live for the moments that take your breath away.

i really love people.

i mean, it's kinda my job, my calling, it's pretty much what i'm supposed to be doing...but...i really deeply love people. i was made to love them. this whole weekend was supposed to be about solitude, and somehow, the entire youth group ends up hanging out at my house. but looking back, i can't think of a better way to spend my friday night at home in okc. sure, solitude is necessary, and i love it, but there's something in me that is wired to be drawn to people.

that's all. i'll write more when my heart beats poetic again.

i'm not going to allow it.

fighting insecurity is a very ugly thing.

but i'm doing it right now. all these beautiful girls, all these talented people, all these inspiring souls....bubbling with creativity and passion and beauty. and here i sit, wondering where i fit in this mess, if i even fit at all.

i'm having a jonah moment. i just want to run the other way because i feel inadequate. and i know part of that is because i don't have a human affirming that in me. and i know it's easy to say "well, she should be finding her solace and security in god." and that just shows me that you haven't been where i'm at in a long long time. it's not easy to trust a voice in your head from a god that you can't see. and so i sit here, trying to muster up the strength to pretend like it's alright, like i don't feel like i'll never measure up, and even more so...i'm fighting for all i'm worth. i'm going to give my 3,000% to get out of this rut. i just want to give my all. i just want to be enough, not only for god, but for a person. is that such a crime?

just tell me you love me and i'll leave you alone.

just a few wandering thoughts.

do you think god paints the stars every night? and paints the sunrise every morning?
and if he does, why does he paint them the way he does every night? is it for effect that will make someone realize something they wouldn't know otherwise?
how much of an effect does the starlight and sunrise have on a person's life...unrealized effects, of course.
can it save them?

i went for a drive today.

around the lake, with the wind teasing my hair, windows down, without a single worry in my head. listening to jon foreman and laughing all the way. it was one of the most beautiful moments in my life.

i remember when i got my first car, going for a drive just for the heck of it. roaming and wandering just for the sake of feeling the leather steering wheel in my hands, the pulsating of the rubber meeting the road with ease, feeling as though the whole entire world was at my fingertips. i could go anywhere i wanted, i could be anyone i wanted to be. maybe at home, i was jessica ann-lynn. but on this road, i could be whatever i pleased...i could be a writer, on her way to a meeting with her publisher. i could be a college student, late for a psych test, i could have been anything...and that's what was so romantic about those late afternoon drives.

and now, here i sit, almost three years later. and the time has flown. i've grown up more than i anticipated, i've felt pain i never wanted to know, and i've experienced opportunities my own overimaginative mind couldn't have dreamed up itself. so i'm leaving the bookstore, wondering to myself what i'm going to do with the next half hour before i decide to imprison myself to a desk and a lot of work that needs to get done. and my heart says "go for a drive."

and who am i to deny my heart the very thing it wants?

i make an unexpected turn, and end up driving 'round the lake...well, as far as i can, it's under construction. and i can't stop smiling, romanticizing my life to the point where i realize that it's ridiculous to be unhappy with who i am or what i have or don't have. maybe i'm alone...maybe i'm single, but i'm so happy. isn't that what life is all about? god never wanted us to hate what we had, he wants us to cherish it. so these thoughts are speeding through my head, and i'm speeding through another red light, and it hits me like a freight train:

i am content.

once again. after months of inner turmoil, after longings so suppressed, after heartache, and pain i never want to know again...i've mellowed out. i'm growing up. and i'm content with it. i love the fact that i'm coming alive in a new way. so maybe i don't listen to loud rock and sing at the top of my lungs with my bubbly persona like i did once upon a time when i was 16. maybe now, i love to listen to an acoustic guitar and one voice just softly serenading me, and maybe the industrial world isn't what i'm looking for like i once was. starbucks seems overrated, hollister and abercrombie and coach and fendi and fossil are all so meaningless, compared to this feeling i've got, with my wind tousled hair and my obvious grin, people may think i'm going insane, and i don't care. because i'm happy with my life. and they just wish they had a wonderful life like mine.

i'll find a name for this someday.

mostly tonight, my sentiments just needed to be unleashed. i have a tendency to lock them up in this hyperactive mind of mine and neglect them. so here i sit, late at night, when i could be sleeping, and instead, my mind is running like a stampede. wondering about my future, things past, things present, and things unseen.

one: i believe that god has more than one person destined for you. that they're all of the same type, but not the same exact person. each of them has different things that you don't like about them, and different things that you're enraptured by. i wonder, if you meet one of them in the wrong timing, does that mean it won't ever happen? cause i feel like i'm caught and someone else is getting what i've been waiting for. i just got out of a serious relationship, and by the time i'm ready to dive into the dating pool again, he could very well be gone. and somebody else could have the one i kinda want to discover. i want to know if i could love him.

two: i'm sick and tired of people thinking that i'm not doing this perfectly. why? because they're right. i'm trying to live my life to the best of my ability, and here they sit, like the supreme court of my life, trying to tell me that what i'm doing is wrong and that it would be so much better if i did it this way. but don't they realize that i've already tried that and they've criticized me for that too? it's like i'm walking down a busy nyc street, and they're waiting up and down every alley. just to jump me and take all the confidence i've had worked up.

three: i'm tired and i should probably go to bed before i go certifiably insane.

[sigh] goodnight, moon...