no need for a pause button

It's strange to be back here, with the cursor flashing at me, waiting for words. I don't really feel like I have words to offer, if we're being honest. I'm back home for the weekend, but my weekend is almost over. In what I'm sure will feel like no time at all I'll be back in the car headed a little farther north to the place I call my new home. Being back has felt different than I thought it would. I've realized over the last few years how much people really put a place in to context. A city can feel entirely different based on who surrounds you. And now, this place where I grew up and went to college has changed again. It's crazy. I guess it's a good thing. If a place stayed the same forever it might make it difficult to ever really know if you are where you should be; if each time you came and went you slipped right back in to how things were before I think there might be a great sort of confusion. It's like an old pair of pants that have already been worn in. They may have holes or stains, but when you put them on after wearing a new pair that has yet to learn your curves, it makes you wonder why you ever let them go. There's an ease to slipping them on. It's like that, I guess. If every time I come home, it fits like that old pair of pants, better and more comfortably than my new home, I think I might leave always wishing I didn't have to. But this place has changed, and not for the worst, just in a way that helps me to know I am where I am supposed to be for now. There are moments, though, when I wish I could pack this place up like that old pair of pants and bring it with me. I do love this town.

I was writing to Him about change this morning. This is some of what we talked about.

"There are moments when I can feel my heart start to pound. Life moves and changes so fast. Babies grow in to toddlers, and in what seems like an instant, they are graduating from college. I know it can't be stopped or slowed, and it's good that it can't, but there are moments, Lord, when I would like to press the pause button. I would like to freeze time and preserve a moment or a season. And the only comfort I have found in this is You, Lord. Because if there are moments here and now in this broken, imperfect world that are big enough and beautiful enough to stop, to hold on to for a while, then how incredible eternity with You will surely be. How sweet to never run out of You, to have no need for a pause button, or reason to worry of the time slipping away. You are forever. You are bigger than what this earth can hold, greater than time itself."

"The sharpest sorrow is the one we dare not confide to any other. A death or obvious disaster is at least evident to others, and friends can comfort us with casseroles and kindly notes. But the shadow we must carry in secret forces us to listen to admonitions about why we should perk up. We must maintain the facade when we really want to screech...

"So she stuffed the lid back on the box of snakes and continued to pour tea charmingly. But Edwards noticed that there were shadows under her eyes and that at night, unguarded in her sleep, she sighed."

-"Marriage To a Difficult Man"

Elisabeth D. Dodds

my roommate roommate

Meet Rachel.

Or as Anna deemed her within our first few days here, "Rach Face."

Isn't she cute?

Rachel and I grew up 20 minutes away from each other, but never met until late in our college years.

She endured two years of nursing school with me.

This included a trip to Ecuador and some interesting community clinicals that I would not have made it through had she not been my clinical buddy.

Now she is my roommate roommate...meaning we share 200 square feet upstairs.

In just a few short weeks we have already laughed more than you would think possible.

She is quickly becoming one of my favorite people

and is one of the best story-tellers I know.

So thankful to have her here.

And in keeping with tradition...

Mr. George Randolph Brown.

meet amanda

And for the next roommate

meet Amanda.

Or as we fondly refer to her, Panda.

The name started when some of us went to visit the panda clan in Austin our sophomore year.

We discovered an embarrassingly large collection of pandas on the top of her dresser and a new name was born.

Panda and I have been friends since freshman year when we lived in the same dorm (building, not room).

We have lived together every year since then, so we're pretty well broken in with one another.

But it's always an adventure with this one and I couldn't be more excited to be in this new place with her.

We all learned a lot about this girl when she broke her little wings on a spring break trip:

1. She can rock two casts at the same time.

and probably most importantly

2. Panda handles situations most people would sulk in with incredible grace and joy.

So thankful to live with this girl for another year.

Still hoping some of those dance moves will rub off on me.

And just so there's no room to say I favor one guy over the next...

Meet Jason.

Aren't they cute.

meet anna

I thought it might be a good idea to introduce to you the girls I call my roommates.

They're pretty fun.

I thought we'd start with Anna.

Meet Anna.

Apparently Anna doesn't allow pictures to be taken of her by herself.

So, meet Brian, Anna's boyfriend.

This picture is a little old, but these are the same earrings she wore yesterday, so it's kind of like I just took it.

Anna thinks on a different level, at least that's what a numerologist told her in line at Sweet CeCe's and she reminds us of that "fact" most days.

Anna and I got to know each other better our junior year of college.

I think this was our first picture together.

In the last two years I have loved getting to know her, laughing with her, and sharing in our faith together.

If you haven't met this girl yet, she's a pistol.

She keeps things exciting and keeps things real.

She is one of the funniest people I know.

And if you ever need someone to just sit on the floor and cry with you, she'll do it.

Love this girl.

So thankful for her friendship.

what i just read

" What I want to say is pretty simple: despite what postmodernity (whatever you may conceive it to be) says, there is TRUTH that can be KNOWN; there is a center that holds reality together; there is meaning and purpose; there is a destiny and a calling of epic proportions (though you may never be famous)."

--Timothy Stoner, The God Who Smokes

"...the love that wins is a holy love. The love that won on the cross and wins the world is a love that is driven, determined, and defined by holiness. It is a love that flows out of the heart of a God who is transcendent, majestic, infinite in righteousness, who loves justice as much as He does mercy; who hates wickedness as much as He loves goodness; who blazes with a fiery, passionate love for Himself above all things. He is Creator, Sustainer, Beginning and End. He is robed in a splendor and eternal purity that is blinding. He rules, He reigns, He rages and roars, then bends down to whisper love songs to His creatures.

His love is vast and irresistible. It is also terrifying, and it will spare no expense to give everything away in order to free us from the bondage of sin, purifying for Himself a people who are devoted to His glory, a people who 'have no ambition except to do good,' (Titus 2:14). So He crushes His precious Son in order to rescue and restore mankind along with His entire creation (Isaiah 53:10-12). He unleashes perfect judgement on the perfectly obedient sacrifice and then pulls Him up out of the grave in a smashing and utter victory.

He is a God who triumphs.

He is no Auntie. He is a burning cyclone of passionate love.

Holy love wins."

--Timothy Stoner, The God Who Smokes

Amen.

the big apple

I would pay to see these two experience the Big Apple together this weekend.

T.V. material for sure.

And this little angel will definitely mix things up a bit.

Hope you three have a blast this weekend.