Not becoming cold part 1

"Don't give up, don't go cold, you're closer to moving on. If it don't hurt, then it's wrong so lets hurt for awhile 'till we feel something."

Well alrighty them. This line comes from a band that I was recently introduced to with the help of Spotify. I don't have time to write to much about where I'm at. I have a blog in progress and really a knowledge that because I have not written in a while no one is reading my blog. Which if I'm honest allows me to have a freedom to just bleed onto the pages and become like Meg Ryan in "You've got Mail" where she is typing to her email pal (Tom Hanks) and talks about how she is could just be writing in to the void of what is the Internet, but how all these silly little nothing (conversation between the two of them) have been nothing but that they have meant something to her. Blogging means something to me. Even if no one reads it or even knows I'm here, there is the possibility that there is someone somewhere who is out there who stumbles upon this small little space on the Internet that is called the Muddy Smile. And that for me it meant something to say a few words about my life. This song hit my heart today. There is a space in which I am waiting, and choosing not to give up and not to become cold because I know that there is beauty in the midst of deep pain and sadness, and that you can not feel the joy if you don't allow your self to feel the pain. So I sit in this oversized Starbucks in downtown Chicago, holding back tears of familiarity allowing my self to feel the pain, and wait in anticipation for the joy.

Words for 2013....

So it is my first post of 2013. This is sad. I can not relapse all that has happened in the last 8 months but here is a few points that I'm feeling tonight.

- Change suck, and its really great.

- I like in a black and white mentality a lot, and i really need to stop that.

- I hate liking guys who live far away from me.

- I am a freaking senior.... i am not old enough for this.

- I still suck at spelling/grammar

-God is good, all the time.

- Redcloud is kinda ending for me, and i am totally and completely heart broken about it.

- Relient K is still the best band out there.

- I was created to work with college students

-I am a stubborn, stupid, terrible person and lot of the time, and yet God still choose to use me...

And last- I am ready to live some more passionate, glorious, adventure, and I hope that you are still with me.

Why I've been Away

So I have not written in couple days and for that I am sorry, however its been because I have been making memories. I do not have a bucket list but i do have things that I want to do. So here are a few......

Getting revenge against Tim for steeling my phone. I waited and then several weeks latter I stole his keys so he was stranded around campus for about an hour. 

Getting what I wanted at a White elephant gift exchange. This is Eric, You may have heard about him from all of my roommates post on Facebook about him. 

This holds two, Sitting on Santa's lap. And breaking the SLG (kinda) and getting a picture of said rule breaking. 

Getting a picture with a friend wail being covered in Christmas lights. 

This is just a great picture that I wanted to post. This would be Bailey. 

Getting a picture with Adam Swing.... And his picture face. 

Being an adult and taking a picture in one of these. 

Planking on the "L". I have a pretty strong neck. :) 

AND then the last is brought to you by Ellen. Its called the dance dare. I plan to get a better one but this is the best I have so far. 

Just a thought

Tonight I watched the King's Speech. Its one of my favorite movies that always leaves me interred by different quotes. The one that caught me tonight was when Bertty and Lineal were apologizing to one another and Lineal spoke the truth that Bertty no longer had to be afraid of his life. Of his father and brother mocking and making him fear them. Of his nanny who abused him and of the places that were wrong with him that needed correcting. 

I know this is an odd thing to ask but I wonder what Christ feared? As a child if he had a nightmare and he would wake up and know that he was all right and that his heavenly father was watching over him, but the fear would not fade straight away. What did he fear in him life. Fear is not a sin; it’s the moment that we stop trusting God and start putting our dependence in something else. When we make an idol that we can be calmed and comforted in. I believe that Jesus was afraid thought out his life. 

When I think of moments of fear, I start thinking about where Jesus was with me. Is it strange that in my memory and recollection of that moment I see Jesus in the room with me sometimes? Not like I actually saw him, but that I know he is in the corner right next to me. Its odd but tonight I thought about where I have been comforted in the midst of my fear, and where my comforter has been able to allow me to feel peace. In the bible it says that we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with us. I don't know if its the power of the divine God just allowing me to feel peace, but there is a part of me that feels somewhat connected and understood in the idea that fear is not something that Christ can not compare to. 

Just something that made me think tonight. 

My Mom is Not to Old for Anything Especially Sparkly Shorts

So tonight my friend and me were sitting in my room talking, and the topic turned to our moms. As I talked about what I was thinking about for stocking stuffers this year for my family, I have a somewhat epic idea for my mom. As I was talking about it one of my friends turned to me and said your mom would wear that? To which I responded with "Oh Yah." She then said yah I think my mom could wear something like that however she thinks she's too old. I then talked about how my mom has an epic pair of sparkly silver sequin shorts (Watch the video to see them )from urban outfits. She flipped and I fond a picture of her wearing them at a Christmas party last year. "Your mom looks really good!" "Oh, I know."

Thought this conversation I fond one comment that was left in my mind....

"My mom is not to old for anything."

When I think of my mom I have fond my self-linking her with many memories of Michigan. Know grated this is the most recent times, however there is something more. Michigan held life for my mom many years ago. It’s a life that allowed her to live. Its where she was invited to more, not for the first time, but for a new and life changing time. I remember growing up meant you had to be composed, this was a message that has made its way thought my family, and my mom branched out for me. I remember countless conversation and opportunities where this was not asked of me from my mom. I did not have to be like even one else and I did not have to take off my winter hat just because it was 98 degrees outside. I did not have to be composed but mom did. I do remember getting a little older and looking at mom and seeing two sides. There was her home life where she smiled and was warm and ungraded and then there was Mrs. Tracy who was at church. Mom was more composed and contained. 

This was pretty consistent till one day that I will never forget, it was after mom had returned from Michigan and she said that we were going somewhere but that it was a surprise. I was shocked when she led me into Claire’s at the mall. She said that we together were going to get our cartilage pierce now I had been asking for months for this and the answer was a no. But after this trip mom changed her mind and not only allowed me to get it (not that day because of complications but a story for another time) she also got her pierced. After this things changed, mom changed she was not two people any more, she was free to be herself.  

After we moved to Michigan things were even more different. It was hard for all of us, but there was something magical in how mom moved in this space. With a heaviness yet a settled heart. I remember walking thought our kitchen still feeling hesitant and mom just meeting my eyes. Smiling talking about our home and the plans. Where she taught my room would be and where we would put everything. There was life resonating in the walls. When I was able to put thought together I proceed that this was the house and in that kitchen that mom was invited to life in a new way, and where she was first invited to be as free as I was because of her. Where she would leave the spectators seats and join me on the field. She made this leap by getting her ear pierced with me. 

This house is where my mom decided she was not too old. She has continued this method of living in many ways since moving to Michigan. By traveling to china, turkey, Italy, Austria, talking classes from Dan Allender, taught at every journey group at one point or another, and expanded seized by hope taking on staff members, and creating Anchor as the college branch. Just to name a few. 

Life has changed a lot for both my mom, and me but I have fond that we have gotten much closer. This past summer this house and my mom wear able to invite me to more for not the first time but a different type of new. Since moving to Michigan I have started looking and watching my mom differently. I look at her not only as mom but also as a woman who lives fully, who has a family and a life. I am starting to engage with the reality that I’m not a little kid, and so I watch and take notes of the women I want to be like. My mom is probably the main woman I watch to help me think about what I want my life to hold. 

This Christmas we have many plans to sit and watch how life is being lived, and just to laugh a lot. But in the midst of that I am looking forward to sitting in our kitchen, talking, but allowing her to invite me to live in new ways, but mostly just to sit and enjoy that my mom is really not to old for anything. 

Where I'm at after finishing my last Paper of the year. :)

I have been sitting here forever trying to think about what to blog about. I have nothing. I am ready for sleep. So tonight i am letting you go to sleep with what is planing on my spotify channel right now.

Hebrews Tonight

So its December 9th, and i am needing to write something. Yesterdays post is still on my mind and is competing with my french final for tomorrow for my full attention. I think was i want to share today is about a phrase that i heard today in a Mars Hill sermon. It was a man talking about his struggle with a terrible disses and how its hard to feel hopeful something but that he always says... 

⁵ Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;

    never will I forsake you.”
    What can mere mortals do to me?

⁶ So we say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.

Hebrews 13:5-6

But he talk about how he must repeat it over and over again before it will sink in. That he does not believe these words the first time around.

What do we have to remind our selves of over and over again? Tonight its that i am where God wants me right now. That he is not depriving me of anything, but blessing me with just the right amount of time here in Chicago, and home in Kalamazoo. That he is never going to leave, nor forsake regardless of the changes that are coming, and the ways that life is changing. That i have no need to be afraid for he will help me. And that all things will work together for good.