i dunno anymore...

that's what i wanna say tonight. i dunno anymore. i thought life was absolutes, which it is, in some ways, completely. but sometimes, life is nothing but grays and muddy puddles. what i do know is that Jesus is real, life goes on, and someday i will dance under the stars like a princess in all her glory--depression or no.

God is good. amen.

blessed

i am blessed.

i really hope that doesn't sound conceited or cliched. i hate sounding conceited and cliched. i'm a humble Christian writer, and humble Christian writers hate that.

it kind of just dawned on me, as i'm getting ready to go to bed, and i didn't want to forget it. i wish i was talented enough of a writer to be able to write a song about how blessed i am, and then share it with you, but right now, prose is my thing. and that's only sometimes.

sometimes, i get these epiphanies about life and my position in it--like humility is one of the coolest personality traits in the whole world, and changing the world is what we were created for, and life is completely colorless without loving and knowing and being with Jesus more than any other living thing that ever existed. this epiphany isn't quite so timeless... it applies to right now for me. i. am. blessed.

wow. lately (as in the past 18 months) i have been going through a horrible stretch of my life... i guess depression isn't something people usually brag about on a blog, but i admit it: i was depressed. not just the sort of "oh, i'm in the blues today" sort of depressed but the sort of "i've been clinically diagnosed as a person who suffers from clinical depression" sort of depression. it is the most evil, conceited, selfish disease ever created to invade a person's soul. i believe it is the cancer of the mind and the heart. i hope satan suffers a good long time for creating depression alone.

anyway. so since i have been depressed, i have stopped appreciating a lot of things--like my friends and family, and the simple pleasure of being happy, dancing in the rain, hugging my two little sisters every day, watching movies and praying for my best friends, planning to coup the powers that control the world and giving it back to Jesus (so He can turn the world upside down and start it turning the other direction), reading a book, writing a novel, jumping up and down to music like a crazy little kid... life is supposed to be lived out loud... and i've been failing miserably. not because i wanted to, but because depression robbed me of my life. but now, little by little, it's coming back, and, man, let me tell you, the feeling is PHENOMENAL!!! wow... what a rush... i have been given so much... i just want to live now...

man... but i have to sleep... i really wish sleep didn't exist. it puts a damper on all my excitement. :*(

i just wanted to remind myself... and anyone else who takes the time to read this... life is good. even when you're depressed. i know sometimes we don't even want to see it, but wow, God is SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!!!!!!! Jesus takes favor in us, and that, in itself, should be enough.

and i pray that it is.

twinkle, twinkle, little star...

I was going to try and find a picture for you to look at tonight, since this is such a visual blog, and, i guess this one is OKAY... not as amazing as the view i saw, but, oh, well.

anyway, tonight i want to tell you about something i witnessed a few nights ago... it was a little after midnight, and my whole family was asleep, so i went outside for a few minutes (i know, i'm crazy), and i was just staring up at the skies. the only reason i went outside was to look at the sky... for some reason, i feel a lot closer to God whenever i look up at the skies... especially at the big dipper. go figure. anyway, so i was staring up at the sky, remembering how i used to study the sky every night as i said my prayers and went to sleep, and it was so incredibly awesome... the stars were shining so brightly, and they were swaying back and forth, almost as if they were dancing. do great balls of fire dance? i guess they do now! :) but the stars were dancing, and underneath the stars, like a gentle cushion, were these big puffy clouds, like the trampoline the stars bounced off of, and it was like the night sky was electrified with the glory of God. i was like, "whoa... such goodness is too much for me, Lord..." i still get goosebumps thinking about it!

"The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it..."

Psalm 24:1.

what else is there to say?

disgruntled customer

i work at taco bell, this summer. it's not my dream job, but i have friends there, and it's kinda fun, and, well, let's face it. it gets me money to go back to college. :)

anyway, today, i was working, and it wasn't my best day... probably because two of my closest friends at work left for vacation for a week or two, and i'm really bummed that i won't see them for a while. anyways... this lady came into taco bell... well, it's a taco bell/long john silver's. anyway, so she was waiting for her order, and it was a take-out order, which takes longer to make, cuz you gotta be more careful. anyway, she wanted a quesadilla, which takes longer to make, and there were like, a bazillion customers. like, those little screens in the back that tell you which orders to make... there were like, three pages of orders... just for people who were dining in. excluding the drivethrough. ha. so, this lady was somewhere in the middle, and, psht, it was just a regular order i guess. i don't remember much about the order itself. and we were understaffed, so it was just me and one of my bosses. so she's waiting with her arms crossed, and i finally have her order in the take-out bag, and i call out her number, and she takes the bag from me. i'm about to ask her if she wants any sauces, but then, before i can say anything, she starts... well, it's not really screaming, but i call it screaming, because her heart's screaming, even if her mouth isn't. and she is like, "Hhhhh!!!! I knew I should have gone through drive-through! Eleven people..." Side note, it might have been THREE people... "have gone through drive through by the time I got my order, and all these other people got their orders before me, and they ordered AFTER me..." and she kept going on and on and on and on, and i was like, "i'm sorry... what else can i say to you? how can i make it up? i wish i could. you may not think so, but for some reason, i want to bless your heart, lady, but i don't even know your name or why you're yelling at me." so we just kept apologizing, and she just kept yelling. anyway. that's my exciting story so far.

then tonight, i was playing some stupid game on my family's computer, and listening to switchfoot and sanctus real, with the lights turned off and wishing i had something to do that i could do to change the world, but i didn't know what. i wanted to write for one of my stories, but i didn't have anywhere quiet to go. so i just sat and listened, and i remembered this lady.

i'm not quite sure why, but every time i go to a store, i want to be the pleasant, cheerful sunshine in that person's day at that store, or restaurant, or wherever. i guess i don't want to be like that lady--i want to be a shining light. like Jesus. i can't help but wonder, tonight, if that lady has Jesus, just like i wonder if 99% of my coworkers have Jesus, just like i wonder why so much of the world doesn't have Jesus.

i wish i could show them what they're missing. i've been thinking, lately, that a revolution begins with love--either love, or something fake that looks a lot like love would look. and i want to start a revolution with Jesus' love, but how do you make love shout? sometimes i feel like my love doesn't even whisper--it just meekly fingerspells my heart, hoping the world will see. does love shout more? or is it just me?

peace

i feel at peace tonight. if you knew what was going on in my life, you would understand how great of a statement that is... and a lot has been going on... my computer is spasming (well, that's my word for it... i'm not sure what's wrong, and neither does my techno-savvy dad), i have practically no money to return to my dream college, and i have so much on my plate that i can't even try to reach for all the dreams in my heart... but tonight, i am at peace.

i recently (last weekend) began to tithe again. if you don't know, that is when you take 10 percent of all your income, and you give it to Jesus through a church. it generally goes to support the church's pastor (which it does in my church), but it is something i really believe in. anyway, it's not that i stopped tithing... it's that i didn't know how to get my tithe from my newly opened checking account to the tithe at my new church at college... and, well, there was a lot of tithing to do. i'm pretty popular at my church... well, either that, or i don't know what, but i got a LOT of money for my high school graduation. :) then my parents gave me some spending money over the past school year, and i didn't pay tithe on ANY of it, so there goes my savings for college! and i wasn't even thinking about how this was going to deplete half of my college savings... i was just thinking about how i wanted to give back to Jesus again, and, well, He would have to take care of my school bill, because i was going to put Him first in this thing, no other way about it. i don't regret the decision at all, but now that i may have to spend HUNDREDS of dollars on my computer, which i NEED for college... it isn't as easy to sleep at night. :*(

there's this song that is pretty popular on Christian radio right now, by my favorite band of all time, Sanctus Real. it's called "whatever you're doing (something heavenly)". it's not my favorite song to dance and sing at the top of my lungs to, but when the hard times come, it's definitely something that reminds me of Jesus and gives me peace. anyway, this is the chorus:

Whatever You're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but somehow there's peace
It's hard to surrender to what I can't see
but I'm giving in to something Heavenly...

i don't know completely what i'm trying to say tonight. maybe... maybe it's just that things don't have to be okay... they just have to be in God's hands. because... because Jesus gives peace, and that's all i need.

until next time,
ash

i'm a rockstar...

i just finished watching the disney channel movie "camp rock" for (mostly) the second time. wow... i'm a sucker for disney channel movies... i dunno why. it's just... they make life so innocent and beautiful and the way things are supposed to be. people are good, parents are friends, and somehow, the main characters find true love in the end. the only thing that is missing is that the kids in those movies never find Jesus, cuz disney channel executives don't see that as a pressing factor. too bad they don't see things from where i am. haha.

have you ever wanted to change the world? ... wow... SIGN ME UP!!!! for some reason, i have always wanted to turn the world upside down. even when i was this insecure little kid with no friends to my name, i still wanted to do something big.

i remember when i was little, i was in church, and i usually didn't listen to the pastor, cuz i thought he was boring (after all, i was about ten), but my mom said i had to start paying attention to the sermons, so i was listening this one day, and my pastor was preaching about this guy named enoch. the deal with enoch was that he lived for 65 years, and then his wife gave birth to his first son, and he walked with God for 300 years (cuz back then you didn't die as young as we do these days...), and then, one day, he just disappeared. and no, he didn't die on some obscure mountain. he disappeared, but he never died. he just went to heaven, and he was no more on earth, cuz he was just so close to God that God couldn't keep him on earth anymore. i always thought it was SO COOL that enoch never died. he's still alive today!!! how cool is that? that day, when i heard my pastor preaching about him, and how he got a whole verse or two, instead of just one line, i was like, i want to be different from everybody else. different like enoch.

then i see movies like camp rock, where kids younger than i am now are writing these really cool songs and getting recognized and have this power to speak up and make a difference, and i know the kids are fictional, but the opportunity to transform the world--that is NOT fake!

and... well, it makes me feel a little sheepish, but... how cool would it be to be a rockstar, not just to meet so many people and to feel so loved, but also to have that power--that precious power to reach out and touch people's lives and show them what living is all about?

wow... those kinda dreams make me kinda dizzy... even though i'm lying down... :]

for the glory of His name

hi everybody. i'm usually really good at being eloquent, seeing that everybody says that i have the gift of words on paper and all, but today i've got nothing. usually whenever that happens, i turn all eloquent and make people cry. =] i don't think today's gonna be that way, though.

i'll try not to be boring, but i'm not superlady... yet... haha... so i can't make any promises. it'll probably be more deeply insightful into the human mind, with some really dramatic tellings of really boring stories... which make them exciting and funny...

thank you, my readers, for reading even when it wasn't necessary.

here's to Jesus and life.

ash