Love Is...

You know, for the longest time, my "dream blog" was to write this blog with this list of what love is. Like, "love is watching dora the explorer with your niece when she's sick and can't sleep... love is washing the dishes when your momma is to weary to... love is leaving your sister alone when she threatens to rip your head off..." haha.

I thought of trying to actually write that blog tonight, but it always comes out wrong. I don't know why.

That, and all I can think of is this one thought:

Love is loving an orphan enough to give them a home and a mommy.

I don't know how passionate you are about orphans, but besides fulfilling Jesus' will for my life and being a missionary for at least a while, adopting orphans is pretty much the highest thing on my list of things that need to be done. :)

And I dunno--lately, I have just fallen in love with orphans everywhere more than ever before. (Is it totally weird to fall in love with children I've never met before?!!) I just googled "European orphans" (because I would love to adopt from either Europe or domestically here in America), and my heart completely melted.

I mean, I just don't understand it. Half the time it makes me sick; the other half it makes me want to weep or be filled with anger. I don't understand how so many MILLIONS of children can be without a mommy and a daddy. I don't understand why people do not want to be the mommy and daddy for these children. I don't understand why the price of adoption is so high. I don't understand why everyone I talk to about adoption tries to keep me from adopting when I am actually old enough and mature enough to handle it. I don't understand why parents CHOOSE to NOT choose their children. They're so beautiful and lovely--WHY do they do that? I don't understand it.

I can't wait until the moment when I get to start the process of adopting my own future children... I don't know where they are, and I don't know how old they are, and I don't know what nation they call home right now, and I don't know the color of their hair or their eyes or if their smile is crooked or if their teeth are perfectly straight or if they love stories like I do or science like my mommy does... I know only one thing about them: that I love them dearly, and that I can't wait to meet them.

So tonight, there are a LOT of things about love that I DON'T know.

But tonight, this is what I know about love. Love is a choice. Love is beautiful. Love is looking into the expectant and lonely eyes of an orphan and crying tears of joy. Love is choosing to leave depression and OCD in the dust for the hope and joy and future of my children. Love is dreaming. Love is beating the odds.

And love is triumph.

One day, I will have my adopted children, and I will tell you ALL about my beautiful children and how they became my children, and I can promise you that they will all be named utterly GORGEOUS names (hehe!), and they will be loved so incredibly much.

Till next time,
Ash the (Inspired) Dreamer

my bucket list.

my mommy up and decided to make her bucket list today. i'm not quite sure why, but i find it interesting.

so i figured i would post my own bucket list.

seeing that i dream these crazy dreams, my bucket list is already inordinately LONG (haha), so i'll spare you the hour-long post by only posting some of my very favorites. :)

1. adopt two little girlies (from romania?).

2. become fluent in french.

3. publish a beautiful novel. (this is the very minimum... i desperately want to publish a million of my stories, not just one measly novel!)

4. be a missionary for at least a year in an orphanage (preferrably in europe).

5. visit prague.

6. find true love.

7. bake cookies for the wordfm (my favorite radio station) and visit with the staff.

8. pray with some of my favorite bands/artists (i'm so weird, i know!).

9. get involved in a youth group.

10. sponsor a little girlie from compassion international.

those are the big ones, right now, anyway. i'm sure there are a million other ones, that i'm crazy passionate about, but i can't think of them right now, and i don't want to put down stuff that don't matter immensely to me. :)

anyway, happy weekend, everyone! :)

till next time,
ash the (determined) dreamer

the injustices...

It's dark outside. Here we are again, same place, same time, every week. New song, same heart, same me. I'm listening to Francesca Battistelli's "It's Your Life," and it's just fueling the fire inside of me.

I've been mad about a lot of stuff lately. About the injustices.

Gah, I really would love to strangle somebody or something right now.

I remember someone tweeting (on Twitter) this week about the irony of the fact that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, but the US is bombing the moon to see if it has a reliable water source. I mean, really?! And President Obama is considering sending more troops to Afghanistan. REALLY?! How is that in the spirit of bringing peace? Really, I'm all about breaking the bonds and helping children and women who are oppressed, but after all this time, I think it's time for a little bit of peace. That, and to let the soldiers have a break. After all that they have done.

I saw a picture today of a formation of military soldiers. Standing at attention. With a little girl in a pretty pink dress, clinging to her daddy's hand. I don't know what the military had to say about that, but it tore my heart out. I still want to cry about it.

My old principal from elementary school is going to this leadership conference in Georgia this weekend, and he posted something on facebook about getting involved with helping orphans. I checked out the website (www.143million.org), and it's all about how to help orphans, and yes, there are 143 million orphans in the world.

That makes me SICK.

More than that, it makes me sick that I'm considered too young, too inexperienced, with too unstable of an income with too little money to adopt every single one of them. And adopt them out to families that really, truly would love each and everyone of them.

And it makes me even more sick to think that my mom is too scared of loving an orphan to even consider foster care, and my dad is too angry and focused on his job and worried about finances to be the face of Jesus to just one more child.

It makes me sick that every time I hear about another family having another child, or adopting a kid, or taking in foster children, that I have to sit here blogging about how utterly sick and furious I am, because my hands are tied.

It makes me sick I don't even have $38 a month to sponsor a Compassion International child. It makes me sick that I can barely scrape enough money together to pay off my school bills and send seven dollars to an amazing ministry called Mocha Club.

It makes me sick that I can only be so much of Jesus' hands and feet, while a lot of the rest of Jesus is just sitting there, when they can do so much more than I can do.

I'm just so sick of sitting still, of not doing ANYthing. I'm sick of being satisfied of being here, doing homework, watching TV, working at a Taco Bell that tells me to get people to donate dollars to help starving children in Africa, and when my heart is ripped out by well-off American after well-off American denies dying children who don't even have a chance, then they yell at me for focusing more on the children than on keeping the dining room clean and keeping people happy.

I'm sick of not even loving my major. I'm sick of just dreaming of change. I'm sick of going through the motions. I'm sick of not making a difference. I'm sick of fitting into the "good girl", studious, church-mouse shell of the powerhouse of a person Jesus created me to be!

And more than ANYTHING else, I'm sick of knowing all the things that need to be done, but knowing I don't have ANY resources, and not even knowing where to go! or WHAT to do, or how to go about doing it, and I just get sick inside, day after day, and it just can't keep going on like this.

Maybe I should pack a suitcase or two, fly to a poor European country, apply to work at an orphanage, and read my Bible everyday, and stop watching TV and pretending to care about all these insignificant things.

I don't feel like I was created for this life. I feel like I've been put in the wrong place entirely, and I keep hearing, "Go, go, go!" in my ears, but I don't even know where to go! And now I'm crying, and the world knows it, and still nothing happens.

This world makes me sick.

I can't wait till I get to heaven and all I have to worry about is seeing the approval and the love in Jesus' eyes, and being a friend to every person, and singing praises to Jesus and loving people like my heart was made for. Or maybe I was meant to go on the road with Christian bands and preach Jesus. I don't even know. All I know is that I can't stand this much longer.

Ash the (Despondent) Dreamer