Bad Day Bandage

If you are like me and love animals more than most humans, you will love this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/aww/

Though I generally do not post links on my blog, I feel that this one is justified, because it shows so many of the things that are beautiful and wonderful in life. In my opinion, of course.

Daydream

The moment when surroundings fade

When all that is tangible becomes a mist

A vision out of the corner of the eye

Less real than the pounding of your heart

The moment when overwhelming feeling

Overpowers, obliterates, erases fear

Consciousness forsaken in favor of

A world no more than feeling forever

The moment when forgetfulness overrides

Rushing sands of time and gives freedom

Freedom to indulge in feeling an idea

Feeling all there is to feel in a lifetime

The moment when time seems to stop

Lost in a mist of thought and imagining

Smiling, crying, unfeeling of effect

Lost for a moment in the mind

Free

You are More!

There's a girl in the corner
With tear stains on her eyes
From the places she's wandered
And the shame she can't hide

She says, "How did I get here?
I'm not who I once was.
And I'm crippled by the fear
That I've fallen too far to love"

But don't you know who you are, 
What's been done for you?
Yeah don't you know who you are?

You are more than the choices that you've made, 
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 
You are more than the problems you create, 
You've been remade. 

Well she tries to believe it
That she's been given new life
But she can't shake the feeling
That it's not true tonight

She knows all the answers
And she's rehearsed all the lines
And so she'll try to do better
But then she's too weak to try

But don't you know who you are?

You are more than the choices that you've made, 
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 
You are more than the problems you create, 
You've been remade. 

'Cause this is not about what you've done, 
But what's been done for you.
This is not about where you've been, 
But where your brokenness brings you to

This is not about what you feel, 
But what He felt to forgive you, 
And what He felt to make you loved. 

You are more than the choices that you've made, 
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 
You are more than the problems you create, 
You've been remade. 

Hope in Darkness

“The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now
mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.” 

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Indescribable

“Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul 
And sings the tune without the words 
And never stops at all.” 

- Emily Dickinson

A New Voice

“For last year's words belong to last year's language 
And next year's words await another voice.” 
- T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Defiance

It is possible that the one word that would describe my life of recent years is defiance. Defiance against the low expectations and pain and condemnation that held me chained in defeat for so many years. Defiance against those that told me I was worthless and would never get anywhere in life. Even now, as I write these words, I feel that now-familiar stubbornness rise within me at this judgment. For so long, I let these words defeat me, dragging me down, leaving me hopeless, and killing me slowly. The change did not come suddenly or overnight; rather, it was a long process that was full of those "one step forward, three steps back" times of which life is so full. Even now, I struggle to fight against feelings of defeat, but whenever those feelings return, I remember that defiance and allow it to fill me once again. The defiance that helped me to rise again, to break all the expectations, and to prove them all wrong. The defiance that allowed me to finally live. At times, I hear people around me saying that no one thinks they're good enough or worth anything. Every time I hear this, I am filled with an anger beyond expression - an infuriation at the people who dare crush others in this way, because I know all too well the damage it can do and the pain it inflicts. But I am also filled with the urge to explain to the people who struggle that it doesn't have to be that way. They don't have to live life defeated and weak anymore. Who cares what other people think and say about you? Prove them wrong. Never let them win that victory, because they don't deserve it. Rise above it all and live long enough to show them that you were strong enough to grow beyond them. Learn to soar when they try to make you crawl. No one has to live a defeated life. We all have the choice to get beyond it. Choose it. Accept it. Embrace it. Will we ever do it perfectly? Probably not. But never stop trying. Never surrender. I have learned to live a life of honest defiance against anyone who would try to crush me once again. I've been there. I've lived that way and I will never do it again. Someone says I'm worthless. Fine. Just let them watch me prove them all wrong. I will be strong enough to grow beyond the pain and determined enough to beat all the odds.

Believed

“It should be a privilege to be able to say 'I love you' to someone. It shouldn't be something people say just because they feel like it. A privilege that is earned. They say you have to earn the right to be loved; no, love is unconditional, if you love someone, they don't have to earn it. But. The right to tell someone that you love them? That has to be earned. You have to earn the right to be believed.” 

- C. JoyBell C.

Filling the Pages

An idea recently occurred to me - not a new idea to many, but original to me. The idea is this, that our lives are blank books and each day, we fill the pages in our own. Most probably cannot even recall the earliest pages of their stories, but they are there, now in the form of quiet laughter or tears echoing through the chasm of time. Moving forward, each day is a blank page, separate from the others and yet all part of the same story. As I write my own story - my own book of life - I want it to be an interesting one filled with both the laughter and tears that have made up my life. I do not know yet what genre it will be: tragedy, mystery, humor? Yet I am sure of one thing: that I must be the one filling the pages. For too long I have felt like a minor character in my own life story. It is time for that to change, for me to become an active participant in this fickle, unpredictable thing called life. Though I may be following a story already planned out for me, I do not know what it is, so each day I turn a blank page and start filling. Some things will be scratched out - mistakes are part of life just as they are part of the writing process, but the important thing is that the story progresses. At the end, make sure that you have written on the pages and left a legacy for someone else to read or follow or learn from. Life is a book. Start filling the pages.

Anxious Hope

“Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, 
Whispering 'it will be happier'...” 

- Alfred Tennyson