Dee Dah Day.

I'm reading a book right now that talks about the discipline of celebration. I know... who knew that celebration and joy could be one of the "disciplines"? I’ve come to realize that I’ve been relying on my surroundings and the people in my life to give my happiness and satisfaction and a reason for doing the things I do, and being the person I am, rather than living for my creator. (read Ps 104 and 145 for more on the creativity and awesomeness of our God). God wants me to be happy, but beyond that, he wants me to be joyful. He understands joy and sorrow, and he wants to give me joy beyond my happiness and daily satisfactions.

I really like this quote by John Ortberg:
"Joy is at the heart of God's plan for human beings. The reason for this is worth pondering awhile: Joy is at the heart of God himself. We will never understand the significance of joy in human life until we understand its importance to God. I suspect that most of us seriously underestimate God's capacity for joy. ... God also knows sorrow. Jesus is remembered, among other things, as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief". But the sorrow of God, like the anger of God, is his temporary response to a fallen world. That sorrow will be banished forever from his heart on the day the world is set right. Joy is God's basic character. Joy is his eternal destiny. God is the happiest being in the universe. And God's intent was that his creation would mirror his joy. ... We all live with the illusion that joy will come someday when conditions change. We go to school and think we will be happy when we graduate. We are single and are convinced we will be happy when we get married, etc.. If we don't rejoice today, we will not rejoice at all. If we wait until conditions are perfect, we will still be waiting when we die. If we are going to rejoice, it must be in THIS day. This is the ay that the Lord has made. This is the Dee Dah Day. “

I wrote this last night, and left it there, and didn't sleep all night thinking about it, and woke up this morning at 4am and took it off. But its real and who i am, so i'm putting it back and leaving it. (temporarily at least.)
Did you ever have a friendship die on you that you didn't even realize was dead? Its silly, I cried all the way home after I left my "best friends" and realized that they hadn't even noticed or cared I’d gone. I don't know why my heart is broken, I knew they wouldn't care if I was there or not as I drove over there. I guess what it boils down to is that friendship is a two sided thing. I’ve tried really hard, but there is only so much I can do to keep it alive, and there reaches a point where I just have to sit back and let it be, not hold onto the way it used to be. I definitely don’t want the patched up obligatory sort of friendship that is inevitable after a conversation of this nature, and I don’t want guilt or remorse or a superficial sort of covering up. I guess I want the real thing, and maybe it’s fleeting. I know what it feels like to grow out of a friendship - not in a “I never want to hang out with you again” way, but in a subtle “our lives have moved in different directions” sort of way, which makes it really hard to be best friends. Its not that we’ve stopped being friends, or had a fight or argument of any kind. Its just that they honestly wouldn’t give me much more time than they’d give a random stranger (maybe even less since they know “I’ll be fine”), and it seems that unless I ask specific questions about their lives, the most I‘ll get is generic weather talk. This is what we’ve come to. What I hate most is the ability to look into the face of people you love and read their emotions - understand how they feel about you and actually empathize while being on the receiving end of it. The most frustrating thing is the fact that somehow I never figured out how we were growing apart, and I have no clue how to get back there. Which leads me to my earlier point: if my life revolves around every thoughtless word, gesture (or lack thereof) of a mere human, then I’m bound for failure. Nobody could ever live up to the faultless standard of Jesus as a best friend, and when I look somewhere else for value and gratification, of course I’m going to get hurt. Sometimes its hard to replace flesh and bones friendship for one that seems a little more abstract - even if it is perfect.

Well, I've been told that blogs are a place for honesty and being real, so I guess you got the raw, full deal. As I was driving home and crying, I was thinking to myself, “stop being such a girl”, but I am a girl, and maybe girls cry as much as we do because we feel things that we can’t necessarily explain. None of what I’ve said probably makes any sense to anybody but me, but I feel like I’ve lost something very precious and unique, but its so subtle that I don’t think anybody would even see it. Maybe its true. Maybe I am just a hormonal girl who reads too much into situations and has her heart broken over trivialities. Maybe I am just drugged up, sick and overtired. Maybe. But I’m still crying. At least i can run to my Father who understands every grief. Dee Dah Day.