Lord, my heart is pestered, my heart is annoyed, my heart is sad.

There was a girl who said something unintentionally incredibly offensive and racist and so freaking ignorant I wanted to call her out on what the freakin crap bullpoop freak poop she was saying. God, there was so much freakin damn ignorance. But I am no judge. I look back at myself and my transgressions, how can I keep angry? how can I ask for justice? What ignorance for me to speak of justice.

girls. girls. girls. girls. girls. Why, Lord? Why are we this way? So full of ourselves, so ignorant, so obnoxious, so pathetic? Why are we so far from your image?

All the time in the world

If I had all the time in the world, I would write each of my friends a book about how special they were and how loved they were by God. If I had to point at what my heart loves most, it's either babies or trying to take pain away from people. When I was really young I used to think a lot, because I was alone a lot. I used to think about people who were in the hospitals, people in opposite parts of the earth and how they might be hurting right now and at that moment. How one person might be experiencing an unimaginable amount of pain. I didn't know God yet, but I prayed that some of that person's pain could be relieved onto me. Whoever it was, so that the person might hurt less. Then I thought, today might be someone's birthday. Today might be someone's happiest day of life; today might be someone else's most painful day. I prayed that something would help the hurting people. And when I hurt, when I had stomach aches which brought tears to my eyes, I wondered if that was what I had asked. 'Am I relieving someone else's pain?'

Lord, renew my heart and let me overflow with Jesus.

That first time I led worship, oh how desperate they were to have asked me, but still thankful.

PEACE.

This semester. A missions trip. A four month lag to completing a class. A broken car. A desperate search for a third roommate. A lack of work hours

This semester my parents paid for all the remaining of my tuition. My dad just talked to me over the phone yesterday and he wanted to send me money to pay for.. practically the rest of the rent until the lease is over. "Stop it," I said, "You don't have to do that." I recently learned about love languages, and I realize that my parents show love by giving me things and providing for me. They don't give hugs. They don't say nice things. They don't necessarily make dates with us besides for meals. If I take away my need for them, I take away the way they know how to display love for me. Last semester and this semester, I chose hunger before I would ask for help. It's my pride, my worthless pride.

this month

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. ~ James 1:2-3

Want

As I lay here in the dark, staring at my desk across the room I notice all the shadows of the little trinkets overwhelming the surface. 'Gosh, I am so rich,' I thought to myself. God has blessed me so much. Although if anyone saw the little stuff I collected-- burnt out light bulbs, box tops for my church back home, ducky shower cap, 3D glasses, towels from Aeromexico, Rhema booklets, one yellow plastic glove, etc-- they may seem like garbage. But my little mess. I am so wealthy. What more could I want?

I want to buy a flute so I can practice again. It's been four years, but I still remember most of the notes. My favorite was F for some reason.

I want to buy a camera. It can be a very humble digital camera. I learned from that little 3.0 megapixel canon in high school that it's not really up to the photographer to take a beautiful picture. The beautiful picture is already there! All the time.

I want to buy two more wii motes for my wii console so the maximum number of people can play.

I want some business-y shoes (to match my fancy pants) I can wear to the airport since my oxfords broke.

I want some kind of dresser to put my clothes in so they don't have to still sit in my suitcase.

I want a simple life.. wouldn't it be sweet? I can take a simple and humble job. Come home in the afternoon to play some music. Live in a small and humble home with a God-fearing husband and children who have the freedom to chase after their dreams. Maybe that's just madness. I guess so. Who would ever want that.

But God's plan is always better, and most usually more challenging and convicting and way out of our comfort zones.

Pouring Out: Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

Christmas. Christmas. The word hurts my heart. It hurts my heart this year more than ever before, just simply by remembering what Christmas was for me growing up.

Disappointed by the song Santa Claus is Coming to Town because he made a list and checked it twice to make sure of whom was naughty or nice. I first heard about Santa in school I think, maybe my younger uncles and aunt may have told me about him as a tease, or maybe my sister heard about him first from when she started to go to school. But it didn't matter and my parent never bothered to talk to us about him. No matter how many letters I wrote Santa, no matter how hard I wanted to be a good girl, I realized that I wasn't good for even one day. I thought that Santa would make his new list every year after new years. I would try so hard to be good so Santa would visit that year. So Santa would love me and give me a present. But every January 1, before it even got dark, I would've done something bad, and I would just feel so rotten and disappointed because I was on the naughty list for the rest of the year. I could never be good enough for Santa. I was a bad child. Santa was never going to visit me. He never did, because I was unlovable and unforgivable.

I remember as children Christmas did not really exist in our home. Our uncles and aunts who loved us out of the sake that we were super cute and we were the first babies in the family showered us with toys regardless of holiday. One of my favorite parts of my childhood home was probably the one strip of Christmas lights my dad would put up on our living room window. I was always amazed at how he was able to shape the lights into a christmas tree, and that was almost every year until we got older. I loved that Christmas light tree, although it was flat and cheap and simple. It wasn't really meant for me or Kelly. I remember my dad said it was so other people could see it. I loved it though. Christmas lights take my breath away. As children, sometimes our dad or uncle would drive us through a suburb to look at houses that decked it all out with Christmas lights. Kelly and I would go "oooh!" and "aaaah!" endless through that entire five minute cruise.

For some reason my mom hated Christmas trees. While me and my sister loved them so much and begged so much, we never got one. One year, after all the begging, one of our aunts gave us a small tree. It felt really huge because of how small we were, but I'm pretty positive it was small; it was probably about four feet tall. We managed to put it up by ourselves. Nothing really for ornaments (maybe a few red bows were in the box), but we were just so happy. Our mom came home that night and got so furious. She took it down and she threw it away, that very same night. I don't remember if I cried. Knowing the kind of kid I was, I probably did cry a lot.

One year, when I was about nine or ten years old I had a hold of $20. I went to Card Factory Outlet, and there was this beautiful pre-lit Christmas tree. It was so so so beautiful. I wanted to buy it and my uncle who was there with me, bought it for me and told me to not tell my parents he bought it. We walked back with it to the family restaurant. I proudly showed everyone the tree, and when I was asked I told everyone I bought it for $20. Then my dad yelled at me in front of everyone, "Why did you spend $20 on a stupid tree when we could've used it for flooring instead! Useless! Go return it." Whatever the words he used, it was harsh, and I definitely cried. I stayed in our little closet-size of a play room at the restaurant and cried and cried and cried. For some reason my sister came into that room and she was being nicer to me than I ever remembered and she said, "Tori, don't worry you're not fat." What the? I just continued in my bitterness and I vowed to hate my dad forever, never speak to him again. I wanted his heart to break.

Chest nuts roasting on an open fire, when I hear that I realize I have no idea what that means. Gosh I really wish I knew. Hearing that song hurts my feelings and it reminds me of my un-American-ness. What does a real pine tree smell like? It probably smells disgusting to me because I never got to sync the idea of pine tree to lovely feelings. The only pine tree I knew of was the big and ugly one I passed by everyday on my way to and from school. It always poked kids who walked past it and weren't careful enough to dodge it's prickly stems.

Hearing about international students visiting people's homes for Thanksgiving and Christmas. All the food and love and joy and decoration and festive spirit. I don't know that. Christmas almost means nothing to me besides family sometimes is off work and come together for meal and then head to the casino.

Would I lie to my kids about Santa so they could have an authentic American make-belief-Santa-Claus-god Christmas? I don't know, but it would hurt my childish feelings to bring it up.