Gravity's pulling, You're still holding my heart.

"It's not always rainbows and butterflies
It's compromise that moves us along, yeah
My heart is full and My door's always open
You can come anytime you want." -- She Will Be Loved, Maroon 5

That song, especially the particular quoted part came to mind tonight in Vessels. It was a night of laughs and almost-tears, jokes and honesty, "humanness" and rawness.

Life isn't always fun. In fact, most days, it's pretty dang hard. The pressures of 'living up to it all' can just about crush you if you're not careful.

However, call me Pollyanna or Izzie Stevens all you want, I am determined to still find the good in life. I don't believe God put us on this earth to 'hold out til Heaven'. He told us to pray "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven." I want to experience a little taste of Heaven on Earth, every day. And some days it might be an overwhelming revelation, or a huge breakthrough. But some days it's the things you weren't even looking for...closure, being His mouthpiece when it's you that needs the encouragement, newfound friendships and laughing about silly stuff, Starbucks on a Texas winter day.

I've heard a quote that said "If He's not Lord of all, He's not Lord at all." Honestly, it kinda rubbed me the wrong way at first, seeming a little judgmental and harsh. But if you think about it, it's true. If He's not Lord of my good days as well as my bad days, is He really my Lord? If I'm only crying and whining to Him when I'm in trouble or hurting and not rejoicing and thanking Him for the good, what kind of relationship is that? If I had someone that I called my 'best friend' yet only asked them for things and help all the time without ever really sitting down to listen to them or talk to them....how long do you think we would have that friendship? How deep of a friendship would that be?

I want to laugh with Him and cry with Him, sing praises and give thanks. "All of my life, in every season; You are still God. I have a reason to sing, I have a reason to worship." All. Good and bad, even ugly. Harvest and drought. In everything.

IZZIE: I believe in the good. I believe that it's been a hell of a year, and I believe that in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we'll all be okay. I believe a lot of things....I believe we survive, George. I believe that believing we survive is what makes us survive. -- Grey's Anatomy

Don't save it all for Christmas Day, find a way to give a little love every day.

Ah, the Christmas season. As I heard it said the other day, it brings out both the best in people...and the worst.

Take today for instance (yesterday to be exact, Sunday the 5th). My dad and I were in Walmart picking up a few necessities, odds and ends and whatnot. It was a madhouse in there, I could tell it was going to be by the nearly full parking lot before we even walked in. I commented to my dad how it was "kinda scary, considering this is only the first weekend in December." We get to the check-out line, and there's this woman in front of us. She's quiet until the cashier accidently starts ringing up some of our items as hers, and this just sets her off. She starts snapping about how "this is the express line, it shouldn't take this long!", etc, etc. The cashier (and his successor, as he was about to go on break) apologized profusely, but nothing was gonna settle this woman down. She continued to rant until the sale was final, she yanked her items off the counter in a huff and stormed off......I watched as she walked off, yet stopped to continue ranting to a manager about this travesty. My dad, the second cashier and the people behind us in line all kinda just shook our heads in disbelief and chuckled to ourselves. My dad asked me later in the car if I'd noticed -- in the midst of this woman's tirade -- that the couple behind us had let two people go ahead of them, because they had fewer items than the said couple. It amazed me. Here, in the same line, was the best and the worst.

And it got me to thinking.....which person will I choose to be? Will I choose to let stress overtake my joy, impatience overtake my kindness? Will I let tiredness overwhelm my tongue and cause me to snap at loved ones? Or will I stop -- take a deep breath, say a prayer and truly remember the Reason for the Season? It's really something to think about. We can get so wrapped up in looking for the 'perfect gift' for someone that we miss the gifts that He's already given us and is trying to still bestow upon us! Friends. Family. Happiness. Health. The simple joys of life. A smile from a stranger. Simply waking up in the morning and breathing fresh air. That baby born in the filth and lowliness of a manger, to save our souls.

I don't want to get so caught up in the rush of it all that I miss the point of it all. Ever. In December, or January, or February, so on and so on. This, truly is my greatest wish for this Christmas season. That He would open my eyes to the hurting, the ones in need. That He would open my heart to receive what He has for me, and also to be grateful for what I already have. To both accept and reflect His love to all mankind. Because really....isn't that what it's all about?

Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning and the sun goes down about three in the day.

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” -- Nelson Mandela

For as long as I can remember, my family and I have visited my mom's extended family in Kentucky and Tennessee. We've always driven the some odd fourteen hours that it takes to get there, and with a family of six, that definitely has gotten interesting at times! Before the days of iPods and in-car DVD players (or at least before we had them), those hours were full of looking at the scenery (mountains aka hills to Texan kids are quite the sight to see!) and falling asleep to country hits on cassette (yes, cassette and not CD!). Restless Heart, Reba, Alabama....it's still hard for me to keep from yawning when I hear "Love In The First Degree"!

Although we've visited in the summertime before, our favorite time to visit has always been in the fall. You'll see more colors that God has painted the trees on all those hills than you thought existed! It's beautiful. And if you're lucky, maybe even a little snow.

And so, tomorrow we will take yet another trek northeast and experience all the sights and sounds that have become so familiar yet never get old. It's such a comfort, it's hard to put into words. Through the hustle and bustle of life and it's struggles, sometimes you can tend to forget who you really are. Situations and people change you and you may not even realize it. You're older, wiser, different, but inside really still the same. But it's like when I step into my great-aunt's house that has barely changed since I was in diapers, or bear hug my cousin and hear her signature laugh, I remember. The real me -- two and a half years old and decked out in a clown costume, running right into a stranger's house while trick-or-treating -- comes out. And she was always there, it just took a little reminder. It's amazing to me how much one can learn about themselves just by getting back to your roots...roots that you may not even remember or realize you had. I see my feistiness and sense of humor in several cousins, I meet other cousins I never knew existed, and it all starts to piece itself together like an heirloom quilt. The pieces were always there, I just didn't fully realize it.

You treat life like a picture, but it's not a moment that's frozen in time.

A few pictures from this past weekend!


Sunset on Friday night, the drive down to Houston.


The incredibly beautiful venue for the reception.


A pretty gazebo in the reception hall where we took pictures!


Cousins! L-R: Kelsey, Kaylan and myself.


We noticed while taking pics that they'd made some pretty funny makeshift repairs to the torn fabric....


8.0 in Downtown Fort Worth in full fall regalia.


Kelsey at Los Vaqueros with the baby niece Olivia (who was becoming a little upset)


On the way home from lunch, my dad took us by this house on White Settlement Rd. where a guy had decorated his entire yard in beer cans. Only in the South...

I need You so much closer. So, come on.

I attended the out-of-town wedding of one of my cousins today. She’s in her forties, and was just married for the first time. My uncle, her dad, spoke of her patience in waiting for the man God would have to be her husband, and how sometimes she didn’t know if he even existed or was a part of God’s plan for her life. And I sat there thinking about how hard it must have been for her to see all her friends get married, and her sister find a husband and have a child, while she was still single. But when I saw the look of pure joy on her face today that never left her, and the adoration for her new husband, I know she must have been thinking that all that waiting, all that pain was worth it.

And the groom! Even a blind person could see how much he loves that woman. Ephesians 5:25 was mentioned in the ceremony, where husbands are told to love their wives as Christ loves the church. I’ve heard that verse so many times, but man, today it just seemed to click with me. His love for us isn’t an obligatory, stale, “churchy” love. It’s the love of a groom for his bride, a husband for his wife.

So many times we get this twisted and we’re trying to find that love in a man or a woman, a human who will fail us but yet we’re taking our whole beings to them in selfishness saying, “Here, meet my needs! Fix me and complete me and love me unconditionally”. When, first off, they’re human. They can’t fix or complete us anymore than we can fix or complete ourselves. And if we don’t realize and fully grasp that the Author of true Love sent His only Son to die on a cross because He loved us that much? We’re really missing the point.

He’s really been overwhelming my heart lately with examples of His love, in the smallest things. As if He needed to go to any more lengths or measures to prove His love to me! But He’s just that good. Like right now, I’m on my way home and I can see what looks like a thousand stars through the sunroof. The same God who loves me knows each one of those stars by name, even the ones I can’t see. Wow.

And as I type this, Issac Slade of The Fray is singing, “Oh, be My baby. Oh, and I’ll look after you. You are so beautiful to Me” through my iPod earphones.

There’s just moments, you know? Moments where you forget the silliness of life and realize what and Who is really important. Moments you’re totally overwhelmed, in the best way possible.