Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts

30 January 2010

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

23 October 2009

stories and missions

hello.

it's me. here again, same place, same time, same heart, same me. new song right now. i'll post the youtube video at the end of the blog.

i feel like i'm a broken record, but when it keeps coming back to me, it just feels like it's all the more from God, so i speak. :) if you've read my last couple of blogs, you know how completely unsatisfied with my life, my church, and my actions i am.

i've been thinking, recently (like, within this week) about how i might like to be a missionary. i don't even know what it would take, but i am absolutely in LOVE with the idea of being a missionary to europe right now, of working in an orphanage, helping with church, and hopefully still keeping my favorite things--Christian music, my stories, hope, people. it would make me so much more independent than i am, and i would be positively terrified of that, but the more i think about it, the more i think it's something Jesus wants me to do.

it's time to make a change, i feel. it's time to step out of my security and soar for my Savior.

i just don't know the first movement.

so pray for me, that i know what to do. :)

in other news, i'm thinking of starting working on another story i've had on the back-burner lately. it's this allegory of the story of david and bathsheba, and it's so stinkin' amazing! it's set in present-day america (for the most part), and it's about this girl, dominique, who is married to this dude, collin. they are so happily in love, but collin is a military man, and he leaves to go fight in iraq. he is only supposed to be gone for half a year, but that turns into fifteen months--1 and 1/4 of a year!--and dominique looks for a friend. josiah gilmore, who is one of collin's best friends and one of his superior officers, is home from iraq currently, and he promised to look out for dominique. and they kinda, well, you know how things are, i suppose. dominique was lonely, they were talking intimately, it got late, dominique's gorgeous, josiah is looking for a girl of his own... and they had sex. :/ and afterward, they are both horrified, and dominique doesn't tell anybody. until she misses her period... and well, she finds out she's pregnant. and soon afterward, collin comes home. and there's something that keeps them from coming together, ya know, so later on there is no chance that the baby is collin's. and almost immediately after he comes home, he's called back over there. and he's killed in the action. dominique is grief-stricken, horrified, scared, worried that her weak actions caused this to happen to the only man she ever loved, and then she refuses to talk to josiah. josiah, who's this Godly man, is sickened by his actions. he pleads and pleads and pleads for forgiveness from God and dominique, and daily he visits collin's grave, tears pouring down his cheeks, as he asks for his best friend's forgiveness, too. and josiah becomes a new man. :) and slowly, he and dominique heal together. dom gives birth to their precious baby girl, who they name emmerson olivia (she would have gone by emmy, though). she was born extremely prematurely, though, and her heart and lungs are severely underdeveloped. she doesn't even live 24 hours, and dominique and josiah just about die out of grief. somehow, they find healing through it all, and get married and find joy again. i'm thinking it's a big enough story that it'll need to be more than one book--maybe a trilogy... i dunno. but i stinkin' love the story! :)

anyway, happy weekend, everybody! :)

till next time,
ash the (overwhelmed) dreamer

p. s. here's that video!

20 April 2009

Eliza and Noah...

a few of my friends have been itching to be able to read a part of my story (i've been talking about it a little on here... it's about eliza and her family and her band, amelia). anyway, i decided to post a portion of it here...

so here's the very beginning! :)

::chapter1::

Eliza Audrey Gray tucked the wispy golden-blond tendrils that had fallen out of her loose ponytail behind her left ear. She peaked over her book as she watched Noah, Abby, and Grant play Scrabble on the table.

She glanced out the window of the bus nonchalantly. A sign proclaimed

CHARLOTTE 12 MI
BELMONT 24 MI

She smiled behind her book, loving that her friends were having such a good time. She thought of her big brother, Jacob, who was keeping their cousin, Sam, company while he drove the bus. The five of them made a great group. There was Eliza, and her brother Jacob, who had always been one of her best friends, and then Eliza’s best friend, Abby Patterson, and Noah Leeland and Grant Devlin. Grant was Abby’s fiancĂ© and Jacob’s best friend. And Noah? Well, Noah had always been there, had always been a friend, had always made her laugh and be glad she was alive. Together, they made up the up-and-coming Christian band that everyone was watching, Amelia. More than that—they were family.

On this ride in their bus—the bus that Abby had insisted they name Rosalie, Rosey for short—they were headed in the direction of Belmont, North Carolina. It was a Sunday morning, and they were set to do a concert for the youth group at the church that evening. They planned on stopping to eat in Charlotte, only a few miles away, before they reached Belmont to set up for the concert.

As it was, three of them were steeped in a passionately competitive game of Scrabble while their road manager slept in the back and as Jacob kept Sam company. Eliza was left by herself, reading, but she didn’t mind. One of her headphones was in her right ear, and she hummed along with Sanctus Real’s lead singer, Matt Hammitt, as he sang the song he had written. She was mostly reading her book, but, at the moment, she had temporarily lost interest.

She studied Noah, on the other side of the bus, tapping one of his wooden pieces against his lip as he considered his options. A slow smile covered her face. Noah. When she first met him in the seventh grade, she would have never thought she would fall for him like a crazy schoolgirl. But she had.

She blushed behind her book, simply at the thought of it. But she would have been crazy to not fall for Noah Leeland. With his gorgeous dark brown hair, dazzling blue eyes, and quick, dimpled charmer-smile, she couldn’t imagine a guy who looked better. Even if he was in jeans and a tee-shirt. What was she saying? Especially if he was in jeans and a tee-shirt! It wasn’t just his looks, either. . . He was tender and gentle and humble, and he loved Jesus more than she could have hoped any man on the earth ever would. He was tenderhearted and kind to the fans who just wanted to meet the great Noah Leeland, and he was a leader among them in the band. . . She couldn’t imagine falling for anyone more perfect.

He had a slight shadow on his jaw from shaving the night before, when they had had a concert in Lynchburg, Virginia. His blue eyes studied the board, and he laid down three pieces—an L, A, and D. He glanced over at Eliza, and she raised her book an inch or two. He flashed her his dimpled grin and winked at her. She sighed. Noah Andrew Leeland, shameless flirt.

He nodded his head to her, indicating that she should come join them at their game.

She glanced down at her lap, covered in a purple fleece blanket her little sister, Hadley, had made for her before they had left on the tour. She loved the white stitching that offset the lavender purple. She groaned as she focused on Noah’s request again. “I’m comfortable,” she protested.

He rolled his eyes at her. “Come on.”

She unfolded her legs. “Fine,” she huffed, and she sauntered over to them. Noah moved over, making room for her. When she sat down, he deposited his arm around her. “Hi,” she said.

Noah glanced down at her and bent to whisper in her ear. “You’re my good-luck charm,” he whispered. “You and that oversized brain of yours. I’m gonna lose if you don’t help me.”

She giggled as she looked at his set of wooden chips. W, X, Y, Z, H, N, and O. “Wow, you sure know how to pick ‘em, don’t you?” she whispered under her breath.

“Hey!” Abby protested. “No teams.”

Eliza laughed. “Honey, he needs it. Besides, I know you when it comes to this game. You’re fully capable.”

Abby mumbled under her breath something about how she was going to need some help if Eliza was on Noah’s side, and Eliza laughed and whispered hints to Noah for the remainder of the game.

***

So that was the first scene... Hope y'all liked it! :)

till the next time,
ash the (resting) dreamer

16 April 2009

trusting Jesus...

just wanted to post a little update since my "prayer" blog... :) life hasn't been too easy for me in the past couple days... i've been worrying way too much, probably since i don't feel like i've been listening to God's voice too much. there's some things that really mean a lot to me, and i've grown to love them incredibly, and the idea of cutting them out of my life because it's God's will is very hard for me. when i love something, i don't want to let it go...

anyway, i've just been thinking about what it means to trust in God lately, to give everything to Him and to stop trusting in myself. when i was younger, i didn't have as many complications with life and i knew right where i was going. depression complicates and confuses things a lot, and i really haven't known where i was going with a lot of things lately... i've been really trying to live life like God wants me to, but it feels so strange to listen to God completely now. a good strange, but still very different.

it makes me sick that i've lost hold of this relationship so much that i barely knew to seek it anymore...

and yet, i have a paper due tomorrow, and i really want to work on this story, but i am so adamant about not moving forward until i know God's will. and every time i think about this story that i so want to write, i'm afraid that, by even considering it, i am going against God's plan for me.

i want to seek God's will. i want to do what He has called me to do. even if it means bidding eliza and noah and hadley and amelia and james and olive and bristol and lulu and abby and grant and bailey and the baby and sam and nathan and all the other characters in this story... i just wish it was easier to hear God's voice.

has anyone else come across that? i always thought i had the answers when i was younger, that i knew just where life was headed and just the place i needed to be as it moved along, but i'm not so sure anymore. in the past couple days since my last blog, though, one thing has become CRYSTAL clear to me. i want to walk with Jesus, to follow in His footsteps and keep His commands, to follow His vision for me, and to always love like Jesus loved. i know writing stories will always be a part of who i am and what i do, but for now, i am content to watch movies with naomi and tease my brother and sisters and anticipate when my father arrives on may 6 to take me home to a beautiful hill in southeastern pennsylvania, where my heart and dreams lie. maybe that baby girl in my story will be maria. maybe i'll get to tell eliza's story. and maybe i won't. maybe i don't know where life is headed anymore.

but now i have Jesus at my side, and i know He is guiding me in the direction i need to go, and that's more than i could have said a couple of days ago.

until next time,
ash the (waiting) dreamer :)

14 April 2009

Dear God...

Dear God,

I know this isn't the conventional sort of blog, but people should learn to expect that right now. I just need to get away and pray, and if people actually do read this, then I'm guessing that they will need to get away and pray, too! So I hope this is a reminder to them how much relationships with You matter.

Precious, precious Lord, STOP ME FROM THE CRASH COURSE I AM HEADED INTO! I mean this with all of my heart, and it is driving me crazy that I won't let myself give into Your way. All these crazy things are going on in my head, and I think I'm either about to drive myself CRAZY enough that I will do something I'll regret. And NOBODY needs that. Or, I'll just collapse because I've tried so hard to do it on my own.

Why are we so eager to try and fix things ourselves?

Jesus, half of the people that read this blog won't understand what I'm talking about for some of these things, but I know You do.

Jesus, I know You have called me to write this story about Eliza and Noah and all the others, but I'm reading WAY too much into the details of it all, and now I really REALLY don't know what I'm doing! Thank You for a few breakthroughs in the story--Lulu and Bristol are perfect additions to the cast, and the idea of James using his middle name when he gives his life over to You again--Jesus, that's ingenious and I love it. And Jesus, I thought I loved Arianne, and sometimes I think I still do, and I used to love the nn Ari, but now I don't even know anymore. I've had so many problems with that name... not really because I believe that it's the name I want instead of the name You want, but because I've been trying to force things and I've been trying to GO. MY. OWN. WAY. And that is not Your way. THAT is the heart of the problem. Maybe your plan is for me to use Arianne. Maybe your plan is for me to use Elena. Maybe Your plan is for me to keep Cara or Amelia. I don't know. But I don't want to move forward until I am walking in Your will, because everything else is throwing me off balance! And then I keep trying to push it and push it, and it's NOT working.

Jesus, help me to stop thinking about it. Help my mind to just rest in You and know that You are in control of the story about Eliza and Noah and the band Amelia and the whole story. You birthed that story a long time ago, and I know You have a magnificent plan for it, a plan to change the world. Now everybody on PC wants to read it, but I need to get right with You before I can move forward and share this gift with the world. You and me first. THEN everybody else!

And Jesus, then there's history. I've put it off too long, and I know I need to get it done, but it takes TOO MUCH TIME, and all I want to do is have a Sabbath again, since I missed it last weekend. :*( I'm sorry about that, too, Jesus. You deserve better than what I worshiped. :*(

Lord, help me to do my best for You. Help me to stop fixating on these things that don't even matter, and help me to LOVE You and WORSHIP You, and put You on the pedestal, and then everything will come.

Jesus, help me to stop fixing things. Help me to stop going crazy. I need Your peace in my life... Before I go CRAZY!

Jesus, I know You are with me, and I'm so grateful that You have heard my prayer. Guide me as I do my homework tonight, heal my wounds from falling so much, and teach me to put You first, not anything else. Amen.

(Sorry, y'all, if you didn't want to hear my prayer life... but it's something that has been really bothering me lately, and I figured it was something the whole world needs to deal with, too!)

Till next time,
Ash the (Wounded) Dreamer