Cheez-It's & Prayers

Favorite things of this very moment (9:49 pm EST):

• Watching Brian Regan with Jake, Amber and Amber's hilarious and wonderful family


• Hysterical laughter


• My red snowflake blanket


• Zicam


• Vitamin C


• Dayquil


• Sam freakin' Ballard


• Knowing that in a week I will be in TN at CWS with Sam, Kimmie, Amber, Jake, Cayce, Becca, Dave, Glennis, Jennie and many other wonderful people I love

I am sick. Yep. I've been trying to pretend I'm not since Sunday evening, but I definitely am sick. I am currently waiting for Regina to return with my cheez-it's. She's a beautiful creature that Regina. Spent most of my day laying on the couch watching cartoons and children's movies. I've realized that when I am sick I watch sappy movies or children's movies. It's lovely. Don't you worry though, I did get some homework done, I wrote application letter for a scholarship program I'm trying to get into this fall, wrote some business emails, cleared out my inbox, and wasted huge amounts of time on Facebook.

So...being sick does not equal not being productive. Apparently.

All you lovely prayers, I have a couple requests. Oddly enough, they aren't connected to my coughing like crazy (though, if you'd like to pray for that, please do). I would actually love for you to pray for a girl named Jill from Arkansas. She's been dealing with a lot lately. Her father went through a major surgery and they weren't sure he was going to survey. Thankfully he did, but they won't know all of what is going on until they have the results from the MRI. She seems to be handling it alright.

Please also pray for Sam. The man is an angel. His heart is like the moon, and I want to keep it safe. He is a good man, and I adore him. He is trying real hard to take care of people even when he shouldn't need to. He is just like me. Adore him. Again, please pray for him.

Pray for me too. I don't want to do something stupid or hurt anyone. I just want to take care of everyone, but mostly I want to take care of Sam.

Let's all heal up now, shall we?

Black Widow

(The above picture is from Refuge this year. Mostly I want to use that as a reference point for what I currently look like.)

(Two different versions of the character Black Widow. What I'd like to be.)

Favorite things of this very moment (12:48 am EST):

• Discussions with Jordan via Skype that give me a little more hope
• Trying to come up with a comic heroine that I wouldn't mind dressing up as for Dragoncon next year
• The sound of bike bells
• The iPod & the Kev-bot

I make no promises, but Jordan seems to believe I am capable of rebuilding myself. I want to look like Black Widow. If I decide to dress up and go to Dragoncon next year, I want to look like that. I want to be able to dress up as Black Widow.

On top of which, I will be in a wedding in the next year or so. I'd like to look good in a dress when I'm called upon to do so. I want to develop some faith in myself. How does one go about doing that? Jordan claims I have the discipline necessary to change what I'm doing and make myself healthier. I'm glad he has this faith in me.

These Few Blessings of Mine

So...I haven't written anything in a little while, so I thought I'd show you a bunch of picture of people I adore and talk about them a little. It will make me happy, and hopefully it'll make you happy too.
Jeff and Amber. Jeff is hilarious and wonderful, and I am glad I met him. It's nice to know that there are wonderful crazy people out there to meet. Especially when they have such voluptuous nostrils. Also, there's Amber...what can I say on Amber? She's my lifeline. I consistently need to have her in my life. God could not have blessed me with a better sister. I am grateful.

Sam. He's my favorite. There is so much to say about Sam. For instance, the weekend this picture was taken will probably forever be one of my favorites. He is laying on top of a stack of mattresses with Mitch underneath them. It's hard to explain. Sam makes me laugh, think, and inspires me to better things on a regular basis. Sam is a good man, and he gives me faith in men. I'm sure he doesn't know how valuable he is, but I'm genuinely glad he's a part of my life on a daily basis.

Jay. This is my "big brother." He's one of the best people I know. When my life seems to be coming apart at the seams, Jay is there to make sure that I get put back together again. He's truly one of my best friends, and my life would be much less musical and awkward without him.

Regina. One of my fabulous roommates. Regina can dance beautifully, make me laugh every single day, and is a great velociraptor. Trust me. She is a genuine and gorgeous person inside and out. I don't know how I got along so well before she became a part of my life. She has truly become one of my sisters.

Jake aka. the Garble. This picture will forever make me laugh. The bow tie, that ridiculous face, and the great Santa hat. Definitely one of his finest moments. Jake is the younger brother I didn't ask for, but I'm glad I was given. His insanity and brilliance make any event more memorable.

Jordan. Mr. Durham has become one of my best friends in the past year or so. This picture is a good explanation of why. The duck arms...Jordan has the ability to make me laugh until I cry on a regular basis. He is a rare mixture of hilarity, brilliance, passion, and goodness. I adore him for all of these reasons.

And, last but not least, Nikky. Nik is one of the most beautiful, charming, hilarious, brilliant, talented, passionate, wonderful people I know. I will always and have always loved the way I can talk to her about anything, and she always understands. Even the most vague of discussions work well for us. She is truly the sister I never had. I hope she is always, always, always a part of my life.

Obviously these are not the only people in my life, and there are many more I love, but I thought I would share this with you. They are good and wonderful people, and I can't imagine my life without them.

Prayers & Pictures

I need some bananas or fruit or something. Something delicious and distracting. Actually, what I really need is to just need to shut and pray.

Dear God,

Give me the strength to deal with the insanity of my life, and with being single. I'm tired. I don't even mind being single. Really, Lord. Sure, it's not exactly what I consider optimal, but I can deal with it considering I'm pretty sure that I'm still trying to get my life together and I am not sure it would be fair to drag some nice guy into this mess. But...feeling the the perpetual 3rd wheel (or 7th...) is frustrating. How do normal people do this? Right now I almost wish that arranged marriages were still common here because at least then it would take my trying completely out of the equation. You know me, Lord. You know my heart. Please help me out here. I don't want to be the crazy roommate. I don't want to be jealous. I just want to be a good friend and a hopeful/helpful one. I'm not sure I'm doing much of that lately, and I'm sorry about that. Thanks for holding onto my heart.

Love,

J

Hope

Kayla and Mara

Mara all wrapped up in the blanket I made for her. Isn't she beautiful?

Favorite things of this very moment (1:31 am EST):

• Having new books to read about relationships and marriage
• Ice cream with lots and lots and lots of added berries
• Sweet and unexpected letters from friends
• Knowing I will get to see Nikky & Yan on Wednesday!
• The sticker Regina handed me the other day that says "I did it for the cookie!"
• The 2 pictures I was sent of my new "niece" Maranatha Hope (as shown above)

I'm excited about having all these books to read about relationships, and I realized that it's not just because I'm an incurable romantic. It's because I want to be the best wife I can possibly be. Sure I'm going to screw up, and sure I have no idea when in the future the right guy will come along, but I do have hope. I know that eventually it will work itself out and God will bring the right guy into my life, and I know that when He does, I want to make sure that I'm as ready as I can be.

I remember when I was at ABC with Dan, and he knew he wanted to marry Rachel. Anyone that was around Dan for more than 3 minutes knew he was crazy in love with her, but it was more than that...Dan wanted to be the best husband he could be. I watched him work on being frugal, managing a budget, trying to take care of his health, and doing all he could to study and get through school with good grades and the knowledge he would need in order to be a good minister (which he is, by the way). On top of which, I know he read countless relationship books so that he could do his best to understand women, marriage, and most important, his beloved Rachel. I know the other guys thought he was a little crazy for doing this, but Dan knew what he wanted: Rachel. He knew that he was going to have to do all he could to make his marriage work, and he understand that she was something worth fighting for. I really do admire him for all of this.

Just yesterday I finished reading Joshua Harris' book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and while I'm not sure I 100% agree with everything he said about relationships, I do think he had a lot of really great points. I loved his intense focus on the importance of physical and emotional purity. I think most of us overlook emotional purity entirely, but he made the point that if you attach yourself to everyone all the time, there won't be much left of your heart for your spouse when they find you. Physical purity is pretty straightforward, you need to be constantly striving for physical purity. You gotta keep yourself out of temptation's path. Purity is a true gift to give another, and I want to strive to maintain my purity so that I'll have something truly rare and beautiful to give to my husband when we get married.

The other thing that really stuck with me, probably more so than any other single point, was his simple question: what are you doing to prepare for marriage? This got my thinking. Nikky and I have actually had this discussion a number of times: how can I become the best version of myself so that when I get married, I know that I am a whole person joining with another whole person in order to create something new and beautiful? I want to be doing all I can to make find the best of who and what I am so that I can share this with the man I marry. I want to make sure that I am financially independent, that I can stick to a budget, that I am capable of handling all the basic household issues that come up, and that I can truly love him with all that I am. I want to continue working to get rid of and clear out all my old baggage, and take better care of myself physically. I want to be someone that my husband can rely on and also that he can be proud of. I want to be someone that I can be proud of.

Just my thought for tonight.

And Now I Can Be Free

Dear Glawar,

In the past few weeks I have been thinking about you a lot. I know that things between us will never be the way they use to be, but I do need to get a few things out of my system.

I was sitting in my marriage and family counseling class last week, and a strange situation was brought up, and my professor told me that I should really work on getting to the root cause of the problem. What was the issue you might ask? Well, a friend of mine tried to touch the back of my knee. He was teasing me, and I know that, but without even thinking I turned and slapped him so hard that it left the imprint of 3 of my fingers on his arm. Fortunately he just thought this was hilarious and brushed it off and even apologized for startling me. I still feel really bad about it. I should not have reacted that violently. The more I've thought about it, the more I realized that this is partially due to the relationship you and I had.

Do you remember all the times I tried to touch you? I didn't want you to do anything crazy, and I never tried to pressure you into doing anything wrong. All I ever wanted was for you to put your arms around me, to hold my hand, to kiss me. I just wanted to know that you found me desirable in some way. There was never a time in our relationship that I didn't want to be close to you. I wanted to touch you. You had the most beautiful red hair, and you never wanted me to touch it because you were afraid I would mess it up. You had lips that I gladly would have spent all day kissing, but you would barely let me peck you on the lips. You had hands that I could have studied and held for forever, but you could only hold still with me for so long. You had a back that I gladly would have rubbed every knot out of, but you never seemed to feel I was good enough to do that.

I have spent the past 7 years gradually becoming more and more aloof from people physically, and after really thinking about this, I've realized a lot of this comes from the fact that I am terrified of being rejected. I no longer believe anyone could want me to touch them. The repeated rejection from you when you would reject me and then a few minutes later tell me that you couldn't wait till we were married...it didn't add up. How could someone want to marry someone that they never wanted to be physically close to? How could you want me when you never seemed to be interested in showing it? How could you want me when I spent every day being rejected by you?

I don't think you ever realized what you were doing to my heart, and I know there are a lot of reasons for why you did this, but I need to be able to forgive you for the part you played in breaking my heart and causing me to lose faith in my abilities and desirability.

Do you know how hard it is to believe that someone could ever want me to touch them or love them when in the back of my head I can only hear your rejections? I still remember the first and only time you ever thoroughly let me kiss you. We were standing in the darkness of your driveway and you'd walked me to my car, and I remember staring up at the stars for a long time with you. I remember thinking that those millions of stars couldn't compare the the beauty of the man I loved, and you kissed me. It was beautiful and passionate and I wanted it to be every moment for the rest of our lives together like this, but instead it ended up being the only time you ever let me kiss you like that. I remember you ended the kiss, and while I was thrilled and hungry for more, you told me that it wasn't a good kiss. You NEVER let me kiss you again. From that moment on I barely got a real kiss out of you. Do you realize the remaining 8 months of our relationship had barely any passion to them?

I told myself time after time after time that you really did want me. That this would change after we were married.

And I believed it. I believed in you. I believed in your crazy plans and I believed that you really did want to marry me. I believed that shortly after we graduated that you would propose, and that as soon as we could after that, you would marry me. I believed that when we were married, you would let me kiss you all the time. Not those passionless kisses, but real fiery kisses. Kisses that would turn my insides out. I believed that after we got married I'd get to touch you because at that point you'd want me to. I let myself believe that you were just trying to protect my purity and your own.

How could I have been so blind? How on earth could I have let you reject me all that time and never catch the obvious fact that you didn't love me at all? I might as well have been dating a love song. You were all words and flowery statements, but you weren't a real person.

And you let me apologize for everything. You made me feel guilty for loving you. For wanting you. You made me feel guilty when I was trying to do nice things for you like write you love notes. You wouldn't even read them, and then you'd act like it was silly for me to waste my time writing these things to you because clearly you already knew anything I was going to say. Why on earth did I need to repeat myself? And if I ever asked you to do anything...like actually show me any kind of love at all...this was my own issue. You didn't need me to show my love, so why on earth should I need it?

Or how about all the times you flirted with other girls? You were always flirting with someone else, and if I ever questioned it or told you it made me feel uncomfortable and jealous you would tell me I was being silly because you were going to marry me. Why should I feel jealous when obviously you loved me? And I believed it.

It's been almost 7 years since we broke up, and I still bear scars from every rejection, lie, and excuse you ever gave me.

I'm sorry it's taken me all these years to just say this, but darling, I still love you. I will never let you have my heart again, but I do love you. I still see good in you that I think you forget exists, and I do forgive you for this. I think all that I've been through, and all that I went through with you, it's made me a far stronger person. It's also made me a lot more understanding and helpful for other people who have been through painful relationships like ours.

If I ever hurt you, I am truly sorry for this. I'm sorry that I wasn't what you needed, and I'm sorry that I assumed you were who I was meant to love. I hope someday we both find what we really need, and that God heals our hearts.

Love you always & forever,
Minas

Sam

This picture is a picture of my friend Sam. He probably doesn't know it, but he's a key part of my life. I'm fairly certain he took this picture of himself a while back, and it's a pretty sweet picture. Does it look professionally done to you? It really does me. He's rather amazing.

Let me tell you a little about this guy: he's magical. Maybe he doesn't know that, but he's something special. He's funny and passionate, and, for me, he's super easy to talk to. He's great to have weird late night conversations with, and I never feel too strange or like I'm putting myself too far out on the line when we talk. His faith in God is strong, and his passion is admirable. He's a loyal guy. His loyalty is one of his greatest qualities. I admire him for it. To be perfectly honest, I admire him for all of these things.

And he's talented. Very. He plays guitar and drums. I'm fairly certain he can play other instruments as well though I'm not sure what they are. Whether he realizes it or not, he has a great singing voice which I think people should get to hear just a little more often. He also does beautiful paintings. One of these days, I'd love to have one of those beautiful pictures up on my walls. Sam is also a photographer. I've been looking at a lot of his work recently, and I'm amazed. He has an eye for detail and beauty. It's amazing. He's amazing.

I guess I'm just pointing out that Sam is gifted. He is blessed. I am excited for him and his future, and I really hope he understands this. He's amazing, and I'm glad he's become a part of my life.