California Dreamin’

While I was in California over new years I had two days all by myself. One of the days I laid at the pool all day and read Divergent. The other day I walked a few miles on and near pacific beach. I took pictures and processed life. I figured out a few things about myself.

I wanna feel the tension Tris and Tobias feel when they fight about honesty. I want to care that much about someone. Her rawness about her life helped me to question my ability to reason logically. I wondered about how honest I am, especially how honest i am with myself. When she talks about killing Will, her pain is expressed in and her reasons for not committing suicide make me think about my dad. I want to remember him like she remembers her parents. I almost never do, at least I feel like I don’t enough. It makes me think about getting walked down dark streets, or out to my car at night. Sometimes being confronted when I was seeking for people’s approval but some guys I’ve fancied made sure that I was believing truth when I could have sulked in lies; some did, but some didn’t. Some pushed me to hold to my commitments and would give me reasons to strive for more of Jesus. Ive had crushes in the past but most made me focus on being obsessed with myself, or with them but one time all I saw was Jesus. I want to be with someone someday that says that about me. It makes me think about how comfortable I was with this other Guy in college who I spent almost everyday with doing regular mundane things. How comfortable I could become around someone so easily, just by being around them constantly was irreversible. Someday it will be different, better somehow, intimate in a way I don’t know right now. My prayer is “Help me to wait papa.” I want to be patient. I want to be the woman he wants to be with, he dreams of. I want to be someone that makes him want to achieve goals, and dream bigger. I want to be a woman that he is proud to protect, I want to make him feel brave and empowered. I want to be affirming and not condemning. I want to be with someone I don’t want to change, but someone who makes me want to change. To be more like Jesus.

I want to be with someone who helps me to see more of life, and I’m thankful that its not tempting to be with someone who isn’t those things. Thanks and praise be to the God of glorious grace who has given me discernment for my future.

I pray that as I remember the quiet waters spill over the sandy beach I would remember the undercurrent that pulls things out to see beneath the waters. I pray that I would not forget the pains behind the smiles, the secrets behind the passerby. I pray that I would forget the pain people have caused me and be quick to forgive. That like Tris I would take the unknown and be first in line to jump. That I would fight to survive this world of hurt around me. That I would learn to be brave when the weak need defending, and that I would be weak when the strong need to see that they really aren’t independent. That I would empathize with the hurting and be faithful to the sceptic. That I would know how to reason with the intellect and keep up with the academic. Lord please give me grace to remember who I am in you and who I am not anymore.