My girls

I am becoming a little sad.
This whole graduation/moving on/leaving things behind/growing up thing is coming at me fast.
I think I just realized how much I'm going to miss it all. The hallway laughter, eating lunch at a lunch-table, asking my little brother to help me with  my math homework, giggling at the funny idiosyncrasies of all of my wonderful teachers, somehow convincing Aunty Dana to give me a Friday lunch (she's such a sweetie), being pushed till I feel like pretending to be sick to stay home, all of the senior duties, being able to sow into little ones, asking Aunt Janet if she has any mints (and she always does), chatting with the moms who volunteer at school (many of which feel like second mothers to me), furiously cramming with my classmates when a big test is only minutes away, singing at the top of our lungs like no one's around, being able to go outside and bask in the sun during a study hall.
But most importantly I'm going to heartily miss all of these women in my class who have taught me, in their own ways, how to be a daughter. I've never felt so close to Daddy in my entire life and I know it's from watching all of their examples and learning how to take on true daughterhood. How precious these girls are to me. With their bubbly laughter and gracious hearts, I couldn't ask for more beautiful classmates. Their motherly tenderness and concern has kept me on the straight and narrow these past two years. Their pure love and unblemished spirits have affected mine in a way they could never imagine. I can honestly, and with a full heart, say that the women in my class have changed my life forever. They've been my girls from my very first days, when I was insecure and lonely and hungry for something more. Though I know I'm not abandoning them I'm taking the first steps towards parting and my heart aches a little. Like there's something inside that's being torn off. I know it's just a corner of the napkin, but I like that corner, in fact I love that corner and I don't want to lose it. I know God plans on replacing it with new things but for now I'm not used to it, and my heart hurts. Oh how I need His grace to keep moving on.
 I think I'll stop now and thank you if you read all that. It was quite a rant and you should be proud of yourself for getting through it.

Sincerely,

Jaelle the Torn

Wild Thing

Sometimes I just want to be a wild thing. Absolutely let go, a dancer, a climber, a dreamer, a conquerer of hills and oceans. Someone who's wild thoughts are untamable, unbelievable, absolutely impossible, but that makes it all the more fun to seek them. I want to run into the ocean and scream and splash like I'm trying to cover the earth with my waves. I want to find the biggest tree in the world and dig my hands into it's bark and climb my way to the edge of the sky. Don't you ever just want to run around and be crazy? There's no rhyme or rythm to it, it's just like an explosion of being. And my heart's pounding, my feet clang and my arms fly and all I can do is laugh and yell. I want to run outside and tear the earth apart with each dazzling leap and feel for a moment like I'm weightless. I'm absolutely boundless. I can't stop, I won't stop giving everything I can. It's madness, a beautiful, unexplainable loss of dignity and breath.

I hope you were imagining that along with me. Of course I can sometimes sneak aspects of that life into reality. I can dream the impossible with God, I can dance like no one's watching and when opportunity comes perhaps I'll climb a tree. But more then the physical aspect I want that wildness in my pursuit of the Lord. I want to be willing to do anything to see His face. I want that wild, untameable passion that bursts and moves and leaps for the sake my Father. I want to run with everything I have into His arms. I want mad, beautiful love that can be spurred by nothing else but His gaze. I want to want Jesus with every fiber of my being!

Whew I need to go dance around or something.

Sincerely.

Jaelle The Wild

High Beauty

"There peeping among the cloud-wrack, above the dark high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for awhile. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond it's reach." -Lord of the Rings, Return of The King

Ahh this passage from LOTR almost makes me cry every time. To think that above these misty clouds that block our view, beyond the storms and shadow there is a pure and perfect light that continues to burn in beauty forever. Though I cannot see it, it remains untouchable in it's perfection, alight forever for it's audience of One. 


I don't think I'll look at the stars the same again. What a promise they are. I feel God saying, "Don't worry, my beauty and my purpose is out of reach of any evil. Just, look up."

Loving With Strings Attached

The other day I was truly offended. When I tried to talk to someone I got little less then a grunt in response, they didn't even look up from the phone they were texting with. I ended up just walking away, bewildered and hurt. I harbored up in my room that night feeling absolutely worthless. I hate it when I feel on the outside of peoples worlds. Like a traveler sailing around an island with impossible rocky cliffs, all it seems they can do is drift. I started harboring some pretty bitter feelings. Then I asked God and searched for Him. "God why do I feel this way? It's not right." He answered with this phrase, "It's ok to love people and not receive love back." Right after this revelation came to me I felt myself flooded with feelings of compassion and love for this person. I felt like no matter how many times they ignore me it wouldn't hurt at all because I have the freedom to love people without needing to be loved in return! It's ok, I didn't need their affirmation, all I need is a refilling of the love of God to wash over me so that I can continue to love like He does.

Then I wondered, "Does the love I give come with strings attached?" Have I been loving people for the sake of retrieving their love in return? Have I been selfishly doling out gifts because I expect to receive them back? I realize I was only offended because I was loving with strings attached, it was a self-satisfying, self-seeking love that lives only for itself. That kind of love doesn't risk anything because it's purpose is to create a cycle where as soon as it's given it comes right back. I'm glad that person ignored me now. If this is true then I haven't been really loving people. Real love gives without asking, does without needing and I have had the gaul to hoard it for only the ones who I will give it back. I cannot live this way! Indeed no one can live this way. Love should be free to fly or rest it's wings on weathered shoulders. Whether or not it finds a home amidst tremored heartstrings it's always there, ready to move in when the time is right.

That's not to say that I'll just cast my love in every direction. No there is a purpose and a mystery to loving people. That is to say I'll love everyone with that uncommon, Godly love but there is a depth to it that I'll keep locked away for awhile, saved for specific people who God has called to be apart of my future.

So anyways that's my rant :)

"I swear it's You that I've waited for.
I swear it's You that my heart beats for.
And it ain't gonna stop.
No it just won't stop"

;)

Wonder

I LOVE THIS KID!

And the message also. 

Let me tell you a story.

When my brother James was a baby my mom placed him in a little, what do you call it? baby seat? Well one of those things that children sit in. Anyways, so my mother turns around for  second to grab a bottle of baby food and when she turns back she notices James eating something. With horror she opens his mouth and realizes it was a spider! He just grabbed it right off the wall and put it in his mouth! Of course she immedaiteley set to the task of pulling little spider pieces from James tiny teeth while he laughed his cute little head off. 

Now what I love about this story is the idea that a baby, a little, chubster baby, could just look at a spider and without any fear pick it up and eat it. Now that he's grown up James hates spiders but when he was a baby there was something about the wonder of the creature that gave him complete courage to conquer it. It was his innocence that allowed him to reach out and touch the untouchable. Most of the time I think it's the fear built up in my own mind about things that is the most effective at keeping me idle. It's not the strength or the horror of what I'm facing, but my own ideas about it that stop me from conquering it. If only I could look at the creatures that I'm facing with the same wonder and fearlessness of a child. Maybe I'd see them for what they really are, little bugs that I could eat up in a second. I think an army of innocents will do some of the greatest damage to the Kingdom of darkness, because they contain the wonder and courage of childlike faith.

What this world needs is a little wonder, the wonder of the innocents.