what is YOUR heart longing to say?

i love the purifying properties taking a shower has on my soul.

at the same time, i hate that i feel a need to purify myself.

...it's kind of like the same way i love running and then 60% into my mileage i have this mind game with myself about what in the world was i thinking and what did i ever think i'd accomplish by taking on the world at 5am in the morning. 

~but there's such a sanctity to it too~

honestly, as i've been training for my next up and coming half-marathon that i'll be running this sunday,

one of the songs that i've gone back to time and again is "Voice of Truth" by Casting Crowns.

Not necessarily the most upbeat, pump-it-up, get 'er movin' kind of song but i've realized along the way that when i don't think i can go any further, when i don't feel like i have another step in me, THAT'S when all my insecurities resurface to validate all the lies running through my head. and that's EXACTLY when i need to hear that every step of the way Jesus is singing over me, glorying over the fact that i'm loving the life He has given me- without giving power to the lies my heart will so easily believe if i let it.

in all sincerity i feel like it is a daily battle to really stay true to myself and to keep the spirit God has given me, alive.

i know full well that i have way too many hobbies and interests-

maybe i'm just uber-talented, haha.

seriously though, i really wish i took more time to paint, to draw, to play the piano, to read, to write, to sew, to make jewelry, to ride horses... the list goes on.

you know the drill...it's always 

"later", 

"after the laundry", 

"this weekend", 

"over the holidays", 

"once the dog is potty-trained", 

"once work is under control", 

"once the baby is a year old", 

etc., etc., etc.

well, i actually have been reading a little more than normal recently 

and today i was really challenged once again by Shauna Niequist:

"We're desperate  for great storytellers, great painters, great dancers, great cooks, because art does something nothing else does. Art slips past our bains straight into our bellies. It weaves itself into our thoughts and feelings and the open spaces in our souls, and it allows us to live more and say more and feel more. Great art says the things we wished someone would say out loud, the things we wish we could say out loud...

I know that life is busy and hard, and that there's crushing pressure to just settle down and get a real job and khaki pants and a haircut. But don't. Please don't. Please keep believing that life can be better, brighter, broader, because of the art that you make. Please  keep demonstrating the courage that it takes to swim upstream in a world that prefers putting away for retirement to putting pen to paper, that chooses practicality over poetry, that values you more for going to the gym than going to the deepest places in your soul. Please keep making art for people like me, people who need the magic and imagination and honesty of great art to make the day-to-day world a little more bearable.

And if, for whatever reason, you've stopped- stopped believing in your voice, stopped fighting to find the time-start today...Do something creative every day, even if you work in a cubicle, even if you have a newborn, even if someone told you a long time ago that you're not an artist, or you can't sing or you have nothing to say. Those people are bad people, and liars, and we hope they develop adult-onset acne really bad. Everyone has something to say. Everyone. Because everyone, every person was made by God, in the image of God. If he is a creator, and in fact he is, then we are creators, and no one...can take that away from you."

really, i'm just plain tired of coming home from work each night feeling like i haven't done anything of importance for the day. not even that, but rather that i haven't gloried in the gift it is. i want to be the best me every day that i can be and i know that part of that is returning to the things i love- that are wholly a part of who i am. 

not facebook

or catching up on my favorite shows

or having one more serving of the ice cream in the freezer that shouldn't even be there

or checking my email

i love catching the 

little moments

little inspirations

little revelations

little sparkles of hope and joy in the eyes of a three year old.

i hate to say that too often i miss it because i forget what i'm looking for-

i forget the stuff i'm made of and what it takes to keep me myself.

that said, i'm off to create some gifts for my niece... 

"Sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness." ~Galway Kinnell

"I owe my body an apology. Technically, I owe my body thousands of apologies, for the thousands of times I've accused it, pushed it, pulled it, starved it, stuffed it, made fun of it, lied about it, hid it, hated it... I'm sorry for taking you for granted, for wishing you were different, and for abusing you because you looked different than i wanted you to. I'm sorry. And thank you. Thank you for, despite my persecution, being strong and able in the most important way."

our bodies truly are amazing.

i've not really taken the time to stop and notice it until the past 

couple of years but when i look at what i am able to do, yes, i AM so lucky!

i guess what i'm saying is this-

for so long my sense of who i was, what i was worth, what i was able to accomplish 

was completely and totally defined by my relationship to my body.

part of what i have been learning over the past 6 months is to not have a "relationship" with my body but rather to be one with it.

while reading the best selling book titled "Women, Food and God", i became

aware how much of my issue has been self-hate which was quite a surprise because I thought i was just a perfectionist, haha.

here's some excerpts that i've been meditating on the past few hours:

"We treat ourselves and the rest of the world as if deprivation, punishment and shame lead to change... The shape of your body obeys the shape of your beliefs about love, value and possibility. To change your body, you must first understand that which is shaping it. Not fight it. Not force it. Not deprive it. Not shame it. Not do anything but accept [and understand it]. Because if you force and deprive and shame yourself into being thin you end up a deprived, shamed, fearful person who will also be thin for ten minutes."

so you see, deprivation is simply a means of survival in the end 

(in that there is hope for change) and i don't want to just survive. 

so i am abolishing deprivation in my life and rather changing 

those things that i really WANT to- not the things the 

world tells me i OUGHT to. and not on any sort of time schedule.

i'll admit, life is not always filled with loveliness. sometimes it's rather bleak and dark. 

but here's the catch:

"There are things that happen to us, and when they happen, they give us two options. Either way, we will never be the same, and we shouldn't. These things can either strip us down to the bone and allow us to become strong and honest, or they can be the reasons we use to behave poorly indefinitely, the justification for all manner of broken relationships and broken ideals. 

It could be the thing that allows everything else to turn, that allows the lock of our lives to finally spring open and our pent-up selves to blossom like preening flowers. Or it can be the reason we use to justify our anger and the sharp tones in our voices for the rest of our lives."

so i suppose in the past, insecurity in my job, my marriage, 

my abilities, my leadership roles, anything really 

could on any given day lead me to a refuge in food. 

but no more.

God is really teaching me to see the blessings in the curses.

to take each opportunity and hardship and struggle to grow as 

a person and to continue becoming a truer version of myself.

"There are things that explode into our lives and we call them curses, and then one day, a year later or ten years later, we realize that they are actually something else. They are the very most precious kinds of blessings."

which is exactly why finding my peace and my solace in HIM and believing in His faithfulness to bring beauty from ashes is all i really need in this life. i'm finding a truer contentment in my relationship with Him and in what He is showing and teaching me through all the muck and the slime. life really has nothing to do with my job, my marriage, my abilities, my leadership roles, or anything that i can touch- it has everything to do with what i make of all those circumstances. how i face the insecurities. how i dance to the lack of rhythm and still somehow end up on my toes as opposed to my back.

living life in this way makes it seem so much less of a 

"day to day, crossing my fingers til the weekend" sort of existence.

"When you can invest yourself deeply and unremittingly in the life that surrounds you instead of declaring yourself out of the game once and for all, because what's happened to you is too bad, too deep, too ugly for anyone to expect you to move on from, that's that good, rich place. That's the place where the things that looked for all intents and purposes like curses start to stand up and shimmer and dance, and you realize with a gasp that they may have been blessings all along. Or maybe not. Maybe they were curses, in fact, but the force of your belief and your hope and your desperate love for life as it is actually unfolding, has brought a blessing from a curse, like water from a stone, like life from a tomb, like the actual story of God over and over."

yet,

"Nothing good comes easily. You have to lose things you thought you loved, give up things you thought you needed. You have to get over yourself, beyond your past, out from under the weight of your future. The good stuff never comes when things are easy. It comes when things are all heavily weighted down like moving trucks. It comes just when you think it never will..."

and

so that

is how i live 

life 

in a way that i welcome

whatever life throws at me.

AND AM HAPPY.

(QUOTES FROM "COLD TANGERINES" BY SHAUNA NIEQUIST)