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brandilion
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Name: Brandie
Metro: Macon
Birthday: 9/21/1984
Gender: Female
Interests: writing, people, art, learning, reading, paint, the fall, being airborne, flying - yeah, like you do in dreams... where you literally float about the air at your own leasiure, God - He's most intresing!
Message: message me
Member Since:
2/26/2005
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| There is a guys sitting over at that other table only 6 or 7 feet away. He is studying. I am blogging my restless feelings about my inadequacies as a human... and moaning at not knowing what to do with my life. I keep looking at him because he looks a lot like my old friend Travis. I hope I'm not creeping him out. He has a wedding ring on his finger. I glance back at mine. I don't. And I think about how it is just a tiny band of metal that is around one's finger or not. And this metal is there to tell everyone that you have made a decision. A promise. It's a big promise actually. One where you decide that you will be in an exclusive relationship with that other person for the rest of your life. You don't really change too much after you get married. You are still you, I would imagine. It's not like a magic ceremony that makes you forget singlehood or who you were for the last 20-some-odd years. You have this big celebration and you are so happy and you take pictures and you say nice things to each other and make all sorts of plans I suppose. And then you slowly settle into your life together. Into the same world with probably the same people. And I guess you still like coffee and go to coffee shops sometimes. And I wonder. I wonder about the habits a person had before he was married. If he was always a flirt or not. Or if she was needy and ate up attention. I wonder if those things just go away when you have made such an important decision like marriage. I don't suppose they do. I think people make very conscious efforts to retrain their social behavior or they try to comply with social ideas of what is and is not appropriate or they are very in love for a while after they get married. But they are back in the regular world now. They look no different than those single people who haven't made that big decision, except of course for the metal. Hopefully their ways and habits have been whole and upstanding throughout there singlehood as to not require much change. And hopefully mine.
As I sit here thinking (Travis-guy is gone now btw; I think my admiring stares might have scared him off), It seems as tho, while all those decision-people still mingle in the same world as those non-decision-people, they are still somehow on a different plain, in a sort of parallel reality. They've gone ahead and decided on a partner for life. It's beautiful. You look at them and admire what they have. But it's also a bit frightening to entertain the idea yourself.
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| The time we spend training, the disciplines we hone, the knowledge we gain, the trades we learn and the skills we master... these sort of things shape our lives. They can be great things. They are also the sorts of things that separate the fools from the wise.
But there are times in life when you realize that all this knowledge and all these disciplines are not enough...You know exactly what to do and yet find yourself powerless to do it.
It's like:
A wrestler may train for years, develop his muscles and be able to fight without even engaging his conscious mind. It becomes second-nature to him. Impressive. Commendable, even.
But that doesn't make him self-sufficient.
His ability is not his energy....
If you starved him of food for a month and throw him in the ring, his knowledge and skill won't do him much good. His body is weak... and he is vulnerable.
Power without knowledge is destructive.
Knowledge without power is useless.
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| Stewardship, He gently tells me again. I pause a second and twirl it around in my head. While He has already drawn my attention to this principle quite a few times lately, He repeats it in answer to a much broader question today. “Why do I get so overwhelmed, especially as I analyze everything?” I ask.
It’s too much for me to handle, that’s why. It’s like I am trying to calculate how to climb Mount Everest and what I need to take with me and how I’m gonna feel and what I’m gonna do when I get there. I’m standing at the bottom anxious and overwhelmed by all the trip entails and the wonder if I can make it or not.
Take a step; start climbing, He says.
When you are faithful with this step then you can have the next; as you climb one step at a time, your stewardship grows and you can possess more. You cannot possess the mountain, if you don’t possess the step. Don’t miss the treasure of the daily decision; if you rule in each small step, in each small circumstance, no matter how trivial or insignificant, then you will eventually find yourself with an enormous capacity to enjoy. More and more things will be a blessing to you rather that overwhelm you. And your wonderful mind, Brandie… I gave you that mind, that ability to analyze and solve problems and create. Now, let me teach you how to use it. You get overwhelmed because you try to figure everything out and fix everything. You want to do so many things, learn so much, swallow life whole; but you’ll miss the flavor, the texture, the rich bounty of life if you try to conquer life’s questions today. Trust Me, learn the value of the daily step; this is the secret to blessing. Come with Me down into the dirt and lets walk; let’s work. The secret place. Just you and I; I’ll teach you how to rule, how to enjoy, how to handle the small stuff. Like I told you in Proverbs, the faithful increase in blessings. You see, blessing is a relative term. It has more to do with one's perspective and capacity, than his circumstance. It’s a personal state-of-being. Rain is a blessing to one who has planted a garden, but to the neighbor who has neglected the leak in his roof, it is a curse. Be faithful, so you can enjoy the rain. So that life is a blessing to you.
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| "There's absolute beauty in our weakness...oftentimes it's in those moments that we can listen to God more clearly. We can understand what to means to rest in Him and He'll take over. It's the gospel of grace. And that's what I love about God."
Text message from Brian Wright
June 21, 2008
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| Poetry is not for the careless.
It’s meaning is woven deep within words as to beckon intimacy. The poet wants to be known. The poet wants real relationship, and thus conceals his heart so that only the true seeker will find it. | | |
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