Aiden...

Waking up this morning early, I looked out my window to a beautiful sunrise over the water that is seen from bedroom window (I know I am spoiled)! God has truly blessed me with an amazing place to live...the water reminds me of renewal and the cleansing of all the pain and suffering I have been trudging through for the past couple of weeks. It reminded me of the depths of His love for me, His willingness to suffer for me, and His willingness to let me be a small child that splashes about in the pool for a while and then realizes that the Father knows best! :)

After getting ready I went to walk into town and realized that out my window on Bray Head (which is a natural walking path from one village to the next) was experiencing difficulties with smoke ventilation, a.k.a. It was on FIRE! Throughout the day it just got worse and no one seems to be doing anything about it...the flames have engulfed the majority of one side of the mountain and potentially a second. The flames are out of control! This made me stop and think...what if Christians lived the same way this fire was. As in living to spread the word of God, living to be the light to the world (the fire would have been seen by two villages and over 40,000 people), what if Christians didn't care what other people thought? What if we let our lives be so consumed with God that other people would just stop and stare? (Now that might be weird at times but how incredibly COOL!!!)

What if we lived a life for God?

A day to remember...

Who ever would have thought that I would be sitting in Ireland with cow slippers on watching my grandfather's memorial service? Not this one...not I. But God is stronger than the bogey man and so he will get me through this.

My Papa was an amazing man and I miss him but know he is not in pain anymore! Love you PAPA with all my heart!

Here is what I wrote to be read at his memorial service:

It is difficult to know fully what to say or exactly how to say it because it all seems a little surreal at the moment, as I am sure you all feel the same way.

Papa was, shall we say a unique man with many interesting qualities. I remember when I was little he was always trying to make up stories about how some animal had it out for me, to tell you the truth I was terrified of going in the back field because of what might be out there to get me. Papa was always good for a laugh.

Or one night my family and I had come for a visit and we all decided to go out to Chinese. Kelsie, Tyler, John and Mary Lynn were all there as well, so it was a big party and we were going to celebrate. Well while partaking in our wonderful meal, Papa decided to show off his magical talent of being able to eat one of the spiciest peppers out there. We all watched and waited for Papa to make an utter fool out of him. Papa took the pepper in his normal confident and ever so slight cocky style…we all watched but nothing happened. And then we waited, and waited and waited. Still nothing happened then all of a sudden Papa’s brow started to look shiny and his face was about the shade of a man who had been in the sun too long. Then he said that “darn pepper” burnt a whole in my tongue. We all busted up laughing! J It was hilarious! Papa continued to sweat for the longest time and we went on enjoying our meal while Papa nursed his aching tongue.

Every time I had the privilege of visiting Papa and Grandma, we always did fun and exciting things. Like camping, even though Rachel didn’t like the woods too much. Or I came to visit and they dressed me up in proper cowgirl clothes and we went to the rodeo, where we saw bull riders, cowboys and ponies! J Or the time I came down for Spring Break with one of my Brazilian friends and we were allowed to stay up really late! Or the time we got lost for 6 hours on the backside of a mountain because I told Papa to go the wrong way. We did go out for a nice dinner after that and we eventually had a good laugh. J

Papa also volunteered to be a model for me. Yup, I bet all of you never thought Papa would be a model did you? Well he was a good handbag model! One day I was making purses at the kitchen table and Papa was in a rather good mood and decided that he was going to model my new creations by strutting around the kitchen. I couldn’t stop laughing; I even have photos to prove it. It was quite possibly one of the funniest things I had seen in a while. Never knew Papa had it in him!

Knowing Papa he wouldn’t want a lot of flowery words or drawn out speeches, he would want us to remember him with stories. So hopefully these stories have brought back good memories for some and showed Papa to be the wonderful, caring and spirited man that we all knew him to be.

Papa, I will miss you dearly and hope you have found rest from pains of your illness. So many people will remember you fondly and they will miss you for ages to come. Know I love you dearly and miss you terribly but pray that you have found rest! Love you, Papa!

A hole...

You ever notice that things can begin to spiral out of control at a rather alarming rate? Life seems to be going fine and then BAM all of a sudden you are smack dab in the middle of a downward spiral into oblivion and there is no foreseeable way out. You kind of get stuck and can only seem to get pulled deeper and deeper into this dark chasm of chaos. Chaos that doesn't seem to have any logical explanation. And you continue to wonder, how did I get here? Did I take a wrong turn somewhere and end up in the middle of hell.

Right now life seems to be just that...hell. Hell can be defined as a place of extreme suffering or chaos. Each person has their own definition and interpretation of what hell is all about. Individuals experience different types of hell and can express their frustrations or chaotic moments in a less than desirable form or fashion. Currently I am trying to sort through mine. Now my salvation and my personal walk with God is not in questions here. But life honestly sucks right now, my heart feels as though there is a gapping hole that can't be filled. I feel like my head is everywhere and not where it needs to be. I feel lonely and depressed, angry and frustrated, hurt and abandoned, replaced, jealous, envious, ugly, stupid, foolish, and the list continues.

Don't really know what I need to do to sort out all of the things going on in my life but right now I am not doing well. It always frustrates me when people try to mask what they are feeling but I am the guiltiest of them all. This is my mode of operation. All I do is cover up my feelings. I hid for being hurt. I hid for getting attached to anything, I freak out when people want to get close. I run at the hint of something going wrong. Everything inside of me says get out of there, it will never last. You can't do anything about the fact that it is going to end, so why try in the beginning. Now I know logically you would assume that I would try to encounter these problems head on and fix the situations or try to at least face my fear and trepidation, nope, WRONG...I run the other way like a gutless child. Why cause it is safer, it is easier to run and not deal with the way you are feeling. Sure after a good long cry or maybe a few good cries you pick yourself up and move on. You realize you and God can do it, so why worry about all of these other people who will be there today and gone tomorrow? Why worry when people have repeatedly told you that you are not worth it and have walked out of your life? Why? Why care when this happens?

Sorry to whoever will read this and think, wow...she must be in a bad spot. Honestly NO I am just hurting and don't really know how to sort through all the feelings going on inside. I feel lost and alone with a lot of pain. Don't rightly know how to encounter it all but tomorrow is another day. And what do they always say about a new day? It is the opportunity to start over and try something new. Look for the silver lining, right?

Please pray for me. Right now I am at a place of utter confusion and "hell-ish" circumstances.