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humans are so silly. why is it that everyone walks around as if they are okay when sometimes things are clearly not? when someone genuinely asks, "how are you?" i can recall the hundreds of times i've responded "i'm okay, thanks" when really inside i was not okay at all. everyone is so afraid of vulnerability we put on these masks of stoicism. if i had a cut and you had a cut and we both saw that the other person had a cut, wouldn't it make sense to just help each other out and love the other person? the only difference is that hurt or pain on the inside can't be seen. shouldn't it follow the same rules though? if you have a bruise on your heart and i have one too...lets share and cry together and just be honest and try to ease the pain. i understand that it's hard to be vulnerable, and it's unrealistic to think you'll be able to share and be friends with everyone, but if only we could be honest and not try to fudge our feelings away in public. We're human, and God made us to feel all these things. I just wish we could admit that more. When i feel heart ache it makes me long for heaven when we can worship God as a community, as a perfect church, and be happy. that thought makes me feel better because i know that someday that day will come.

i've realized that idleness really does bring on idolatry and sin. when i'm idle i fall into temptation to just do whatever i want, whenever i want to. and when my soul is troubled, i haven't disciplined myself to turn to God and just cry out to him like the psalmist in Psalms 42. Instead i distract myself with things that aren't worth my time and throw myself in these things with a kind of reckless abandon. this summer i have watched two shows that were cancelled before a satisfactory conclusion could be offered. first show was "My So Called Life" with Claire Danes, and the second show i've been watching is "Joan of Arcadia." Both have the typical teenage drama and cute love story, and i've always been a sucker for romance. There is something about a tv show where you know the two people who seem so right for each other will probably end up together eventually, at least for a time. the writers can't help but do what the audience wants to watch, and the audience wants to watch two people who are totally in love with each other. the producers pretty much have no choice but to make it happen. i get so engrossed in their love stories and the suspense that i totally tune out the love story that has already happened and is also in my present. God's love for me, Jesus' sacrifice for me, and the love that continues even when mine seems to stop. Oh if only I weren't so fickle, then I could truly absorb and be fascinated and this unfolding love story instead of the fake one created onscreen.

today i was at the gym on the elliptical listening to a C.J Mahaney sermon entitled "Troubled Soul," because well, these past two days, maybe even for a larger part of the summer, things have kind of been that way. the gym is kind of loud, what with all those machines squeaking and cranking under the weight of overeager exercisers. listening to music is easy because the volume of the song is generally at a constant and it's just the background music that swells occasionally. plus it's predictable. listening to C.J. Mahaney was difficult though. One minute he's speaking at barely a whisper, an the next second his voice is raised and he's talking in a booming tenor. i was constantly turning the volume up to catch his quiet intense words of wisdom, and then turning the volume down so my ears wouldn't fall off when he spoke with passion. sometimes i do that with God too. when He's trying to tell me things quietly, i'll turn up the volume to try to hear it. But he doesn't want the volume turned up, because he's trying to tell it to me softly. When he is trying to make a more obvious point though, i try to turn the volume down because honestly i don't always want to hear it. God's voice is not a volume we can just adjust at our own disposal though.

so school is starting soon. there are a lot of changes this year that i'm not exactly looking foward to. change and I don't go well together. we're like...chocolate and anchovies (haha i googled "two tastes that don't go well together" for that combination. see here. i could have just gone with oil and water but that's boring). but change can be good too. i must keep telling myself this, and hope and have faith that God will see me through.