I'm really bored. I have my last two finals tomorrow. I don't want to take the first one. I don't want to study for it. Do you ever feel your pent up aggression boiling over against a test? That's how I feel. I have this sense that I just want to perposly do badly on it just to be vindictive. thats really stupid and pointless and only hurts me, but its true. I'm too tired to think positively. Man I am glad to be done with that stupid pc class.

mostly I think I am just pretty exhasted an I am having a hard time feeling hopeful about the amount of rest I'm going to get during this break. Something about looking forward to two more days of earlier than 8:00 stuff and the same for three more days next week. Ah.. to have time to really feel free from committment. Free from my own decisions. I just want to do nothing. yikes.

Breath

I've been thinking a lot about breathing. Everytime I sit dowm to do a wuite time or think about what I need to o to maintain my life, I seem to come up with a blank. Do you ever have those times when you try to do everything.. anything, and nothing seems right. As I sit and contemplate, the one thing that alwasy seems to come and rest up on my hear this this iease of breathing. just take a breath.

Stop striving. Stop working toward impossible, heavy goals. Just relaz. Fall into the arms of grace. Breathe it in. This morning as I was sitting there, thinking about breathing for lack of anythign else to fill my heart, I was reminded in the Old testiment how God was refered to only as YHWH, as Isreal knew that his name was too precious even to be uttered, and this name being the sound of breath.

As this iead struck me personally for maybe the first real time in life, it occured to me how absolutely beautiful this is How God is so unfathomable that he cannot be taken in. Yet-- what a tangible way that we can see what God is to our lives on so many levels. Breath is what gives us life. When you take a deep breath, you have that feeling of security, of fullness, of rightness with your body. It fills you so full. I remember hearing someone once describing how he earth may have been before the flood and how brathing would have been so much easier and how people could walk for miles without getting tired because of the abundance of air that would have been available for breath. the speaker said this one quote that has stuck with me: "It would have been exciting just to breathe!"

One of my favorite songs is one called "Phobic," by Plumb. My favorite line of this song is, "Grace means room to breathe." What a beautiful thought. even when we feel cornered and trapped by the world, the grace of God means room to breathe. Room to breath.

Breathe. Isn't it strange sometimes how When God teaches you things they just seem so... outside of our expectations and understanding? How I am expecting this deep theological lesson from such and such verse from such and such chapter, and all he does is quictly shut the book and whispers in my ear, "Just breath." Realax your shoulders. Sink back into your chair. Sink back into my warm, loving, inviting arms. Grace means... room to breathe.

This week has gone by a lot faster than last week and this coming week will most likely go even faster. But it has been a really great weekend already. No dreading. No having to explain. No having to justify, rationalize to myself. What does the future hold now? I don't know, but thats sort of the beauty isn't it? There really is no limit, no glass ceiling or box I have to fit into.

I don't think I have anything really inspirational to say tonight other than this is the first restful and fun weekend I've had in a very long time. And the strangest part is that so far I've spent most of it studying. Its good to be free. Taking one more deep breath.

I've just returned from my last painting class of the semester and I'm just sitting here in my dorm, counting the minutes before I have to get up and go to work in the sunny cold. Its warm in here. I really haven't had anything insightful to say in the past while, but thats okay. I'm sort of in that floating state of exhaustion where the deepest thing I can do is just sit and take a series of deep breaths.

I feel artistic and beautiful. A sleepy state of inspiration. I wish I had some christmas music. It doesn't feel like christmas in the dorms much until you step into a real house. A warm house. A house with a real christmas tree and real stockings and a real state of rest. We do our best here in the dorms, but its not quite the same.

I think this might actually be a nice weekend. One of the first weekends of the semester that may actually serve its purpose. Freedom to be as artistic as I like. Potluck. Small, close people. People who are doing real things. Girls from a hall. gathering. Loving. Laughing. Time to study. Time to enjoy.

Weekend.

Waiting for the opportunity to really sleep...

I'm afraid i've found myself overcommitted. I'm tired tonight and I have books and notes and sculptures to study and finish glaring, staring me in the face. I'm tired. And it has just occured to me that I have not taken much time to seek the one who offeres some sort of escape from the heavy burden we often allow ourselves to be placed under. Do you ever find yourself thinking, praying, "I just need a miracle here." It seems this is the story of my life. Finals are coming. Books are piling up and I just need a rest.

This past weekend I experienced the freedom to say no. I feel a bit like a two-year-old who has just learned the word and is reveling in its power. No. I am not only capable, but free to exercise my right to use the word. No. I don't have to justify or explain myself. The answer is no, I can't. I don't want to. I choose not to this time. Sorry. But no. Having that freedom brings immense peace. And Joy.

I'm sure for those of you who are reading all of this, the post probably does not have any cohesion, but its where my life is right now and maybe thats why I am bearing a bit of confusion. But you know, that is okay. There is grace for the chaos. There is grace to get me through the things I already said yes to and for the things I cannot say no to. And there is grace for this room that seems to keep boiling up more mess becuase I just cannot control it. Grace to say, "I have done enough studying for the night and now it is time to stop and breathe and simply enjoy the air that is entering my lungs." Breathe.

Today is beginning to be a good saturday.. new start.

Cannot say no becuase I cannot say yes.

This has been a bit of a week. Even though I've only been back at school for a week, it seems like its been a month. The confusion of life seems to have fallen upon me once again. I'm tired. I'm confused and I feel heavy tonight. I feel dishonest, but unsure what to say. Dishonest with myself in some way.

I hate that I have come to hate the weekend. I hate to admit it. But is the truth. I feel the weight of all that I have failed at. I feel the weight of my own need to justify to myself why I feel the way I do. I don't feel free. I don't feel rested. I feel like I don't know how to listen, that I am just seeking my own fleshly desires. I feel caught and yet still hanging in the balance somewhere. Like there is someone I am supposed to please, and yet I can't figure out how to just feel at peace myself. I want to run away on the weekends. I want to run to a peaceful place where I don't feel the need to be looking over my shoulder, waiting for the tension I feel inside of me to snap. I hate the weekend after weekend why I ask,"What is this is me?"

I'm looking, searching for a destination. A place to call home. I place with no strings attached. no questions. Grace. I'm looking for this home inside myself. To stop roaming, to stop feeling like my roaming is a betrayal. To stop feeling like I'm just passing through... alone. I need people to journey with-- but something sharp and hard and suffocating is stopping me from it. This floating pain.

I am tired tonight. I am worried about where I am going to get the strength for tomorrow. I am worried about all the things in my life attached to this which I cannot say no to and yet also cannot say yes to either. Caught between yes and no. I feel like a betrayer. the pit in the middle of your center--- ANXIETY. Fear that I may not be all that I need to be-- fear that I am completely and utterly unable to come up with the ability to provide for myself the deepest longings. The inability to let up on my own heart. The pressure from my own hand upon my own heart.

This rule that I find myself unable to keep--unable to break. This immense place in need of grace. I need grace in my decision-making process. I need grace in my time-wasting, my insanity. My discontent. What if I really say no? What if I just say, I'm waiting for something else that I can only hang onto by a thread of faith. Nothing is perfect. I know this. But what is this thing that my heart refuses to let go of? Why is the grip so tight, so self-suffocating? Is there still grace for the ways we seem to even screw ourselves up?