What I Know About Love

I was in Washington DC with my best friend Quinn, and she gave me an analogy. She made a paper heart for me.

"This is your heart before you started giving it to boys who don't know how to handle it."

And then she proceeded to rip up the heart.

"This is your heart now, and it will only get worse if you keep doing what you're doing. So stop it."

She said it with a lot more grace than the words described, but with the same Quinn logic that cannot be argued with.

On the Megabus, I watched An Education (Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard are amazing), and I couldn't help crying my little eyes out as I identified with the heart break and loss of innocence. We never learn anything if we don't take any risks, but too often we break our own hearts with our inability to heed the warning signs. When I first began venturing to find love, I wasn't really considering the hurt I would go through. What I like most about the movie is that there is redemption. She isn't powerless; she doesn't go back into the same cycle of being seduced by worldliness. She throws herself into her hopes and dreams of Oxford. And she makes it, and she is wiser when it comes to love.

Unlike me. I throw myself in front of one toxic love to the next. I don't want to be Lady GaGa. I don't want bad romances. I don't want one night stands. I want extraordinary. I want true love. I am like that Natasha Bedingfield song called I Wanna Have Your Babies. "Trust me, it would scare you" she sings. And it would, because this is what I want: I want a MAN OF GOD (Chris Rice, Don Miller, or Nick Vujicic will do), I want a ring, a wedding, and a lifetime of love that even death can't stop.

I want a man to sing to me:

"A kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder

All my riches for her smiles when I sleep so soft against her

All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter

She is the tear that hangs inside my soul forever."

I want a man to pursue me in spite of my insanity. I want a man to love me, soul and body. I want a man who will speak the heart of God to me.

Maybe I am too much and not enough. Maybe he isn't out there.

Maybe there is only one man for me, and maybe his name is Jesus.

This is the only man who has ever truly loved me, and all I know about love is what I've learned from him.

Unglamorous

I've been reading about this concept called "BIRGing and CORFing" and it's very interesting.

BIRG= Basking In Reflected Glory

CORF= Cutting Off Reflected Failure

When it comes to sports, people BIRG by wearing the winning team's jersey and bragging that their team won. They themselves didn't actually win the game. When a celebrity wins an Emmy or Music Award, the fans celebrate; they bask in the reflected glory of that celebrity.

When a sports team loses, people CORF by taking off the jersey or get very defensive if you mention the loss. When a celebrity ends up in a scandal, the fans either stop being fans or feel the need to stay quiet about their fandom. They cut off the failure reflected by that celebrity.

This post really has no flow, but as I was thinking about BIRGing and CORFing, I started to get sad, a little. How pathetic it is that I bask in other people's glories, and cut off people who I think are failures! I would like to be the type of person who celebrates others happiness, and I would like to be the type of person who embraces those who fail. Rather than cut people off who are considered losers, I would like to be a friend to the failures, and tell them that things are going to be okay.

It's okay if we're unglamorous. It's okay if we aren't famous. It's okay if we never become celebrities. We are still an awesome part of creation. We are beautiful. We are worthy of celebration. We do not have to bask in the glory of others, for we were created by The Glorious One, and we are made in His image. So something just as glorious is within us as there is in any celebrity or glamorous person.

When I fall in love...

When I fall in love, it will be for never. NEVER. EVER.

NEVER!!!!!

Okay, well, not never, but I'm waxing cynical today. As I think about the whole concept of falling for a person who is just going to end up hurting and disappointing me, I can safely say that I do not want to be in love. I'm really guarding this little door to my heart right now. It's making me mad that I see these super sweet messages on guys' walls from their girlfriends saying, "I love you so much, you're the best boyfriend ever..." blah, blah, blah, and little do these poor girls know that their boyfriends have been ringing me up, trying (and failing) to start some kind of flirty banter.

I hate being in the position of the "other woman." AND I would hate to be in the position of the ignorant lovey-dovey girl who is dating a complete slime ball. Ooo, it boils me up! It's one thing to flirt if you're free bird and got no woman to call your own, but if you've got a freaking girlfriend then make an executive decision, because you can't have your cake and eat it too. Can I get a witness?

The One Who Writes

The one who writes will win my heart.

Brilliance is what my bleeding heart begs for.

Those unnumbered, unencumbered

words are what

I am waiting for.

Words will woo me.

Intellectual stimulus

is what will

instantly supply

necessary nourishment

to my hungry heart.

Jotting Down

I have been trying to find more outlets to express the thoughts that whirl around up in this strange brain of mine. Through poetry, writing, music. I have about five hundred stories mulling through my head right at this moment. Some of them are kitty stories, some of them are heartbreak stories, some of them are fairy tales, others are just mundane thoughts that run through my head.

I worry that maybe I haven't been listening to enough of what God is trying to say to me, but I know that it is crucial for me to keep my ears open. I've been listening to more Sondre Lerche than God, to be quite honest with you. But perhaps I can hear what God is saying to me through the mouths of the different artists. God speaks through art, and creation is a way to commune with Him. So perhaps by keeping open, I am hearing God after all.

I've been trying to read more. More of the Bible, more Madeleine L'engle, more children's and young adult lit, more of my friend's stories, more poems, more story people. I don't want my mind to go dead. I want to be a great reading machine.

I want to take in so that I can put it out. I want it to roll around the mud in mind and plant thoughts that will take root and go from my brain and hit my heart. I want my heart to hear it, to feel it, to experience it all.

I just want to jot down. All of it, at a million miles an hour.

I have wept all this while,

and yea,

I will weep a while longer

Because I am selfish and I wallow

And I drown myself in my sell fish sorrows

I fear that I will never fall in love

And I know that your love should be enough

I know it

And yet I don't know it

There is no formula

Only your timing is right

But some receive it easily

And some are left standing alone at an altar all their lives

Can I trust you to say

Ok

It is OKAY

I will be okay

Whatever be your will

Whatever you may will

Whatever will that may be

Even if I am the only one left

I trust you

Even if I end up

Without the life

I had wanted

For

my

self

Rightly Directing Desires

The desire for beauty, for affirmation, and for pleasure are ingrained in our human nature, but when I go seeking them from every source but the presence of God, it will lead to my ruin. It will give me temporary satisfaction, but at the end of the day, I will be empty and alone. I have been ruined by the world. I have been empty and alone. I've been dying, and only now have I begun to feel the pain and remorse that I had been numb to for so long. I have broken my heart. I have broken the heart of God. And it hurts.

Search my heart, God

Know my thoughts

Create in me something clean

Renew a right spirit within me

Rightly direct my desires. Let me receive the beauty, the affirmation, and absolute pleasure from you. If you asked me what I desire, I would like my answer to be more of you. I don't want to fake this thing, God. I don't want to be a slave to my human nature. I want to go beyond the limits of the natural and begin to fly into the supernatural. I want to live in the 100 proof presence of you. I want to float. I want to walk on the water. I want to play games of faith. I want to ascend and descend. I want to laugh and dance with angels. Let's go there. Please, take me there.

Trivial Pursuits

WHAT, WHAT, WHAT AM I DOING?

Chase. Catch. Capture. Pursue.

Impatience pounds, pulses.

Let it go and let God.

Hitting ground, running,

Spinning, dizzy circles, racing.

Chasing, chasing, chasing.

Hear the beat of a hunting drum.

Parum pa pum, pa pum, pa pum.

I come and go, I go and come,

And humm, mmm, mmm,

The hum of go get it tune

And get knocked about for the pursuit.

Wait, they say, for the right time.

When is the right time I ask.

You'll know when it's right,

But are they right?

When left is right and right is left

And you are left

Standing

A Lone.

Playing a game of

Trivial Pursuit.