Welcome, summer.

So, I think I'm jumping the gun a good bit on welcoming summer in already, but in Georgia I think we have free reign to declare whatever season we choose seeing as it is ever-changing.
And truthfully, we have the authority to declare the season of life we are in and to trust it.

So, here's to sipping sangria on the porch in the summer months to come, and to relaxing in the sun before the harvest comes.

No words.

Someone once said to me that the world seems to be the biggest insulter once tragedy has happened in your life. As your reality begins to alter and shift, the world continues to move on. Life moves on. The people around you move on. It's like you've dropped everything within your hands in the middle of a bus station, papers and belongings flying everywhere and going off into directions before you can even process what's happening. Falling to your knees to pick up whats in front of you and to catch your breath as some papers fly away or your chapstick rolls away under stranger's feet rushing to make it to whatever destination. And in that place, that posture, you realize that you can't even begin to pick up and reorganize what's in front of you. Pieces are missing, ripped, broken, or gone forever and as you look up hardly anyone seems to notice, because they are is just as much of a rush as you were moments ago.

A good friend of mine recently experienced the loss of his mother recently. It's amazing that even in mourning the loss of someone else's loved one we make a situation center around ourselves. We think of those we need to reconnect with, those we need to apologize to, and that life is short so we need to get living before it's too late. When all the while, we are planning to move onto our next destination, because our lives continue on. That is the great insult: that life continues on. It barely pauses or even slows down to acknowledge that a small part of you is now gone, and that a 45-minute memorial service could never do justice to honor the life of such an amazing woman.

We are strange, selfish, and wondrous creatures with a heart for others so long as it doesn't make us abandon ourselves. If the greatest insult is for life to continue on in these moments, then the greatest compliment would be for us to do just that: abandon ourselves to be whatever is needed for those around us. But our flesh is weak, and we need a greater strength.

There isn't a solution to this. We will never have the right words, but I think that's an even greater insult. For us to think that we are the one's to truly bring peace to another person. For me to think that I have the right words to heal someone else is absurd. I have the comforting words from my God, that is all. Nothing I came up with or could ever fathom would bring as much peace as that.

We don't always need a solution for someone experiencing loss.
To love is to rid yourself of your ego and in that moment choose that person over yourself.

Lord, let me have the strength and humility to love like this.

The inevitable new year post, 22 days late.

New years, new numbers to write in journals and on checks, new ideas, new people, new everything.
So, naturally, I'll write about it.

This past year:
-I went to Passion 2012 and got wrecked by the Lord's truth
-Was in the Passion video with B, that was pretty cool
-Made some big mistakes and learned some big lessons
-Got through a break-up with the Grace from my God and the love of community
-Learned deeper what having and giving mercy truly looks like
-Graduated from GCSU with a knowledge of communication deeper than I ever dreamed of from some of the brightest minds I have ever met
-Got accepted into Grad school at Lipscomb in Nashville, Tn
-Worked at Grace Fellowship Church in Snellville, Ga. Learned some good and hard lessons there and met some life-long friendships that I'm constantly blessed by
-Deferred by acceptance to graduate school and put off my move to Nashville
-Got a job as a Chaplain and a High School English teacher for 9th &10th grade
-Moved in with an amazing family in Snellville that will forever have my heart.
-Realized quickly that I didn't want to be a teacher, and continued to learn more about patience and obedience
-Became and aunt to CUTEST little boy, Wren Lafayette Carlos
 -Moved into a house in West Midtown with four amazing girls and could not be more blessed.
-Got a job as a consultant at Bridals by Lori aka Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta.
-Left that job.
-Said goodbye to my sister who left to work at Weiden+Kennedy (http://www.wk.com) yeah, she's KIND of a big deal. 
-Began to intern with The Not Wedding and write for their blog. (www.thenotwedding.com) I cannot explain how much I love this.
-Got accepted into Bethel School of Worship in Redding, California. 
-And finally, started my own business with two AMAZING women called The Wedding Stagers (www.wedding-stagers.com)

This year has been amazing, hard, painful, inspiring, weary, and in all of this and so much more I have really begun to remember who I am and what I'm worth. Which is a lesson that I'm not sure I can place a value on.
As painful as this past year was, as many HUGE mistakes I made, and as many victories I had, I have learned to live above my circumstances, constantly holding fast to the truth of my identity in that I am loved, clean, powerful, weak, and forgiven.
I have seen God move in some of THE most powerful ways this past year and have seen myself screw up. Big time. Yet, His love is so much greater than anything I could ever screw up. 

So there it is, a recap in short of the past year. The biggest thing I've taken with me from the past year is that whatever God has spoken to you about who YOU are is truth. Even if no man were to ever confirm or encourage that within you, because the Lord spoke it to you, it is still true. He is the only one to truly affirm or deny that in you. So whatever He has said to you in truth, walk in that. Don't ever look back.

Here's to running like hell in that identity and never stopping.

2013, let's do this.

Airport.

Inhale

Pump

The main vein that pumps life and death into the city in which we lie. Vessels flowing north and south to gather masses of cloth and zipper. Loved ones. Constantly flowing and pumping. 

standing. At the center of it all. The terminal that will decide a yes, a no, a proposal, bad news. Your son isn't coming home, but his brothers are here to greet and console you. 

White noise blares on a nearby PDA breaking the concentration of these vessels for only a moment before falling back into the flow of the other cells around them. 

Exhale

Pump

How fragile this is. 

Pump

What a small thing it takes to break this, to mess with the cycle. How captivating it is to be one among thousands and feel like one among none.

Pump 

Then he's there. A boy with a rose, glancing at the digitized master which speaks "she has arrived, wait here for her." 

Pump

anxiously pacing for who ever will walk up those stairs. 

Pump

Whoever will make her way out of the central valve, into the rest of the functioning body, moving to the one other cell waiting for her. For unity. Completion. 

These are the rebel cells. The ones that break the cycle and the flow for a selfish moment in which each body pauses to see. Some to cry, some to clap, some to laugh. Some to be reminded of their loved one and others to be reminded of their lack there of. But all to be touched, encouraged, moved, and paused. 

The heart of this place. This city. For a moment stops beating. 

Stops pumping. 

To experience something greater than cycle and pattern. To witness an anomaly to this central system. To witness, and therefore bear witness, to love.

Inhale.

Pump. 

Feet on linoleum. Eyes towards the central valve. Heart toward welcoming a good friend home. 

Pump. 

Mind refreshed. Body sturdy. 

Pump

Soul willing. 

Pump.

Pump. 

Exhale

Pump

Welcome back.

In the summer of 2010 I lived in Estonia. 

There was a moment when I was in the Tallinn one weekend, where I sat in a concrete courtyard in-between a few apartment buildings by an underground cafe. 

The concrete below and around me didn't feel like a prison, but rather an inviting spot for rest. 

Branches, leaves, and flowers in a full summer bloom surrounded the area.

Above me there was no ceiling, just a straight seemingly possible shot to the heavens.

In this moment I found peace.

My mind was interrupted by a bird that continued to revisit the area on the table I was sitting at between my journal and my forearm. A mere few inches. 

The bird, blue with highlights of yellow, so delicate in sight cocked its head, and then nodded at me. It stared at me in an inviting way as if to say, "it's nice to see you again, can I rest here for a moment with you?"

He then stayed. Rested. Shook himself awake and flew away.

I love this memory. And sitting in a familiar spot of rest for me at home, I was reminded of this.

It began with you.

Staring, communicating. Genuinely loving on the person you're speaking to, at least with your actions. You are so present.

It's really just beautiful.

This day. This moment. This is a Kairos moment. A perfect image.

So perfect that I'm sad I have nothing but my mind my pen a journal to remember it.

But for that I am so thankful.

Not only am I blessed with eyes to actually see this, but I am sweetly broken by a past and a life of sin to better appreciate it.

Not just some mess-ups, but dirty, rotten, broken, shameful.

Sin.

I want to revel in this. I wish I could paint it.

The beauty of this conversation I'm getting to whiteness, the way you drink of your coffee mug, is so strategic. The posture you take in thinking-processing. Reflecting.

You, stranger, really are beautiful.

I do not know you.

I know not of your heart, of your story.

This is all speculation...but how beautiful is that? That I get to speculate, not judge, but imagine a life, a heart.

You. 

I notice things more deeply in moments like this. I am more present. Every hair blowing in the wind lightly dancing over my face. My skin on the metal chair beneath me, the grit of the cement beneath my chair, the stone table lightly touching my propped-up leg.

I am reminded of a different time.

Years

moments

lessons

and countries ago.

I am reminded of the bird on my table, of someone playing piano nearby, of Tallinn. Somewhere that feels so much like home; I am reminded of in my home.

My memory is broken-

interrupted, by your laughter. Your mind. Your words.

Beautiful

Strategic

Heavy

Overlooking me.

It doesn't matter whether you care or know I am here. I really don't care.

I am enjoying this moment. 

The Lord is speaking to me through you, stranger, as he so often does.

This place. This outside patio.

The man next to me under a perfect-almost-unreal-tree.

Smoking. Reading. Journaling. 

Living his own chronos.

This has always fascinated me: people walking their lives, living their own chronos, and for tiny and deeply intimate moments, they cross.

only to continue in different trajectories. 

My mind in interrupted again.

A bird on the nearby curb. The horn of a car blown on the very-near road.

"Hey, Samantha. Welcome back. Remember me? Reality?"

Yes, friend. I do.

The journey I've taken in my mind is over. I am again reminded of myself. My physical being, my near surroundings. My interruptions.

My failures.

My faults.

My lacking.

But in all of this, my beauty; my identity. 

I'm also reminded of all that I am not.

I am thankful for that.

Humbling.

Dreaming.

Desiring.

True.

These moments where I escape into the freedom so deep that I've been given in Christ.

To be present.

To dream.

To notice.

To care.

I don't get enough of these, and I desire them so deeply.

Then I hear my Father say, 

"So, have them. They are yours. I have given them to you."

I want beauty.

"You are."

I want love.

"You are."

I want desire.

"You are."

I want you. To be yours.

"You. Are. Mine."

Thank you Abba Father.

Lover. Comforter. Provider. Protector.

"Vivira, respira."

Knowledge of the Holy.

"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." - A.W. Tozer.

I have found this to be so unbelievably true. And one of many things that comes to mind when I think about the creator of the universe is presence.

He is fully present.

This is something I'm learning. Not to dwell on things, but to dwell where I am when I'm there. To be fully present. And it couldn't come at a more perfect time.

Before, I've written...pleaded even for the summer to not break me, to leave me breathing even if it means being broken and bruised. Summer has always been a tough time for me. I've usually been in  a place of growth, which in turn means stretching, which often means its a painful time.

This summer is different.
I couldn't be more joyed about that.

Yes, I'm learning and growing and being stretched. But it's different.
I'm learning to be more present.
More on that later.

Any possible title for this is just too cheesy.

Sometimes I think I avoid writing because I'm not happy with where I am. Its like I don't want to be able to look back and say, "damn that was a tough time."

Why are we so afraid of this? Why are we so afraid to look back and remember defeat?

It's the reason I do this, it's the reason I journal: to document. To be able to keep myself accountable and keep myself in check. So I can look back years from now at this time and if I'm in the same place, I can take it as encouragement that I've probably forgotten, and move on.

Take a step forward.

So, let's be honest. I haven't been in the best place this past year. I've had my moments, and I don't feel defeated about it. But this has been a tough year.

College has been a tough few years really. A lot of weight, a lot of feeling defeated, feeling rejected, judged, and pushed away.

But, the past few years have also been combatted with feelings of love, affirmation, encouragement, and confidence in who I am.

Right now, sitting in a place thats been my home and my refuge for the past four years, I'm reminded of all those moments spent in this exact place, writing on this stupid blog, documenting moments, and coming to blessed realizations that love wins, and that my God is greater than any love or pain I will ever feel.

Goodness, I am so unbelievably thankful for that.

I am so thankful for the heartbreak, the love, the pain, the loss, and the gaining of anything and everything.

I guess I'm getting a bit nostalgic. I am graduating in two months, things are coming to an end, relationships are ending...and really ending fast and hard.

I am definitely going to miss this place and the context it carries. But does it make me awful to say how unbelievably ready I am to leave?

As much as I have loved this community, too much time in one small place brings judgement, criticism (and not a good kind), and discrimination coupled with disrespect. It just happens. It's not just Milledgeville and my community here. This happens in every group, small or large, and in ever community or family that exists.

It is 100% inevitable.

and its also 100% possible to be handled.

People just don't. We ignore it and say, "this isn't how it should be."

And we hold onto that statement, hoping it will just happen.

Here is the conclusion I've come to about love and loving people in a family, community, or any relational setting: it does not just happen. Love is a complete choice. And we have to choose it.

But so often we don't.

So, I guess what I'm saying in all of this jumbled around crap is this:

-I need to not be afraid to document the parts of my life where I'm not as happy with how things are.

-I'm so ready for a change and to be somewhere my heart has wanted to be for years, but I want to be present and choose to love being here while I'm actually here.

-Love is a choice, we must choose it.

Atreverssiamo.