Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things...

Hearing someones heartbeat. Dinosaurs. Trying on new clothes again as soon as I get back from the store. The sound of water lapping against a dock. My almost name. Horrible fake accents made by close friends. When someone saves me a seat. Driving around with the windows down on a late summer night. Napping with somebody else. Staying in my pajamas all day. When I meet up with a group of friends and they stop talking to celebrate my arrival. Wordless apologies. Taking the stairs next to somebody taking the escalator. When I open my cell phone and there are a bunch of text messages waiting. When the person scratching my back finds that one really itchy spot. Making someone laugh when they have a mouth full of food. Sitting in the backseat of a packed car when the driver takes a turn really fast. Sleeping with one leg under the covers and one leg out. Passing under a bridge on the highway when it's pouring rain. Taking my heels off at the end of the night and walking home in bare feet. That feeling in your stomach when you go really high on the swings. Waking up before my alarm clock and realizing I've got lots of sleep time left. When someone holds my keys and wallet in their purse. When I'm watching one of my favorite movies and I realize I don't remember how it ends. Getting into a bed with clean sheets after shaving my legs. Falling asleep in the backseat of a car late at night on the drive home. Putting potato chips on a sandwich. The sound of rain from inside a tent. Backseat car windows that go down all the way. The first time wearing new socks. Returning to my warm comfy bed after getting up to pee in the middle of the night. Remembering what movie that guy is from. Parking lot pull through. Getting something with actual handwriting on it in the mail. Multitasking while brushing my teeth. The sound of scissors cutting construction paper. The first scoop out of a jar of peanut butter. The first shower you take after not showering for a really long time. Rain hair. Living with someone who doesn't mind killing spiders. Taking my pants off when I get home.

A Letter A Day Keeps The Doctor Away?

So I've decided to do this whole "write a letter on your blog" thing. I'll try and do it every day, but probably won't. But I'll definitely do them in this order. And hopefully get through all of them. Idk. It should be fun. We'll see. I'll start tomorrow.

Day 1 — Your Best Friend

Day 2 — Your Crush

Day 3 — Your parents

Day 4 — Your sibling (or closest relative)

Day 5 — Your dreams

Day 6 — A stranger

Day 7 — Your Ex-boyfriend

Day 8 — Your favorite internet friend

Day 9 — Someone you wish you could meet

Day 10 — Someone you don’t talk to as much as you’d like to

Day 11 — A Deceased person you wish you could talk to

Day 12 — The person you hate most/caused you a lot of pain

Day 13 — Someone you wish could forgive you

Day 14 — Someone you’ve drifted away from

Day 15 — The person you miss the most

Day 16 — Someone that’s not in your state/country

Day 17 — Someone from your childhood

Day 18 — The person that you wish you could be

Day 19 — Someone that pesters your mind—good or bad

Day 20 — The one that broke your heart the hardest

Day 21 — Someone you judged by their first impression

Day 22 — Someone you want to give a second chance to

Day 23 — The last person you kissed

Day 24 — The person that gave you your favorite memory

Day 25 — The person you know that is going through the worst of times

Day 26 — The last person you made a pinky promise to

Day 27 — The friendliest person you knew for only one day

Day 28 — Someone that changed your life

Day 29 — The person that you want tell everything to, but too afraid to

Day 30 — Your reflection in the mirror

Three Devil Mice?

So my whole life until like, a few months ago, I thought that the movie Meet Joe Black was about a blind man. I thought Brad Pitt was a blind man who was like, secluded his whole life and then some people found him or something and then they tried to integrate him into the real world. TURNS OUT, it's about the devil. Brad Pitt is the devil or something. What's up with that? Seriously. How did I think it was about a blind man? Who let me think this for so long.

I really need to stop judging a movie by the guy wearing sunglasses on the cover.

On a Night Like This

There are so many different things I want to write about. Like, seriously. Tons of things. My life is changing and staying the same. I'm growing and getting stronger and even being weak. One of these days I'll write it all out. I should just do it now but I'm not sure how.

SOON.

My Name is Stephanie, and I Have Issues.

Seriously though. Major trust issues. Along with a nice dose of commitment issues. So I'm basically perfect girlfriend material. Obviously.

I also have major fear of rejection. To the point that I never take chances. I never let anyone know what I really think. Because I'm either afraid to say the wrong thing and have them be offended, or I'm afraid that they are going to judge me by my answer or think the opposite thing and not like me. Seriously. It's pathetic. I hear that everyone deals with this, but I'm also really self-centered too, so I'm pretty sure mine is worse than yours. But even though I'm extremely self-centered, I also never think I'm good enough. I act like I do, but when it comes down to it, I almost always assume there's something wrong with ME and that's why things don't work out. Because obviously everyone else is perfect and living a perfect life and mine is the only one that has had road bumps. (Like I said, I'm extremely self-centered).

Also, I'm way too generous. I help and help and give and give and never take care of myself. I know that's supposed to be a good quality, ya know, giving to others and sacrificing, but I do it to such an extreme that I start to resent that I spend all of my time on others. My sister always tells me I'm selfish, so this must be what she's talking about.

...I'm having a bad night.

Guess What? I am not a Robot.

I would like to preface this by saying that I wrote the paragraphs below about a week or two ago, and then gave myself time to reflect and let it sit for a while, so my heart on some things has changed since I've written this. Also, when I write, my heart is usually changed by the time I've finished. God uses writing to heal whatever is ailing me. He strengthens me and gives me courage through His promises. He reminds me of His love for me through writing. Usually I edit out everything before this realization. I write out all of my frustrations and struggles and then by the end of it God's promises are spewing out from my keyboard. Usually I just publish the God's promises parts and leave out my own personal junk. But not today. Today you get the personal junk AND the good stuff. Because I'm not all good stuff. No one is. And so, to show just how human I am, and how amazing God is, you are getting all of it. Now, it's going to be long and maybe a tiny bit disorganized, but that's life...

So, It's about that time. The time when I start to recognize and analyze certain aspects of my life. I actually do this quite often. And usually, in order to fully grasp these new revelations, I write about them. It's therapeutic...

I can't make myself attach. It's a part of that whole anti-vulnerability thing I struggle with. It's like, I can't remember the last time I was really hurt. I can't remember my last PURE joy. I think it was Hong Kong. But I'm not SURE. I don't even think I was fully attached there. It was definitely the closest I'd gotten in a LONG time. But I can't say it was 100% of myself invested.

I need to break. Breaking is the only way I've ever really grown. And that's because I've set myself up not to break. I've done a really good job of protecting myself. But it turns out I've just made myself not really love anything. Loving means making yourself vulnerable. Loving means taking the risk to break. And I don't even mean in a relationship between a boy and a girl. I mean with anything. Loving always means taking a risk. You take the risk that this thing you've chosen to love will be taken away, or it won't be what you thought. I have loved before. I loved and lost. And I don't know if I can say that it was worth it. People always say, rather to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. But I'm not really sure that's true. My first love wrecked me. Ripped my heart to shreds. I was made vulnerable in every single aspect of my life, and I was so happy. It was amazing. For two years, it was great. And then it ended, and all of a sudden that vulnerableness that I had become confident in became a wound. And salt was thrown in it. Over and over again. One night, after a particularly painful phone call, my mom told me I had to start guarding my heart. So I did. That night, I made the decision to never let my heart be broken again. I stitched up my wounds and lifted my head up. I put on a mask of security in hopes that soon, it would become a feeling instead of a facade. But along with sewing up the pain of that night and those words, I sewed up secret pains and insecurities. It was like poison. Every now and then I still get hit with the side effects. Those wounds haven't been re-opened. It's been 4 years of poison being trapped in my body. And I know it's unhealthy, but it's a little too scary to re-open. I don't know if I'll ever be ready for that. And ever since then, I haven't let very many people close to those wounds. Not many people have seen me weak. Not many people have seen my scars. I hate them. I hate weakness.

The problem with that is.. God loves weakness. And I am called to love what He loves, and hate what He hates. He hates when I try and do it myself. He hates when I am hurting. He hates when I don't give Him everything. Yet I've made my hurt my own. I've done it myself. I just can't let it go. Even writing this, knowing what God wants, I'm doing something else. I usually find cleansing and healing when I write. But I'm not fixed yet. And that scares me. It scares me that I know what I'm supposed to do, and I'm not doing it. It scares me to admit that I'm doing something that is in opposition with what God wants.

Normally, I'd just delete all of this and instead write about what had been revealed to me through writing about my insufficiencies, rather than putting them on display. But I'm on this kick where I've decided to be genuine and really starting to accept who I am for ALL that I am, even my struggles. And I guess it's time to let everyone else in on who I am. And by showing what a mess I am, I can show how NOT a mess God is, and how much I need him.

For years, the love I had for God was enough to cover all of the hurt and pain. He brought me joy. He healed me and told me I was pure and good and that He loved me. But the problem is, I never let him deal with that 17 year old girl who thought she had to fix herself. That 17 year old girl who had severe injuries that were self-treated when she really just needed to go to The Healer. I still haven't let Him have that part of me. And that alone should scare me in to action. The fact that I'm keeping something from Him, should break me. It should pull me to the cross. But I haven't let it. I haven't let myself. And I don't even think I know how to anymore. And the worst part is, there's a part of me who doesn't even want to. I don't know if I can. I don't know if it's possible to remove all of the layers of protection, of scar tissue. I know it's going to hurt, and for some reason I can't see beyond that. Sometimes we let ourselves be defined by our struggles, or by our past, or our pain. We know our struggles. We know our pain. We live them every day. But we don't know healing. We can't seem to recall what it feels like when Jesus takes our place. And we are afraid of what we don't know. The enemy puts this doubt in our heart. He tells us that if you break, no one is going to be there to put you back together. He tells us to just keep holding on to ourselves, that we're strong enough and that we're capable and that we can keep going on, but that is a LIE! We are not strong enough. We are not capable. We cannot hold ourselves together. We have to trust in Jesus. We have to trust that HE is strong enough, because He is. HE is capable. HE will put us back together when we crumble. If you let Him, He will make you His.

I am His. I am going to start this process. I'm going to try and figure out how to let go. I'm going to revisit old wounds so that He may clean them out and fill me with peace and comfort. I cannot wait for the day that I am able to honestly say "all I am is Yours." There's no reason to hide. There is no reason to fear. We are His.

truly fully.

"What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are . . . because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier . . . for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own . . . "

-F. Buechner

I'm trying to figure out who I am. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to show the world what I have to offer, when I'm not even sure of what that is. I've been reflecting on my past and trying to figure out what that means for my future. I'm trying to figure out what my future is even supposed to look like. I'm worried that I've lost track of who I really truly am, and wondering if we ever really know who we are. I'm terrified that who I am and who Christ is are too different. I've had life changing experiences that I've allowed to be just one more item on a list of things I've done in life. I refuse to let that happen again. My life is changing. I'm just trying to catch up with all of the changes. I'm learning. I'm growing. I just want to be able to take an honest look at my life and embrace the things that are good and change the things that aren't. It's scary. It's hard. But this is life, right?

Patient. Not like, "I'm in the hospital"... but more like "should I do ground shipping or next day delivery"

So I've decided to start this journey with something I wrote about a year ago. I wasn't sure how to start writing, or what to even write about. But then a great friend of mine reminded me of some things I've written in the past...

Something I've always struggled with is being patient. I've always been an instant gratification kind of person. As soon as I decide I want something, I go for it with a "have to have it" attitude. I don't like to wait for anything. The problem is, life doesn't really work that way. God definitely doesn't work that way. About a year ago I started to really focus in on what it meant to be patient. I found a peace in searching for what it really meant to have a spirit of patience. So I'm going to share something I wrote in January of last year...

They say patience is a virtue. And I do believe that. But a lot of times patience gets misunderstood. There's always times when patience turns into waiting, and waiting turns into missing chances, missing people and sunrises, and walks in the park, and puddles in the sidewalk and laughs with true friends. People hear "be patient" and think that they have to sit and wait to get the reward they want, the prize they've been drooling over, or the lifestyle they've always wanted. But being patient means sitting still for a second. It means opening your eyes. Because maybe what you think you want is all wrong. Maybe you're waiting on something that you shouldn't be waiting for. Maybe he's not the guy, and she's not the friend you need, or it's not the job that's best for you. They all may not be right for you. And not because you don't deserve everything you've ever wanted, but because your imagination is nowhere near close enough to think up the amazing things you actually deserve. Patience means looking forward, and moving forward, even if it's without what you think you need. It doesn't mean stopping and waiting. It means waking up every day and trusting that God will provide and that timing isn't your choice, it's His. And He is always perfect. So be patient... haven't you heard, it's a virtue.

So, as I continue on with this crazy life of mine, I hope to be a living example of what it means to truly be patient in the Lord.

AND can I just say... It's hard being 20. No one ever tells you how to be 2o something. It's all about either being 15 or being 40. I have no idea what to expect. When I was 10, I knew what was going to happen for the next 7 or 8 years of my life, and I know what to expect when I'm old and married, but this 20 something age sure is confusing...eh, what can ya do.