Keep bleeding Keep Keep bleeding....

I sit here in the middle of a heart break...inside of a Vampire book. Oh my lanta I just couldn't stay away. They are just so well written. You have to know what's going to happen or something I don't even know. I do know that I'm like 1/3 done with the second book...and I did that mostly all in one day. It makes me sick.

But it was beautiful

You read along knowing that this boy is going to break this girls heart and she's so nieve thinking that something else is going to happen and then you just see her crushed.The end of the chapter she sinks into complete grief and the utter pain of all that heart break is. The next four pages contains one word upon each...the tittle of the next four months. Followed by "Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me." Written so perfectly and do dramatically. My heart broke for this imaginary girl. I have so been there. Standing in the middle of this pain...there's nothing like it. Not knowing how you will get through the next few months...years...and not wanting to know.
Yet times still passes all the same. I'm so thankful for God. I don't know how people heal from heart break without Him...or if they ever really do. He heals so gently...so patiently. He takes his time, letting you get it all out, one layer at a time. No one else can do that. Not your trying to forget, not drinking away your sorrows, not even getting a new boy/girl friend. That wound will still linger.
Putting a person in God's place has to be the most stressful thing ever. That person is going to let you down. They will. The God shaped hole in your heart was never meant to be filled by a person...it is MUCH MUCH to big. Bigger in every way. When that person leaves, because eventually they will (if not by break up, we all have to die sometime) your entire world gets destroyed. Your since of being. God said "I will never leave you or forsake you" and He's the only one telling the truth when he says it...and I'm so thankful for that.

An emo trip with two happy girls

My friend is leaving on Tuesday to return to Oregon...sad sad times. So we tried to shove in an adventure today that we had been putting off. We went to Cascade...and we had a time limit of five hours. So we went, had linner (lunch dinner. It's the cousin of Brunch), and came home...after a few emo adventures.
We picked flowers...that were really weeds
We saw a bear....that was really a log
AND we found a rope bridge that was illegal to cross.

I just want you to know that we where driving and pulled over for everyone of these adventures. Ha ha ha. Good times.

STOKED OUT OF MY MIND!

I'm so freaking hyper right now. It's lovely. I have Skillet blaring...I've done my random air guitar. Oh I'm a rock star. Really.
It's funny how you forget how awesome some music is. You put it on the shelf and forget about it for awhile only to rediscover it and fall in love all over again. I listened to Skillet a lot two years ago with a broken heart. It was shelved when I had listened to it FAR to much. But they really do rock...and they are way fun to see in concert. It was good stuff. So this is a shout out to Skillet. I don't know why.

P.S. that shouldn't be the post of the script but rather just the script itself. God is really really good. Just when you think you know it all you don't. It's funny how when you are in his presence everything you thought was a big deal, everything you thought would bring you so much joy...everything just pales in comparison to him. It's incredible. Something you can't just read about something you can't fake. It's real, HE'S REAL...and I love Him. He's SO big it takes a whole eternity to get to know Him. I love it.

July 15th

Life is defined my moments. If you look back in your life you can base your time around big events. For example "Oh that happened before I graduated." or "I met so and so after I got married." For me and my family July 15th is one of those big dates. On July 15th 1997 around midnight my brother and a car load of his friends where cruising around not far from my house. The details are a little sketchy seeing as how everyone present in the car has a slightly different story, but the facts stand that the car my brother was in rolled two and a half times, he was thrown from the car and landed on the pavement. He died at age 19...I was 9 at the time.

As of today it has been 11 years since my brother died so of course I was thinking about it a bit. Shawn would have been 31 on January 2 of this year. That's the same age as my youth pastors. I hadn't really thought about this connection until I was sitting in church and one of them came and sat by his mother and was trying to whisper to her something during service. It hit me then, that could have been my mother and my brother. It was only then that it started sinking in how much it must hurt my mom not to have him around anymore. It's weird thinking that Shawn would have been the same age as some of my mentors and I don't know if I'll look at them totally the same again. To me he's stuck forever in my head as the hippie kid that he was. Would he have his hair cut now? Would he have kids too? What would our relationship be like now if he was still alive? I was just a kid when he died. What would it be like to have a big brother to go to advice to? What would he have said at my graduation? How would he have looked at my sisters wedding? What would he be like now? Would he come say hi at work and tease me about things? What would it be like?

While those questions do come up that's not what had my attention today. What really got me was the miracles around the whole event of his death. My brother grew up listening to Nirvana and other hard core music. He dabbled in the dark side of stuff and did his fare share of worldly things. Before he died, at one point he said he had a dream that one of his friends was the devil and was chasing after him. In his later years (It's weird that he was only 19...he seemed so much older. He was living on his own, and helping raise a little boy...that's a whole other story) he got into the more hippie scene than anything. At one point he found himself at the rainbow festival. While there he went out into the woods alone...picking mushrooms (IDK...while telling my mom this tale he said that he knew the difference between the ones that where deadly and not. IDK what he was planing to do with these mushrooms but I just don't worry about it.) when a elderly man walked up to him holding a Bible. He said that his name was Gabriel. He opened his Bible and read my brother a passage. (Shawn couldn't remember which one) he told him that time was getting short and then left. A few weeks later my brother passed away.

Like a week after he died I had a dream, long story short, that he was home. I didn't understand because he was dead. In my dream a lady came to our house to help with his funereal arrangements. She was talking to us, her eyes fell on him and she was like "Hey wait...why are you here?" She was mad like we where tricking her or something. He just laughed...in my dream I heard his laugh. I wish I could remember it. I think it might be on a VHS somewhere. I woke up and realized that he is with us. That's not doctrinal and no I don't think my brothers spirit hangs around....although as a kid healing from a tragedy I may have. But bottom line I knew my brother was safe in heaven and I would see him one day. I had a peace that surpassed all understanding...and despite the occasional cry I have ever since.

My mom on the other hand wasn't so sure about my brother's salvation and this hurt her. He may or may not have dabbled into satanic things. But hope lingered because of him meeting Gabrila and all.... :D So one night not to long after he died she was outside and she prayed "God, just let me know he's safe, just give me a sign. Like a shooting star." AS SOON as she opened her eyes...there it was. Coincidence. I THINK NOT. I know a 20 year old man that has never seen a shooting star...let alone one on request. God works in mysterious ways.

Shawn's life touched SO many. He was such a friendly, nice, funny guy. He was way talented with the guitar and could sing pretty awesome too. It's weird, even my brother in law, who my sister meet long after Shawn's death, knew him in high school. In fact they use to walk home together. It's just uncanny. His life touched so many, so did his death. Grief can break a person or build them and grief striking so close to home is certainly shaping. I don't know if I would be where I am today if Shawn wouldn't have died. I don't know if I would have been at the church camp that I was at when I got saved if he never would have died. I don't know if my family would treat each other the same. I just don't know.

When Shawn was ejected from the car he pretty much landed in someones front yard. The people who lived in the house where with him when he passed. They are a nice family and to this day they still send us a Christmas card every year. God had me thinking about them the other day. They are Christians and I'm sure they prayed for me, for us. How much have their prayers shaped our lives? It's all a miracle, tragic yes, but God has a plan SO much bigger than our own. I'm not saying that I'm grateful that he died, but I can see how much bigger it really is. God changed my life, who I am in a sense through Shawn's death, who knows how he used it in others life's. Life is defined by moments.

Tongue tied and heart locked

I talk…I talk a lot actually. In fact my sister tunes me out sometimes and if I ask her about it she says it’s because I never shut up. I just like to talk, and awkward silences scare me so I tend to try and avoid them. I usually do this with chatter, hoping to get the other person to talk a long with me…but lately I just walk away. “Hi nice to meet you. I’m Sarah…oh that’s nice…[insert lame excuse to walk away…and maybe possibly to go home as well].”
I, the once bubbly social butterfly, am becoming socially awkward.
I have a fake theory it’s because all the senseless drive thru talk I do. It’s literally sucked a life times worth of talking out of me. I have nothing left to say now other than “Hi…how’s your day. Good. Here’s your change…have a good day. (shut window)” Except in life there is no window…the people are still there, friends are still there, just wanting to talk to me and be talked to…but the coffee house has sucked it all out of me and all I want to do is go home.
This isn’t true…but there is something going on with me and I can’t pin point it. I don’t want to talk and I’m losing my ability to listen…and it’s becoming hard for me to care about things. I just feel blah. I don’t feel like the bubbly kid I once was, at least lately, a week ago I TOTALLY did. I feel like the mellow kid that would be just fine with reading all day and not really being talked to, although I might have a comment or two at some point. I’m becoming the quite kid at the lunch table on the inside.
I don’t get what’s going on with me spiritually. I feel all jumbled lately. I’m kind of distracted…going through the motions with a legitimate smile on my face but I haven’t felt God in a while and I don’t feel like I am really worthy to. (That’s the flesh within). I know in my head that God loves me (For the Bible tells me so) But what does God think of me right now? How does he see me at the moment? Because all I see of me lately is a jumble of thoughts and a thousand mood swings in one day. God what do you think of me? Why am I so tongue tied…and why is my heart locked up? Why don’t I feel anymore? I don’t feel like a real friend, I feel like a fake. I don’t get me. But You know me better than I know myself. Could you tell me some things then please? Change me.

Sigh...and another one bites the dust

So I've heard about these vampire books. I was skeptical. Vampires...that's creepy...and dark and weird. The friend that suggested them tends to have the opposite taste than I do. No really. We joke about it. "Oh you like this...no wonder I don't." sort of thing. She tried to convince me it wasn't dark. It's a love story. So I sort of shrugged off the suggestion. Another friend read them...all of them and now has a love hate relationship with them. She really doesn't like how much she likes them. A small group assistant talked about them and how much she loved them. Another friend read them, this time a guy. He said it was a waist of time...yet I would like to point out that he not only read them all...but bought them all too. So I borrowed the first on from a friend.


And stayed up until 4 am reading it

*SIGH*

I like words...if only I could spell them

I picked up reading again. Up until the last month I spent hours a day watching TV, which by the way without cable takes a lot of skill and tolerance because there is nothing on. But now I want to read...all the time. I just got done reading Beautiful Boy. It was a Starbucks featured book about a dad's journey through his sons addiction. It's a very true story. The guy did ALL sorts of drugs but mainly meth. Meth is from satan. Just how it makes you act and feel and what it does to you. It steals your life. It's awful in so many ways and I may get into that in a different blog. (AND no I don't do drugs and I never have...I'm just a weird kid...love me anyway) a
Now I'm on The Shack and I'm loving it. I'm also reading Confident Woman in the back ground for small group. Along with Exodus.
I want to read all the time as I have mentioned. It's kind of sad. People invite me to do things and I'm just thinking "I sort of want to just read". I had a full day off not to long ago, I'm talking NO plans and that doesn't happen often and I slept and read ALL day. It was wonderful. Yet sad. Also I need to read the Bible more. Yes I am reading Exodus...or starting it rather...but I'm devouring The Shack. Shouldn't that be the other way around?
A plus is I think my vocabulary went up two points in the last month. Woo!

Love Languages

There is a fairly famous book among the christian culture called "The five love languages". It's a book the breaks down how people give and receive love. There are ways such as words of affirmation, gift giving, quality time, touch...I can't remember the last one. My engaged friend bought the book and her and her fiance now know each others love languages thanks to a little quiz in the back. I tried to take this test...I don't think I qualified. All the questions where like "If your spouse da da da...then a, b, c, or d." IDK I'm not married...THANKS FOR POINTING THAT OUT! JK. Totally JK.
A friend of mine claims that he found the sixth love language...violence. He says this and I think "so says an abusive husband to the police"...yet he makes some good points that I would have to agree to to an extent. Yet I have some points to make as well.
I think this "love language" runs deeper in boys that girls. Little boys...and adult boys too like to wrestle and shoot each other and all sorts of hurt each other. It's bounding time. I don't understand it really but it's really really funny to watch. Normal conversation and out of no where two guys are on the ground tangled in a mass trying to kill each other.
Do you see girls doing this? Well sometimes. I had my first wrestling experience on New Years when I took down my small group leader. Oh it was awesome...I won. I have always wanted to wrestle. Boys make it look fun and I never knew if I would win really...but I did..but that's beside the point. This was with a fellow tom-boy. It's not built into girls like it is guys. Very few girls would be up to this...I learned that...it seems that it's a universal language with guys. So I can see where my friend, who is a boy would have come from in calling it a love language. My argument would have to be it is for you...because you are a boy.
Another example. Girls don't like each other two options. 1 they talk it out, most likely with tears, and are then best friends 2 they back stab them and don't ever talk to them and are mean in a way that only girls can be which I think hurts worse and scares deeper than a punch in the face. They will NOT be friends and will attempt to make sure that other people are not friends with them either. There is a rare number 3 that they just don't talk to them, avoid them, and just plan don't like them and when they are brought up there may be remnants of number two that sink in...
Boys get mad at each other and what do they do. Fight. Punch each other, wrestle and this time not in a fun way. But then everything is ok. They are buddies or understandably not friends. It's a weird loving end to a conflict. It's sort of an oxymoron isn't it?
There are some cases that girls will also fight it out...but it DOES NOT end friendly. In fact it ends up making things worse. And girls are brutal...like horror movie fighters. They will scratch you in the face. I have heard stories of a girl I know, by her own account, grabbing a girl and bashing her head against the sidewalk. Another girl I know had a girl try to punch her, she missed, her fist went flying past her face, the girl took this opportunity to reach out and bite her arm. It's not pretty...and it's defiantly not a love language.
Violence makes girls mad. This year at camp there was once again the famous game of water melon wrestling. One (sometimes two) watermelons covered in butter and other slippery things in the middle of a watered down, soaped up tarp. Goal- get the melon back to your team. You have to wrestle for it. The girl round lasted FOREVER. Probably the better part of a half an hour. All the girls had fun but I did hear of some girls getting fed up and having to punch a person or two to get people off of themselves. It starts out fun...but, I don't know what it is exactly, girls get mad when they fight. It's no longer a game...they are angry. I know this from experience. Maybe the old saying plays a big part with girls, "it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt". Having fun watermelon wrestling, then someone steps on your back and you are in pain...people still won't get off of you, won't listen to you when you say you're hurt so you throw some punches. Maybe it's the mother in us. Someone tries to take your kid, or whatever you are trying to protect, or they try to get back something back to the team or "family", in this case a watermelon you get mad. Maybe it's relationship. A friend tries to drag you off of a watermelon it's funny, you laugh. An acquaintance tries to drag you off of your goal you get furious. "What's her problem?!?!" Maybe it's the intent behind the action. Friend punches you in the arm as a hello it's fine. Make someone mad or annoy someone and they punch you in the arm you get angry. IDK but violence is not a love language to girls. And if it is taken as love on their side I would say that it would qualify as the love language as touch in their mind...or maybe even quality time.