The Little Things. . .

Recently, I feel like I have been going through THE MOST in my life. In the past week or so, I have done everything from missed deadlines to purchasing non-refundable plane tickets to Boston on the wrong day and quite honestly, I have lost most of the drive to even try to build up hope.

It's hard to wake up one morning and find yourself incapable of doing the things that you were always good at. It's like the twilight zone. I am usually doing the things I need to do well. I'm accustomed to being someone that others look up to, but in the span of 7 days, I no longer feel capable of anything but failure.

Whether rational or not, this is where I am, which is unfortunate because as a child you are told "it's okay" and "things will get better," but as an adult people see the result is a direct reaction to what you put into it.

And then life happens.

One of the sweetest, most kind and adorable families I know, gave birth to a new addition. Wonderful, perfect, but not without a catch; Little Caden was born with some heart complications. Sadness, shock, and frustration were all of the emotions I image would go through any mother or father's mind at this time, but they were and are still very brave.

As I watched them have faith in their lives, I made attempts to have faith in my own but still unsuccessfully. I prayed for them and the same things that I believe for them, seemed to taper off in my belief for myself. I don't understand why it can be so easy to pray and have faith on behalf of someone you love, but yet so difficult to save yourself.

In any light, this morning I found myself crying about another "mistake" and once I gained my composure I decided to check on Caden. So I went to facebook to link to my friend's blog and the story that she wrote became the new source for my tears.

In describing one of the most scary, stressful, and faith-challenging scenarios of her life, this mother begins to see the scary tubes and computers attached to her newborn as the things God is using to keep her child alive. Where most of us would wish they were never there in the first place, as I'm sure she has, she blew my mind with the faith that God exists here too. God can be doing something good in the middle of our challenges.

So, I'm writing to say that it's the little things that count. I would not and could not compare my recent struggles to those of my friend's but God is ministering through her testimony and I'm thankful. I'm praying for her but I'm also praying that God's message is loud and clear. He is a healer, provider, comforter, and ultimately, He acts in our best interest. So keep the faith and pay attention to the moments that change our lives.

To learn more about Caden, visit her blog at : http://thestanleyclan.blogspot.com/2011/08/cadens-heart.html.

Organized Chaos

Just because I'm in the writing spirit, this one will be a little more like my mind exploding on paper. A direct result of the absence of self-expression through writing. Consider this my re-hydration.

I am faced with a dichotomy . . .

The part of me that wants to be more like me

Seems to flow through my very enemy

An enemy which I have identified in a dream like state

Reaching for reality

Deemed for fatality

Yet still hoping for vitality

The enemy with inner me

Is me

A typical conclusion

Draw by the illusion

That my enemy could only be someone else

But it is no one else

Only my creation

A figment of my imagination

A sad attempt at

Demonizing my transgressions

In hopes for reconciliation

In achievement of none

Tradition has become the cage that I want to escape from

While order is where I want to be took

I want to look

Sneak a peek at my life and see consistency

Neat lines and organized thoughts

Everything would make sense

But when I look I see me

Shook

Snapped back into reality

Growing and learning

Not yet there

Order is where I urn to be

Yet planned for me

Cordially

Is dis-order

Dis-comfort

And dis-tain

Everything is so hard to maintain

And it just gets worse

And all they can say is don't complain

It gets better

But when

It will

But how

Tell me now

I want to be rescued

I want order

I want to be contained

Neo-Court♥ship

Recently, I came across this new idea that love can come differently. Crazy, right? This thing that we barely understand, now can look like a million different things. Since the beginning of time Love was a tie to a relationship to people, one, two, three, whatever. Love was something that "brought together." With Adam & Eve, it just happen to be that they were the only two beings on the planet . . . With the stone ages, you just had to club someone and drag them home. . . in Victorian times, there was formal courtship with a large influence from family ties and now: There are no rules.

Raise your hand if you think that isn't true. Now keep your hands raised, so that I can slap them down. In this day and age, Love is unconventionally rogue, disrupting, relentless, and inescapable. . . but was it not always. Who designed the "laws of courtship" that make a distinction from the conventional to the Neo? Who wrote the instructions on how to find, reach, and capture love?

Some places believe that Love can be arranged. Parents pick your life partner, long before you even have a thought in the matter. In others, love is through royalty. You're love is restricted to people of noble blood, no matter how closely related. In others, Love is a financial contract to join families into a better life. These are just to name a few, but you get my drift. The laws of courtship have far less to do with right and wrong and way more to do with where you come from.

Where I come from, love is controlled and grown in an incubator called Tradition. You are always destined to one soul that is wandering in search of you, but will reach you because fate will guide you. Yet, you can't just jump right in all "willy nilly", they're are rules! You have to seek approval, court, seek more approval, pursue engagement (once approval is made, of course), then after long hard suffering and waiting you marry, then consummate that marriage, then have kids and live happily ever after.

As much as I silently submit to the previously stated path being THE WAY. I'm not sure if I can argue that this is the ONLY way. Many of these "new" ways of courtship from instant romance to non-traditional relationships are sometimes erupting into more long-lasting relationships than those more traditional relationships. This is by no means bashing traditional relationships, just creating the argument that if one does find themselves in Love, but didn't hit all the steps in the "appropriate" order, it may not mean a COMPLETE FAIL.

Maybe it just means you found a new way to Love. Just a thought.

Rule Breakers Anonymous.

Think.Happy.Thoughts;)