Thankful. So incredibly thankful.

It is all too socially acceptable for me to make a list of things I am thankful for on this day set aside to do that which we should do every day of our lives, yet I have a feeling that is exactly what this post will turn into. In reality, I should praise God with thanks in all things, and I am well aware that I fall short of this every day of my life. But I am glad for this day, and the togetherness it brings about for people. Not only was I blessed to break bread and share fellowship with loved ones, but I had the opportunity to rest and spend an entire day doing the things I almost never do anymore; running, relaxing, playing board games with family, thinking without stressing, and eating way too many cookies (I still manage to do that one all the time). I feel overwhelmed as I sit here and reflect on the past year of my life. Overwhelmed with thankfulness, joy and satisfaction in the blessings that have found their way into my life. The past ten months or so have held some of my most precious memories with some of the most precious people to my heart. Learning, love, heartbreak, healing, and a growing relationship with the God I love have kept me going, and taught me more about myself than I ever thought I could know. I finally found my place with a clear vision of what I want my career to be, and feel like my school is the environment I want to shape myself in as a musician. But even with that in mind, I am extremely excited and blessed to have the opportunity to start visiting schools to transfer to. I have had my heart set on the East Coast for quite some time and will visit those schools this next week in their freezing cold conditions!, but I know that God will lead me to wherever He wants me, even if that means staying here in California. One of the most prevalent things I am grateful for today and every day, is my role as a youth leader at my church. I can not even begin to accurately describe how much those kids mean to me so I will not attempt to let the words I type fail me. I will just say that I never want to take the perspective that I experience through the eyes of those kids for granted; it has shown me more than I will ever be able to give them. And of course, I am forever grateful for God's grace, which brought me into the arms of my very own Grace, along with the other girls at the Providence Children's Home in Kenya this past summer. I still think about them every day and am extremely comforted by the reports we get every few months to update us on the health and progress of the girls. At the perfect timing, in a perfect way God used that mission to show me where my heart was and where it needed to be. That's not something a person can forget, and I constantly remind myself of just how amazing He is for giving me that experience when He did. I have also discovered an overwhelming amount of encouragement in the past few months, with new friends and encounters that have really pushed me to grow in my faith and contributed to my own walk to have a Christ-centered life, which seems to be not less challenging but even more humbling with these people in my life. I am constantly amazed at the wonderful people I have met and inspired to be a better person myself because of them. My faith community could not be left out of this post as well. With my new calling as an elder and the relationships I am building through that responsibility, I am constantly reminded of what it means to be dedicated children of God. Faith, family, friends, food, and fun. The list could and should go on forever. I pray that others have experienced similar joys but that even if they have not, they can still see the blessings they have in their lives. God is so good to us and with that in mind, the challenge presents itself; to be satisfied. To lift up His name with praise and thanks in every situation, whether it be "good" or "bad" because if we trust Him and put our whole lives in His hands, He will bring us to exactly where we need to be.

One of those "God stories"

This story is told purely as a witness to the amazing power of the one and only God that created us. It is my account of the first experience in my life when I remember strongly feeling the Holy Spirit move me to see, hear and feel the amazing love of God. At a time in my life when it would have been easy to stray from where I know God wanted me to be, He provided the direction and guidance to keep me set on a certain path; His path. Pushing aside all other aspirations, this experience opened my eyes to the only thing I truly desire in my life, and that is to be with Jesus. And when you realize something that powerful, you can't help but want to share it with others. I pray that if people read this story they know that God works in many mysterious ways. Just because you may not see yourself standing in front of Him does not mean He is absent in your life, for God is always present.

Two years ago I went on a Confirmation Retreat with my youth pastor Reece and a few other members and kids from my church. While we were there, in one of our prayer exercises Reece read verses from John chapter 1 to tell a story, to challenge us to imagine that we were walking with Christ and to be silent and form our own response to the scripture. So we closed our eyes and Reece read....

Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold the lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, “What do you seek?”

That night when we had some time to be with ourselves and with God I wrote down my own reflection. This was my exact response... even though it pains me not to make any corrections.

October 22, 2010

“I felt God. I felt like I was with Him, like He was standing right in front of me. And when He asked me what I wanted, I knew the answer right away. I am surprised at how sure of myself I was. I am. I want to be with Jesus. I want to walk with Him and love Him forever. I want nothing more than to know Him and for the first time I believe myself. I truly believe that my heart’s deepest desire is to walk with Him. I’ve never felt so sure of what I want in life. I want to feel like this every time I pray, like Jesus is standing in front of me welcoming me to follow Him. I know that this won’t be how I feel every single time I pray to Him but now I know how real my love for Him is. It’s not just something I say to people, it’s something I feel with undoubted certainty. I love Jesus and want nothing more than to follow Him. This is my purpose; my calling: to dedicate my life to following Jesus and walking in His light. I have faith in Him, that He will show me the ways to go and lead others and I can’t wait to share my experience with others. I felt Jesus. I felt Him inside of me. He is real. This is real. The love I have for Him is real. Amen.”

When you encounter the love of God, your life is never the same. 

"Come Ready and See Me" by James Purdy and Richard Hundley

My first attempt at a text preparation before performing a piece. I should really do this more often...

Although I play a part in this story I feel that my true call is to tell it. I could share insignificant details about my own character and upbringing but instead, I will tell you exactly why I am in this very moment holding this cold cup of coffee here and now. The best part is it all has to do with him. October fell on a Tuesday the afternoon I met him. Quite like the romantic comedy involving a smart and witty school girl falling heels over head for a charming musician from afar, we bumped shoulders in a coffee shop somewhere in Brooklyn. A casual collision to him and a monumental moment for me, he quickly apologized as I attempted to hide my reaction to the first touch that ever made my heart skip a beat. As if his unpolished look wasn’t enough to make my palms sweat, the thick accent that danced between his teeth caught my breath as he asked me if I was all right. Unable to form my own dialect I nodded as he casually offered to hold my books while I dabbed the latte that was hopelessly sinking into my skin. Poking fun at my intellectual choice of reading Paulo Coelho that morning, he revealed the simplest laugh I had ever heard with a dimple to make it concrete. Through glossy eyes I got to experience that laugh three more times as the coffee faded cold in our hands. A few more jokes and a handful of light-eyed winks later I was his and for some odd reason, he was mine. Hours, days, weeks, months. It all blends together now as I sit here holding the same cup of coffee. He was everything I thought he would be. Bold, inspiring and magnetic, he gave my patterned life new meaning and as quick as he entered it, he left. With a fallen family member and being unable to find work in the States, he went back home leaving me a promise that he would return when he was no longer broken and in the same way he appeared, on an October Tuesday in a coffee shop. While life passes, time stands still for the lonely. My family worries, saying that it is natural but unhealthy to remain “hung up” on your first love. I guess some people think it is strange to spend every single Tuesday afternoon sitting silently in a coffee shop until your drink becomes too cold to taste. I used to read, but then I finished my books and lacked the energy it took to find more. It’s funny how draining it is to use only your mind. Now I just sit thinking about him. Remembering the lines across his cheek from an argument he could not win, the circles under his eyes because he refused to sleep, even the melodies he whispered in my ear every time I asked him to stop singing, I wallow in my longing for his presence. October has almost come and gone again and I realize that even if I am willing to wait forever, I can’t. I sing the same sad song fully knowing that waiting has taken up a good portion of my life on this Earth and I can only hope that it will be worth it when he finally arrives. How I yearn for that fall afternoon. The coffee shop encounter will come. He will come. He has to.

Learning to love and be loved

Ryan changed my life... yet somehow that feels like an understatement. He didn’t just change me; he completed me for a short period of my life that felt like it could last forever. For just one insignificant year of time, I created some of the most important experiences and memories of my young life with him. As difficult as it was, because of him I finally let myself believe that someone could love me romantically in the most infinite way possible. Ry taught me so many things. For starters, love is sacrifice. I think that is the first thing I will think of whenever he is on my mind, which is still all too often. He demonstrated just how important action is in expressing feeling and although I am still learning how to practice this, I would like to think that I am getting better at it. That’s not to say that words were not important. Sometimes, I would try to fall asleep while we were watching a movie and just as I began to drift in and out of consciousness I would hear him whisper something. Usually a “Meg?”, and then following my lack of response something silent and wonderful that glided from his lips to my ear. My favorite was “I want to spend my life with you”. Talk about the words a girl wants to hear. Funny thing is I think he really meant it. But God had other plans for us. Ry was different from anyone I had ever met before. He’ll probably never know this but I fell for that boy the moment I met him. After our first time alone together I told one of my best friends that I was going to do everything possible to make him notice me and that if I wasn’t already in love with him, I would be by the end of that summer. Crazy how they say “You just know”, but it’s true. And I knew. I knew that unlike any other guy I had spent time with, Ryan was all about adventure. To this day I am unsure of how he did so, but he consistently found amazing sites and experiences for us throughout the bland towns nearby. He didn’t waste time watching television or sleeping in late, partially because he couldn’t stay in one place for more than a few minutes and partly because of his curiosity for a world outside of his home. He did something no other guy has done for me; he made me fall in love. What a different and surprisingly fulfilling feeling it was, to love and be loved in that way. Part of me tells myself that I will never feel it again because it was so wonderful at the time, that maybe I was only meant to feel it that intensely once. But I am not sure if that part is my head attempting to make logical sense in my faith life, or my heart resisting the knowledge that it will heal if I let it. Either way, I am presently bordered against my emotions. On the one hand, I have every insecure feeling that a girl my age should feel; that he regrets anything regarding us, that he will move on, that he has moved on, that our goodbye was not the temporary farewell I so hoped it would be, but a more absolute understanding that maybe I was not made for him. But more recently a hopeful side of my emotion has sprung forth. One bringing an appreciation for the experience I got to have in our relationship, with the knowledge I gained from it, about not just love but about myself and my faith. I can’t tell which I like more, the thought of being a heart-broken musician using her sensitive words and crooning melodies to remind him of a place in the past, or the thought of finally letting myself let go and giving him what he deserves, a new life without me. It will be a long time if ever, before I am able to offer myself the forgiveness that he gave me before he left. My memories of being inadequate, selfish, insensitive, and unable haunt my thoughts, since I rarely dream. But I find my strength in the Lord. I may have to let go of Ryan, but grace will never let go of me. That is the only reason my tears finally stopped falling. It is the reason I am back to eating my favorite foods and listening to the songs that meant so much to me when I had someone to share them with. My prayers told me to stop giving all my love to Ryan and start giving it to Christ. And when I finally did, I found the inspiration I had been longing for in my music. My voice became an open book, my piano an avenue to walk. The words I could never find when I was face-to-face with such an intimidatingly impressive person effortlessly filled the pages. I found myself in what I discovered was my artistic style and I redirected my focus into what I was sure of. Ryan changed my life but I am living it.

Obligatory first post...

This blog just became my own personal journal. I am so in love with life and I want to remember all of my experiences when I am old and gray so here I am, posting to a world that could care less about what I ate this morning or what the last song I heard was. I want to share my memories, ideas and passions with myself and with any person who might have a common interest with me. To explain myself in a nutshell is impossible because like any other person, I am complex. But if you want to read this blog and figure out a little bit of that complexity with me, then I invite you to stay.

-M