Favorite Quotes

"We accept the love we think we deserve." 

-Stephen Chbosky 

(The Perks of Being a Wallflower)

"No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow." -Alice Walker

“No smile is more beautiful than the one who has struggled through the tears.” 

-Unknown

"I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love." -Mother Teresa

"The best proof of love is trust" -Dr. Joyce Brothers.

“The problem with life is that there’s no background music.” -Unknown

“Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.”-Anonymous

"It is not so much our friend's help that helps us, as the

confidence of their help." - Epicurus

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." -Robert A. Heinlein

“The test of true love is found not in trying to hold our friendships tighter, but in the strength to let them go.”-Anonymous

"I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it."  - Audrey Hepburn

“When they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors.” –C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

"We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them. 
We say we love trees, yet we cut them down. 
And some people still wonder why some are afraid 
when they are told they are loved" -Unknown.

  "A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her." -Max Lucado

“If you live to be 100, I want to live to be 100 minus 1 day so I never have to live a day without you.” -Winnie the Pooh

“Hate is easy. Love takes courage.” -Anonymous

"Talking to yourself - that's actually 

more like listening than speaking"

 -From “Alice in the Cities”

Journaling

     The other day I did something I haven't done before. I went back to the beginning of my journal and started reading. My journal was given to me at the beginning of my sophomore year by one of my youth leaders. Throughout the few years, I have filled it up mostly with prayers, sermon notes, and quotes. I don't really find a lot of reason to write about my day like a kid with a diary, but writing to God is something I love to do. What was crazy when I started to read my old entries was that I actually got to see how God has been working in my life. A lot of times, I feel as if I'm the kind of person who takes two steps forward and one step back. I can't see any good in me or any change. Sometimes I think one failure in life makes everything else I've done that is right inferior. But reading my journal, I saw that I have changed so much since sophomore year. I've changed so much since my entries even last semester. Good things have happened, I have grown, and God is working. I realized that prayers I had became answered and goals I set were starting to come true. Sure, there is a lot that still needs prayer and work, but I have no doubt anymore that while "I've been waiting, God is working." I look back at the things in my life I thought were such a huge deal, and realize while they may have seemed overwhelming, God worked through them. It honestly gives me hope God will heal the things that are currently overwhelming me. God has come through for me before, and I know He will do it again. Now that I've recognized this, I am starting to put my hope back in Christ and somehow begin to wait patiently. 

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." -Romans 12:12 

Jon Foreman behind the song...

Enough to Let Me Go

Oh, I'm a wandering soul

I'm still walking the line that leads me home, alone

All I know I still got mountains to climb

On my own

On my own

Do you love me enough to let me go?

Do you love me enough to let me go?

To let me follow through

To let me fall for you, my love

Do you love me enough to let me go?

Back from the dead of winter

Back from the dead and all our leaves are dry

You're so beautiful tonight

Back from the dead we went through

Back from the dead and both our tongues are tied

You look beautiful tonight

But every seed dies before it grows

Do you love me enough to let me go?

Do you love me enough to let me go?

To let me follow through

To let me fall for you, my love

Do you love me enough to let me go?

Breathe it in

And let it go

Every breath you take is not yours to own

It's not yours to hold

Do you love me enough to let me go?

"Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." -Carl Jung
"Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further." -Soren Kierkegaard


"This one started with the guitar hook I came up with during sound-check; however, most of the song took shape in a hotel room in Australia. I was thinking about how love (not just lust or codependency that commonly flood the tunes on the airways) actually involves quite a bit of faith. There's a lot of letting go involved. Two souls in love is an intricate dance of give and take. I can be a fairly solitary person from time to time. Sure, I love being with people, but I also need time alone. I guess I thrive on the poles. So this song is about the dance involved in a relationship the coming together and letting go. The song equates love with breathing- pulling in and releasing. Or a seed, for the seed to grow it has to be dropped and buried.

In our barcode media, love is often portrayed as consumption. As consumers in a commercial driven culture we can begin to view other souls as objects, or potential cures for our deepest fears and insecurities. "Perhaps if I found the right lover I would no longer feel this deep existential despair." But of course no human soul could be the Constant Other, the face that will never go away. Only the infinite can fill that role. But the silence can be deafening. It's a fearful thing to be alone. Do you love me enough to let me go? "I can't live without you"- "I would die if you ever left me"- These are not the songs of love, these are the songs of consumption." -Jon Foreman

The Little Things In Life

It's really the simple things in life that make me happy. Here's my list:

People watching

star gazing

putting on clothes right out of the dryer

climbing into a bed with cold clean sheets after a long day

smiling at a stranger and having them smiling back

holding hands 

laying in the sun

getting a letter in the mail

sleeping in/finding out you have more time to sleep

rainy days when you sit around in pajamas and do nothing

reading books all day long

going on a drive with nowhere in mind...

listening to music

lying in bed listening to the rain outside

bubble baths

light shining through the trees

long conversations late at night

running through sprinklers

laughing at yourself

having someone tell you that you're beautiful

the whole family in the kitchen late at night, laughing and enjoying each other

letting the tears fall

deep intimate talks

dreams when you sleep

my imagination

walks in the rain

bike rides

looking at a gorgeous view or sight

looking through photography

eating that one thing you're really craving...

journaling

spontaneous laughter

taking long showers

aimlessly walking

trying to watch a whole tv series

watching a favorite movie

best friends 

singing really loud

trusting someone with all of your heart

Beautiful Music by Brandi Carlile

So this is how the story went
I met someone by accident
That blew me away
That blew me away

It was in the darkest of my days
When you took my sorrow and you took my pain
And buried them away, you buried them away

And I wish I could lay down beside you
When the day is done
And wake up to your face under the morning sun
But like everything I've ever known
I'm sure you'll go one day
So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away
And I can't spend my whole life hiding my heart away

I dropped you off at the train station
And put a kiss on top of your head
I watched you wave
I watched you wave
Then I went on home to my skyscrapers
Neon lights and waiting papers
That I call home
I call it home

And I wish I could lay down beside you
When the day is done
And wake up to your face against the morning sun
But like everything I've ever known
I'm sure you'll go one day
So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away
And I can't spend my whole life hiding my heart away

I woke up feeling heavy hearted
I'm going back to where I started
The morning rain
The morning rain
And you know I wish that you were here
But that same old road that brought me here
Is calling me home
Is calling me home

And I wish I could lay down beside you
When the day is done
And wake up to your face against the morning sun
But like everything I've ever known
You'll disappear someday
So I'll spend my whole life hiding my heart away
And I can't spend my whole life hiding my heart away