a long time. and i like that. i pray a lot now, and i like that too.

also, did you know that God brings people to you right when you need them? it's true. i have a family that i never even discovered in four precious girls and i'd be just nowhere without them. absolutely nowhere. they're my angels. God gives me what I need. He's so good.

i have discovered within myself a tiny voice which will always say "i am okay"