I wanted to write, so I asked, “God, what do you want me me to say?”  Turns out, I don’t think He wants me to say anything just yet but rather to listen.  He wants me, body and soul, to hear this and to believe Him.

—–

My dear,

I have examined your heart and know everything about you.  I know when you sit down and stand up.  I know what you think about when you are on the move and when you rest in your sixth-floor cubby hole.  I know everything you are going to do and what you are going to say even before you say it.  Now although you cannot see where you are going, I can and I promise to go before you and lead you with my sovereign hand.  I will continue to follow you as well, slathering all of your whoopsy-daisies with grace and working what you see as “loose ends” to your good and for my glory.

I tousle your hair with my hand and place a tiara of blessings upon your head.  You couldn’t possibly understand how much those jewels on your head are worth…and how many more beautifully decadent pieces I want to adorn you with.  My beloved and crowned one, I will always want to bless you more than you are willing to let me.  I love you so very much, and you can never ever change that.  Even if you go up or down or wake up early or go far out to sea or wrap yourself in darkness, you can never hide nor venture too far from my love, no matter how hard you try or how badly you think you have messed up.

I know you, Malia.  I am for you and with you, guiding and supporting, going before and behind, for it is I who crafted you.  I purposefully designed every detail about you from the one dimple on your right cheek all the way down to the way your toes wrap under when you point your feet.  I carefully chose each strand of your introverted personality, your adventurous spirit, and your artistic soul and knit you together so wonderfully and complex!  Even when you were being formed in darkness and utter seclusion, I saw you.  I see you now and all the rest of the days you have before you.

Yes, how you have tasted and seen that I am good!  Still, you can’t even begin to imagine how much more I want to do!  You couldn’t even pray a prayer big enough for the abundance that I am going to pour out on you.  Get ready, my dear, for goodness and mercy will follow you in full force all the days of your life, and you will indeed see me while you are in the land of the living and will know that I am God and God alone.  You will know that I am the one who formed you and who loves you, like no one else can.  You will know that the thoughts I have toward you are infinite in number and wholly good and pure and best.

Therefore, since I have charged myself with responsibility for your eternal happiness, I will continue to search you and your heart.  I will test you that you may develop character and desire righteousness, and I will point out your anxious thoughts that you might leave them with me.  As your Father, I don’t want you to carry any shame, guilt or unnecessary burdens that I already paid for.  There’s far too much that I want you to say and to do, too many places where I want you to go and too many people I want you to meet and do life with.  You don’t have time for anything that’s not from me.  Trust me, Malia.  *With my goodness to desire your highest welfare, my wisdom to plan it, and my power to achieve it, what do you lack?  Surely, my child, you are my most favored in all of creation.

With so much more love than you will ever know,

Dad.

Give thanks for old journals…

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!  His faithful love endures forever.

August 30, 2010–New Orleans: I cried again today thinking about Chris Lazo’s story about almost going blind.  I remember him noting that as a photographer, what would his life be like if he couldn’t see?  Then he turned it around and asked what that one thing was for us. What is that one thing, for me, that I can’t live without?  My first thought was Dad.  I am so tired of missing him.  Everything now is different.

Give thanks to Him who heals me in times of grief!  His faithful love endures forever.

September 1, 2011–Los Angeles: 400 PM.  Completely clear of Hurricane Irene.  Boarded.  Buckled up.  And ready for takeoff to New York City.  Eeeek!  Am I going to miss the good ‘ole college days?  Yes, most definitely.  Would I go back?  No.  Life goes on and takes me with it, without my consent.  As it should be.  For often times, like now, my heart yearns to go back and make camp in a land and time pre-June-11-2010.  I know Dad wouldn’t want that, though.  The better part of me knows that too.

Give thanks to Him who helps me in times of adjustment!  His faithful love endures forever.

September 1, 2012–Hawaii: I am trying to get used to this new life, to Mom’s new life and her being remarried, to me being so far away and getting smacked upside the face with a harsh dose of reality and change every time I come home.  Oh, how to put into words what I am feeling!  Mad.  Sad.  Tired, of all this.  Of my vagabond life.  I feel so disconnected. I just want to be in everyone’s life again, back in the lives of those I love and those who love me.  I want to plant roots already, but I know it’s not the time.

Give thanks to Him who holds me in times of loneliness!  His faithful love endures forever.

September 1, 2013–New York: Today, as promised earlier in May, was supposed to be the grand opening for the coffee shop.  I went to see it with Artha, and it’s not even close to being finished.  I don’t know what I am going to do or where I am going to work or how I am going to pay rent.  I am discouraged, God, and I need you to show up, otherwise I am not going to make it.

Give thanks to Him who teaches me to hope in times of despair!  His faithful love endures forever.

August 29, 2014–New York: The August-September transition has never been an easy time for me.  Still when my faith gets tired, like at the present moment, I dare to hope when I remember this,

Your faithful love endures forever, Lord.  You’ve never let me down and you won’t start now.  I trust you.  Do your thing but please be gentle.

If you look for God anywhere, you’ll find Him everywhere.  And if you look for Him everywhere, you’ll find Him anywhere.  –Timotheus Pope from the City of Kidz

1. Thick morning fog at sunrise.
2. Blackberries right off the bush.
3. 615 AM workouts and walks with my swolemate.
4. Wildflowers.
5. Watermelon on a warm evening.
6. Accountability, vulnerability and all other things we love to hate and hate to love.
7. Permanent union between Cheerios and Frosted Mini Wheats.
8. Pool time, lake time, and any-variation-of-a-large-body-of-water time.
9. Fancy sound equipment for my dance parties.
10. Second homes away from home where I am able to hide, read, write, and sleep.
11. Beautiful examples of godly marriages.
12. Grace that flows like a river tidal wave.
13. Warm mugs on cold mornings.
14. Porch time with a dear friend.
15. This. 
16. Home cooked meals around the table.
17. Conversations of Kingdom come and Kingdom work.
18. A healthy body–knee caps which are in place, ankle ligaments which are more or less intact, and wrists which are doing their best to stave off carpal tunnel.
19. The opportunity to work with power tools and build corn toss boards.
20. Vision and direction.
21. That moment when the temperature and humidity drop right before the storm.
22. #SQUAD.  I am looking at you, Rebecca, Andrea, Summer, and Kenisha!
23. Monkey bread and black coffee.
24. Hope.
25. My neon Nalgene, still going strong after three years and many, many miles of travel.
26. P31 Bible Studies, affectionately known as “Mandatory Fun.”  With that, I also need to mention what a won-der-ful women’s staff we had this year!!
27. Barb’s Country Store.
28. The C.R.E.W. boys in all their goofiness.
29. Hugs from campers.  Hugs from counselors.  Hugs, hugs, hugs, and more hugs to fill up my physical touch reservoir before I go back to the city.
30. Emily, Abbey, and Fanta.  Enough said.
31. My hiking boots.
32. Nighttime debriefs with the Avengers.
33. Belly laughs.
34. Brothers in Christ who encourage and remind me that not all men out there are like the rich, sleazy, snooty Midtown businessmen I deal with everyday.
35. Pennsylvania thunderstorms.
36. Organized sports!!  All of them.
37. Explicit requirements to memorize verses and segues to share the Gospel.
38. G1 girls who remind me that cartwheels are not just for gym class.
39. Salad bar.
40. Humble beginnings and the growth in-between there, here, and now.
41. The move toward more creative, cutting-edge, respectable Christian art.
42. Yellow meal and cream of chicken dinner!  Sike naw, sike naw.  In all seriousness, though, I am thankful to eat three meals a day.
43. The power of prayer.
44. Peaches from our tree!  Coming Soon! Summer 2044!
45. Colored Sharpies and construction paper.
46. Shade and a cool breeze, especially on meet day.
47. The opportunity to dance with campers, counselors, and the Pope kids.
48. Letters, packages, and Postagrams!!
49. Bethel’s You Make Me Brave album.
50. These cool cats. 

*Also, if you want to learn more about what I do during the summer, here is the website [http://sb2w.org/citikidz/] and this is my shameless plug.  Check it out.

“O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder / Consider all the worlds thy hands have made / I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder / Thy power throughout the universe displayed / Then sings my soul”

–Carl Boberg & Stuart K. Hine from “How Great Thou Art”

I am sitting on the back porch of the sports pavilion, looking intently over the gravel road and densely wooded area.  The sky is ominously gray and the clouds are moving increasingly faster.  The pitter patter of precipitation on crisp leaves builds as I survey the first raindrops flying diagonally on the wings of the wind and onto the brim of the balcony.  Intermittent flashes of lightning illuminate the darkening spans, surety of the storm’s coming.  The stratosphere cracks open with an earsplitting clap of thunder.  Growls from the belly of the sky ensue.

As I wait in anticipation for the voracious storm, I look.  I listen.  I marvel.  I think on how small I am and how I would have it no other way.  My thoughts continue to meander and find their way out in peaceful lakes of gratitude.  For though I live in a world bent towards the biggest and the best, in a society addicted to glory and success, to hierarchies, to followers, and prestige, I sit on this back porch and revel in my smallness and in the reality that I plus God am the majority.  Yes, I may be slight, but I am with Him.

Selah.  

Now don’t get me wrong, this is not a 50/50 relationship.  My contribution is an indisputable zero.  All the same, it is to my nothingness that He adds 100% of His Love.  It is to my sin that He adds 100% of His substitution.  It is to my unworthiness that He adds 100% of His grace, all day and every day.  On my good, bad, and unbelieving days, He calls me His.

Thus as the rest of the world climbs their way up a ladder that ultimately leads to disappointment, I rest in my smallness and interlock fingers with the biggest and best and most glorious Being out there.  I no longer climb up because He already came down.  I no longer try or have to be awesome in and of myself.

Instead, I burrow deeper into my God’s embrace and ask for awe and for lots of it.  And little by little, He grants me such, in moments of silence, in the middle of storms, and countless times between so long as I have ears to hear and eyes to see it.  After all, He is far more willing to speak than I am willing to listen and desires to teach more than I could ever want to learn.

With that, the clouds sweep right and the sky’s white undergarments reveal themselves behind gloomy outlines.  The rain ceases and the air cools.  The storm and its darkness has had its stint.  But now I notice that far beyond the clouds, further than my eyes could see but what my faith always knew to be true, the Light never stopped shining.  It never did.  It never will.  And that Light will never let go of me.  To that end, I continue to look for lessons of the extraordinary in the ordinary.  I listen for His voice.  I marvel.  I think on how great Thou art and how I would absolutely have it no other way.

“Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us.  The art of life is to get the message.” –Malcolm Muggeridge

 Flowers are some of my favorite things in the entire world.  Slathered in vibrant colors and grafted with a soft-spoken splendor, they make any desk or dinner table, sidewalk or park exponentially livelier.  Now whenever I buy a bouquet, I want it to last forever.  That’s not to say that I want fake flowers.  No, no, no.  I want the real ones, just to do the fake thing, though I know that’s not possible.  Having said that, following the initial desire for immortal flowers that don’t actually exist, I concede that in its most basic circle of life, flowers pop up and then wither up.  They are indeed a fragile beauty.  They are a fleeting beauty.  And for those very reasons, they are a figurative beauty.

For in the still moments like right now when I am able to sit for long enough and listen well enough, I can scarcely hear the susurrations of the individual blooms that sit on my table as well as the ones outside waking up from the winter nightmare that overtook the city for the last couple of months.  I can hear the flowers now, and they are insisting that they are more than just pretty things to look at.  They are the fearful parallel of the human existence, teaching us a lesson in urgency if we will only listen.

Now I’m not talking about the urgency of aggressive living that makes us speed up our already million-mile-per-hour lives or stuff it with more and bigger enumerated lists, but rather the kind of urgency that arrests us in our tracks with its sweet aroma and unassuming beauty and whispers, “Stop and appreciate me.  I won’t be here for long.”  Granted, I can’t say for certain the full intents of God in this matter.  Still in my curious imagination, I really think that one of the reasons He put flowers on this planet is to make us stop and to make us appreciate ________ (you fill in the blank).  It’s as if flowers are His invitation, His call, His beckoning or dare if that’s more your language; flowers are His challenge to you and to me right now to stop and appreciate the little moments that make up the 8-hour shifts between vacations and the white spaces between bucket list items.

Stop.

Appreciate, Reader.

And understand that these thoughts are the aftermath of a letter I was writing to Keylan’s mom.  There’s no need in the world, though, to remind a grieving parent that life is short.  In this case, 24 years and 10 months kind of short.  Thus, her letter eventually evolved into this piece that it is now, a piece for everyone else who is tempted to believe that life is an endless pursuit of happy hours and far away adventures.  This piece is for me as well, specifically in the last season of monotony before I head out for summer; it is for the early alarm clocks and repetitive commutes, the opening tasks and endless errands I have to get done before I board that plane.  Over and above it all, though, this piece is for those I sold Zippy’s chili tickets with and played shambattle on the scalding hot Noholoa Park asphalt with in my hanabata days, many of whom have been fossilized in my memory as their 10-11-12 year old selves.  Still even though I have lost contact with many, I wish them the best and of course want them to live long, prosperous, and impacting lives.  Nevertheless, when boy meets world and the coffin hits the ground, I must concede that in its most basic circle of life, people are born and people pass away—indeed a fragile existence just like a fleeting vapor.

So it is with these concluding thoughts, not so much within the spirit of teaching or admonishing or saying anything new or profound but rather in the spirit of walking along side with you, Reader, and calling your name, reaching for your hand, and wanting you to come back and stand with me so that we can, together, appreciate and smell the flowers that we so often pass by while power-walking to the train and to the next season of life.

Stop and stay a while, Friend.

It’s a beautiful day.

—–

Happy 25th Birthday, Keylan.

I was flustered today.

I’m still a bit flustered.  And it’s still, technically, today.  Though given the fact that I’ve already taken a shower and changed into my pajamas, I’m calling it a day at 745 PM.  Yes, please.  Party hardy on a Friday night with my thoughts and my second cup of coffee.

Anyway, this might be a terribly unexpected shocker for you all, but behind the unattainable expectation of always and forever providing A+ customer service at the shop, the truth is that I just didn’t feel like being at work today.  I didn’t feel like serving.  I didn’t feel like smiling or engaging in small talk about the weather or weekend plans.

I apologize.  It’s me, not you.

Now I don’t know what was the matter with me, and I’m not sure how many times a month or week or how many times in a day is permissible to use the PMS excuse, but something was the matter.  It wasn’t bad, though it wasn’t great; though as I think about it, I don’t believe it was really anything in particular.

It was just one of those days.

—–

Earlier this week, I went to a contemporary class with a new teacher.  We warmed up and learned the phrase and eventually split up into groups.  For the first couple of rounds, everyone watched from the sides, doing it in their heads and following along as the preceding group took the floor.  After two or three turns, the teacher had everyone not dancing move from the sides of the studio to the front.  What she said next really moved me, and I don’t just mean physically upstage.

She said, “When it’s your turn to dance, remember that just because the exterior energy and the eyes of the room have shifted and are on you now, that doesn’t mean that your interior does anything differently.  You dance your dance.  You tell your story and stick to it.”

I needed that.  Because as the days are long and the hours in my bed are short, so extreme was this word received into my soul.

Now there are those of you reading this who have done life in the nitty gritty with me.  You’ve gotten to know my heart over lunch dates and during late nights, with coffee mugs in hand and with dust from the dance floor still on our feet.  You’ve seen me in my ups and in my downs and have given me grace along every point in between.  You know my heart and understand that it is continually being renewed and transformed from glory to glory.  You also know that I love you, but this entry is not primarily for you.

This entry is for those who have stumbled upon this link but don’t necessarily know my life.  This is for those I’ve only had a couple of encounters with and have read only a couple of my entries.  This one is for you, Stranger and Acquaintance and very well the Customer-I-Served-Today.

That’s not at all to say that I go about promoting my blog with every transaction that I make.  “Have a good one!  Oh and read all of my most intimate thoughts at msmaliawee.wordpress.com!”  Very much on the contrary.

Still, this blog, whether read or not holds me to a certain level of accountability with what I write and with what I live.  Over and above that, it makes me think twice about mentioning the ultimate title to which I claim and cling to but fear tarnishing?  It seems almost taboo to say on days when I feel that my worth is measured by my performance, but how about this?  How about on those very days, ones like today, when I feel like a hot Christian (if I could convey a whisper over a Word document, that would have been the word to do it on) mess.  How about being honest, especially during that time and owning to the fact that indeed, I am a Christian.

Again, for those of you who might not be familiar with God or with faith or religion but only know of us as homophobic and judgmental hypocrites, firstly I apologize more than words can say for missed opportunities to love and a misconstrued message that we often and wrongly communicate.  Nevertheless, I write specifically for you and to you tonight with my metaphorical palms up and my heart open.  And I humbly but boldly declare that I am a Christian.

Now I don’t always feel like one, but feelings are fickle.  I don’t always do the right thing, but it’s not about what I do but rather what He already did on the cross.  I mess up far more than I would care to admit and have bleh days just like everyone else.

Nonetheless, it is my persistent desire that the convictions on this blog would match up with the actions of my life.  That regardless of who is watching or how the energy or eyes of the world may shift about and try to focus on my flawed exterior, I pray that the dance of my interior would remain resolute and that its story would always be about the One who lived the perfect life that pardoned all of my not-even-close-to-perfect days.

May it always and forever point to the One who said, “It is finished.”

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

There is a time to go home to be with family; a time to eat too much chocolate and drink too much coffee at breakfast; a time to watch high school basketball, not so much for the scoreboard but because the coach over there means the world to me.  There is a time to hold mock photo shoots for my other brother and his family because they are constantly thinking of and doing things for everyone else that it’s the very, very least I can do for them.  There is a time to get a massage, and who better to get it with than my mom and what better place than in a back alley, drug-dealing, second-floor apartment turned “massage paradise”.

There is a time to relocate, a time to learn about bank checks and money orders and the importance of finding a responsible broker.  There is a time to get the grand tour of the New York City boroughs.  However, hunting down an incorrectly labeled check around the entire city and then some an hour before friends come to help move is not the time.  Regardless, I digress.  Bringing it back.  Moving on.

There is a time to travel, a time to get on a bus and a time to get on a train.  Don’t get the two confused, though, or you might end up on the side of the freeway in Jersey.  There is also a time to get on an airplane and fly to the middle of nowhere, which really the only high calling I can understand that would take one to such a barren land as Alabama would be to meet up with family.  Many apologies if you have an affinity for the state, though not too many.  Then there is a time to rent a convertible (it’s all they had left).  I personally would never advise one to do that in February during a winter storm.  Be that as it may if your salvation is secure, your affairs are in order, and you’re wearing decent-looking undergarments that you wouldn’t mind the paramedics seeing, YOLO.  That’s up to you.

Then there is a time for dance, a time to work for classes and perhaps the only time, job, and circumstance where you will find me behind a desk is at the studio.  Additionally, there is a time to plant, pour into, and pray for the beginning seedlings of the dance team at church as well as plant, pour into, and pray for the beginning seedlings of the kids I teach in Alphabet City.  But then there is a time to dance-dance—hallelujah—a time to show up to class with my out-of-shape body and say “come what may” knowing that what I care about is what I do and will continue to do, whether or not that comes easily.

Now there is a time to be picky about what is most important, a time to lay the foundation as a young adult of what I want my life to look like and be about.  There is a time to focus in on certain things and give up others to make that life a reality.  As a result, there is a time to go silent on my blog, in order that other adventures are able to happen.

With that said, there is also a time to distinguish between stopping and starting up again and quitting for good.  April sounds like a good time to start writing.  The day I die sounds like a good time to quit.

Cheers to this new season.

Stay tuned.

If a boy creates a heartfelt psalm for the ages though no one is there to read it, does it still matter?  If a boy composes the most delightfully charming melody on his harp though no one is there to hear it, does it still matter?  If a boy catches a lion by its jaw and clubs it to death though no one is there to see it, does it still matter?  If a boy casts a rock with so much force it could kill a man though no one is there to feel it, does it still matter?

If a king carries the anointing of the Holy Spirit but looks after sheep, runs errands for his dad, and then runs around in the wilderness for the next decade or so while a crazy dude tries to kill him, what then does the anointing mean and why does it matter?

Well, in a kingdom where the way up is to get down on your knees; where the way to be extraordinary is to accept the fact that you are ordinary; and where the greatest privilege we are afforded is to make big and glorious Someone Else…in this kingdom, there is a story of a certain king who learned the fundamentals of “How to Have a Heart Like God’s 101” in the pasture of obscurity and monotony all the while picking up sheep doo doo.

(That last clause has not been verifiably fact-checked.)

Thus, if a girl can’t make sense of the present nor see three inches into her future, does anything still matter?

Yes, Malia and every other individual out there who feels as if God has forgotten them on the hamster wheel of menial jobs and murky dreams–everything matters.

Everything.