The Valley Song

"You have led me to the sadness.
I have carried this pain on a back bruised, nearly broken.
I'm crying out to you.

I will sing of Your mercy that leads me through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy.

When death, like a gypsy, comes to steal what I love, I will still look to the heavens.
I will still seek your face.

But I fear you aren't listening because there are no words--just the stillness and the hunger for a faith that assures.

I will sing of Your mercy that leads me through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

While we wait for rescue with our eyes tightly shut, face to the ground using our hands to cover the fatal cut.

And though the pain is an ocean, tossing us around, around, around, You have calmed greater waters--higher mountains have come down.

I will sing of Your mercy that leads me through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy.

Yeah.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia."

--Jars of Clay

No More Holding My Breath

It finally happened. The 153rd time (a rough estimate) I dropped my phone, the screen finally cracked. The first thing I did was run frantically to my room for the manual to see what my warranty included. And of course, it doesn't cover any accidents you yourself cause. That's just lame.

But there's a little twist. For the last month or two, my phone's been freezing up frequently in the process of sending text messages. I've been meaning to call to find out what the problem is and what I can do to get it fixed, but I just keep putting it off.

I felt a little guilty that this accident was my motivation, but I did send them a message today:

"For the past month or so, my phone has been freezing up occasionally when sending a text message. The only way I am able to get it to work again is by removing the battery (the phone won't turn off by pressing the power button), putting it back in, and then turning it on again.
It doesn't affect the phone in any way, but it's very frustrating.

Today, I dropped my phone on the corner of my bed and the screen cracked.

Now I'm not sure how to approach the situation. I was going to contact Virgin Mobile earlier about the first problem and see if the warranty would cover a new battery, or at least getting someone to find out why the screen freezes up.

I understand that the warranty would not cover a replacement phone, since I am at fault for dropping it, but if you could please let me know what options I have, I would be grateful.

Thank you."

It was hard to be honest. In the back of my mind, I feel sure that they're not going to be very generous. And selfishly, I want to get a new phone out of it. Even though it's my fault, I still want someone else to fix it for me. I don't want it to be my problem. Wow. Talk about selfish. All I think about is me.

I wrote the note as carefully as I could, navigating my emotions because I didn't want it to come across like I was trying to "twist their arm" into giving me a new phone.

It's one of those situations where you can feel the angel on one shoulder, and the devil on the other, breathing down your neck. As much as I want a new phone, I think I need to feel the consequences of my actions.

Patience is not my forte, nor is selflessness.
But God is good. He is growing me in the little things.

The Good Kind Of Emptiness

Today I had the privilege of waking up at 5:00am. Ha.
I literally fell out of bed, strangled my alarm clock trying to locate the off switch (not the snooze button), and then stumbled into the bathroom. I stood in the hot shower for probably half an hour. My shoulders were in knots, my head was still waking up, and my eyes still weren't ready to open. By the time I got out, my toes could've qualified as prunes, but my head was a little clearer. I finished getting ready and was out the door at 6:15am on my way to Starbucks.

The only time I can ever remember the streets being so empty was the time we left for Boston as a kid. Roadtrips for us usually began at 4:00am so we could "beat the rush." I have many memories of being sandwiched between two pillows and a pile of blankets in the back seat of our Buick with my teeth chattering in the early morning chill. This morning was similar, with the exception of the blankets and pillows. The streets were so barren, I felt like I had the world to myself.

Raise your hand if you talk to yourself in the car. Or pray in the car. Or sing in the car. Or say something out loud in the car, just for the mere fun of knowing you're alone and there's no one around to hear you say it. Yeah. I do this frequently. And there's only a smidgen of self-conciousness about it usually because even if they can't hear you, the people in the cars around you are probably wondering what you're talking about... and odds are they're staring at you.

Well, this morning, me and myself in the car were quite alone. There was no one around to watch and wonder what the heck I was saying. It was a good kind of emptiness. Some very quiet moments alone, really alone, to say what I needed to say, and hear what I wanted someone to hear. It felt good.

The next few weeks of 5:00ams maybe won't be so bad.

Snippets Of My Bucket List

1. Visit and take a picture in every country in the world.
2. Build my own house.
3. Go to Fenway and meet my team.
4. Sing a solo.
5. Visit New Zealand and Australia, and go scuba diving.
6. Get married to someone and remain madly in love with them for the rest of my life.
7. Stand on a mountain peak with my eyes closed, my arms open wide, and the sun setting brilliantly behind me.
8. Ride in a hot-air balloon.
9. Save someone's life.
10. Learn how to ski. And ski well.
11. Go to some isolated and uninhabited island with only my husband. Hehe.
12. Own a boat. Sailboat, yacht, doesn't matter as long as it floats. Although, it has to be functional and pretty too (i.e. NOT a canoe, rowboat, pontoon boat, etc.).
13. Have kids. And I mean a minimum of two.
14. Live by the ocean, even if only for a time.
15. Visit Greece, and Italy, and France, and.... heck, how about all of Europe?
16. Build the world's largest and most unique snowman. Anybody with me?
17. Adopt a child(ren).
18. Smile as many times as is humanly possible in a life time.
19. Learn French.
20. Beat a pinata and scream like a little kid for the candy!!!!!!
21. Learn and understand every single action, play, and term in the game of football, so I know what's going on when I'm cheering.
22. Lay underneath the stars in the back of a pickup truck, in the middle of nowhere, preferably the southwest coast (and don't forget the super cozy warm sleeping bags).
23. Write something at least the slightest bit profound. Something that makes people think, but then smile in agreement.
24. Ride on the back of a motorcycle down a dirty and forgotten road, in the SUNSHINE!
25. Paint a mural or some otherwise large and publicly displayed work of art.

Say Hello To Helpless

I'm sure it seems that I endlessly ramble on the days that life gets me down. But it's those days that usually prompt me to blog....


I was on my way home tonight, alone in my huge, humming Buick, and I was feeling, I don't know, useless. Like I wasn't doing anything remotely wonderful with my life, and the world was just passing me by. And somewhere from the silence, my nervous little voice cried, "Dear God."

And I couldn't go on. Somehow, for some reason, I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. What do you say when you're talking to God? He's not clueless; he knows exactly the thoughts rushing through your head. And I struggled for almost a minute of silence, until finally I broke down.

"God, I don't know what to say. I'm out of words."

And I was. I truly felt like I'd been poured out dry. Like I'd been drinking from empty wells, and continued to find absolutely nothing. And I'd finally fallen to my knees in helplessness.
I guess that's how you let go and lay things at God's feet--when you finally realize, "I just can't do it alone anymore..."

Have you ever felt small? Like standing by the ocean, and not being able to move. Tonight, I felt positively tiny. But I think it's kind of funny, whenever that "small" feeling pops up, it's shadowed by awe. When you're standing in front of something so vast, and so infinite, and so wonderful, and so magnificent, how can you not feel awe?

It's not hard to be overwhelmed. Life can naturally be that way. It's intimidating, yet very humbling to feel small. And it's scary, but it's okay to feel helpless. Because you're in someone else's arms.