baghdad 2003

this was the day we left for fallujah - known back then as 'the wild west.'

okay so i don't look that great. but every soldier should have a picture with their team in the combat zone. all the guys in the movies do. this is mine.

how embarrassing

8 months living in this house and i have never met most of my neighbors. but the one across the street [his name is ron!] came over this morning and offered to lend me his lawn mower.

basically something must be done about my lawn and everyone knows it.

created to dance...

someone said to me last night, "you were created to live." he said i should live. i should dance. i should laugh. i should not lose the blue of the sky and the breath of the wind and the creation of God because i am living in my hurts and disappointments and the things that i've lost that i miss.

he said sunset and sunrise are so beautiful because they are always colliding.

and i decided right then that "collide" is a powerful word and when i write i will never use it lightly - like to describe amusing hallway mishaps and whatnot. is that a strange reaction?

and it wasn't cheesy at all. it was amazing. everything he said was so vibrant and it woke something up in me that i had been aching for. it made me want to live the life abundant that Jesus came to give me.

now ... generally i don't dance in front of people. that is because dancing is a strange and unnatural thing for me to do. i want to dance, but i am awkward. what can i say? but i'm pretty sure that wasn't the point.

the point was i've lost my joy. where do i find it again? not where i've been looking for it. but right now, this moment, i choose to live my life in my identity... the one Jesus gave me, not the one i tried to siphon from other people.

i've made so many mistakes. big ones. and i'm going to make more.

but moment by moment i am redeemed.

that's good news, isn't it?

phantastes

"alas! how easily things go wrong!
a sigh to deep, or a kiss too long,
and then comes a mist, and a weeping rain,
and life is never the same again."***






**[george macdonald]






***[i posted this because i think it's beautiful. don't read too much into it.]

fvchurch.com

seriously sarah? still amazed. you and cj. basically rock.

also... to anyone who might not actually go to this church, and therefore didn't hear yesterday's sermon... go to the web site. find out if it's available. if so listen to it immediately. then listen to it again. and again. until it takes.

do something.