Loves of My Life

"...to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people...That is why God tells us so many times to love each other."

"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.

I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened."

"No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath... We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?"

"It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things"

"There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. (They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.) And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere. Of course, I had always known He was, but this time I felt it, I realized it, the way a person realizes they are hungry or thirsty. The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart. I imagined Him looking down on this earth, half angry because His beloved mankind had cheated on Him, had committed adultery, and yet hopelessly in love with her, drunk with love for her."

~All quotes from various works of Donald Miller

Happy V-Day ...A day late

I want to say thank you to my sweet husband who got me such a great Valentine's gift! We went to Green Life one night and across the parking lot is an art gallery and I've always loved theses pictures:

I got this one and one that says "Live" -

I told Michael I wanted to be able to make my own but the only letter I have been able to find is a "T" made out of a telephone pole. And those aren't so unique.

Half of My Heart

I cannot think of a better way to have spent the night:

Heartbreak Warfare
Crossroads
No Such Thing

Vultures
Bigger Than My Body

Perfectly Lonely
Assassin

3x5
Comfortable

Waiting on the World to Change
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

Half of My Heart

Why Georgia

Gravity

Who Says

Say

Happiness x10

My sweet friend, Emily, tagged me in her blog to share 10 things that make me happy:

1. PHOTOGRAPHY. I could probably spend my day online finding photographers' websites and looking at picture after picture. I am also trying to learn a little more about this art so hopefully one day soon I can show off some stuff.

2. Being WARM. Climbing into bed on a cold night and curling up under the covers. Getting out of the pool on a summer day and feeling the sun warm up your skin. Walking out of the freezing cold and letting the heat of a warm building hit your face.

3. Getting to the LAST 100 pages of a book. I know I am close to the end and the excitement of seeing how the story is going to come together is too much for me to put the book down. So if I get to the last 100 pages, I'm probably going to finish no matter how late I have to stay up.

4. The SMELL of summer. Not the way too sticky, hot summer. The kind we had last year where the temperature didn't get over 100 and you just want to be outside all the time.

5. A new pair of JEANS that fit perfectly. I don't usually try on clothes in the store so when I get them home (or in the mail) and they fit, I might wear them for a few days straight.

6. CHEESE BISCUITS from Red Lobster. I am pretty sure I could go to Red Lobster and have a meal entirely of these biscuits and be in heaven.

7. My sweet dog, BELLA, hopping up and down like a kangaroo when I come home from work. She does this every day. Even though I usually go home for lunch so its only a couple of hours since she saw me last. I also love to watch her little nub of a tail wag back and forth as fast as a little nub can.

8. Being able to drive with the WINDOWS down. And turning up my radio really loud. Sometimes it just feels good.

9. STARS. I love to look up in the sky and see millions of them just twinkling their lives away. This either stems from or is the cause of the fact that I also love things that sparkle. If it were not so tacky to have a house filled with sparkly things, I might do it.

10. All the RED and PINK at Valentine's Day. Its really the only time of year when its okay for these colors to be together in such large quantities. Seeing them out there just makes me happy.