When the Lights Go Down in the City...

Clickity clack. The marionette’s wooden feet tap across the stage. Clickity clack. Her master glides across his perch high above. She’s heard them speak of the city lights, but with her own eyes she’s never seen. Her master, though, he can see them. He takes them in every night. Moonrise to moonset, he watches as they glitter and glow. A car zips down some distant street, its tail lamps, like a child’s sparkler, lingering for a moment in their illuminating state. He can see, but she only dreams. She’s heard them rant and she’s heard them rave, and tonight it has all become too much. So when all of the theater-goers have left and the master has locked the door and gone to bed, the puppet leaves her post between the policeman and the baker and slips into the darkness. She can barely see her wooden fingers as they reach into the black unknown in search of something that will tell her which way to go. She feels to her left and to her right but to no avail. Across the room she traipses like a silent ballerina until she comes across a shadow. Her hand reaches for it and is gleefully surprised by its find. A ladder! It is the one that she has seen the master climb night after night and day after day. She knows where it leads. A deep breathe in and her lanky limbs are wrapped around the lowest rung, a plank of wooden hope. Push and push and she’s up again, clinging to the next step. Up, up, up she goes, with every board the shimmering wonder above growing closer. Then finally she sees it, the top rung. The light she has longed for for so long is nearly in her grasp! With a great revelry rising up inside of her, the puppet takes that long awaited stride.  She stretches and stretches and pulls and pulls but something is holding her back. Craning her neck, the puppet sees that her strings are tangled around the bottom step. With one final tug she lurches towards her dream but she can’t release herself from the trap. Down, down, down she tumbles. Down from hope, down from that magnificent glimmer. Crash, she hits the floor. And there she will lie, a broken marionette, until the master finds her in the morning. No light will she ever see. No city will she ever adore. No speeding cars, no street lights, no lovers dancing on the corner. Not for her. She will forever be a puppet.

...Got a couple rips in my jeans...

You know what I don't get? Why everyone harps so much on what people are wearing or what they look like. I just came across this page on Yahoo as I was looking through the news that was basically just bashing different looks celebrities have had (see the page here). We really have no right to complain about what they wear. We criticize if they are too "normal" and then we criticize when they are too outlandish. Why don't we all just make a pact to give these people (and each other a break)?! Each and every person on this Earth has been fearfully and wonderfully made, so why does it matter whether they want to dress like a cowboy straight out of 1872 or a punk rocker from New York? So go ahead, don't match your clothes, don't straighten your hair, don't cover your face in make up. You are, as Francesca Battistelli put it, free to be you!


[Steps off of soap box] In other news, I've got something I've been working on for a couple of days now that I'm really excited about so when I get it finished I'll be sure to post it.


Listening to: Beautiful Beautiful by Francesca Battistelli
Looking at: My dog. She is absolutely adorable right now! I think she's a little mad at me, though, because I have the light on to type and she wants to go to bed.
Thinking about: How incredible and terribly wrong it is that Jesus would die for a sinner like me. Another post on that will come though.
Attempting to: Empty my mind of anything that isn't of the Lord. I over-analyze EVERYTHING and since I'm so busy filling my thoughts up with random crap, I can't really focus on God like I should.
Wondering: Why we were out of school today when we don't get out for other religions' holidays. Again, there will probably be a post on this.
Wondering, Part 2: How I can be a better daughter, not only to my parents, but also to my Heavenly Father.


Since I don't want this post to be over yet, I'll give you a recap of some random things that have happened.

My youth group had movie night last week and the senior high watched The Passion of the Christ. Even if you disagree with it, I really encourage you to go watch it if you haven't already. I was wary of it because of several things I had been told about it, but it opened my eyes up more than I could ever have imagined. It's been in my head literally all week. Also, one day this week I started writing the first thing that I would consider any attempt at "creativity" I've made in a long time. It's been really really difficult, but in the way that makes me hunger for more. I want to get it finished but at the same time I don't want it to be over because I'm not sure when I'll find something like that again. I guess that's just my insecurities talking haha. Well I'll stop boring you now. I love you and Jesus loves you more. His blood poured out for that love a couple thousand years ago and continues to cover us daily. Goodnight friends.

In Love With The Map Maker

I call my God Map Maker. Why, you ask? Because He make maps. He etches out pathways and roads, open fields and dense forests literally everywhere. Don’t believe me? Look around. If I look out my kitchen window I can see a few hills, one of the main roads through Hendersonville, 3 different schools, and a church. It all had to get there somehow. Next turn to the back of a Bible or any text book. What do you find? Maps. That’s the obvious stuff though. Now look at your life. There is a road with little you, who you are today, and who you see yourself becoming. There are dirt trails that have been plodded on time and time again to bond you with your closest friends. I believe that there is a Road to Damascus in all of us as well. Somehow He makes everything come together and make sense. So I call my God Map Maker because He makes maps.

I started writing this the other day along the same lines. What it really is, I’m not sure.

Pilgrims ask who planned my course
Map Maker did without remorse
He knows my troubles and He knows my flaws
Map Maker, though, He loves them all
He saw us hurt and He saw us fall
So Map Maker climbed upon the cross
What a man Map Maker is
Now pilgrims sing because He lives


I wrote this part of the post a little while ago and just hadn't posted it until today. The rest of this is new.

I am constantly amazed at the beauty that God has created. I could just stand and stare at the pure perfection in everything he has made. The way that his touch can turn something so wretched and disgusting into unsurpassed artistry totally baffles me. The man is crazy awesome.

I hope you are all having a wonderful day! I love you and Jesus does so much more!

I really want to post today, but I don't have much of a subject. My sister says I should share a song I wrote on the home from church last night. I guess I will since I have nothing else to say.

Walking down the street in Hendersonville
We're on our way home to Cruella Devil
There's a broken down bus in the high school parking lot
Some kids do weird stuff in the back of  that parking lot
There's a reason I don't sing it's cause I really suck at it
There's nothing very clean that rhymes with it

...and that's as far as I got before we both kinda lost it.

Okay that was my stalling while I thought of a topic. The HHS MCJROTC drill team competed in its last meet for this season on Saturday at Vanderbilt University. This was definitely my favorite meet for the season even though it was 91 degrees and we were all in a few layers of uniform. Also, this group of people decided it would be a smart idea to protest the military at a HIGH SCHOOL drill meet. Yeah, they're the most intelligent people in Nashville.We walked away with third over all and a few other awards. I am seriously excited for next year and the beginning of Raider season, which is physical fiitness and obstacle courses. It's some ridiculous fun. Okay now that I'm done ranting about that. I want to hear about what is going on in all of your lives! Let me know, friends! Well here's where this pointless post comes to an end. I love you and God loves you so much more!

One last thing. I really really really like this song! It's the Glee cast singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

Only the Young...

I am a child, a toddler trapped in the body of a reckless teenager. I fall short. I lean on this world instead of my creator. I say things I know I will regret. So I run. I run from everything that has made me who I am. I run from my family, the ones who I should trust but often refuse to. I run from the part of me that tells the truth. From my friends, from school, from church, from everything, I run. I take off in a dead sprint to no where in particular, looking for something I can never quite name. No destination, no inclination to stop, never considering that I am not alone, I run. Then, in the middle of my tired stride, I am lifted into the air. It's as if I am flying, but I'm not. My exhausted and aching body is cradled in the arms of my Father. He snatches me up just at the moment when I am about to crumble to the burning pavement. His embrace fills the insatiable gap that haunts me day and night. My worries vanish and I am, yet again, made new. I can't make that happen, only He can. I am just a child, thankful for who He is. 

"...Only the young can say

They're free to fly away

Sharing the same desires

Burning like wildfires..."

*I had a little trouble formatting the color on this...