It was worth it.

I climbed out of bed and pulled on my shoes,

Then stepped out into the cold.

Cool, clean moonlight glowed on the snow,

And the night sky appeared not dark,

But richly blue.

I looked at the stars and wished you could see this, too.

But as you could not,

I assure you, it was beautiful.

Living Beyond the Moment

Good news, everyone: I have been convicted of something that I have been doing wrong. I am really very grateful for this, and though it is troubling to see something within myself that I am ashamed of, I am so glad to be able to begin to see it clearly. 

Here it is: I live to make myself, and those I love, feel happy. 

In some ways this is not such a very bad thing. I love to encourage people and to cheer them up when times are hard. But too often I resort to distracting them from their troubles rather than trying to help them work through the problem at hand. I do this to myself, too. Rather than dealing with things that need to be addressed, I distract myself with friends, music, books, movies, writing, Youtube, candy, cooking. I live to feel good, and often I desire little more for my friends than for them to feel good, too.

Which is so shallow and short-sighted. Of course what I should be living for is seeing God's will done in my life. The problem is, God's will for my life does not always make me happy. My sinful, selfish flesh resents everything God wants for me. Too often I let the desires of my short-sighted flesh overrule my wish to do what is right. I need to take the reigns away from my emotions and give them to God instead. Because obviously I am not strong enough to resist temptation on my own. I've been trying to do that for years, and it just doesn't work. 

Favorite Things Tag

So, I've been tagged by Embers, who is awesome, to share some pictures of my favorite thing in my bedroom. Soooo, I introduce to you ... Simba.

Simba is the oldest and wisest of the stuffed animals in my family's stuffed animal kingdom. In all our childhood games he was the kind, wise ruler of all the toys. I don't really play with toys anymore but Simba still lives on my bed, and he lets me hold him whenever I want. He's better than most cats in this respect. Also he never pricks me with his claws.

Simba has gotten "a lot of love" over the years, which is to say that he looks pretty beat up. As you can see in this picture, he has lost a lot of the hair on his back, and I seem to recall accelerating that process. He's also lost a lot of weight ... somehow ... but in spite of all, he is still a nice stuffed animal to cuddle, soft on the outside, yet pleasantly firm.

He's so mellow.

This is where you can usually find Simba, up near the head of my bed.

Fun facts: Simba's wife is my stuffed animal Nala, who does not live on my bed. Their four children are Rosie the bulldog, Tiger the kitty, Michael the horse, and Jordan the bull. All of them are biological children except for Kitty ... just kidding. She's their biological child, too.

All right! Now that I've shared pictures of my favorite things, I get to tag five other bloggers to do the same! Except I don't know five bloggers who haven't been tagged ... so I'll tag some others too and you can share the picshys on Google+ if you wish.

My sisters

Julie

Lady Gargoyle

Cassie

Anybody else who wants to!

Have fun! Adios.

Freedom

You found in your pocket the keys to my cage,
And came to let me go.
I raised my head and smiled at you,
But shook my head sadly, no.

"I've got so much to do," I said,

"I can't possibly get away.

But if you wait a little while,

I'll soon come out and play."

link

Reality Check

You

are

important,

though not for the reasons you think.

It has nothing to do with how smart you are.

It has nothing to do with your talent, your sense of style,

your conduct, your looks, or your social status.

It's not because of the people who love you,

or the people you love.

It's not because of the great things you have done,

the lives you have saved.

No.

You are important because 

God made you,

and nothing you can do will ever change that.

What a relief.

link

I found a swingset beneath the stars,

And I could not resist.

I swung as hard as I could,

Grinning into the wind on my face,

Flinging back my head to stare at the stars.

I told myself, if I could just swing high enough,

I could fling myself upwards,

And soar into the stars.

I could compare notes with the astronauts,

And we could talk with shining eyes about the things we had seen.

No one else would understand just how wonderful it had been.

It would be our secret

That we wished the world was in on

All of a sudden I had an urge to write a long passage in elvish ...

My handwriting is a lot more compact than J. R. R. Tolkien's when he writes in elvish. For those of you who can't read elvish, here's what it says ...

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all who wander are lost

Old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be King!

Which Lord of the Rings civilization do you think you'd fit into best? Pretty sure I'd live in Gondor ... yeah, I'd live in the city with all those tall, dark-haired people. (I know what you're thinking: But Faramir and Boromir are blond! Well, not in the book they're not. Look it up!)