The Riot in My Heart Decides to Keep Me Open and Alive

I don't know which is worse: watching something new that breaks my heart, or listening to something old that does the same thing.

Eleven more days and I am home. I don't want this to turn into a countdown because that is not what it is meant to be. I know I will miss this and want this and wish I had done things differently once it is over, but for now I long for the same old: my bed, my shower, my own food and my own life. I miss alone time.

We passed endless streams of perfectly calm lakes on our trip today. The water was completely still, but on it raged the cloud and sunset sky, and acres of perfect pointing pines. That is exactly how I feel. If you look for water, you see the flatness and smoothness of nothing wrinkling the surface; if you look at what it is reflecting, you see something entirely different.

Another hotel tonight, and then onward. It seems mundane, but there is something growing inside me that I cannot explain. On the surface it is invisible; from another angle, it is breath-taking. When it grows to fullness...words fail.

Anywhere But Here Without You

There are so many new things to say! How to say them all?

I have a boy. It has been a month, minus a day. We're getting better at being ridiculous in a good way. I also get better at being less dramatic and confrontational...well, I'm trying to get better. Somehow he forgives me every time, and his patience never ceases to amaze me. He doesn't know this, but he inspires me to be better, and heispatience makes me want to be more patient for him.

I'm almost done my first year of college, only two weeks left, and I don't know how I feel yet. I'm excited and scared and nostalgic and it's beautiful outside. The sunshine and warm wind coming through the window has been a constant shift-changer in my life, and I'm subconsciously preparing myself all over again. I don't want to let go, but I also want to embrace the new. Letting go of certain people will be harder than they know, especially the people who will never know, but there's nothing left to say. C'est la vie.

God is working inside me in amazing ways. I LOVE the way He loves on me. Today, Sarah came to me in chapel and just spoke the perfect words over me. It was exactly what I needed to hear, and I never even considered asking Him for them. But they came anyway. I want to eat up the Word and live, breathe, think, beat for Him. That makes me smile. It makes me believe that He will care for me and that, maybe, I can let go.

I've been learning that if I hold onto the little that I have too hard, I will crush those things and have nothing left. But if I just release, God will let me keep some of it. Some He'll take, but that's only to replace it with something better. I need to trust in that.