Talking myself through life.

Somedays I truly love life, most of them actually.

But some days are a bit harder.

I am an optimist and have always tried to see the best in everything. But after living in China this past year, I have become more of a realist - I am still very much a dreamer, passionate, and positive - but I have now lived in a city whose language I barely speak, who's people move through each day like clockwork working, always working, driven by making money or just plain survival, where I have had little to no community, few true friends who want to spend time with me (not JUST so they can learn English), and with a roommate who doesn't want to share her life with me. It has left me a bit of a pessimist at times.

I am thankful for my job. Most days I love it. I love the kids, no questions, but teaching them is intimidating. I love walking the streets when I feel safe (which is rare) like early mornings when less people are out to stare, gawk, and yell as they pass me by. I love that I have been fortunate to see a whole different world than the one I grew up in, who's language is completely different from mine, who's history and culture is far different from mine, places and face I would never have seen otherwise. I am thankful for the crazy food, the short bits of travel, and the new adventures.

But somedays, I just want to go home: home being my parents, my friends, people who share my values, morals, and ideas, who know me, who love me, who truly want me in their lives - no strings attached.

I often "talk myself through life" it feels. When, for no reason, I wake up feeling out of place and particularly far away, I read my Bible, try to quote Scripture, listen to worship music, journal my thoughts, and try to center myself in Him. It's often the only thing that gets me through those days.

I have such a long way to go in this life to become like Christ, to be a good daughter, friend, girlfriend, colleague, employee, human being. I lack patience, courage, confidence, humility, the ability to listen and not react, to rest and wait in and on my Lord. I have so far to go.

But I am trying. Each day that I talk myself through, I am trying.

Give me one pure and holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You

To know and follow hard after you
To grow as your disciple in your truth
This world is empty, pale, and poor
Compared to knowing you, my Lord
Lead me on and I will run after you

2 beautiful WHAM-Os

...in one quiet morning.

Thank you, Thomas Merton:

"Suffering, therefore must make sense to us not as a vague universal necessity, but as something demanded by our own personal destiny. When I see my trials not as the collision of my life with a blind machine called fate, but as the sacramental gift of Christ's love, given to me by God the Father along with my identity and my very name, then I can consecrate them and myself with them to God. For then I realize that my suffering is not my own. It is the Passion of Christ, stretching out its tendrils into my life in order to bear rich clusters of grapes, making my soul dizzy with the wine of Christ's love, and pouring that wine as strong as fire upon the whole world."

AND thank you Oswald Chambers:

"You can never set apart for God something that you desire for yourself to achieve your own satisfaction...You must sacrifice it, pouring it out to God - something that your common sense says is an absurd waste...Even love must be transformed by being poured out to the Lord."

Thinking about: life, love, family, friends, comforts, Heaven, true home, Jesus, and living life with an open hand.

let the wind fall wild across my path
even though we barely move, there's no turning back
there is a river; there is a road
place of holy riches untold
it's where i'm s'pposed to be
where i'm s'pposed to be
my heavenly

i know it never feels right
to let go of the safety we're used to holding so tight
but there is a lion underneath these skies
though love cries (though love cries)
though love cries, love will rise
my, my, my heavenly

so fly me higher, higher
hope fill me, keep me here
love lion, my, my...

so when i'm lonely or when i'm old
life is more behind me
all the stories have been told
i can fix my gaze up through the clouds
where i'm gonna be
where i'm gonna be
my heavenly

my, my heavenly
my heavenly