under attack.

you try and cope
with how they victimize you.
for when they're down,
they only criticize you.

Lord, I'm asking now for mercy
because they need to break it.
i'm praying hard for strength now
because we just can't take it.

test.

God is testing me. In order to move into the next stage of my life, He is testing me. He is testing my patience, my ability to learn and absorb, to apply His teachings to my life, and to stand strong in my belief, among other things. If he was not testing me, how else can I account for the proliferation of the things that are now tempting me in ways that I must resist. How can I disregard my own strength in morality when I'm constantly plagued with an environment that is defined by such easy immorality or relaxed morality (whatever way you want to define it). The situation I am in now is puzzling. Even if it were not against the law, even though it is, I find it very difficult to find the blessing that exists in that. The happiness that exists in those things is temporary, it's in passing. It isn't real. Most importantly, it isn't lasting. True bliss is in what happens organically to us. Love walks in and fulfills that desire. No drug can replace that feeling. I guess because I had the awakening of sorts in regards to what is really important, to me at least, in life - being surrounded by those whose purpose is defined by their theatrical resume, they can't relate to my desire to accomplish something within me. For there to be integrity, fortitude, grace and love inside of me and everything I do - that is what defines me. I know. You know. God knows. That is what matters.

Side note: blogging from your iPhone is difficult.

integrity.

integrity.

What a powerful word to apply to anything and everything you do, because, eventually, lies will catch up to you. I had someone tell me a long time ago that if you lie, you have to cover that lie with another lie... and, eventually, you will have had to keep track of so many lies, that it would have been easier in the long run to tell the truth. You don't need to embellish anything about your life. You don't need the work you're doing to seem bigger than it is, because it is big. It's yours. It speaks for itself, in that way. Always be honest.

for you.

i just love the mornings
when we're side by side.
every night together is
a moment in paradise.

when we touch the sky,
light shines through the darkest day.
it is only you and i
who can reach the sky that way.

there'll be no more teardrops
our eyes will cry.
this is where we are now,
no reason left to sigh.

now it seems there's a different
dawn for us at daybreak.
and if life wasn't all you hoped for today,
may tomorrow be perfect when you wake.

baby, don't you see that our heaven has begun
now together, we are one.

a little space.

i have been hiding all my hopes away
never knowing where i was to start,
never thinking i would need them again someday.
but God set aside this time for me
to clear a little space in my heart,
so that there is room inside for us to be...

untitled 8.

these are crazy times
in what turns out to be a crazy life,
where anything could happen next.

fortunes are made overnight
and are lost just as quickly.
friends come and go with time.

lovers do not simply glimpse eternity,
they stare it in the face,
conflicted between fear and ecstasy.

billions of souls,
more than you will ever know,
say no.

another billion,
the few brazen,
say yes.

we have much in common.

not a lecture, but a lab.

If you injure the tendon or ligament in your knee, through rehab and surgery you can get it repaired and be back up and running. Relationships are the ligaments that hold together the family and friendships in our lives. When they become torn, or we strain them, we suffer. It hurts. Sooner or later, every relationship struggles. Our friendships get hot, and then they cool. Ties within our family are tight, yet become loosened over time. A marriage will struggle, a romance will crumble. It is within ourselves to find the way to healing and hope. Our hearts, our homes, our friendships, our relationships are all repairable. They can all be repaired and we can be back up and running again.

Men and women are different. These differences come to the surface in our relationships with one another. At first, opposites attract. We are drawn to these differences, but we don't take the time to really come to understand these differences. That's when these things that make your partner so wonderfully unique to you, make them incredibly annoying to you. This is when everything that is love turns into war.

Relationships are hard. Of course they are when you take into account all of these differences that we have. You're taking two very different people - flawed people - and not only putting them together, not only making them live together, but those two people become one. They are, together, one being. That's a challenge. The challenge comes from all of the things we, as individuals, bring into a relationship. One of the reasons our relationships suffer is because of the baggage we bring along with it. Everyone does it. We have insecurities about us, our wounds from our past... they are present, always. Tardiness, snoring, our exaggerations or overdramatics... it's all enclosed into this baggage we carry along. She has a critical spirit, and he withers under criticism. She gets clingy, and he's afraid of intimacy. He has anger issues, and she gets passive and withdraws. One's a perfectionist, one's controlling. He's got addictive tendencies, she's got abandonment issues. She craves closeness, and he needs his space. You take all of these things and throw them together... then add in some family weirdness, personal quirkiness, bad morning breath, embarrassing secrets, strange habits... and it's just a recipe for disaster. It's like putting a puppy and a kitten in the dryer... you wouldn't do that... I'm not sure that's the best analogy, but it's just what came up in my head. Don't put your pet in the dryer. I digress...

God puts us in this cage match of love. Why would someone want to be in the ring with the person that I am?  A person whose baggage is oversized and overstuffed and costs an extra $50 to put on an airplane.... I would be so scared to stand across the ring from that person. Scary. Scary. Scary.

I think there's this secret plot, this divine conspiracy. I think God has got this agenda he is trying to accomplish  through our relationships here on Earth. God wants to use love to transform us. Love can shape you, make you into who you were meant to be when you were created in His image. The relationship that you're placed in can do that to you, if you allow it. I think of it like this. I needed to learn patience. Can I read about it in a book, or read an article about it online? Yes. In fact, I have. Does that TEACH me anything? Maybe that it's a theory, or that it's fathomable. But that's really it. Patience comes in the form of waiting for someone, on someone. When they are sick, when you are sick... when you're both sick. What it's like to be patient with them as I'm dealing with my own issues... and vice versa. I think that's how you learn and have your character grow, and gain something.

I am an adult. So I have to act like an adult. Jesus said to be like the little children. That means be child-like, but not childish. There's a difference. I think a lot of the problems that engulf us are the inability to relinquish the things within us that are CHILDISH. If you live life under your own personal agenda - it's all about me, I'm going to make this for me... the only change that comes in your life will be your desire to change everybody else. THEY need help. THEY need guidance. If only he would stop doing that. If only she would change that. If only... If only... If...

Relationships teach us how to love. I could go on and on and fill this space with a million words on how I felt about that... But this idea isn't a lecture. It's a lab. A real relationship teaches you how to love, how to lose, how to feel, how to do and how to don't. Not just puppy love, or shallow love, or lust. Love is knowing that instead of being ticked about what bugs me, I want to understand what makes her tick. Those ideas are just two different worlds of perspective in themselves. I want to enjoy her personality, not change it.

"Love is a rock, smoothed over by a stream." We are these bumpy, cracked, jagged pieces of rock until we're kicked into the stream... the water of the stream smooths us over into those nice, soft rocks that form the riverbed under our feet. We can submerge ourselves below the rushing waters of love, genuinely, we can be smoothed into the people we were destined to be.