So I'm at home this week. It has totally thrown off any routine I normally have. It's been alright though. I've enjoyed it.

I got to looking through one of my old journals the other day....which is something I absolutely never do. I don't ever go back and read the old things I have written...I leave them in the past.
But for one reason or another, I did.
It was strange. And I'm now compelled to share some pieces of my 2007 with you all...

So I don't guess this is really an entry...just an unedited memory. I apologize for the length.
And thankyou for the therapy.
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January 14, 2007.
My thoughts and feelings right at this moment...alone. quiet. cold. anxious. hopeful. afraid. overwhelmed. loved. angry. jealous. strengthened. grateful. proud. disappointed. bashful. growth. painful growth. impatient. gun-shy.
"That's the irony of being a Christ follower...you can experience brokenness and sorrow and deep joy and hope and all these different things at the exact same time..." --Mike Skelton


January 19, 2007.
If you broke your heart in half, what would spill out onto the floor?


February 25, 2007.
Phillipians 4:8...true. noble. right. true. admirable. good. pure. think about these things.

Developing a heart that really cares about what God thinks...I'm getting there. --a goal--.

...We are all in a process of being changed.


March 10, 2007.
My hearts needs breaking again.
Broken in the right way.
Broken for people.
Broken for change.
Broken for loss...and for lost.

I wish God would just elbow me.


July 18, 2007.
I am inconsistent. unsteady. poor. weak. sinful. burdened. bent. bruised. sore. and proud.
My cheese is falling off my cracker.

But God can make something beautiful out of this.


July 22, 2007.
So I'm just wondering. I'm just concerned.
Why is it that I can sit here and hear these words of redemption and not be able to understand or feel ANYTHING at all?
Where is my heart if I can't give you my time or thoughts each day? Where do I go from here?
-An invisible hole-.....
How am I ever going to find out or understand this yearning in the center of me if I don't take the time to seek you for the answer?
Do I ever want to know?
Am I afraid?
Am I lazy?
Am I indifferent?
Is one worse than the other?
Why? Where do I look? Where?
I just don't get it. Is that what I want? For you to just leave me alone? Would that be easier?
Sometimes I think so.
Sometimes I think I'm so close to bitter and numb that it's scary.
Sometimes the indifferent selfishness of my heart throws me backwards.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm just a big fake. The great pretender.
Hot tears wash it all away. But hot tears don't stay warm forever.
How? Where? Do I bear the image of God?
Will I even attempt to journey to answer such a question?
Who cares if I'm right or wrong...
I. Don't. Know.
Me?


August 28. 2007.
Lines from the intro of The Only Road North haunt me...
--
I will never be "better".
There is no escaping my story.
It's bigger than any one of us. My story is of our wildest dreams coming true and our most godless fears and horrors being realized. It is of love and hate, life and death, brotherhood and utter solitude, faith and doubt.
The truth is, life is far too complex to be put in a box. I wonder, have those people who seem to have all the answers ever really experienced hardship or grief? True joy? Adventure?
Have they ever really lived?
For those of us who venture outside the cookie-cutter lives that may settle for a superficial plastic faith with the corresponding instruction booklet will do nothing.
When we take the brave step from the comfortable mainstream into the unknown, we quickly discover that we are all just travelers on a journey, trying to find our way.
I write to you as a mere seeker, a fellow traveler on the road that is life, a believer in truth, trusting in hope.
I have scoured books, stared endlessly into the night sky and cried out to the heavens searching for answers. There are none to be had.
And yet there remains an ever so faint whisper coming from within. It is all I have left. It is my compass. It is my guide.
My story offers no resolution and it has no ending. It is not nice or neat, but it is real. I have given up trying to make sense of it all. Rather, I will tell you it only as I can, as I experienced it. I invite you all to share my experiences, to join me on this journey. But warn that after such a long and trepidant road we will finally arrive before we started with more questions than answers, completely and totally unsettled, but ever searching...ever hopeful.
This is my story.
--
The introduction to this book is my life. Simply.
And yet, it is also currently trying to rock my life off it's hinges.
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So there they are. Bits of my history...my story.
I honestly didn't think anything came out of 2007. Looking back at some of the words written in and amidst the muck, I'm ready to rethink that.

I'm also ready to close this chapter and move forward.
This has helped.