One of my friends at college wrote this totaly awsome post. I read it and I just sat back in awe of how deep it was. (is?) But anyway, thank you Athene. I was truly blessed by what you wrote.

"you know i don't think i've ever asked you how you were and have had you respond with anything better than fine or ok. that's not very inspiring. maybe you should work on that."

knife inserted and twisted.

ouch. funny how it only hurt a little then. and the hurt only grew over these past three years. it was one of those conversations you just can't shake.... the words remain echoing in your mind, your location, what you were wearing and doing, who you were with, all etched in memory forever.

but a seed was planted in my mind. what's it gonna take for me to be more than fine? what's it gonna take for me to say that and mean that? the last thing i want to do is say i'm great when i'm not. i can fake it like the best of them, it's a special girl quality, i think. but i knew then that i didn't want to do that. so i remained fine and so-so. but having no clue what would make it better.

lalalala..... three years pass. three years that shook my world. (hahaha, that makes it sound like everything is peachy now...hahaha. that's a laugh. i'm only saying this because this is one of these random moments of clarity in which i must record what i have discovered or i might forget it when things get cloudy again.) and in those three years i mostly realized that life sucks with a capital S-U-C-K-S. i was not inspired to try and be inspiring at all. but lo.... i waited out the storm and i realized i was able to survive it. and i thought i'd be at the point where i could say i was doing great. almost all of the chickens were lined up. then WAHBAM!!! SMASH!!! THUNK!!! BLAM!!! KABLOOIE!!!

put a timer in that idea, honey. it's over baked.

if you wait for all your circumstances to fall neatly into order exactly the way you want them to you'll never be able to say you're doing splendidly and mean it. because i don't think that ever freakin' happens. there's always something in the way.

now we are at the present. or the mostly present. piles of books i've read scatter my floor.... each read looking for some answer. pages and pages of my thoughts sprawling all over my journals hoping for someway that a new thought might spill out of my pen. miles driven in my stupid, ugly, unreliable car hoping that with distance clarity would come. hours have been spent over tea and coffee..... hours talking, thinking, and praying.

don't ask me how. but i've stumbled across something brilliant. i've found an answer.

praise.

i read the psalms. positively dreadful things happen in them.... but they are filled with praise. my journaling started to write of god's goodness... my trips to wac and sg showed me praise during suffering in a way i never thought was possible (so much more than i can go into now.... ask me about it sometime... i'd love to tell you). the hours over coffee nudged me to look at the big picture.

oh everything still is effed up. but it's all in perspective when you realize that you cannot question god's goodness or his plan when you look at the cross. i mean, just imagine being one of those people who were there when christ died. trying to believe that he'd rise again...but really being full of sorrow and doubt. but he did rise. and we have the advantage of being able to look and see that he does rise again... so when it is dark... those days when it seems like he is dead... i can praise because i know for sure that he will rise.


...i really wish you were here to ask me how i am. because i know now...

"i'm dancing for joy in the depths of hell."