Drown me in love

I rode a camel today. It was a really weird experience... The hump wasn't too comfortable, but it was fun talking to the guy who was leading it around and hearing about his story with the camels-- they're his, by the way... Apparently he's from Oklahoma and he keeps camels to take around to different zoos for the summer months. It's a business he started with the son of a cattle rancher he grew up next to.

Often I'm trying to figure SOMETHING out about my future... Most of the time, it has to do with James or something of the sort. It was good to talk to Debra about everything today. We talked about relationships in general, marriages that are succeeding, marriages that have failed, her marriage, my parents, my future. One of the biggest things for me as I get older and get closer to that chapter of my life is the importance of not being unequally yolked. For Debra, she was when she got married. Her point, however, was that she didn't know you weren't supposed to be when you walked into something as monumental as your marriage; I do. She said that when we know something, when we're told something, informed of something, brought in on the story and we do the opposite, it's a disobedience problem. It's not an "Oh, I think we can make it anyways, it'll just take a lot of work" situation, it's a "I know this is what I'm NOT supposed to do and I'm just going to do it anyways". While I've heard a handful of success stories swirling in those circumstances, it is highly unlikely that this is a life experience I'm called to. For a number of reasons. Moving forward, I have no idea what this is going to mean. Well, I do as far as what I know as truth on how my marriage is called to be. I do not, obviously, know where this is going to take James as a person or us together. I guess we're back to the drawing board with it. Well, God's drawing board anyways. Maybe it's more like a felt board with little felt characters you can move around and put where you want... Either way, I have to figure out a way to give it back and let go of control. I HAVE to stop making promises I'm not %1000 sure I can keep.

Today ended with the Financial Peace University class. I've heard about this program before and I was completely disinterested and opposed to taking it. As God would have it, though, that was exactly where I landed tonight with Debra when we were running late coming back from the zoo. I've now decided to take the course. I don't have the $100 it costs for the materials, but I can sit in on the videos and participate and take my own notes, which is fine with me. I'm actually excited about it. This was only night one and the class is already beginning to transform how I think and feel about money, handling it and being RESPONSIBLE with it. This is going to be good for me. Everyone else has reading homework from the book that comes with the class resource kit... My homework, officially, is to write and send out my support letter before class next Tuesday. Amy will like that one (:

Love is unstoppable

I've been thinking about love a lot lately since Ken died a week ago today. My mom has said a lot of things to me multiple times in the past seven days, but the one she tells me and everyone she has the chance to is that when you find love, don't let it go. It's change some things inside of me a little and made me think A LOT. It's made me think about the past and the people I've loved and let go of. It's made me think about the people I love and have NOW and what they mean to me and how I show it. It's also made me think about the future and being fully in love somewhere down the line.

One of the other things that have been on my mind as a result is describing WHY you love someone. WHY do I love my best friends? Why do I love my other friends? Why have I loved James? Why could I love the other?
I think I always struggle to explain why I love someone.
I can list things off and tell you what you do to make me happy,
Or what you've done for me,
But it doesn't feel like it's enough to explain love.
I love you because I do.
I love you in spite of what you see to be shortcomings.
I love you for things you don't see in yourself.
I love you because we can laugh together
And cry together.
Because you're there for me when I just need to talk.
Because you get the thought I'm trying to express when I don't have the words.
Because you being in my life makes mine better.
Because I smile a lot more with you here.
Because you speak the words I didn't know I needed to hear
Or the words I needed to say but didn't know how.
Because despite our differences, you choose to stay in my life.
Not only that, but you choose to be there in a huge way.
I love you because you let me speak into your life.
I love you because there aren't boundaries or conditions for our relationship.
I just love you.
And that's the end of that one.

Guilt is poison

And suicide is selfish.

I've never had to lose someone. I've been alive for twenty years and I've never TRULY lost someone who was close to me. The people I did lose didn't leave unexpectedly. And we never had unfinished business.
All of this has now changed.
We've lost.
We've lost and now we have to find harmony amongst the discord.
You took yourself away.
You left HER.
And she's in pieces.

I don't know if I'll ever understand. I guess I just don't know how to understand. There have been times in my life when I thought about ending my own life, but I was always pulled out of that. I don't understand how you were so bad off. How were things so horrible? So horrible that you would be able to pull the trigger... I've replayed how I think your last moments must have been a few times now. Looking at the pictures of you with my mom in the happiest times of her life. Staring into the eyes of your son in the one picture you had out of him... How could you look at all of it and not change your mind? Death is permanent. You don't get to change your mind or take it back. It is the end and that's it.
I wish I could've been there to stop you.

I will never have the chance to look you in the face and tell you I stopped hating you. I'll never get the chance to have that conversation. I'd been wanting to let you know for months. We needed to have it. I'm sorry that I was bitter, stubborn and prideful.
I wish you would've known.

I don't know if this will ever truly and fully sink in...
These have been the most surreal days I've experienced so far.
I don't think I'll ever be able to make sense of this.

I hope you see how this is effecting all of us.
Her.
The boys.
All three of them.
Myself.
My sisters.
People you worked with.
Your family.
People you never got the chance to know.

I wish you would've stopped to see that it wasn't all bad... That there was a lot of good. There could've and would've been a lot more good to come.

This life is Yours and hope is rising

Wow. So 2009 is done... I can't actually believe that considering I still feel like it's August. There has been a lot that has happened and changed, yet not much at the same time. When 2009 started, I had a thing going with Josh. I was going to church, but was lost as far as what I was doing with myself. In April, I told James I didn't have feelings for him anymore. That happened to be the day before Jacob Chey Manginelli was born. All six pounds of him (: Scot Mortimer, BFL, also got married on the 18th of that month. Heidi got married in May and a week later, so did Annie and Justin. Apparently I was wrong, because James and I started dating again a little after that :D Not a whole lot happened over the summer. I struggled with myself some more and still felt lost in a sense, but I guess I wasn't doing much about it. I went to JC as a leader for the first time in August. A week prior to that, I signed on to The Internship with MC4. I think I had some expectations, but overall I wasn't sure what was going to happen with it. While it hasn't been the experience I had imagined so far, it's taken me through an amazing journey with God. It also brought me to Montana. I found so much of myself on that YWAM base... So much that wanted to come out. I had some realizations about my future and how I hear from God and had literally one of the best weeks of my life. I found out that my deja vus are not just coincidences, but from God. He answered my prayers about wanting to paint and paved the road for me to end up doing so at the end of that week. I remember so much of that experience; so much of those six days. The car rides, the first night there, the first morning, seeing Annie and Justin, finding Megan and Addie, worshipping, talking, forging bonds and making friends. If nothing else came from that time, I left with a deep ache in my heart to go on my DTS. I miss that base so much. I miss the people, the worship, the lectures, the relationships... I miss everything about it. I can't wait to be back there one day if that's where God calls me (: Back in September, Jon left for basic training. Two days after Jacob's birthday, five days before mine and the same day I started The Internship, I had to say goodbye to my little brother. He graduated in November and it was such a privilage to be there for it all. The graduation was breath taking-- to watch all of those poised and regimented friends and family march into the building was such a sight. I can't believe an entire year has already gone by... I can't believe that milestones are happening this year and that things will be changing forever. As I sat in the chair and my grandma's just relaxing, it hit me that it was my last normal Christmas I'll ever have. Last year was truly the final 'normal' Christmas for us, because we're now on the schedule of picking Jon up for leave and having to ship him back. Next Christmas, I don't know if he'll be home... I do know that I won't, though. I'll be in Australia. I have a lot to look forward to in this year and a lot to figure out and do for myself. I just need to come back to God and dig in with Him.