Hands and Feet

People who speak truth to you are perhaps the most valuable people to have around. Whether friend, family, or both, you treasure their opinions like gold. That said, it is always a sign to me of these golden people in my life when I want to rip them limb from limb sometimes before hearing what they have to say. Because it's the truth and I want to wallow. For me "ripping them limb from limb" most often looks like me not calling them for ages and not returning their calls when they initiate. It's not that I don't love them or want to talk about their lives, I just don't always want their insight on mine, because, well, I'm often far too content wallowing. And then, one day, stuck in the back of the blackest corner I've been in for a while, there are only certain people who can truly bring me out. These are the truth-sayers, the golden people in my life.

These are friends that always believe even when I can't anymore. Friends that cling to hope with one hand and me with the other while I dangle over a pit of despair. These are the people whose lives I want to exemplify because of their faith in the face of this adversity-fraught life. Sometimes they're only there once and that's enough. Some I have for life; like Brian, Like a Fine Wine, and Citystreams, to name a few.

Thank you for being the hands and feet of Jesus to me.

That's Me in the Corner

My lovely sister is in town and we went to see REM last night at the beautiful Merriweather Post Pavilion. It was so much fun! The venue reminded us of Chastain in Atlanta, it was a very good show in a very fun place!

Lovely, Dark, & Deep

If you know anything about me, you probably know I like to run. (If you don't know me, you know now! Ha!) And since I've been giving the new town and even state such a hard time lately on this blog and in general conversation, I would like to write about something I've found here that I am enjoying a lot. On base (which I keep calling campus in conversation, I guess being so used to living in a college town and all) there are incredible running trails. I am talking about miles and miles of well kept and well marked trails. And they are in the deliciously beautiful woodland that makes me feel like I'm in the mountains. Every time I run there I see deer. It feels like real cross country running and it makes me feel alive like nothing else.

So, yesterday, I was running a combination of trails that I had done once before, and getting kind of cocky about my ability to remember which way to go when I unknowingly took a wrong turn. I figured out my mistake when I passed a small building in the woods that I didn't remember. (I take in landmarks very quickly when I run in new places.) The good news was I was only about a half mile in the wrong direction. The bad news was that all of the sudden the sky turned black, it thundered and the heavens poured forth in abundance. In short, I got very wet. At first I was a little frightened about being in the woods alone during a storm, but then I decided to live it up. It was so exhilarating to run straight through the puddles because I was already soaked to the bone. The trails turned into natural little streams since it's so hilly here and I made no effort to avoid them. I finished just as the storm did and I was so thankful that I happened to be running in the woods during the downpour.

"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
-Robert Frost

Are you my home?

There's something to be said for looking down a road and knowing where it leads to. Put another way, it's nice to know how to get to places and it's nice to think you'll probably know someone when you get there. Personally, I am also a big fan of short cuts, or at least ways of getting places that don't include two of the busiest stretches of road in this country (I-95 and Highway 1). That said, today I am in my hometown, namely, Athens, GA and I'm in a sort-of pre-teenage angst about this subject, so bear with. It's the place I put down on forms when they ask for a birthplace and also the place I go on and on about when someone asks me where I'm from. "Have you ever heard of the University of Georgia? It's in a town called Athens and that's where I'm from." That's my usual shtick when I get the "where are you from?" question to avoid being mistaken as being from Atlanta. (Nothing against Atlanta, it just seems that everyone who hears we're from Georgia automatically assumes we're from Atlanta.)

The only problem with being in the place I love more than all the rest today is that it doesn't feel like home. GASP!! And it's because Brian isn't here today. My heart and mind are in two places that are totally and completely geographically incompatible. And tomorrow, when I disembark from the plane that will fly me to Virginia and am back with Brian, I will probably feel as confused as I am now, because God help me if Stafford, Virginia ever feels like home. Something is always missing and I guess it's a little of the feeling that Hal talks about when he calls the Christian life living in the "already and the not yet." And maybe we're not supposed to feel at home in this life, but be thankful for the time we have with who we have it with while we have it. (If that makes sense.) When I step back and look at it, I am so very blessed whether here or there and maybe home is a big meshing of the two.