This morning I realized that I hadn't bought a new journal in over 3 years, possibly more. I have a journal that I had been using in that time, but it was woefully neglected for the majority of it. I've been realizing a few things over the past several days, the kinds of things that need journaling (and are not yet ready for public consumption, though perhaps at some point in the future), and I decided that these new thoughts perhaps needed a new journal.
After a Goldilocks-esque perusal of B&N's selection, a journal that had a drawing of a bird and a rainbow on the cover grabbed my attention even though it wasn't necessarily "my style." I flipped through it and delightedly discovered perfect line spacing, colorful but not obnoxious doodles around the edges of the pages, a scent that reminded me of India, and "where troubles melt like lemon drops" written in small cursive on the back cover. It was perfect.
I don't like "The Wizard of Oz," but rainbows and troubles like lemon drops are things that resonate with me.
After my journal success, I headed over to the Jesus books. I wasn't necessarily looking for anything in particular or even anything at all, but I thought I'd browse. I was checking out what they had by Henri Nouwen when a bright orange book caught my eye. I checked it out and it seemed to fit well with the realizations I'd been having recently. It's called Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Nature of Everyday Life by Shauna Niequist. (The fact that the author has the same name as my best friend did not escape my notice either. I took that as a good sign.)
This is the passage that sold the book for me:
"I just turned 30, and I'm finally willing to admit something about life, or at least my life, and it's this: I should have written in pencil. I should have viewed the trajectory of my life as a mystery or an unknown. I should have planned lightly, hypothetically, and should have used words like 'maybe' and 'possibly.' Instead, every chance I got, I wrote in stone and Sharpie. I stood on my future, on what I knew, on the certainty of what life would hold for me, as though it was rock. What I know now is that instead of rock, it's more like a magic carpet, a slippy-slidy-wiggly thing, full of equal parts play and terror. The ground beneath my feet is lurching and breaking, and making way for an entirely new thing everytime I look down, surprised once again by a future I couldn't have predicted."
I have done the same, but when the rock of the future I had planned for myself crumbles I hold tight to it, trying to protect the rubble, grasping and begging for it to be sturdy and stable and real, rather than letting it go to see and accept with an open heart the foundation that God is actually building for me. (I think) I'm ready to start dreaming in maybes and relinquish my Sharpie. It feels freeing.
After a Goldilocks-esque perusal of B&N's selection, a journal that had a drawing of a bird and a rainbow on the cover grabbed my attention even though it wasn't necessarily "my style." I flipped through it and delightedly discovered perfect line spacing, colorful but not obnoxious doodles around the edges of the pages, a scent that reminded me of India, and "where troubles melt like lemon drops" written in small cursive on the back cover. It was perfect.
I don't like "The Wizard of Oz," but rainbows and troubles like lemon drops are things that resonate with me.
After my journal success, I headed over to the Jesus books. I wasn't necessarily looking for anything in particular or even anything at all, but I thought I'd browse. I was checking out what they had by Henri Nouwen when a bright orange book caught my eye. I checked it out and it seemed to fit well with the realizations I'd been having recently. It's called Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Nature of Everyday Life by Shauna Niequist. (The fact that the author has the same name as my best friend did not escape my notice either. I took that as a good sign.)
This is the passage that sold the book for me:
"I just turned 30, and I'm finally willing to admit something about life, or at least my life, and it's this: I should have written in pencil. I should have viewed the trajectory of my life as a mystery or an unknown. I should have planned lightly, hypothetically, and should have used words like 'maybe' and 'possibly.' Instead, every chance I got, I wrote in stone and Sharpie. I stood on my future, on what I knew, on the certainty of what life would hold for me, as though it was rock. What I know now is that instead of rock, it's more like a magic carpet, a slippy-slidy-wiggly thing, full of equal parts play and terror. The ground beneath my feet is lurching and breaking, and making way for an entirely new thing everytime I look down, surprised once again by a future I couldn't have predicted."
I have done the same, but when the rock of the future I had planned for myself crumbles I hold tight to it, trying to protect the rubble, grasping and begging for it to be sturdy and stable and real, rather than letting it go to see and accept with an open heart the foundation that God is actually building for me. (I think) I'm ready to start dreaming in maybes and relinquish my Sharpie. It feels freeing.
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