"...I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God’s way. All my life I have been changing. I changed from a baby to a child, from soft toys to play daggers. I changed into a teenager to drive a car, into a worker to spend some money. I will change into a husband to love a woman, into a father to love a child, change houses so we are near water, and again so we are near mountains, and again so we are near friends, keep changing with my wife, getting our love so it dies and gets born again and again, like a garden, fed by the four seasons, a cycle of change. Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they love it again for all new reasons.

I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die . I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.

Only the good stories have the characters different at the end than they were at the beginning. And the closest thing I can liken life to is a book, the way it stretches out on paper, page after page, as if to trick the mind into thinking it isn’t all happening at once.

Time has pressed you and me into a book, too, this tiny chapter we share together, this vapor of a scene, pulling our seconds into minutes and minutes into hours. Everything we were is no more, and what we will become, will become what was. This is from where story stems, the stuff of its construction lying at our feet like cut strips of philosophy. I sometimes look into the endless heavens, the cosmos of which we can’t find the edge, and ask God what it means. Did You really do all of this to dazzle us? Do You really keep it shifting, rolling round the pinions to stave off boredom? God forbid Your glory be our distraction. And God forbid we should ignore Your glory."

-Donald Miller Through Painted Deserts

This month's theme at fbc: Old School

I think the words you are looking for are 80's fabulous. And yes, we're wearing blue eye shadow.

If only you could have seen my teased bangs at the beginning of the night- they were too amazing for words.

This weekend was a breath of fresh air.

My precious friends came to WFalls to play at our high school coffeehouse: Steven & Rachel Patterson, Isaac Brown, and Josh Jones. I l-o-v-e Rachel Patterson. And she told me that I am going move into their new house and marry her brother. We've never met, but sign me up anyway.

My other precious friend Maury came to town. (See, Shan, you shoulda come home!) We're in the same season of life at the moment: All of our close friends are at least 2 hours away. But, we're tough. We'll make it.

Here's a tip (and have I ever led you astray? No.): Go, RUN if you must, on Tuesday and get the Branch CD Desperate for Real. And please listen to track #12. That's my precious friend Rachel. You will be blessed.

Currently Listening Imagination By Bethany Dillon Hallelujah see related

I nearly threw up when I read that HSU now has facebook (courtesy of Abby's xanga). Seriously. My stomach was churning from a sudden wave of anxiety that crashed over me. Never did I think this day would come (especially not 1 day after I had just posted about facebook being the d-e-v-i-l). I think there are unseen forces working against me. Now, I am left in quite the pickle. To Facebook or not to Facebook? That is the question.

Hallelujah.

Greetings from Wichita Falls...

I went running today with 30 & 40 year-old women. I ran 7 miles. They ran 10 miles. Two questions come to mind: Why am I running with 30 & 40 year olds? Why did they run longer than me? Needless to say, I miss my old (or should I say young?) running partner.

There was a brief time in my life when I valued everything according to chickens. For example, you can get 4 chickens for the price of a Taco Bueno combo-- 5 if you nacho size it. Today, as I was driving with an ice cream cone, I realized I could get 3 ice cream cones for a gallon of gasoline. I then realized that I should not be forced to choose between an abundance of ice cream and gasoline. Ice cream will win. It always will.

I suddenly have power--the kind that a lot of you yearn for daily. I have the power to be on facebook. Don't worry. Just because I have recently earned the status of "student" at MSU doesn't mean that I will give in. I stand strong on my belief that facebook is from the d-e-v-i-l. Besides, I can't just leave all of you H-S-H-S-U-U-ers without access. That would be like Moses skipping into the promised land while yelling, "I'll catch you Israelites on the flip side, suckerrrs!" That's right. You won't be seeing this mug shot on facebook anytime soon. Besides, high school is getting it, so it's gonna go down the crapper soon enough.

Whatever's in front of me, I'll choose to sing Hallelujah.