a normal blog.

Not so normal life...

I saw her today. Sunglasses propped on her head, strategic messy-pretty bun. It was my final test. I don't know why they were at Cracker Barrel. Possibly visiting someone in Jackson. Why come to Jackson after your wedding??? We locked eyes, but I don't think she knew me like I knew her. I thought of how she hurt him, and I got angry. But I also realized that she's got nothing on me. And that was my key to complete security in his past. She looks worn out, but not from good deeds. She looks worn out from indulging too much in herself. And I know that in my tiredest days, it will be because I'm pouring myself out for others. [this is not said to put myself on some god status] I can honestly say that was one of the weirdest days of my life. I felt like I was in a parallel universe. I've thought it over countless times on what I would say to her if I was ever face to face with her. And now that I actually was, I couldn't say anything. But then I realized I wouldn't have had I had the chance. Because it's not worth it. And I could literally jump 10 feet in excitement, just to know that it doesn't bother me anymore. God is my ultimate strength.

Wesley is inquiring about a basketball coaching position at a private school here. They need a girls' coach really badly for the junior high girls. He's set up for an interview on Thursday. I am extremely excited about this, because God has really been opening up that area as a ministry lately. He goes to Muse park every Sunday night and plays basketball for about three hours with whoever is there. It's not exactly the safest thing (last week he went and afterward the guys pulled out some weed and starting smoking) but he is really getting to not only improve his skill, but also build relationships with those he might otherwise not have had a relationship with if it had not been for basketball. Also, while he's been playing, God's been speaking to Him through the word and giving him messages to teach to kids through basketball. That was all happening before this opportunity came out of nowhere (someone actually approached him with it). So, it is clear that this is probably God's will. I don't want to be too hasty though. We know he will coach church league at Englewood when the season comes, but this is another opportunity that seems to have found its way into our lives. And it's completely blindsided both of us. Wesley told me today "Basketball has always been something I've really been passionate about, but I never thought I'd have a ministry out of it." God is full of surprises.

God is currently revealing in our lives that if we're going to have enough money for when we get married, we're going to have to rely on Him alone. Not on how hard we work. Not on how good we save. But on Him alone. Because we are way behind in our savings compared to our goal. And now, with him possibly taking this coaching job, it starts in a couple of weeks, they practice m, w, and f, and their games are on different days. So he's going to be seriously busy, and it doesn't pay a whole lot ($500 for the whole season, I think) and that is seriously scary. He won't have time to work like he's been, which equals less money. Scary.

I did my first Sunday in the nursery. It was so great! I loved it! Hallelujah station is a bit scarier. Wesley and I got our lesson plan for next week. I'm nervous, but excited. I hope the kids like us. They're a tough crowd. That's why I like the nursery. All you have to do is make silly faces and show them how something works, and they're your friend for life. But k-2nd is a bit different. We will be teaching 1st graders.

I look down on my finger sometimes, and I have to remember I'm engaged. I've been trying so hard to not think of it a lot, simply because thinking of it makes me want it more. And I hate that feeling of limbo, so I try to distract myself from it. But when I do remember it, it is overwhelmingly beautiful. It is a reflection of God's heart for me. And God loves me an oceanful.

And that's what I've been figuring out lately. That new season that I've been craving is finally here. Ben was right in what he talked about in chapel. This is still a season of singleness for me. And that's why I'm diving into ministry Women's Bible study and trying to find as many women to mentor me as possible (or as much as I have time for). I'm seeing a small glimpse of the woman I want so desperately to be. My emotions stay sort of level these days, a huge accomplishment from the usual. Every once in awhile they get psycho, and then that's followed by a cycle of psycho, but then I level out again. It's a slow, aching process, but it's a process nonetheless.

Field Day

I checked the plastic Dollar General bag one more time to make sure the Tupperware container hadn't leaked. I wound the handles around it and fastened it with a rubber band. I grabbed the worn-in footstool from its normal spot, beneath the chair mom collapsed in after a day's work at the Winn-Dixie bakery. Opening the top cabinet, I placed the bottle in its original place, minus a cupful of its contents. I looked up at the clock on the wall. I was going to be late if I didn't start walking to the bus stop soon.
My palms were itching as I carried my clear backpack over my flanneled shoulder. I was supposed to meet Lauren and Katie in the girls' bathroom seven minutes before the second bell rang. My eyes shifted over each person in the hallway, searching for anyone with x-ray vision that might penetrate my backpack and see straight through the shopping sack. Entering the bathroom, I immediately noticed Lauren and Katie leaning against the tiled wall. They eyed me knowingly, and I reached into my bag, pulling out the container. The crinkling echoed off of the empty stalls.
I knew exactly how I had gotten myself into this mess. I was home alone, as was usual during most afternoons. I was talking on the phone using three-way. It was my favorite way to talk to Lauren and Katie. We were best friends, beginning that school year of eighth grade. We all had an equal hatred for the popular crowd, so we became the opposite of everything normal. They had regular drinking lives, and although I pretended to know a lot about it, the only alcohol I had ever had was from the communal cup at Catholic mass. That particular Wednesday, I bragged about all the alcohol my mother had in her liquor cabinet. Katie suggested I bring some to school for her, because she was “in the mood for something hard.” I nonchalantly asked her what she preferred, and Vodka was what I poured into the container the night before. I had snuck it right before my mom returned from work. She closed the door, pastry-scented and exhausted. I had butterflies in my stomach, and they were rebelling rapidly against their intestinal cage. Mom always had a psychic sixth sense, and I just knew she would notice what was missing from her collection.
Katie's face twisted in disgust as she drank from the Tupperware. She seemed to choke on it. I wondered how someone who had been so experienced could have such a hard time swallowing it down. “It's too strong for in the morning. Here; take it back. We'll save it for later.” I stepped backward as she tried to hand it to me. My eyes began to shift nervously. “No way. I thought I'd be through with that. I'm not taking it back.” Katie looked at me as if she were going to say something that would send me home crying, but then she turned to Lauren. “Here, you take it. Put it in your jacket.” Lauren had always been an acting minion of Katie's, and she quickly obeyed. I stared at Lauren. She had beady eyes, and she was overweight and intimidating. She stuck the container in her camouflaged pocket and felt my eyes piercing hers. “Whatever you do, do not let them trace it back to me if you get caught. Do not mention my name.” She nodded, and I asked her to verbally promise me that I would remain anonymous. She agreed, and I left the bathroom feeling only slightly comforted.
It was a field day, and the last Friday of classes before exam week. Katie, Lauren, and I had agreed to meet outside and sit on the sidelines, our usual routine for any organized activity. I clutched my yearbook in my hands, hoping that I could collect some signatures before the weekend. When my homeroom left for the halls, I waited by a stone table, the location we had agreed upon. I saw Katie exit from the black double-doors, but Lauren was nowhere to be found. She explained to me that Lauren had been taken to the Principal's office because the container had leaked in her jacket pocket. The Vice Principal was walking down the hall when the scent wafted in front of her. An officer was there to escort Lauren. I frantically asked Katie if she thought Lauren would reveal that I was the main culprit. She shrugged, pushing her dishwater-colored hair behind her ears. I only had fifteen minutes to wonder. My homeroom teacher came up to me, walkie talkie in hand, telling me that they needed me in the Principal's office.
The hallway seemed to stretch longer as I counted the lockers on either side of me. At the end of that walk was the Vice Principal, along with an elderly police officer. They sat me down, with Lauren in the chair beside me. I didn't want to ever look into those beady eyes again. They called my mother, and she sobbed so loud I could hear it from my seat on the other side of the desk. I wouldn't be able to complete the next week of school, they said. I would have to make up my exams the week after school let out.
That summer was the longest break of my life. My mother had decided my friends were bad influences, and so I wasn't allowed to talk to any of them. Rumor had it that Lauren had gotten revenge due to my betrayal. She developed her own story, telling Katie I had explained to the Principal how it had all been Katie's idea, and that I had nothing to do with it. My mother made me go to a psychiatrist. She wore expensive suits and too much makeup, asked me meaningless questions, and charged too much. One session, I told her that sometimes when I got depressed, I would cut my wrists with my razor. I explained how one of my classmates had noticed it once, and I said my cat had done it. I explained to the psychiatrist how that was impossible since I was allergic to cats. She raised her groomed eyebrows and said we would have to talk about that during our next meeting. I never saw her again. They had a hearing at the end of the summer, and although we thought it would look good that I had been to counseling and participated in various community services throughout the summer, they sent me to the Harrison County Alternative School.
Alternative school was a school for the bad kids. I heard stories from many of my classmates about the institution. I had only been in detention a total of three times in my whole educational history. I wasn't a bad kid. I kept to myself, not becoming comfortable with my surroundings until two months into the program. The bus was the worst part. If you didn't know someone, you weren't going to get a seat. I didn't know anyone, and each time I asked to sit with a stranger, they would roll their eyes and cuss underneath their breath. I eventually got in good with Daniel, a creepy, gawky guy who had an obsession with me because of my brown eyes. He called me a few times, always playing songs to me through the earpiece.
Not Katie, Lauren, or any of my other friends tried to contact me the whole time I was there. I was sure the rumor had spread to everyone in my group, and they thought I was a traitor to the circle. But I didn't care anymore. Because I realized the people I had chosen to be around weren't who I was. I had never been a deliquent, and because of them, I had become one. I had begun to sacrifice the integrity my father's family worked so hard to instill within me. It would stop here.
I worked extra hard to make straight A's while in alternative school. The great thing about the curriculum was that it was set at a very average level. I had plenty of time to read, and would often finish whole books in a single week period. I had been experimenting with writing, and began scribbling thoughts, stories, and poems in a notebook. Over time, the stories and poems became more and more developed. I became a favorite among the staff, and they even complained about how much they would miss me. They knew I didn't belong there, and they asked me to come back and visit and let them know how things were going.
My last day, I exited the building and breathed a sigh of relief. I knew the road ahead was going to be a very painful one. I had already encountered Katie and Lauren one morning while boarding the bus. They threw insults at me, shoving me and threatening to beat me up once I returned to our public school. They threw french fries at me during lunch break. They had convinced all of my friends that I was a horrible person, and I never regained the previous friendships I had before. I tried my hardest not to let it affect me. I poured all of my energy into writing and coursework. My teachers complimented me on how well I was excelling, and soon Lauren and Katie were no longer a concern to me. I made new friends; friends that my mom would actually let me stay the night with. Their friendship didn't jeopardize my identity. Instead, they encouraged me and provided support in all areas of my life. These are the friends I still have to this day.
I always laugh when I see the look of shock on someone's face when I tell them my past includes being kicked out of public school. I don't exactly use it as an icebreaker at parties, but it is a wonderful testament to God's divine intervention. They say they can't imagine me ever doing something like that. They try to couple who I am now with that insecure 8th grader, and it is impossible for them to do so. And that is exactly how it is supposed to be.

Hypengyophobia.

I'm sitting here figuring out what I'm going to do for the next 4 hours before photo, and this house is so empty, and I remember when it wasn't like this on campus. There would at least be people coming in and out between classes, half-heard conversations on cell phones, or random knocks on my door when I had skipped a class and Becky had something that she wanted to tell me and only me. I remember how I used to would never be up at this hour if I didn't have to be, and how my dorm windows were covered with navy curtains. The first time I put them up, Becky swore they were black, and in the following weeks, continued to ask me if I was depressed. Now, I have a great big window, and haven't the money to buy blinds, so the sun wakes me up these days.

How is it possible that I have this feeling deep in my pores, this feeling that I've graduated when I haven't even begun this Senior year? Maybe because I've graduated from the typical Union student. I live off campus now, I'm engaged, and I'm a Senior. I think of the future, and pieces of it are exciting, but more of it is scaring me each day. The closer it gets, the more apprehensive I become. It isn't so much a cold feet of getting married. It's cold feet from life. And marriage is a part of this ticking ally, so it's naturally one of the things that I think about often.

I woke up this morning and ate 3 reeses and 2 pull and peel twizzlers from the candy bowl downstairs. I do that often, eat candy for breakfast. I love the way chocolate tastes in the morning. Tasting it as the first taste of the day is one of my favorite things. I only do it every once in awhile, so that it doesn't become routine and so it doesn't lose its appeal. But I have this anxiety that certain things like that are going to fade away from me. I was so much more of an individual when I was in high school. I'm so much less of what I once was. I think college did that, although I don't know if I can blame one thing. College has seemed to have beaten me into conformity, whether I've fought against it or not. So marriage, this next obvious milestone, is it too going to take other things from me, like chocolate in the mornings and watching reruns of the same halloween shows I have taped on a VHS my mother made for me 15 years ago? Will he even like Halloween as much as me?

College was just another high school for me. I had just become confortable with being myself around my Junior year. I wore a childs size batman shirt with a cape on the back, and wore it with confidence. In fact, most of my wardrobe came from the little boys section of goodwill. I had spurts of gothic and punk attire, and I mixed them up until what I had for clothes was anything but ordinary. But then, when I realized I was going to college, I told mom I needed "grownup clothes." So, we bought heels and suit jackets (because that's what they wore in the movies when the kids went to NYU) but tested the waters first to see if I should wear them. What I found was that not many people stood out from the crowd. Most just blended in. At my high school, many people stood out, and it was accepted that you stood out. So, to avoid being too different, t-shirts and jeans was what I wore at Union. Isn't it funny that I chose to stand out back then because it was accepted? Maybe I'm a true poser. I just know that where before I got saved I wanted to be rejected from society, when I got saved, I wanted to be a part of it. And that's actually backward too, isn't it?

This whole history of shapeshifting sometimes has me wondering who I am. I could say that I'm a gothic at heart, but I wouldn't want to wear gothic clothes everyday. I could say I'm just a casual person, but then I would want to wear heels. It's all indecision. And I wonder how much of my "fashion" history was due to what others thought was cool. I was gothic more with my goth boyfriend, punk more with my punk boyfriend. And it scares me and makes me think that now, I'm not necessarily trying to impress anyone, so is this me? Boring, me? But I know that I want to dress differently, and I have this individual side trying to come out, but it's stifled, for whatever reason I still don't know.

And this, of course, is all rambling and digression.

The sum of this is that I am finding myself a bit depressed and worried these days. I'm worried that all of my life's dreams will slip away from me. I'm worried I'll become cookie-cutter and blend in like I have all these years. I'm worried he'll one day wake up and realize we're not as similar as we thought we were, and the little things that I hold dearest he will find unnecessary and silly. Because they are little. Some of them most people don't even know about. Like that I love Halloween so much, that each year I don't get to trick or treat, I actually get really upset. That I will stay on the couch for the whole week before watching nothing but my VHS tape and Halloween specials on t.v. I seriously LOVE Halloween.

Or that I have to have something hot almost every night when it starts to get cold. Hot chocolate is my favorite, but I also like Chai. But my favorite hot chocolate is what my mom used to make, cinnamon hot chocolate. That's what makes me really happy.

We will come together and have favorites from our pasts, and what if the other person can't give that favorite to them? What if I can never make his grandmother's spaghetti like she makes it? What if he doesn't like my Halloween specials? It's all unecessary anxiety, of course. But it just things that you think about when you know that in 9 months, your life will be joined with another's.

We were all sitting around the table in the kitchen trying to name our fish. I sat back, and for the first time since I've lived here, I felt like I hadn't graduated from a typical Union student. The house was loud and full. It reminded me of my sophomore year, what I will currently recall as the best year of my college existance. All-nighters in the photo house, and countless hours in the blazing hot DMS lab. Woods haunted with white t-shirted men, and caravans to various cities for punk concerts.
All of that seems like there's no time for it anymore. I'm working to save up for my life after this place, and what free time I have, I need to spend thinking of grownup things. I hate that there's no time to have pointless fun anymore. The fun must be well-intentioned and thought out. I hope I'm wrong. I really do.


This is why characters like Peter Pan and Pippi Longstocking are created from adult minds. We all try to get back to those days.

I just didn't know that my efforts would come so soon.

Why do I like being sensitive?

I get my feelings hurt entirely too much.
When I do, it feels like the worst thing in the world, as if my whole world is crumbling on top of me. I wouldn't call myself a drama queen; just someone whose universe falls apart when someone (either intentionally or unintentionally) leaves me out, is sarcastic or blatantly mean to me, or just forgets I exist.

I used to stand against the wall in junior high and just try to blend in, that way it would seem as if I wasn't actually being left out from the crowd. I would bring a book with me, and pretend that I didn't care at all if no one on the outside bothered. But I would read the same lines over and over again, and choke back the huge knot in my throat. Then I began to dress in a way that would either call attention to myself (attention that says: leave me ALONE) or just blend in, wear nothing special, and hopefully just become another face. I would wear my hair in my eyes, and a baggy windbreaker, no matter if it was hot or cold.

But this type of behavior starves me. It really does. I'm one that truly desires and wants to stand out in the crowd, someone who wants to be the one that everyone knows, or wants to just be included. I starve little by little. I hate being on the outside of a conversation and not being included at all, especially if the topic at hand leaves me with the desire to comment about it.

It's like when you want to say something really great in response to the topic at hand, and you wait patiently, so as not to be rude, and the topic just whizzes past. You really feel like you could truly contribute to the conversation, and offer an outlook that is worthy, but instead, you are just left with the words in your head, and the imaginary lines that you draw through each sentence, rewriting and revising. But all that work was for not a whole lot at all, but simply to practice your grammatical imaginary people skills that you will never be able to contribute.

I wish I couldn't cry at the drop of a hat. I wish that I would be the type of woman that was so powerful, that she only cried every once in awhile. Like a grandmother. She only cries when things really matter, and that causes everyone to pay attention to what caused her to cry. She contributes new meaning to the subject, and people develop a reverance for it simply because the one who never cries was moved by it.

But no, I cry at hallmark commercials.

Peter Pan syndrome can be overrated.

My room that I've lived in and out of for the past however many years is nearly empty, except for a few miscellaneous things scattered here and there that I chose until last minute to stuff into a box. It's surreal, really. I've moved back to college every year, but this is the first year that I know I won't be coming back again. That's bittersweet. No more momma's girl. I'm going to be a WIFE in almost nine months. It came so much sooner than I expected it to come. I had all kinds of plans growing up.

I visited a r.v. park one year, in North Carolina, in the moutains, and I vowed that when I turned 18, I'd move there to work, and create some new identity for myself. When the pressing knowledge of necessary college education came about, I too vowed I would be someone different. But all of my various attempts at recreating myself always fall apart. I say I'll be bold and make friends, but I stand on the outside. I say I'll be a little less awkward, but my skin still crawls slightly in crowds of societal strangers. I say I'll be less clumsy, but I end up tripping and falling on the sidewalk, or going to the wrong class my first day (true story). Then I think, if I'm so difficult to change, maybe I'm not so bad after all.

After freshman year, I said I would join a journeyman program and stay in a little hut in India. When it was the summer before my junior year, I ached to take a road trip to off the wall places and take a semester off, collecting the stories of others and working odd jobs as I went. Upon the start of Junior year, I said I'd move somewhere outside of gatlinburg and stay in my own apartment, with my own guard dog.

I've had a lot of almosts in my life. Those paths would have all led me down very different roads. But that road would have led me away from my future husband. And even if I would be tempted to go through the "cold feet" syndrome, looking into all of my what ifs and could haves, life has been so much better than the plans I tried to make for myself.

I think the most comforting thing is that I know the one I'm going to be with for the rest of my life would have been absolutely thrilled about taking part in any of those plans that I fantasized about. I think that's why this doesn't seem like such a smothering thing. Some ask me why I'm 21 and thinking about marriage, that I have my whole life ahead of me, and that I need some time to experience the world for myself. But I know that life apart from the one God prepared for me wouldn't be nearly as satisfying. I've never been one to say that I couldn't live without someone, but I know that if I did, I would be missing something so great.

Instead of thinking about what crazy things I'm going to do this semester and making unrealistic resolutions, I think about saving up to make a downpayment for a house, honeymoon, and stephanotis. I wonder how I'm going to balance 18 hours scholastically, 20-25 hour work weeks, and plan a wedding, all without gaining any weight. I scramble to find someone who will use their photographic talent as charity, and take amazing pictures while being offered very little (not due to bad manners on our part, but due to insufficient funds). The pressure to grow into these adult clothes becomes more apparent every day, and that's the scariest part of it all.

I don't like that soon I'm going to be reduced to an 8-5 work week. I can't stand that I'm going to actually want to go to bed at 8:00 every night. I despise that I'll have to dress up everyday for work, when I don't even own more than two good button-up shirts. My heart breaks that I'll have to know the time frame of a bruise according to its color. I'm a hippie at heart, and all I want to do is live in a commune with my closest friends.

But I am torn.

I would never be satisfied being a little kid all the time. Little kids are selfish and naive of the world. They're only concerned with what's going on in their universe, unaware of the heartache that exists outside of it. They don't know much about comforting one another, and they can't give someone a second chance at life. But I will be able to do that. My grownup job requires that I do.

All of this will bring utility bills, schedules, and debt. But it will also give me opportunities to shine light into others' lives. It will give me a life partner, one who will support me in everything I do. It will make me stronger than I could ever imagine.

And that is worth way more than playing with Barbies by myself.

Daddy's Tears

She didn't remember him at all. There were only tiny telling pieces that proved her simultaneous coexistance with him in the world. She knew this through little facts spoken from photographs and grainy stories. The first time he saw her, he had cried. A uniformed Navy man on a crowded deck let tears roll down his scarred nose, twice broken due to sibling rivalry. In the midst of the other men, he held his baby girl in his weather-beaten arms, weeping at the sight of her. She was supposed to be named Nikki, and until the first time he met her, she had always been Nikki. In his letters he wrote to her mother, he always asked how Nikki was doing. But when he looked into her infant, lazy, dark brown eyes, he said simply, "No, she's an Ashley." And that is how her name was solidified.

She had been breathing only four months when he lost his life, collapsing due to heart failure in a twenty five year old body. There were a series of six pictures she had looked at over the course of her life, the only six in which father and daughter were pictured together. There were the photos of the first time he saw her on the shipdeck, a picture of him wiping her face as he fed her, his flesh Indian brown and flushed due to washing the car moments before. Finally, there was the photo of them on a red couch, with him holding her. She kept it in her wallet and in a frame on her dresser, the frame reading, "Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a daddy." At times, she had to remind herself that her father had even existed. It was those times that it began to hurt the most that she knew nothing of a father-daughter relationship.

She grew up in the single parent household, knowing nothing outside her world concerning men. Her uncles and grandpa were the only male figures in her life, with various others stepping in and out due to her mother's unstable relationships. The last one programmed to memory was Randall. He ate shelled sunflower seeds by the handful, loved the Dallas Cowboys, and fished from the banks of the Wabash River. She was his shadow. And then he was gone.

None of her friends in high school had stable households, so the absence of fatherhood was quickly forgotten. He was always a subconscious thought, but very rarely did she recall to remember him. One of the only stories she had heard was a time when he and her uncle had broken a window in the house while their father was away, and their mother came running up the stairs with a shotgun. She always laughed at that story, not because she necessarily connected with it, but simply due to the picture in her head of her sixty five year old grandmother running up the stairs. (Of course, she was much younger then, but it didn't make the situation any less humorous). She also listened to a tape he had made while on the ship. He was soft-spoken with words of endearment to her mother, telling her he couldn't wait to get home. He also recorded their songs on it, with little hearts drawn on the label. It never occured to her how thoughtful he was. He was almost like a character in a book. The trinkets and things left behind reminded her that he had once lived, but if it weren't for those, she would let him fade.

It wasn't until she got to college that she realized how much she ached for her father. One weekend she went home with her best friend, Casey. When Casey's father greeted Casey at the door, arms outstretched, kissing her adult forehead, and asking her how her car was doing, she realized it made her extremely uncomfortable to see it. She hadn't been around much father-daughter affection, and she didn't know how to receive it. She smiled through the awkward feeling, and had to convince herself that this was something that was totally normal, no matter how foreign it was to her in her own life. She then began to open her eyes to all of these relationships at her school. At her University's annual get-together, Family Weekend, she saw the fathers and daughters interact. On the table where the family photos were developed and framed, she saw a picture of a girl and her father, sticking out their tongues and making funny faces at the camera. She wished she had been old enough to make funny faces with her father at the camera that had been taking photos of them. She wished she would have been old enough for her father to take her on what these people call a father/daughter "date". She would have liked that. She would have liked that a lot.

There were reminders everywhere. The morning she woke up from a bachelorette party, the soon-to-be bride's father had been standing outside of the doorway as she walked to the kitchen. He asked if she could go get his daughter. She explained politely that she was taking a shower, but that she would be done shortly. She watched as the man paced back and forth, and from her trips back and forth from the kitchen to the room, he must have asked her two more times if his daughter was ready to speak with him yet. It annoyed her at first, especially since she didn't expect him to be there. It was extremely creepy to wake up to a man in the house. But then, she began to see the reason why this man was so anxious. This was the last morning he was going to have a conversation with his single daughter. She would be her husband's after that day, and those talks wouldn't be as frequent as they had been before. It was clear by his wringing hands and nervous voice how frequent they had been. And that made her sick. She still didn't understand this father-daughter thing. Seeing affection or closeness between father and daughter made her uncomfortable. She felt like that type of closeness shouldn't go on between an older man and a younger woman. She just didn't understand it at all.

At the reception, the floor was cleared after the first dance. She thought it was for all of the guests to dance, but she realized it was for more "father-daughter" stuff. She almost rolled her eyes at the thought. The father and daughter dance. Hadn't their relationship been emphasized enough? The walking down the aisle with the father, the father giving away the daughter to the groom, etc. Why must we all sit here in awkward silence while we watch these two dance to "Butterfly Kisses" and reminisce about the "good old days?" What is the point? To make those that don't have good relationships, or better yet, NO fathers to feel bad about themselves? She tried not to let it bother her. She felt the corners of her eyes twitch against involuntary emotions. Before she could stop it, they rolled down her nose, just like Daddy's. She wiped them away, feeling a distant connection with the biological one who helped create her. Her gaze was empty, into the crowd, searching for the closest sensation to feeling her father physically with her in that moment. The reality that her father would never dance with her on her wedding day was devastating, a thought that had not been recognized until now.

Her eyes continued to pour, and her fiance' reached out and took her hand. He squeezed it, in the way that always assured her that no problem was too complex for him to solve. He wiped a tear away, and put his arm around her. She tried to blend in with the breathless crowd, pretending that the sight of father and daughter pushed only her sentimental buttons, and that these were happy tears. She's sure some people looked on, touched by her compassion. But these were bitter tears. She knew she'd never have that, and that made her want it that much more.

Her fiance' looked into her infant, lazy, dark brown eyes, lifting her chin to his gaze. "When we have our mother-son and father-daughter dance, you can dance with my father." He smiled at her, reassuring and comforting. That sentence made a wave of peace go over her. God was giving her a second chance at a father. By marriage, she was gaining another father, one that she could adopt as her own, and one that could give her the relationship she so desperately wanted. She leaned her head on his shoulder as the song ended.

"I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

Sometimes God has dog eyes.

I have been feeling distant from God for awhile. I think my life has been so busy with other concerns, He has kind of faded in the background. It's not that I'm not conscious of Him, but I don't think I've been conscious of Him as Lord. Plus, any time I pray, I feel my prayers are hitting the ceiling.

My future husband asked me to go out and look at the stars tonight. It was then I realized how far from feeling God I've been lately. I sat, outwardly soundless, emotionless, except for the buckets of tears rolling down my cheeks. I realized how much I missed God.

When I long for God, I long for Him in every way. This includes physically. One of the most bizarre yet serene experiences I've ever had was in a judgement house a few Octobers back. We went through the room in which you supposedly died in a car accident. You approach the throne of judgement. Your name is repeated over the loud speaker, letting you know that you are in the book of life, and that you can enter heaven. Jesus (who is wearing a bad fake wig) comes out in the traditional Jesus garb, walks down the line, and hugs each of the people in the room, welcoming them to heaven. But when he got to me, instead of being freaked out, I clung to him for dear life. I forgot that it was an actor, and I imagined myself actually approaching the physical form of Jesus, and being able to connect with Him past the spiritual. I marvel at those that were actually able to walk with Jesus, and see him sweat, and see him laugh, and see him cry...it all leaves me wishing I had existed and walked in the same steps as Jesus.

But with God, you don't get that physical human connection. That's part of the greatness of Him, that you can still feel close to Him while never experiencing a physical connection with Him. At the same time, that is part of my pursuit, my race toward Him, to possibly touch the hem of His garmet, and feel as close to Him as possible, hoping that one experience will be one step closer to experiencing His physical presence. It's a bittersweet loneliness as well. One of the top things I hope I can experience in heaven is literally going up to Jesus, and getting a close as possible. Like a child following after her father's shadow, I think if human form existed in heaven, I would be the one that would literally be attached to Jesus as He walked around.

I was feeling the presence of God tonight, and longing for that physical connection. Wesley was preaching/discussing (0ne of the things he's great at) and suddenly my dog, Claudia, came up to me. And for no other way to explain this other than it was a supernatural experience, Claudia looked me in the eye, about five inches from my face, and laid her chin on my shoulder. It was the only way a dog could hug. And I felt God saying to me, "I can't be there with you, but I am HERE with you." As bizarre as it sounds, when Claudia looked at me face to face, with that unblinkling stare,with those brown, wise eyes that pierced my soul, I felt like God had specifically directed His creature toward me to offer the only physical comfort He could give me.

He brought me to the banqueting house, and His banner over me was love.

- Song of Songs 2:4