Zephaniah 3:17

"The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing."

Positively 4th Street

Oh Bob Dylan.
Haha. I just heard this song again today, and the lyrics always just make me shake my head and smile. Very few struggle to relate, I'm sure.

You got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend.
When I was down you just stood there grinning.
You got a lotta nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on the side that's winning.
You say I let you down. You know it's not like that.
If you're so hurt why then don't you show it?
You say you lost your faith but that's not where it's at.
You had no faith to lose and you know it.
I know the reason that you talk behind my back.
I used to be among the crowd you're in with.
Do you take me for such a fool to think I'd make contact
With the one who tries to hide what he don't know to begin with?
You see me on the street. You always act surprised.
You say, "How are you?" "Good luck." but you don't mean it.
When you know as well as me you'd rather see me paralyzed,
Why don't you just come out once and scream it.
No, I do not feel that good when I see the heartbreaks you embrace.
If I was a master thief perhaps I'd rob them.
And now I know you're dissatisfied with your position and your place.
Don't you understand it's not my problem?
I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes,
And just for that one moment I could be you.
Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes.
You'd know what a drag it is to see you.

Not the most optimistic lyrics, but I appreciate his brutal honesty.

Nutshells & Such

Today in a microscopic nutshell:

I did chemistry homework in bed.

I had the first substantial breakfast I've had since summer camp.

We finally changed the burned out lights at the cafe.

I got stuck at a traffic light for 6 minutes.
I finally put away the basket of clean laundry that's been sitting on my bedroom floor for 2 weeks.

I laughed until my stomach ached and I nearly cried. Thanks Brad.

So much more, so little time. Goodnight my readers.

A Slivered Light

You could say disaster struck when I woke up this morning. But I wouldn't put it like that at all. In fact, today was the first in a long while I've woken up before hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock (which is on the other side of my room by the way, so I have to get up order to hit the little devil) a good seven times. I only hit it four times this morning. Haha. I really am pathetic sometimes.

So, waking up was actually a good start to my morning, er, day I mean. I ran downstairs and got on facebook for a few minutes to inform the world of how my day was going to play out. And so it began. (Well, it already had, but I'm just saying that because it sounds official, not to mention schweeeet. Haha. )

I worked out for a few minutes before eating breakfast, then took on the lovely task of taking out the garbage. Yes, it's an adventure in a class of it's own.

Okay, let's just skip the rest of the morning, because it was just homework for hours, and then getting dressed and all that pizazz. I got to the cafe at 10, and pretty much immediately got put to work. We were catering the entire day for a company meeting at West Ridge (100 people seems like a thousand when you have to prepare food for them).

So for the next couple hours, let's just say I was slightly preoccupied with making sandwiches for these people, not to mention the regular guests at the cafe. My break didn't come until about one. We kinda took it easy, cleaning up little by little from the catering as well as the lunch rush. Three-thirty came and went. And then four-thirty. I'm not used to being at the cafe in the afternoons anymore, so it was kind of interesting. At about this point in the afternoon, my mood completely changed. I'm still not quite sure why. But instead of being exhausted, crabby, and sore from being on my feet for six hours, I was actually somewhat energized. I think some of that came from hearing the praise band practicing. They're amazing at reminding me who is ultimately amazing.

Five o'clock. Crystal came in, and things almost instantly started to get hectic again. We put every living dessert known to man on trays--cookies and cheesecake, and cupcakes, and brownies, and russian tea cakes, and pumpkin bread, and lemon bars were coming out of our ears. Then we moved on to making dinner for twenty five people who had stayed at the church for a photo shoot.

What was supposed to be a simple dinner turned into a crazy nightmare. You could ask any one of the seven of us who were crammed into the tiny cafe kitchen throwing together side salads and dishing up spaghetti at a ridiculous pace. Or, running around, making iced tea, trying to find tealight candles for the tables because the other lights at the cafe had burned out (perfect timing, seriously). Then setting out all of our dessert trays in the sanctuary and individual drink cups with ice (thank you Josh!), and making I don't know how many more liters of ice tea, and washing more dishes, and goodness, pretty much everything else known to man. I was supposed to leave at 6. But six turned into 7:30 pretty fast. And I was quite okay with fast. It was faster than I could get to my snooze button this morning, and I still believe that was a good start to my day. There's a time for fast, and a time for slow.

Tonight, I stepped out of the cafe tired, I honestly can't deny that. But tired is really the only dominant feeling I had. Not angry, worked up, or overworked. I had a peculiar sense of calm. I started working through all the thoughts bouncing around my head, clearing things up one by one. And I began to notice something.

During the chaotic part of my evening, from the very start, I had been filled with the most amazing energy. The things that usually frustrated me at work, I still noticed, but was able to look past, and even laugh at why they bothered me in the first place. Some stinging remarks made to me, I was able to look beyond, and remain completely unshaken. I left, pretty physically tired, but strangely energized, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I don't know if I could even explain it.


I saw the moon as I was leaving. A slivered crescent of glowing light in the darkness that encircled it. And I couldn't help but feeling like the moon.
Living as a sliver of light--a light in a world so entangled in darkness, that light is completely unfamiliar. It is foreign.

I was so excited tonight. I turned on the radio and turned it up. It was country. So what, I didn't care. I rolled down the window. It was freezing. So what, I didn't care.

And I sang. I just SANG.

Tonight, I feel like I reached into a well. A well I've been afraid of for longer than I can remember. And I was too afraid of reaching into the darkness. But tonight someone helped me reach a little farther. And gave me the water I so desperately needed.