so wes is basically finished his school for the year. i can already tell what a difference the lack of stress is. he is so much happier.

in other news...oh wait, there is no other news. our lives are sailing along, quietly, uneventfully. i like it this way, really. sometimes some excitement is good, but i like the quiet routine of life as well.

unfortunately for you, my reader, this means a very boring blog.

c'est la vie!

virginia tech

what an awful thing to have happened. 32 people walking around, just living their lives, and then 5 minutes later they have been shot by a fellow student. how can someone exist beside us, and hold such evil inside, and nobody really sees it. i know it happens all the time. jeffrey dahmer was an ideal neighbor. charles manson was the boy girls wanted to date. it makes me sad that this boy was so alone. that he hated so much more than he loved or felt loved. i am sad for the families and friends of the people who happened to cross his path that day. the people he killed.

spring has sprung...i hope

i love, love, love spring. it is so glorious. i love the smell of it, and feel of the air. it makes me happy to not have to wear a jacket. god knew what he was doing when he invented spring.

i am looking forward to this weekend. i think wes and i will get to have a quiet night together tonight. i am happy he'll be done school soon. i fully support what he is doing, and am so proud of how hard he works, but it's nice to know that for the summer, he will just go to work and then we will have evenings free.

can i talk a little about wes? of course i can, it's my blog. i have never met anyone who makes me laugh as hard or as often as him. am he makes me feel so safe. i never have to wear my armour at home, he will never attack me. he is so helpful. if there is something i would like him to do, he tries his best. i think he really wants me to be happy. and he tries to help me in that endeavor. he can get really crabby, but even that (if i have perspective) is funny. he is so gentle. he helps around the house. he tells me he loves me like a zillion times a day because he knows i like to hear it. he is a fantastic kisser. he is a very hardworker. i don't really know why i wanted to say all of these things. maybe because it's spring and i am twitterpated.

thanks for reading!

all we need is love

so, much quicker than i expected, i found myself deciding. after thinking about all the things i didn't want to have to do or not do, i just couldn't give up on jesus. i really want to believe that what he wants for me is what is best for me. i am not always good at trusting him in this, but i want to better. a friend of mine shared a verse with me yesterday that said something like this: the only thing that matters is this: faith expressed through love. i love the simpleness of this. i think i can let jesus teach me how to love. that doesn't seem so scary.

my two vices

i have really been thinking a lot about my last post. about counting the cost of following jesus. so last night i made a list of everything i don't want to give up. because i think if i am going to choose jesus, i want to do it with my eyes wide open. i don't want to hold anything back. i think i have been at that place before in my life, but probably not for very long. i don't really know what happened. anyways back to the list. i made this list, and then this morning i tried to put all these things that i don't want to give up (things like sleep and chocolate) into different categories, so i could try and see some themes. well, i only had two categories that an entire page of things fell into. here they are: comfort/pleasure and pride. these are the two broad themes of sin in my life that i don't want to let go of. i am such a hedonist. i love to feel good. this is the hardest of the two for me. but maybe even this is an extension of pride. what makes me think i deserve to always have pleasure, or even ever have pleasure, when there are many people in this world who don't.

the road less travelled...

so, i think i took a brave step last night. i was honest. for perhaps the first time in over a year. i think i have had a slowly growing understanding, and now i have finally identified what has been going on in my heart. i don't think a year ago i could have articulated what the real issue was, in fact last night may have been the first time i could. here it is: i am at war. there is this battle going on between a very small, quiet part of me and this larger much louder more dominant part. the smaller part wants me to choose jesus, to choose my own sacrifice, my own death really. then there is this other part that only wants me to choose me. to give in to my own desires and wants and needs. this part acknowledges the theoretical truth of jesus, but doesn't want to serve him. the truth of it all is that i have never, in my whole life, been so close to choosing to turn away from jesus. and not in a loud way, shaking my fist and yelling at god. but in a much quieter, apathetic way. i have this picture of myself in a river, right on the edge of a giant waterfall. i know that the way to life is to struggle to swim upstream, against the current. and it's harder, and so exhausting, and it seems like there is no pleasure, only life. and it doesn't really seem worth it. and the other choice is to choose death. to let go and give in to my flesh, stop fighting and go over the waterfall to certain death. and it will be fun and pleasurable for a moment, but it will not end well. both choices terrify me. to turn away from the truth that i know or to run into his arms, but die to my own desires and pleasures. you know how you hear about those people who do those incredible things to survive in the face of almost certain death. the guy who cut his own leg off with a pocket knife. or the people who eat their dead friends. even just the people who didn't give up hope. i have always known that i am not one of those people. my hope does not endure through all things. in fact my hope is one of the things that falls away first. i do not have the will to cut my flesh to save my life. so how is this choice any different? if i turn to jesus, maybe he won't ask me for much yet. but tomorrow, or in a week, or a year or ten years, he will ask me to do things and give up things and to put myself to death. i know this. and this is what makes this choice so hard. i am counting the cost. and it is so high. maybe too high. i don't know. i was asking jesus to make this choice easier for me to make. to make it easy for me to choose him. and i felt like he said that the ease of this choice is directly proportional to the depth of the choice and the commitment to it. if it's an easy choice, it will also be a shallow one, easy to turn my back on later. if i can make this choice even though it is so very hard, then it will be enduring. there will be a depth there that will be harder to turn back from. it's hard for me to pray for my own death, but i am trying. maybe you, whoever you are that are reading this, can pray for my death, and my life. thanks.

happy birthday

happy birthday, you know who you are...
this last year with you has been my favorite by far
you're fun and you're nice
luckily, no lice
you make me laugh all the time
you're kids are so cute it's a crime
this poem is pretty lamy
but...happy birthday amy!

now i don't have to get you a present!