you never are

I was trying to decide whether I should write a post about my new job that has life insurance, a retirement fund and is the most money per hour I've ever made in my life or if I should talk about what I'm thankful for this year when this song came on my Pandora radio station. And it kind of spoke directly to my heart. I had to stop what I was doing and just listen.

Lost your way and you don't know how it happened
so much time you wasted chasing satisfaction
seems like there's no where else to go please i wish that you would come home

Oh don't be so afraid
you think that you're too far
but you never are you never are
so scared that you're too late
too hidden in the dark
but you never are you never are

Grace is under estimated all you ever really have to do
is take it god is bigger than the times we fail
so why can we not forgive ourselves

Oh don't be so afraid
you think that you're too far
but you never are you never are
so scared that you're too late
too hidden in the dark
but you never are you never are

You will never be perfect oh but you're still worth it you've gotta just believe

Oh don't be so afraid
you think that you're too far
but you never are you never are
so scared that you're too late
too hidden in the dark
but you never are you never are

Honduras: Day 4

In case you missed the previous posts, read these first:
A Whirlwind Vacation

Honduras: Day 1
Honduras: Day 2
Honduras: Day 3


Free Day: July 31, 2011.

Yesterday I think I freaked out for nothing. Today was just what I needed to show me how ridiculous I was being. And while there is truth to my words, things always seem worse when you are completely exhausted.

We started out with church this morning. I don't know whether I like it or not. I loved when we sang "Ancient of Days" and "Come, Now Is The Time To Worship" in Spanish. But when I was ready to sit and listen to the sermon at about the 5th worship song, I feel like we sang 5 before it was over.



The building was hot and stuffy, and even though we were sitting by the window, sweat still poured. But the experience of being an a house of worship in another country is something that I think everyone should try at least once. It seems to put things into perspective - we are literally ALL God's children. It doesn't matter what language you speak, where you live, or what you do for a living because God loves you and wants you to know it. I grew up knowing that we were all children of God, but things like that don't seem to really sink in until you see it in action.

And it was definitely in action, because this little church in one of the poorest parts of the world is pulling together funding to help sponsor a missionary in India! That just blows my mind. These people don't have a lot and yet they are making sure they are giving to someone else. That is seriously amazing.

The pastor that spoke this morning was American. He had been living in Honduras and it was his last week here. He preached about being for the mission and doing good deeds out of love. He said that you can do all the nice things in the world, but if you do not have love then you have done nothing. This seems to be a recurring theme throughout this trip to me. Do the right thing, but make sure you are doing it for the right reason. And if you do not have love in your heart for what you are doing, then it doesn't matter. I don't want to forget this when I finally leave Honduras. I want all of these things to stick with me. I want to be constantly reminded to be loving towards other people. And that will be fun for me, since I am not a people person.

After church we split into two groups. Some of us went to the Valley of Angels to go shopping and the rest of us went to see the Cristo El Picacho statue. I chose to go see the statue because I'd heard the gardens were beautiful. And plus, the statue is so large that you can see it up on the hill from town.

There is a large park where many people were picnicking, playing some form of soccer, talking, laughing. It really just shows you that people are basically the same all over the world. We like the same things, have similar interests, families, hopes and dreams. Watching people from other countries and cultures interact just really makes me think about how funny our own culture is, and how lucky we are to be living where we live.

What is hilarious unto me is the fact that the Honduras would try to practice their English with us. We are obviously American, since our skin is pale in comparison to everyone else, so people would say "Hi!" excitedly in our direction. My favorite moment, though, was this cute little Honduran boy, who was probably 5 or 6, who kept saying "Bye! Bye!" in our direction. His mother told him, in Spanish, that "bye" is "adios" and what he really needed to say was "hi."

On our way back to the bus we passed a zoo. TheMechanic and I begged to go inside and see the animals, and one of the other ladies wanted to accompany us. It cost us 10 Limpiras each to get inside (which is roughly $.50). Inside, the zoo was a little dilapidated and run down. The animals seemed as though they were incredibly bored, as many of them were pacing back and forth in their cages. However, the monkeys were completely entertaining. You could get so close to them that you could actually reach out and high five their little monkey hands. One monkey had even escaped from his cage and was sitting on the roof of his enclosure watching zoo-goers pass him by.

Also, there were animals in this zoo that I never thought I would see in a similar setting. There were raccoons, bunny rabbits, guinea pigs, white tailed dear, and goats. Seriously.

Tomorrow I don't know exactly what is happening, but I may be able to take a trip to the trash dump. I'm sure that will be crazy and hectic and emotional. Some people still live at the dump, but most people just work there now. Although, I don't really know how much better that actually is. I know that the people there will smell horrendous, but I can't even really comprehend what it will be like since I live where I live and I am who I am. It's just absolutely phenomenal that I am privileged to be here and experience this. My eyes are being opened wider everyday. I could not really ask for more right now.

Lift Me Up

I've only recently discovered this band, The Afters, and so far I can't get enough of their music. I have their Light Up The Sky album now, and I've been listening to it on a loop. My favorite song on this album so far is Life Me Up. The lyrics are powerful and they really just kind of meet me where I am on my walk with Christ right now.

There are a lot of things that aren't perfect right now, and my heart is definitely still so incredibly broken. But I do know that even though my hurt is so big, God is so much bigger and he will take care of me no matter what. It's not often that I really get preachy on my blog, and really, overly preachy blogs just kind of irritate me. But I have to tell you, I don't know where I would be or even who I would be if I didn't have a might Savior to have my back every step of the way.

Even when I'm mad at Him and even when I screw up so royally I don't know why anyone would love me, He is there. I can't always feel him, and sometimes I think He's left me, except that in reality I'm the one that moved. My journey has not been a perfect one, and although I grew up in Christian household I have still had a lot of struggles. I think really that everyone has had a lot of struggles, and I'm not really special in that way.

I'm just so tired of being hurt. Over and over again, I just let it happen. I'm not happy with my life right now, and there are so many things that I want to change about it - but some of those things are just way beyond my control. The hard part is letting Him take care of everything.

A lot of people give up on "the whole church thing" when they turn to God and still experience pain. He doesn't make everything hunky dory, nor does he promise that your walk will be easy. Christ followers still have the same struggles that people who do not "believe" have. We fail and fall short and mess up just as much as everyone else, and we all feel like we can be the biggest screw ups of all time. But we're not. We're normal. But He is always there to watch out for us, to care for us, and in our struggles He makes us stronger. He lifts us up.




You lift me up with your love
You lift me up with your love
You lift me up with your love
You lift me up

Waiting for the sunrise
Waiting for the day
Waiting for a sign
That I’m where you want me to be

You know my heart is heavy
And the hurt is deep
But when I feel like giving up
You’re reminding me
That we all fall down sometimes
But when I hit the ground

You lift me up when I am weak
Your arms wrap around me
Your love catches me so I’m letting go
You lift me up when I can’t see
Your heart is all that I need
Your love carries me so I’m letting go

You lift me up with your love
You lift me up with your love
You lift me up with your love
You lift me up

I know I’m not perfect
I know I make mistakes
I know that I have let you down
But you love me the same

And when I’m surrounded
When I lose my way
When I’m crying out and falling down
You are here to

Lift me up when I am weak
Your arms wrap around me
Your love catches me so I’m letting go
You lift me up when I can’t see
Your heart is all that I need
Your love carries me so I’m letting go

I can see the dawn is breaking
I am feeling overtaken with your love
With your love
I don’t know what I can offer
In this moment I surrender to your love
To your love

You lift me up when I am weak
Your arms wrap around me
Your love catches me so I’m letting go

You lift me up when I am weak
Your arms wrap around me
Your love catches me so I’m letting go
You lift me up when I can’t see
Your heart is all that I need
Your love carries me so I’m letting go

I can see the dawn is breaking
I am feeling overtaken with your love

You lift me up with your love
You lift me up with your love
You lift me up with your love
You lift me up

A Full Heart

Do you know, there's just something about a good worship song. They're uplifting, they're inspiring, they find you right where you where you are, in whatever situation you're currently bound up in, and they say here I am! Pick me! I will hold your hand and love on you and put band-aids on your heart!

You want to dance and fall on your knees at the same time. You want to spin around the room and throw your hands up in the air and you want to cry and you want to laugh and smile and all these emotions just overwhelm you. Have you ever experienced that?

Lately I have added more worship/Christian songs to my musical magazine because they don't sing about boys liking girls, girls liking boys, girls or boys who have relationships while liking someone else, cheating, heartbreak, heartache, lovey dovey googly eyes where she does everything right and he couldn't love her more, or songs where he thinks he should have said this and should have done that in order to make her never want to leave.

I can't stand those songs anymore. There are too many memories there, too many emotions that I am unwilling to confront because it just rips open my slowly healing wound.

But turning on MercyMe, Paul Baloche, Chris Tomlin, Toby Mac, Todd Agnew, Newsboys, Phillips, Craig & Dean, The Imperials, you know, these songs are all about love of a heavenly sort, from a heavenly Father, who loves you no matter what you do, no matter what mistakes you've made. He will meet you wherever you are, He never moves. God is always constant.

He always makes sure that you are taken care of, there are always people around to help you out in the name of Jesus even if they don't even know God sent them to you - but you know. Yes you do. You just know. You prayed and prayed and talked to God and then this person appears, and you're like "Yes, Please! Thank you Jesus! You always got my back, bro!"

And he's all like "Ya Welcome, kiddo. I love you. XOXO"

Okay, maybe only in my mind he talks to me like that, but it doesn't matter because God is God and He is and was and forever will be my savior and my father and my God. No one is like him, no one can replace him and he will never forget me nor forsake me.

And to know that there is someone out there who will always be there with you no matter what is one of the most comforting things in the world.

There is this large misconception that once you love Jesus everything is peaches and cream and it's always easy all of the time, but that's not true. I have Jesus but I am in no way whatsoever perfect, nor is my life an easy road. But even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, my Jesus is there with me.

And folks, I just could not ask for more.

You Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone

It's been two days since I called it quits with my used-to-be-charming Prince. We're still working through our issues. Talking it out over instant message and text. It's a process - and that's what sucks.

But I only cried today when I actually saw him. And it wasn't until he held me in his arms that I let a few tears fall. I am going to miss him terribly. My heart hurts. It's such a weird feeling to have all of this history built up with someone and then for it to just be gone... I don't know how to handle it. So I try not to think about it. But inevitably something will remind me of the relationship, and I'm back to feeling down again.

I was doing fine before I had to see him. I put on a brave faced and marched out to our expected meeting place for the exchange of our various items. I had some of his ps3 games, and he had my Little Big Plant 2 book ends. We handed each other our respective plastic bags of stuff and stared awkwardly at one another for a few seconds.

He asked if I would like a hug and I shrugged my shoulders, not wanting to say yes. I suspect he needed a hug, and he placed his arms around me, and that's when I couldn't hold it in any longer. It wasn't a huge cry, it wasn't full of loud agonizing sobs, it was just little, soft whimpers and my shoulders moved up and down.

Being the caring person that he can be, Prince just held me tighter and stroked his hands up and down my back to comfort me. And then he pressed his index, pinky finger and thumb into my back in and "I love you" pattern to symbolize that phrase. It's a thing we've done basically since our relationship started. It's a simple non verbal reminder of how much we care(d) about each other.

It surprised me, a little bit, that he chose that moment to let me know. The whole reason I called it off was because it felt like he no longer loved me anymore. I mean, he certainly hadn't been showing me he loved me. He had been distant, and sometimes mean.

I stepped back and looked at him, confused. Radically perplexed. And I said "That's not true..." And I shook my head. But I didn't mean that it wasn't true. Because I think, honestly, that it is true. I think he does love me, but I think he forgot to show it. And then it didn't feel like love, and it grew into something else. But then this sudden jolt, this smash back into reality made him see what I've been wanting him to see for a while now.

Or else, I don't know what to think.

When I told my friend about the incident and how I reacted and how it made me feel, she told me that she thinks boys just sometimes forget. People don't really realize what they have until it's gone.

I was talking to my dad today via text messages, and I told him that I'm not planning on getting back together with Prince Charming, but that I'm not writing it off completely. However, it will be a while before I jump back into anything with him. We both need this time to grow and listen to God.

Maybe God will have someone "better" for me. Someone more perfect, that I can't even fathom. Or maybe God will turn Prince Charming into that guy in the future. Who really knows? But what I can tell you is that I do still love Prince, and I think some part of me always will depending on how this part of my life plays out.

I have been listening to this song on repeat today:



Here are the lyrics:

Music To My Ears

You know, I was thinking today. In the car. I have a Christmas music playlist on my iPhone, and I have been listening to it almost nonstop since I created it. And I was thinking about all my favorite Christmas songs. Songs are like movies, you know, because everyone has their favorites.

I grew up with Alvin and Chipmunks' Christmas music. I still love them, but Prince Charming can't really stand them so I only get to listen to them when he's not around. Which is kind of sad, but at the same time I have loads upon loads of other really good Christmas music to listen to as well.

My recently favorite new Christmas song is by Train. It's the one they've been playing in those coke commercials with the Santa and the snow globe and the playing with the gravity sort of fun times. And I've been listening to Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" while I dance around in the living room like a lovesick teenager all trying to be cool and everything. My sister thinks I'm nuts, but do you know how fun it is to just let go of all your cares and move your body around when there's no one to "impress"?



And then of course, there are the classics. Rudolph, Frosty, etc. But I've never really been a fan of those. I do love me some "Let It Snow" and "Winter Wonderland" though. Along with Jessica Simpson's "What Christmas Means To Me" (which is my favorite by her. That and her version of "Baby It's Cold Outside" with Nick).

Too bad they're not together anymore.



Anyway, I do love to listen to Silent Night, Away In A Manger, and songs of that sort too. They have more of a special meaning to me - you know, a way to keep Christ in Christmas and to remember what we are actually celebrating.

What are you favorite Christmas songs? What puts you into the Christmas Mood?

Musical Memories

There are songs that no matter where I am, they will always take me to a memory. The first few melodic bars hit my eardrums and all of sudden I'm not longer in the present, but back far off somewhere with a people from the past.

Take Collide by Howie Day for example. Whenever I hear that song it makes me think of the Big T and I have to change the song in slight disgust. The same for Daniel Bedingfield, though that makes me think of a different boy it still gets the same reaction. I can't listen to it anymore.

When Heartland by George Strait blares over the radio I'm in the front seat of our '93 GMC Sierra. I'm in elementary school on a family vacation. Sneaky Snake and I like Beer by Tom T Hall, Redneck Girl by the Bellamy Brothers, and Toby Keith's Who's Your Daddy all do this to me.

Complicated by Carolyn Dawn Johnson sends me straight back to high school. I wanna hold you close, I wanna push you away, I wanna make you go, I wanna make you stay. Such teenage angsty lyrics to sooth my soul.

Switchfoot puts me in a car with the windows down on a hot summer night headed to the lake with friends. It makes me think of Aly & AJ when Ariel and I would sing to their songs at the top of our lungs. We thought we were so cool in high school.

Most of my music on my iPod now makes me think of Prince Charming because he feeds my musical hunger like it's nobody's business.

Songs can speak words that you're too scared to admit, they can put lyrics to feelings that you didn't even know you felt. Melodies and harmonies find their ways into your brains, into your feelings. You can go from sad to happy or vice versa just by turning on the radio. The mood of a room is set by the type of lyricals rhythms you choose to send out on the waves.

You can relate a song to a person, to a feeling, to a memory, a time, a place, a scent, a sound. It can speak volumes or it can be fun loving and fancy free. Sometimes it can be twisted around into something that it's not. Sometimes you can apply it in a way it wasn't written for but fits perfectly.

I ponder the songs I want played at my wedding when I have one, songs that I wish played during my life a real life soundtrack. We all do this. I wonder what it would be like to be completely deaf and never hear a song in your life? Would I miss this? Could I concoct my own music in my head?

What do you think?

They convey love. For people, for things, for places. Lost love, changed relationships. Love for the Holy Father, love for your earthly father, love for the guy that's not your dad but he might as well be. Love for everyone, love for no one. Is there a song that's not about some form of love?

That question was posed to me a few years ago and not a song came to mind that wasn't somehow about love.

So why is it, exactly, that that's all we sing about?

Do Re Mi

This video lightens up my life :-)

Playlist On Crack

I have the strangest taste in music I think. I'll listen to just about anything unless it gives me a headache - then it has to leave. Basically the only music that gives me a headache is that stuff that my friends seem to like - you know, the kind where they don't actually sing but instead they scream at you? Yeah, I can't stand that. I've tried. I don't know how other people can listen to that. Ugh. Anywho, moving right along.

If you notice the music on my page, you'll notice it changes every so often. Songs come and go and you hear different types of music play in your ears. Or you just hate the music and turn it off so my noise doesn't distract you from my AWESOME WRITING SKILLS! Yeah, I know how you all work. I'm not fooled :-)

Well anyway, my new playlist is pretty much on crack. It has Avril Lavigne to Phillips, Craig & Dean. It has Jamie O'Neal and Goldfinger. I mean really. I was going to put some LIT on there, but I didn't know how many people would really appreciate that. It also has a lot of country on it too. I was raised with country music and to be honest, while I can respect that some people don't like it, I don't understand why. I can't imagine it would give you a headache like that screamo stuff does, but maybe I feel the same way for country that my friends feel for nasty screaming noise. :-) Ha, ha.

But if you want to know what type of music is REALLY on crack, just talk to my dad about his Larry Norman fixation. I swear to you, that music goes from happy to sad to wierd to crazy and back again. And the rhyming is ridiculously hilarious. There are some Larry Norman songs on my Crack Playlist if you care to listen to the awesome crack sound. Ha, ha. But there's one song on my dad's playlist and I don't remember what it's called, but there is part of this song where they sing NA NA NA NA NA NA NA!!! And in an effort to mock the song, I sang right along to the amusement of my parents. They proceeded to tell me that I was born in the wrong decade. Yeah, I'm cool.

Dirty 'Gyptians.