I have a very good friend once tell me to be free.

I think this line of encouragement is backboned with some words of experience and given in love for what they know i need to hear daily.

With this whole Haiti catastrophe, im reminded so much of how incredible this life is, and how in just a second it can end. Maybe a black and white way of looking at it, but i feel there is no gray area to approach it with. For life, as we know it, is not really in our control. We are not bound to a time-frame and likewise we cannot claim every moment we've yet to have.

This is something I've been learning harshly the last few weeks. This life is not my own. I feel new boldness and confidence because of this. I'm not living for myself, or for the appeal of others. For a very long time, too long for what it left me with, I had this problem where I would try and please others and meet them where they were at. Tending to their brokenness and carrying a burden that was also, not mine. Yes, I know that there is a balance and this is a huge part of my heart-serving the hearts of other people I cross paths with-but it is not a duty or something I will recieve an A+ on or what makes me who I am.

I am free to explore this journey ahead of me without the pull of fear or anxiety or stress or the unknowns or being rejected by people that have become a part of me. I am free to discover and more importantly, to change.

2:39 in the morning. If there were a trigger in my brain to turn everything that keeps me nocturnal off, I would claim it. Unfortunately, God gave me the, "i have too many thoughts happening all at once 24/7" gene, and it causes me to lose sleep. When I was a little girl, I channeled these thoughts and feelings appropriately, in my diary. I did this for a long time until a year and a half ago where events happened in my life and my writing began to subside. I've been encouraged recently to start writing again, and this time sharing it. Its an outlet to express the things I don't understand and that I have a tendency to keep hidden behind the phenomenon of make believe. Thanks to a beautiful leather bound journal from Italy, the loving push from my parents and the inability to fall asleep due to this feeling I'm unable to name, I started typing tonight.

Surrendering the root? The name that came to me. Recognizing that there is a root and beginning to the soul ties and misunderstandings and confusion and feeling and direction and oxygen that breathes into my heart. Now, needing to surrender it all and let the root follow its natural course...to grow into something beautiful. My faith has become an inescapable source of life. There is no more running, God's caught me where He wants me. I feel like putty. It's kind of fun, except I'm not the kindergartner in control of the shape it takes this time.