Nibbling

You're like a peach: wonderful and beautiful. But there's a part of you that I don't understand. I am afraid of just chomping down on our relationship because I have done this before; my teeth have brushed this core before. I don't know how to approach it and you always seem to dismiss it. I'll never be able to reach it. And I'll never let anyone touch mine. I am forced to treat our friendship lightly so that we are okay. We can only continue nibbling about the edges.

>>Levi wrote this to me. I remember reading the message while at work and being nearly moved to tears. It was true, all of the words. They were so sweet. Candid. True.

illuminate

In my closet, I close my eyes and hide; 

the darkness is the perfect place to disguise my tears, 

and the ugliness I feel inside. 

An Old Friend calls to me,

 beckoning my attention, 

inviting me back to the familiar addiction. 

The memories raise the hairs on the back of my neck, 

my arms crawl with anticipation; 

oh, how sweet it will feel to hold you in my hands again. 

My head drops into my hands and I clutch my pen tightly. 

This could be what separates flesh from bone tonight.

To feel your touch on my arms sends cold heat surging over my body and my stomach turns over. 

Gentle and soft, like a whisper or a leaf falling, did you have to come back now?

 The only light to illuminate this hole is trickling in from the space between the door and the wall. 

There isn't so much as a flicker inside this heart tonight.
7-26-10

The paper thin hospital gown you wear matches the sly grin across your lips.

{wake up call}

God woke me up this morning. No. Actually, my roommate's alarm did which is odd because I usually sleep right on through it. Then something even more awesome happened: God spoke. He said to get up and read my devotions. It had to be the voice of God because that direction counters anything that I would say, even subconsciously. I stayed in my bed and asked, "Seriously, God?" I offered up another option to Him and tried to justify it by saying I could do it in half an hour when I had to get up. He was silent. He had already spoken. There were no other options. How foolish of me to try and change God's mind!

So two choices were before me as I laid in my comfortable bed. I could choose to roll over, pull the blankets tighter, going back to sleep and ignoring God. Or I could be obedient. The past few weeks there have been a few themes and terms that I can't seem to escape. Speakers in chapel, songs on the radio, and even echoed in my readings for class have spoken about testimonies where God spoke, and people reacted. They were moved to action by God. They responded to His call.

Sin

The more that I lean on His word to inform me and look at the world through the lens of the bible, the better understanding I have of sin. I wish that sin would have been talked about more with me. I feel like in my church we only reference sin when it is related to forgiveness. It's comfortable to look at sin from the cushioned seat of forgiveness. We need to see forgiveness from the side of sin. Sin is too often minimalized and treated lightly.