Thursday, July 18, 2013

“[Models] have the thinnest thighs and the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes, and they're the most physically insecure women probably on the planet.” -Cameron Russell

Ladies, you will never be able to become thin enough, beautiful enough, popular enough, smart enough, or good enough to silence and kill the insecurities that chase after you. Your eyes will always find imperfections and emptiness in the mirror and in your life, no matter how hard you strive to meet your own impossible expectations.

But here is the good news.

You are enough and you are loved. Right now. You are loved in this moment just as you are and not as you should be.

Open your tightly clenched fists that are trying so hard to hold on and accept this beautiful gift as it falls into open hands.

Revel in the love and rest. Then go out love the world and do good. Not because you're trying to earn love and favor, but because you are already have it.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Don't begrudge that the best of times slip away and cannot be frozen. Do not try in vain clutch them in your fists attempting to hoard what you cannot keep. Instead lift your hands in praise that the moments are given in such an exorbitant way. Moment after moment. Grace, upon grace, upon grace.

The daily recurrence of it all...the sheer number of moments we get everyday makes it hard to remember and be grateful for the gift that each one is. I forget to open my hands and be grateful for it all.

...sunrise after sunrise, laugh after laugh, a million fireflies that twinkle, each breath that enters and escapes these worn lungs, my dear comrades, a billion blades of grass that wave like a laughing green sea, the mist that hangs around the trees like a wispy cloak just before sunrise, smiles that start in the soul, all the flavors of the wind, and the love that makes the world turn round. every. single. moment.

They are each a beautiful gift. Look forward, backwards, and all around you, look and see that all...all is grace.

Monday, July 8, 2013

The doubts and demons swirled a week ago; and their claws crept into my heart and mind. The questions bore down on my soul and I could not get out from under them. Music, books, writing nothing helped the despair that started wrapping it's life draining roots around my heart and the scales began to run with abandon over my eyes.

Sometime I bemoan and fight against the twisted road that life takes me along. I just want to get to the destination and the seemingly insignificant detours and the sharp turns that I come upon, at times frustrate me to no end. But maybe, maybe the journey is just as important as the destination.

Maybe that dream job you didn't get? The school you didn't get into? That person who walked away from you? The rut you seem to be stuck in, the turn coming up in your life that you can't see past, the pain that threatens to swallow you whole, the despair that wraps her roots around your heart, the loneliness that leaves your whole body aching, and the doubts that chase after you relentlessly...maybe it is all important. We just can't see it yet.

The road you are walking, may not be the one you would have chosen or even wanted--but maybe you're here for a reason. And you're there because your story needs to intersect with another person's story. On this side of heaven we will never see the glory and the how incredibly epic this story on earth is. We see through a glass that is so dark and broken and no matter how badly we want to we can't see past the curtain.

Maybe even the mistakes that we make are being redeemed even now and the broken is being made whole. Maybe there is a purpose in it all.

And maybe this is the best possible thing. Maybe it's better to be more than
innocent, but broken and then redeemed by love.

Maybe life and even death are awfully big adventures.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Yesterday I was checking my favorite patient's blood pressure, I was perched on the edge of a chair talking and laughing with him. He suddenly caught me by the eye, his expression told me to listen closely and then he said, "Little woman, if you remember anything about me, remember me telling this to you. Never try to be anyone but yourself, trying to be someone else may seem like a safer option than taking the risk of being fully you, but in reality it's the surest way to fail. If people don't love you for being you then you don't need to worry about them. Love, friendship, and trust can't be bought only earned. So don't try and buy friends and make sure someone earns your love and trust before you hand it over." 

I looked him intently and told him I would remember. And then I thought to myself how does this little elderly gentleman knew me so well lol

Friday, July 5, 2013

Lady at the blood bank: So where you born in the States?
Me: No, Savannah, Georgia.
Lady: I was gonna say you got good English no accent or nothing! Your parents have to be from like China though.
Me: My Dad is from Hong Kong...
Lady: I be wanting to go there! I saw Karate Kid. There is some wall there. 
Me: The Great Wall? 
Lady: Yeah! You is really tall too! I've never seen no tall Chinese person. Those ladies that do my nails are always straining their neck to look up at me. Dang you're dropping some blood you bled fast
Me: Haha, well thats good, and yeah I don't fit the stereotype.

Lol, I love people.

Objective today: Go on an adventure, then find and capture beauty.
Objective: Accomplished.
(If you were on the back roads of Concord in the country and saw a silver Toyota Camry on the side of the road with a girl in an ankle length teal dress standing or crouching taking pictures. That would be me.)