confession.

some things got stirred up in me today..things i thought i've dealt with.

i realized something about myself last week that scared me...and then i lived this week as if nothing changed.
that scared me even more. do you do this? am i the only one?

but...
there are some things from my past that are still haunting me...i cannot deny it any longer.

i don't think about these things everyday...and honestly, i thought i had moved passed them...
until i was forced to really face them today...and i realized i still held onto some of that junk....that junk that robbed me of so much.

it took everything in me not to ball my eyes out in a room full of people today. now that takes a lot...(my sister can tell you this). i cry very easily...i don't apologize about that. God made me an emotional/sensitive person. i'm just fine with that....beats being callused/jaded.

but i'm aware now of the hurt that i've been holding onto..the hurt that has been stuffed down...i'm aware now the consequences in my life from holding onto that hurt and not allowing God to take it. i'm aware now of the people i've hurt because of that.

so, i guess this really hasn't been a confession since you have no idea what i'm talking about.
honestly, i'm pretty much an open book and have no problem sharing with all you wonderful people...but some things are better left unsaid in an open setting such as this.

so...there's my confession/non-confession for all three of you who read. ;)

hittin the road..

ok, so i won't be going very far. but some great gals and i will be in the mountains this weekend. i cannot wait. i love getting out of the city and soaking up nature! i really need it right now. i love the clear air, the smell of the trees, the animals, the smell of firewood, hiking around...adventures! i really could go on. i wish i could go right this second!

anyway..all this to say, i'll try to take some pics and post them, but i should be out of commission for a little bit. i'm leaving my computer...i'm not going to answer my phone (what's new?)...just me, the gals, God, and the critters. ;)

hmmm...

i got a hair cut.

i'm not quite sure how i feel...

check out my rockin lumberjack shirt. haha..sorry i had to give it props. it is pretty much my favorite shirt right now. well, next to my hoodies of course. ;)

full.

i feel really full right now.

i have been going through a dry season...for some reason, so many of us are afraid to talk about this type of season in our life. but you know, i'm tired of being afraid to talk about the hard things...the things that might expose our speckled hearts.

but still i've been feeling like i am missing something huge. i feel like i have access to the God of the Universe (which i do) and i'm just asking Him for directions to my neighbor's house instead of galaxies.

but tonight i feel the winds have shifted. i just cannot stop thinking about how much HE loves me...you...us. i just cannot stop thinking about how everyday...in everything...HE pursues me like a madman!

wild isn't it?

I've been tagged. What's a gal to do?

For your entertainment, here are 10 random facts about me. It was too hard to figure out which ones to use. Of course, I now have to figure out a blog title since Jerry called me out on it. Dang it! I was hoping i could get away with it a bit longer.

i have an odd obsession with hoddies. I don't know what it is about them. They are my comfort clothing...some people have sweat pants. i have hoodies.

i was studying anthropology in college and was wanting to be an archaeologist. Then God grabbed ahold of my heart and i felt He had other plans for me. Man, I could be somewhere rockin right now playin in the mud.

As a kid, one of my favorite things to do was hang out in my dad's "shop" and help him work. We did anything from repack wheel bearings, change his oil, paint and fix his motorcycle's trailer, make tables and chairs and picture frames...etc. Now did i really learn how to do any of that? Not really. I just wanted to hang out with my dad. and I loved the smell of his shop.

I think i have ADD...or is it ADHD? What's the difference? Who knows. I don't feel like looking it up.

I am the furthest away from being a detail oriented person. I would be a horrible eye witness. But, I think i have selective detail orientation because sometimes i can describe things down to the t. odd...very odd.

I used to play baseball with the neighborhood boys in the church parking lot when i was in 5th through 8th grade. I got really mad when I tried to sign up to play baseball and they told me girls had to play softball. I had a hard time getting used to that stupid grapefruit ball. I only played two more years. I hated softball.

My love language is quality time so if you don't wanna hang out with me, I don't think you care about me. I think this makes complete sense. You care about someone, don't you want to be around them? It isn't rocket science.

I've been writing songs since I can remember. I have a billion notebooks full of half songs, quarter songs, one lines, whole songs...etc. Many are just ideas. When I sit down and try to make sense of my notebooks, it is slightly overwhelming. It is too much....also, i hate writing with capital letters. the main time i do write properly is for work.

I am the least organized person you'll ever meet. I just got a planner and it is driving me crazy to put things in it. Can't I decide to do something last minute any more? No, because all of you uber-organized freaks get incredibly annoyed with me!

I am really bad with crowds of people, but I love to get to know people one on one or in a small group. Anything over a group of five or so puts me in introvert mode. i hate being noticed in a large group of people. i get all self-conscious and say stupid things. that happens a lot anyway. sometimes i just blurt things out without thinking. oops.

i think something is wrong with me...

i was at the mall this afternoon...let me just say that i'm not a huge fan of the mall for multiple reasons...

but none the less, i am on the hunt for "the perfect dress." i need it for the rehearsal dinner for Dawn's wedding. and so the hunt began...

as i was looking around the stores, my heart felt very dissatisfied. i found myself wanting everything i saw and even found myself wishing i had more money to be able to afford the cloths i really want to wear.

now i must pause here and let you in on a little something about me...i'm not one of those people that says they just enjoy the "finer things in life" as an excuse to purchase ridiculously overpriced things. i'm almost the opposite of that. i guess growing up with parents that were living paycheck to paycheck kinda teaches you that there's more to life than said "finer things." at an early age, i learned that happiness and love could not be found in those things. and even though i didn't grow up in a God-honoring home either, i learned that those things would never satisfy.

so, back to the mall...

as i was looking at these beautiful dresses, all i could think about were the people in africa i met...each item of clothing represented a child starving...and with each thoughtless purchase, i was allowing that to happen.

i was about to buy a dress that cost more than they made in a year...yes, a year...and i had to ask myself, "why am i looking for a dress to buy when i have plenty at home that i never wear?"

the mall became this bottomless pit full of things that don't matter...just things...

africa is a continent full of people that do matter.

I put the dress down...

and walked out.

consume delight

When your words came, I ate them;
they were my joy and my heart's delight...
Jeremiah 15:16

The first time I read this verse, it was like the wind was taken out of me. i stopped in my tracks...


the NLT version says this...

When I discovered your words, I devoured them.
They are my joy and my heart’s delight,

beautiful.
absolutely beautiful.

sick.

i hate being sick. i should have known this was coming. i hardly ever get sick and last week i told someone that. Some might say i jinxed myself. I don't think there's such a thing. I do believe in something much bigger...God's sense of humor. He has a way of humbling me. Just like if you tell people you never get caught speeding. You can expect a ticket the next day.

So...back to being sick. i have a thing with medicine...i don't take it. I have a thing with doctors..i don't like them when they try to fill me up with pills instead of telling me to wait it out. (don't get me going on that..).

i've been drinking a lot of herbal tea, oj, and good ole h2o. That should do the trick. i should be back in business in no time.

God of This City

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the millions of children, women and even men held captive in sex slavery. This doesn't just include slaves in far away lands such as Thailand...this includes people in your city. Right now..in this very moment...there more than likely is someone being held captive right down the street from you. If you live in the city...it could be right down the block. Don't believe me? Look into it. You'll be shocked.

There's a new song out called God of This City. When I first heard it, I had no idea that this song was written under the circumstances that it was.

I really felt that I had to share this..here are a few lines from an interview with the writer of the song. He and his band were in Thailand playing shows and visiting orphanages among other things. They ended up playing a two hour set in a strip club/brothel.


"I ask Aaron about the song and as he recalls the circumstances his voice breaks and he begins to cry, still moved by the events he's describing...in that small area there are 30,000 prostitutes and that figure excludes kids and excludes anything that's outside of the range of, say 18-30, and who are female. You probably hear of ladyboys and all those kinds of things? It's got a ladyboy community and all this kind of stuff, and 90 or 95 percent of Thailand's income comes from the sex industry."

"There was a bar called The Climax Bar - on a street that's about 10 metres wide, it's a kilometre long and it's filled with everything you can physically imagine. And I promise you, as a red-blooded male, to keep your head in the right place you've got to look down at the ground and walk down that street and pray because it is just so in your face. People hit you with menus about everything, flashing lights, just everything you can imagine goes on in that place. You see kids as young as eight, nine, 10, just selling themselves, you know?! You see 60-year-old guys walking down the street with two 13 or 14-year-old girls. Forget about the Christian thing, you just get raging! You properly get raging when you see that happening, you know?!"

He pauses to compose himself and continues, "But we got the chance to play in this bar, a two-hour worship set in this bar. I don't think the people in the bar spoke a word of English but we basically got to go in."

"At one point I just started singing out. I started singing "Greater Things", something along those lines, almost prophesying over the city. And without going into the band dynamics, slowly this groove emerged from this thing."

God of this City (Greater Things)

You’re the God of this city
You’re the King of these people
You’re the Lord of this nation
You are

You’re the light in this darkness
You’re the hope to the hopeless
You’re the peace to the restless
You are

For there is no-one like our God
There is no-one like our God

Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done
In this city

Greater things have yet to come
And greater things have still to be done here

You’re the Lord of Creation
The Creator of all things
You’re the King above all Kings
You are

You’re the strength in our weakness
You’re the love to the broken
You’re the joy in the sadness
You are

For there is no-one like our God
There is no-one like our God

Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done
In this city

Greater things have yet to come
And greater things have still to be done here

More about Hollywood

As i mentioned in my last blog, there really is too much to blog about..i don't know where to begin. But...here are a few highlights

I ended up being just a few feet away from Chili from TLC and James Marsden (X-Men, 27 Dresses, The Notebook, etc) in the airport. James ran into Chili and hung out with her while she was waiting for her luggage. She was on my flight. She was teaching him some dance moves...he's a really bad dancer..trust me. But he just looked like a regular joe. All stars are just that. I don't see what the big deal is.



Then at a rockin Brazilian restaurant in Los Feliz, i saw Giovanni Ribisi. What i liked best about seeing Giovanni, was that the girl he was with (who i definitely think was his girlfriend) was very "normal" looking. She wasn't some hot mama model or overly dressed actress type. She just looked like a normal girl. That made me like him more than i already do...


Anyway, enough about stars.



Dawn took me to Santa Monica on Sunday instead of watching the first part of the Superbowl. Please believe that was just fine to me. Beach? A bunch of sweaty, gross men chasing a ball around while millions act afool thinking they are gods? Hmmm...tough call..
We actually were gonna miss it completely and head over to Moasic (her church...Erwin McMannis rocks my world!) ...but we decided that hanging out with her family for Superbowl might be more God-honoring.

When we got to her brother's place in Los Feliz, they were completely into the game (we got there for the 4th quarter). Now imagine this scene...
Dawn's family are New Yorker Italians. They look and act the part. They are amazing! So, we walk in to yelling and screaming at the tv...

I've gotta say, I had a blast watching it with them. I don't think i've ever had so much fun at a Superbowl party. They were so into it. Which kinda shocked me since her two older brothers are artsy filmmakers...not at all the type i'd of pegged as football fans..but whatever.

Too much fun.

At the shower, Dawn's brothers served us drinks and brunch. I kept catching them trying to come up with ways to ruin Dawn's shower...throwing her presents into the pool in the backyard, eating all of the cupcakes, "accidentally" starting a food fight...I found myself encouraging their mischievous ways...don't tell Dawn on me. ;)



So, Dawnie and I ended up having a blast together...staying up late talking and drinking tea...laughing and crying..praying and laughing some more. I don't deserve friends like her. I am grateful.

I miss LA already!

I don't even know where to begin about my weekend in LA. Each time I visit, I fall in love with that city more and more.

I have so much to post...and i'm really, really, really (did i say really?) tired. So, you'll just have to wait. ;)

Here are a few pictures to hold you over for a bit.

slowly but surely..

I am such a girl..

I hate to admit this but when it comes to cars, I am such a girl.

My tire decided that it would no longer take my abuse and conked out on me today on 400 North.

Now I've changed tires before...with a guy helping me...and it is really easy. But every time that i've tried on my own, I can't get the lug nuts off! If it weren't for those blasted things, I'd be golden.

Anyway, i'll spare the details..but my car, Junior is very glad she finally has new shoes. She looks beautiful (and yes my car is named Junior and she's a girl...).

I had a great time chatting with the guys at the tire place. They are really cool!

So, the moral of this story..i need to be better about my car. I knew this was coming...i was just putting it off.

If i ever get married, taking care of the cars will definitely be my husband's job.