Sparkle Eyes

 

And if my stocking hung too high,
Would it blur the Christmas glee,
That not a Santa Claus could reach
The altitude of me?
                                                 -- Emily Dickinson

Wait for it...

Christmasssssssss! It's sparkle season, ugly sweater season, hot chocolate season, fireplace season, fuzzy blanket season, singing season, everything warm and cuddly season! Seeing how Christmas is only four days away, and I'm just now getting the chance to do a little writing, it's proof to me that time whizzes past me and leaves me all dismantled. When I finally straighten myself out, I'm stunned. I also turn 17 in five days. (!!!) I don't feel like I should be 17. I mean, I do, but I really don't.

You'll shoot your eye out kid

Anyways, I've loved the pretty lights, the happy music, the fancy parties, and this entire season itself. After all, I am a December baby. Maybe I was born with some extra Christmas-joy syrup in me. I guess I belong in a stocking, like I was when I was a tiny baby. Safe and sound, tucked away high above a fireplace. Invincible and burritoed in fuzzyness. 

I think about that sometimes when I see people get so caught up in the commercialism of Christmas. I want to distance myself from that. In those moments, I want to stay high above it in a safe stocking, and watch the whole thing play out beneath me like a moving-toy village. It's overwhelming. Christmas isn't very peaceful.

The lights are spectacular, and I love the music, but I have a headache. So I close my eyes for a minute.

It's dark and hazy. I must be sitting on dry hay, cause it's poking through my jeans like little toothpicks. It's dusty in here, and the particles swirl around like little fairies. It smells like the color yellow, like musty hay and cow manure. (I must be in Nebraska. I have to be.) The air is so thick that I could swipe my hand through it and clump it up like play-doh. It's also incredibly hot in here, even though it's December. I wipe sweat off my lip. I hear some cows mmmeeeeeeerrr next to me and chew their cud. I start thinking of all the things that make my heart feel sore, cause that's what I do when I'm alone staring at hay. A horsefly lands on my thigh and starts rubbing his legs together, looking like he's about to murder me. I swat at him. All of a sudden, I feel enormously lonely. Like the heart I have doesn't belong to me anymore. Since when did I start feeling so much? I think I'm blistering inside. Feelings that are much sharper than this hay are biting me. And they won't let go, no matter how hard I try to yank them off. Wow. Some Christmas.

I thought maybe Christmas would numb the pain. I thought maybe the magical air would leak into my system and help coat the yucky sores. It doesn't really work that way though. Christmas is beautiful, but it's so much more complex than seemingly happy moments. Christmas is raw. It is full of every emotion, good and bad. Joy and loneliness. Peace and chaos. Fear and excitement. Christmas is the beginning of a glorious romance, one between us and a Savior. Sure, we all want a white Christmas, but the real Christmas was smelly, dusty, hot, and painful. But it was breathtaking in every way, an absolute miracle. And that is something that society, or any light show, or any present, or any kiss under the mistletoe could never compare with.

Yes, I feel lonely sometimes. I can feel distant and scared. But I know who I am, and I'm not any of those things. I bleed a rich color of beautiful insanity. My eyes glitter with passion, and words are hidden in every intricate vein that dances beneath my skin. I feel so much, and my heart breaks, but I am strong because of a baby born in a barn on Christmas.

So we have hope. We have hope because of Christmas. And we can sparkle a little brighter this year, and sing a little louder, and hug a little longer because we are blessed to be able to do these things freely in America. We are raw human beings, and Christmas itself may not heal our sores, but the God who was born in a smelly barn that day can.

Have the merriest of Christmases dear readers. Don't forget the gift you carry inside of you, the sparkling gift of your spirit, passion, and life. Eat all the cookies you can, and of course, jump for joy on Christmas morning. :)

You mustn't be afraid to sparkle a little brighter, darling.

                                                                -- Kirsten Kuehn

Ok this snowman dude makes me so happy :) a two-year-old made it at my mom's
Squiggles to Grins art class.

 Sam and I made gingerbread houses...and we only used a little bit of hot glue...

 After mi choir concierto

 hahaha

 hahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAH

We took the light-rail downtown and saw The Nutcracker! It was magical!

Santa Stampede with Todd! And Laura cause she came over for breakfast afterwards :)

Merry Christmas!

My Messy Versailles

I've gone for too long living like I'm not alive

So I'm gonna start over tonight, beginning with you and I.

-Paramore

My room looks like an absolute disaster at the moment. The rejected clothes I tried on this morning are sprawled out on my floor and my bed, basking in the new scenery and loving the freedom of not being balled up in a drawer. Little do they know they'll return tomorrow morning, when I might find the time to pick them up. My desk has contents vital to my school existence shrewn about, grazing the carpet and Ikea swivel chair with such leisure, like they truly belong there. Messy and un-bothered.

The thing is, this circus that I'm living in, this disastrous palace of books and clothes and music, is exactly like the chaos in my heart. Instead of golden leaves, my Versailles is decorated with words and prayers hiding in every corner. Some are shinier than others, but my life is filled with them. My castle isn't made of stone and chandeliers. It's made of dried-up pens and tattered journals and quotes and books. It's made of me. 

Every morning just the same, since the morning that we came, to this poor provincial town.

My life has been a circus. And I've been in every single act and show, and I'm constantly on the road. It's been ingrained into my routine to think of what's ahead of me in my day instead of truly enjoying the moment I'm in. I feel like I haven't been truly at home in the longest time. So, I decided to quit. I did actually. I quit my job. I'm slowing down ever so slightly. I'm cleaning my palace bit by bit. Like Belle sings in Beauty and the Beast, every day and anxious feeling becomes the same. The circus is relentless. Somehow we manage as teenagers, but our hearts are tired from the anticipation and we're sticky from all the cheap cotton candy gunk. We may appear to be good jugglers, but sometimes we drop a ball and it all comes crashing down.

There must be more than this provincial life!

I know there's more to living than acting in a pretend circus. I have to remind myself of this every minute I worry about things I can't control, or how I look, or what the future will bring. Every minute that I spend worrying about these things is a minute I could be spending in prayer, a minute talking to someone I love, a minute writing, a minute laughing.

It snowed for the first time a few days ago. The puffy, dry, fleshy snowflakes that don't really fall down, but dance around in the cold air like they're lost and can't decide where to land. Like they love the snowflake next to them too much and want to keep twirling with them until the sun shines again. These are my favorite snowflakes. The wonderful thing about them is that we are forced to enjoy them in the very instant they are there. When one lands on you, you have to stare at it and ponder it's every intricate detail before the whole masterpiece melts on your coat and disappears forever. Kind of like the moments in our lives. So often we miss the masterpiece because we're in a hurry. This is exactly how I've felt for months on end. But I'm done. I'm quitting the circus. I'm sticking my tongue out at the sky and letting mini treasures land on my tongue and melt into my cracked lips. I wish I could see the future. All I know is that this winter season my heart has been in might be coming to an end. This rose is blooming. 

This past weekend, I went on a retreat with the peer counseling group at my school. We had a blast goofing off and forgetting about the world, especially when we went zip-lining and did a high ropes course in the snow. The flakes fell all day. What I realized on this retreat is that teenagers, and everyone really, endure incredible amounts of pain. Sometimes we just can't handle it. Our hearts feel like they erode from the acidic pain until we're completely numb. So numb that we think life isn't worth it anymore.

But right there is when we need to wake up from the numbness and make ourselves realize how real we are. Our hearts explode every second from combinations of pain and joy. We are so real, and the poverty we suffer is a need to feel worth. But how can we not see that a beating heart is worth it? A mind that thinks incredible thoughts and hearts that feel such intensity that we erupt? We are worth it, because there's a God who put us where we are for a reason. Through the pain we suffer, we might be someone else's reason for staying alive. We might be the spark they need. There is a man who really did die an excruciating death for us, so that we can live and be sure of getting to heaven. We are loved so immensely by a God that never leaves us. He flushes the acidic pain from our hearts and is ready to flood our souls with real, refreshing water. We are meant to live. We are meant to be alive. We will change the world and find joy if we can hold Christ's hand through the pain we're feeling now. He has felt it all before, and all he offers is his love and grace. And we will be swept away. He'll dance with us in our own ballroom of our own Versailles, wherever that may be. Until the day that we will see him face-to-face, and our hearts will literally explode with joy. And no more pain will ever exist, ever.

Breathe with me. Let's watch icy miracles drift from a concrete sky. Let's go to the edge of the earth together and dance until the pain evaporates. Our cold hands will tremble with joy. We'll shiver because we are alive.

Lord Jesus, thank you that I'm breathing easier. Thank you for this messy life, and please carry us when we feel that life is too much. Remind us of your grace. In your name, scatter the demons that lie to us. Instead, consume us with your truth. Fill our lungs with overwhelming passion to pursue our dreams, especially the ones that scare us. And dance with us in our cluttered and chaotic palaces, until the glorious day that we finally come home to you.

 Speaking of the French...

Historically accurate Belle

Crazy sisters

I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born, says the Lord. 

Isaiah 66:9

October Angels

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."

—Anne Shirley

I think heaven must be a never-ending autumn. I bet angels go on long walks through woods that burn with color and eat giant Honeycrisp apples for every meal. I bet they dance under a ceaseless ocean of stars and cuddle under warm blankets. I bet their hearts are so full in this autumn-heaven that no one has time to be stressed or sad. Only joy and comfort exist in a place so bombarded with beauty and laughter. I'd love to live where angels bake heavenly pie and the sound of pure laughter rustles in the trees.

I adore this time of year. I love Octobers and crisp air; the lovely, chilly air that filters through our lungs and cleanses us of all the worldly junk. I love the clicking sound that the leaves make on the street when it's windy, like they are tap-dancing into an unknown destination. Our lives are recycled in the fall. It's so exciting to see a fresh free-spiritedness in everyone, kind of like the one at the beginning of summer. Bright eyes and real smiles give me hope. As for me, I thrive in cold weather and ugly sweaters. I like seeing my breath because it's proof to me that I'm still overwhelmingly alive. I'm like a dragon. I breathe fire. But sometimes it's hard to feel that way when I'm intricately woven into a routine. But in the rare moments when I rip myself from the itchy fabric of daily life, I feel like fall. I feel crisp and joyful and anxious all at the same time.

 Two weekends ago, my whole family (including grandma Juju!) went up to Vail and stayed in a fancy hotel at Beaver Creek for my sister's soccer tournament. The leaves literally throbbed with color and the whole time I felt like I was inside of a painting on a wall of a grand museum. I love my Colorado mountains, and I'm pretty sure I've left little glops of my heart in different places up there. Even though the scenery and everything about the trip was fabulous, what made it even better was sharing a room and bed with my sister and staying up way too late laughing about nothing. We had tears pouring from our eyes over the stupidest things I've ever heard, and it gave me a lovely reassurance that my sister and I truly are the biggest dorks I know (side note for my cc: do you know what a p.y.t. is? Cause when a p.y.t. walks in front of a tree, do the creep ;) (credit to urban dictionary and strange songs of our childhood...)

What I realized in that moment though, is that we literally bottle up our laughter because life won't let us laugh. It wants us to cry and stress and doubt. It's exhausting to wrestle with the violent emotions that the world shoves at us. Sometimes I just want to shrink to a point of invisibility and give up. My laughter is clotted in my veins and my hands start to turn blue because they need someone who will hold them. Maybe that's why God created Octobers. So restless air can cure our withering souls and invigorate our stale hearts. Jesus is this air. He is every single microscopic molecule that we breathe in, and he dances in our delicate lungs and gives us life, not just existence. He is so close to us that his breath is our breath. I'm learning that it doesn't matter how far we feel from him, because the truth is that he is so close we are breathing him in unconsciously. Trust me, I have felt so far from him lately, and I've been knotted in my own sin and fear. Yet he somehow untangles me from my stinging soul. He's proving to me in mini revelations and joyful moments that he is here. And he never left.

I have been so stressed out since school started. I wrote about this last time as well, (which, by the way, I'm so sorry I haven't written in more than a month! Not even okay! I'll try to do better. I promise.) Anyway, it's been a weird stress where I haven't been worried over one specific thing, but collective a pile of things that stink in the corner of my mind. It's basically the future. I'm scared. I really am. There's not a fancy or pretty way to say that. I think my dreams are logically too big for my mind. My heart is ready to explode from excitement and hope, but I realize some things are too much to take on. The only truth I'm sure of is that there is a God. And this God is knows my name and created my restless soul.

Since my last blog, I've had some wonderful experiences with the most inspiring people. Lately I've started to second guess my dreams, wondering if they really were too big, too unattainable, too crazy for me. I'm young and confused and still trying to figure out what the heck life is even about anyway, but at the same time I've been with inspiring souls that have made me even more confused but all the more hopeful. The "journalist" in me loves to encounter people who live with such passion and have miraculous stories to tell (everyone does. That's what's so beautiful about humans.) These people are proof to me that yucky emotions don't destroy us. There's my best friend who didn't let fear hold her back a few years ago, and now she's an amazing dancer. She showed me her collection of ballet shoes a couple weeks back, and they are so worn down and stained with blood and glory. I loved it. She inspires me. There's the awesome group of peer counselors who inspire me to push through despite heartache. Even babysitting and watching Veggie Tales reminds me that God loves me. No matter how far I feel from him, he decorates my life with little clues to finding him. My heart desires him in a way that no other thing can satisfy.

Although I sometimes feel like the world is hitching a ride on my shoulders and I just want to give up, God allows the miraculous to happen. Is it possible for me to feel so excited and so worried about life at the same time? Can I feel loved and lonely, disappointed and lighthearted all at once? Well, I'm feeling all of these things. And they've all started to melt into one grand notion in my heart: life.

But then there are moments when I'm thankful for the rush of emotions in my ambitious heart. I'm thankful for the bravery inside of me that wants to follow my dreams, no matter how insanely impossible they are. I'm thankful for the small moments that will stick in my heart forever. The ones that fill me up with sugary syrup and make me ooze with joy. I want my mind to play continuous reruns of happy memories. Moments like dancing in parking lots under a carpet of stars with the one person I'm beginning to want to spend all my time with. Moments like singing old Everly Brothers songs with my dad. Moments like being lazy and watching 80s movies with my bestest friend. Moments like sitting here on my bed in my room, smelling the "Mimi smell" cause I'm next to her old bolo ties, and simply writing.

16 is weird. I want to escape and travel everywhere and write forever, but at the same time I never want to leave home. I'm so all over the place right now, and I'm not even sure what I've been trying to say this entire post. I guess the main thing is that I'm still worried about life, but God is knitted into my soul and my dreams are still vibrantly alive in my heart. I need to learn to shed these twisted feelings and laugh. I'll let the slimy emotions bleed into a burning array of color. I need to let them soak out of every cell in my body so I breathe with intensity like autumn trees.

Hold my cold hands. Intoxicate me with chilly autumn air. Laugh with me like you never had a single worry. Hug me until I melt. Then let me fall off of this world like a dead leaf, so I can crumble and decay on a sidewalk of stars.

 Vail

 Look who's taller! ;)

We want them all

 Ugly sweater season again <3

Homecoming with Pey

Highlands Ranch Mansion...the ultimate haunted house. But it's so pretty!

Arthur knows what's up...my fall break basically :)

I must be a mermaid. I have no fear of depths, and a great fear of shallow living.

— Anais Nin

Midnight Chaos

My life is but an instant, an hour that passes by; 

To love you, my dearest God, I only have today.

                                                             – St.Therese of Lisieux

And then she opened her eyes, and she was a junior.

It's crazy. The first couple weeks of school have left me tired, overwhelmed, and excited all at the same time. However, with the extreme amounts of homework I've been having, my fingers have been throbbing to sit and write, sit and bleed out all the syrupy emotions, but I haven't been able to. They have swollen and grown red before my eyes. But tonight, I'm putting aside the masses of killed trees that stench my backpack, and I'm going to write. I don't even care. I can only bottle up these words for so long before they fracture the glass and seep out.

I can already feel the busyness of junior year humming everywhere I go and in all that I do. It's hard to believe I'm halfway through with high school. It's tangerine-like. At this point, I'm finally done peeling the leather skins off. I've worked my way to becoming an upperclassman, but now I'm holding this lumpy ball of bittersweet juice, and I'm afraid to take a bite because I know I'll eat it too fast. I salivate at the idea of graduating from the suburbs and devouring a life of travel and writing until my fingers are raw. They'll still smell that acid smell of oranges though, because where I'm from will forever stain me. I'm a girl with big dreams from the suburbs. I've grown up sheltered and happy, but soon enough I'll be ready to start soaring.

I'm halfway through high school, and halfway different from who I was freshman year. I've bled, and I've healed. I've searched, and I've found. I've prayed, and I've kept praying. I've been dismantled, and repaired.

Freshman year was confusing. That was the year I played high school and club volleyball. I love the sport itself, but I was playing because the world was telling me that's what would give me purpose. The Highlands Ranch sport atmosphere is all about competition and winning. I thought my worth and success in high school were coming from playing volleyball at way too intense of a level for me and constantly proving that I was useful for the team. It was a hard year. I was always scared on the court, which should not happen with the sport you absolutely love to play. I was struggling to find myself that year.

Sophomore year was a challenge. I got cut from the school volleyball team, and was absolutely shattered. I thought I had lost everything. Little did I know, I ended up gaining so much. I became more involved in newspaper and youth group, two things that I'm actually passionate about. I played volleyball on a local club team and was way less stressed. I knew I was just playing for fun, not to get way better or win. I had more free time to pursue what I enjoyed. I felt more confident in who I was.

Junior year is already overwhelming. I know I want to keep my 4.0 to get into a good college, but I also don't want to constantly be living for the future. I want to involve myself in activities that I love to do, not just so they look good on an application. (They seem to go hand in hand though, which is helpful!) I want to also live in each day and thrive in the midst of stress. I want to rupture under pressure and become a pearl. I have hope for tomorrow. I can dream and breathe and sing. That's all I need.

This year, I refuse to let the busyness swarm and make a hive in my head. If it did, the busy bees would make honey in my mind and I would begin to drip with sticky anxiety. I won't let that happen. I will do my homework, go to work, write, attend club activities, be with my friends, go to church, write some more, and spend time with my family. But above all, I will pray and smile towards heaven with such genuine passion that my heart will inflate and I will drift into Paradise. I will skate along the border of the clouds and the sky until I find a place where the clouds touch earth again.

Every single day so far I've been waking up, opening the screen door, and drinking the intoxicating morning air. The air where the sun isn't quite up but it's not asleep anymore either. That air is magic. The magical air filters through my lungs. I dwell in possibility, as Emily Dickinson would say.

To my fellow juniors who are overwhelmed, scared, excited, and confused, and to anyone else who might be feeling this way, remember that your heart still beats, and breathe. Remember that there is still morning air for drinking and stars for gazing. We still burn with opportunity even though our souls feel weary and moldy. We can't make sense of it all right now, but there is a God who has an intricate, perfect plan for this craziness. That is something I need to focus on this year. In the monotony of homework, in times when I'd rather be doing anything else in the world but that, I will praise him. In the loneliness of friend-less Friday nights, I will let him pick me up off of my feet and dance with me around my room. In times when my heart aches with fear and my veins kink with pressure, saturate my soul until I am purified of those feelings Lord. I want to thrive this year. I don't want to go through the motions of my busy life. I want to live a life of continuous joy from the well-spring of your love. I want to tap in to this source of living water. Give me freedom from this world. Deliver me from worrying so much about failure. Instead, let my soul glow in the dark. My ember soul dances in the buzzing midnight chaos of this life.

My grandma Juju gave me a list she copied from a book of all the names that God is called in the Bible. It's an incredibly long and breathtaking list, but one that speaks to me right now is "Lord who is there." It's simple, but it seems to me that God loves to speak to our hearts in simple ways. Lord who is there. Lord who is there every second of my day. In my stress and fear of not being enough or making the most of my life, the Lord is there. He's just...there. It's a promise that gives me comfort, joy, and strength, the three things I'm searching for most right now.

I recently learned about a powerful passage in the Bible that I've been applying to my life. It's from the book of Sirach, one of the books of wisdom in the Catholic bible. (parentheses are words I've added in)

Sirach 2: 1-5, 10
[Daughter], when you apply yourself to the service [and pursuit] of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare your soul for temptation. Humble your heart, and persevere. Incline your ear, and accept words of understanding. And you should not hurry away in the time of distress. Endure steadfastly for God. Accept everything that will happen to you, and persevere in your sorrow, and have patience in your humiliation. For gold and silver are tested in fire, yet truly, acceptable men are tested in the furnace of humiliation.You who fear the Lord, love him. And your hearts will be illuminated.

Illuminate my heart Lord. Help me to persevere in this bitter furnace of dread and desperation for change. Help me to endure so that I can come home to you someday. Help me bite into this tangerine and let its acid sizzle my fears. Help my fire to thrive violently in this dark chaotic midnight. And let my life be paralyzing evidence of who you are.

Prague

 Mama's midnight painting

I want a fire that could burn me clean

                              —Switchfoot

Top photo by Siegfried Hansen

Georgia Raindrops

Great love, setting the world on fire

I am in awe of who you are

And it's your love I'm living for

                           —Flyleaf

Summer is beginning to pack his bags. He's there in my room, laying out all of his clothes and folding them nicely into his suitcase, the one with travel stickers all over it. I keep asking him to stay, but he's declining my offer. He tells me he's ready to head south, you know how that goes. It's time for a fresh new season. He promises he'll send me Pinterest pictures of the places he's going next around the world. Well fine. I'll enjoy your stay while you're still here Mr. Summer.

I guess maybe he's right. It's time for a fresh new season, because these last few weeks of summer leave us trapped between lazy freedom and anticipation of the future, and we don't really know what we want. We're just floating and trying to enjoy ourselves, but it's hard because we're starting to put on our armor for the battle ahead: the battle of busyness and worries and excitement. We'll always be seeking out an answer to the mystery: trying to find who we are and why we are who we are, and how we can be who we are when we don't know. We're so messy with all of our questions.

Summer has been taking me by the hand and yanking me into the sky. But, the ultimate climax of my summer was camp. Last week, I had a wonderful adventure at a camp in Georgia with some of my youth group friends. I have to be honest, my sister and I are suffering a bit from camp withdraws, but I wrote nearly every detail of the week in my journal, late into the night, on my top bunk. With spiders staring me down. But I didn't mind them so much, I wanted to cut them some slack. Trust me, it's more dangerous to be a spider in a cabin of girls than it is to be on the front lines (KILL IT MURDER IT MWAHAHA). In fact, my journal still smells a little funky...

Anyways, the camp we went to was in Tiger, Georgia; a place that counts as a teeny dot on a map, but is now a big dot in my heart, not because of its location but what happens there. And what happened to me. And how God uses tiny places on maps to do things so miraculous and big we can't comprehend them. It was an amazing week. I was filthy, holy, and overjoyed at any given time. We celebrated mass outside under a tent every day, swam in a lake, sloshed around in a mud pit (ew), praised and worshipped with every ounce of our souls, and spent time in wonderful adoration.

If y'all haven't ever been down to this here Georgia, lemme tell ya somethin, it is green. Like a John Deer rollin' down I-80 near Omaha in the middle a winter. Well. Kinda. One of the days, we went whitewater rafting on the Chattooga river. It was absolutely beautiful to be in the middle of all the trees. The water was warm, which was an unexpected blessing, given that I'm prone to being cold all the time. It was a breathtaking day. There was not another person or house anywhere around us the whole trip. It started to rain halfway through the day, and it completely drenched us at times, but it was secretly a lot of fun. I don't think I've ever been so wet.

The rain was refreshingly cold. My thirsty soul soaked up that rain, and I felt alive. It was crazy, when we stepped out of the raft at the end of the day after being soaked by chilly rain, the river water felt like a hot tub. It was so different from Colorado rafting. I kept wondering if we were actually rafting in water or some other strange substance that doesn't get cold. I think I could become a tree right then and there.

We also stopped once to jump off of rocks into the water, then another time to "slide" down a waterfall (which was more like scooting). I would love to be a rain drop in the Chattooga river, cascading down a waterfall every second, and soaking up the ice-cold life of God's glorious creation. We saw natural, wild turtles sitting on rocks, and even a bald eagle. It was a lovely lovely day. (Well, other than my youth minister falling out of the raft and getting trapped under the raft, that wasn't so lovely. But other than that it was lovely.)

After we had gone through all the rapids, we tied our rafts to a motorboat and sat in them while we steadily made our way back to the bus. At first it was sunny, but of course, it started to rain. No sorry, pour. Monsoon. While we were getting drenched by rain, although it was cold, I felt incredibly alive. Cold droplets from a pure, unadulterated sky soaked into my pores and my heart felt overwhelmed with a wild sense of crazy peace. It sounds like an oxymoron, but the peace I felt wasn't relaxing. It was a peace that told me life is an insane adventure and won't ever slow down for me. Rocks will jut out of seemingly calm waters, and I will have to find a way around them to stay in my raft. It was a living, breathing, heart-exploding peace that gave me strength and excitement to live my life different from the rest of this world. I will still go through the struggles of the world, but I have a never ending peace lying underneath all the problems, and it has power to crumble them. This peace is too intense and strong for our struggles to handle. Peace will win, and fear will lose (twenty one pilots). This is a truth that needs to drench us. Peace isn't just in the form of a hammock or a stress-free life. Peace drives our hearts to search for something more. Peace is what keeps us alive sometimes. Peace is constantly fighting for us in battle. Peace is wild. Peace will win and overwhelm.

*This picture does not do the river justice*

One thing I realized at camp is that God is constantly speaking to me and tugging at my heart. If you've ever doubted that God still speaks to us like he did in Bible stories, well, he does. I know I'm a small, broken person. Insignificant and devastatingly hopeful sometimes. But God speaks into my heart. In fact, I like to think of him writing on my heart. He created me, my soul, body, everything, out of a word, so he's constantly writing words in me and story-telling his grace into my life. That makes my heart spin. I'm a journal for God. I'm poetry. I'm a novel with every detail described better than any writer ever could. My life is a collection of spellbinding words written by the maker of beautiful things.

On the last night of camp, we had a parish bonfire. We made s'mores and prayed together in the middle of dark, wet, open grass underneath a carpet of restless stars. I was staring up at them lying down, and in that moment, with some of the most amazing people in the world lying around me, I exhaled deeply so that a little bit of my soul would come out, so I could always be a part of that moment. I let go. That's what Jesus kept telling me to do all week. Just let go. Let go of my fear. Let go of my past, and especially my future. Let go of who I think I want to be. I'm still trying to let go, but now my heart finally has a vacancy sign lit up, and it's only accepting one guest. A permanent guest. Jesus, come stay in my heart hotel. Fill all the rooms that ache for company with your love. Help me continue to let go so that you can come live in me.

I tried to take in the craziness of all those stars that night while lying next to my sister (which, by the way, together we saw four shooting stars), and I was so happy to do that with her. We did it last summer too, in another place miles away in the Rocky Mountains, just us lying in the grass underneath all the constellations. I think that's where we belong. We're a little star crazy.

It's a sad thing that camp is over, but I'm so so happy I got the chance to go. The future is racing towards me like a crazy train about to derail, but I'm ready to jump on it. Jesus is pumping in my blood and I'm excited to go out and love with all my heart. I need his courage. Especially for when school starts, and work gets hard, and life ties my heart in cowboy knots, I need you Jesus. I never want to lose my passion or my faith.

While writing my testimony in my journal one of the nights, Jesus took the pen and wrote something I need to remember, especially when I'm afraid. The same hands that sculpted the stars sculpted me, so I have stardust pumping in my veins. Since I have flakes of stars within me, I'm always radiating. Even when I feel lonely or worthless.

This was my prayer during camp, and it's my prayer now, and I want it to be my prayer for you too:

Jesus, I love you and I want the world to burn with this love. It's true, it's taken days of my heart being thrown through rings and my soul feeling like a wayfaring gypsy, but I love you, and I'm amazed at what you're doing in my life. Any atmosphere or galaxy or simple place I end up is where you find miraculous ways to console me and love me. Help me burn. I'm ready to feel alive. 

~~more summerish things I've done~~

We went to Chadron for Fur Trade Days to visit grandma and papa. Us three ran in the Colter Run (John Colter was a man who ran...and they made a 5k for him...the end :) hehe. (daddy and camryn will get that). We ate papa's buffalo burgers and went to the rodeo too. 

Also, on our way home, we of course stopped at our favorite gas station/bathroom (for various reasons, I won't go in to much detail but let's just say the first stall in the ladies has a bidet...which I did not use thank you very much) Anyways, it's called Sapp Bros and it's in Cheyenne. There was a semi there that said Jesus on it, no idea why, so I had to take a picture.

 Soooo, the Saturday before we left for camp I got to go to an amazing concert with my best friend. We saw some of our favorite bands ever (Panic!, Bad Suns, Walk the Moon, and Twenty One Pilots to name a few). It was the craziest and best night ever. 

The week before the concert, Juju's best friend and her granddaughter Brittany came to visit from Arizona. So did our other lovely Texas cousins that make me laugh until I cry. One of the things we did was go to formal tea at the Brown Palace Hotel, which serves heavenly scones sent from the Lord himself (I do not exaggerate. Try these scones and you will see.)

Not sure what's going on with my face but at least Britt looks pretty