all my fears are sleeping now, but i am awake
so are the lightning-bugs within me
they are quite awake
my insecurities have fled for the night
and i hope for forever
i cannot tell if i am sleepy or just at peace
but either way i know that i can sleep well tonight
and my fears will be sleeping too
but they will be far far away
and so i wont have to worry about them tonight
oh how good it feels to rest.
Have you ever told anyone your deepest secret? Have you ever exposed your soul to another mortal, because you couldn’t stand to be the only one who knew you any longer.
I have.
If you have then you know the feeling. You know the torture of waiting for their response. You know the horror of believing that they will never look at you the same way again.
I know that horror. And it really is that awful.
Have you ever let anyone know you completely? Have you ever told someone absolutely everything nasty and dark about yourself? If you have then you know. You know what its like to have the weight fall off of your shoulders. It might be shameful, but at least you don’t have to hide anymore.
Have you ever let someone know you like this, and have them look at you with even more love than before? I have.
Has anyone ever trusted you that much that they told you their secrets as well?
Someone has trusted me like that.
I’m not talking about every-day, ordinary, gross school-girl-crush secrets. I’m talking about the kind of secret that makes you lay in bed awake at night with tears streaming down your face. The kind that gave you scars on your wrists and bruises on your bottom lip. The secrets that even you don’t know the whole story about until you actually find someone who you trust enough to tell.
Have you ever found someone who loved you after you told them those secrets? Have you ever had a friend so good, so true, that they would cry along with you, and smile at the end, so that you knew that it meant everything and nothing to them?
I have. And, oh my dear, I am so thankful for him. For without him…who knows who I would have told my secrets to.
I think that maybe the whole point of storytelling is to help you understand your own thoughts. Help you to recall all the little details of your own memories. When you tell a story you want to keep your listener interested, so sometimes maybe you add some details that maybe aren’t exactly what happened. And maybe sometimes you make up a story entirely. But even the fiction is usually a part of you. Maybe it didn’t happen to you, but maybe something like it did. Or maybe you imagined it, just for fun. If you ask me, that is just as much a part of you as things that you never really did.
I think that perhaps fiction is just a way of telling a story that you are afraid to tell. We use different names and different places to disguise ourselves. We use different plots to make ourselves seem more interesting. But to me, the fact that you imagined it, makes you interesting enough.
I think that stories are one of the best ways to get to know someone. I think we should all write and tell more stories. True ones, and slightly less true ones. And ones that show our hearts. For we are humans, and humans long to be known.
Someday. The word we say so often. And if you are anything like me, you do too. Someday… Someday we’ll be together, someday we won’t have to hide, someday we’ll have our own house, someday we won’t have to worry anymore. … Continue reading
The joy that I saw in their eyes was incredible. I wondered if my face was shining like that as well.
A couple weeks ago we were a bunch of misfits. We were lost and hurt and broken into pieces. We we not okay.
But safety pins and razor blades don’t define us anymore. They have no grip on us. All the pain and the weight of it has been lifted off of our shoulders. Only joy remains.
Only peace. Only love. Only grace. We are alive and we are free now.
At first there was pain. There was shame. And we had to bring all of that pain and shame and sin out into the open before we could get rid of it. But once it was out there, we didn’t have to get rid of it. Suddenly, it was already gone.
It was taken away. And joy remains.
His love is like a drug and I cannot get enough.
No, his love is like an ocean, and I am lost in it.
Or perhaps his love is like the sky, and I could fly away in it if I would, but I would rather just sit and stare.
No, no. I know what it’s like. It’s like a dogwood, a new flower blossoming every day, becoming brighter and whiter and more beautiful all the time.
Or it could be that the love he has for me is like my love for him. Maybe that’s it. Maybe our love is the same love, bouncing back and forth between us. That would make all the sense in the world. Don’t you think?
There is something about a love story that makes tears flood our smiles
There is something that makes us grin like cheddar
Something that makes us want to be a part of it, even if only a small part
There is something about a love story that makes our hearts beat a little faster
Something that makes our hands shake and our eyebrows raise
There’s just something about it, something that makes us all wish that we were better people
Something that assures us that we can be better people
Something that makes our insides tumble and our outsides quiver
There is just something about a love story that reminds us of eternity, of the begining
There is just something about a love story that brings people together
Something that says, “yes, that will be you someday”
There is something about a love story that makes us want to sing, to dance, to live
And so we do. We live. And we love. All for the sake of a love story
Promises are sometimes quite hard to keep, as Sam was beginning to realize. He had made a promise to his best friend. He had promised to take her to the beach that evening. And now he couldn’t. Which doesn’t seem like such a big deal. But it was, it really was.
Sam’s best friend, a sweet little girl named Annabelle, was dying. She was dying and Sam had promised to take her to the beach one last time. Annabelle loved the beach dearly. She and Sam had made many memories at that beach. And she wanted to relive them all just one last time.
But Sam couldn’t take her.
Sam was laying in the back of an ambulance. It was too late, he heard them say as he slipped back out of consciousness. He dreamed as he lay there, dreamed of all the old times with Annabelle. All the times they built castles in the sand, and chased gulls that screamed back at them. All the times when they lay there watching as the sun set over the Atlantic.
When he woke again he was in the hospital. There was another hospital bed beside him, and Annabelle lay on it. He looked into her blue eyes, bright as ever and apologized.
“No,” she told her husband. “We’re going to a better shore today.”
He grabbed her wrinkled hand, the same one that he had put a ring on 63 years ago, and he kissed it. She reached over and smoothed down his white hair. And they just lay there. And when they awoke they were on a beach once again, hand in hand. Smiling.
“Thank you for keeping your promise.” Annabelle said. And Sam kissed her.
With My Very Heart 