New

New things are nice.
I've always liked them.
When I was growing up, new things were a point of celebration, connection.
I grew up on new things.
My parents believed all things were dispensable. When we didn't want something anymore, we just got something new. We didn't keep furniture for 50 years. We had it for 10. The red couch in our living room?
New.
Nobody kept old coats or shoes from the 1970's in the attic. We didn't have that Chanel suit that someone's grandma bought in 1960 and wore thin. We didn't keep a carved wooden owl that used to hold up Grandpa's books during the depression.
We were immigrants. Everything we had was left behind somewhere else. There were no heirlooms.
So, I've always wondered: What is my heirloom? What will I leave my kids?
I just moved into a new house.
A new room.
New roommates.
I started a new job last week.
New office.
New faces.
New routine.
Sometimes all these new things can start to make you wonder who you are.
I used to be the person that worked a job I didn't like, going home to a house that made me a little dizzy, in a neighborhood I had always dreamed existed, living a life I thought was fake.
Now, I'm the person who works a 9-5 job I can't believe is real: free Starbucks all day, every kind of soda imaginable, views from the 18th floor of downtown, writing, editing and taking photos, leaving at 5 and sometimes before.
New.
In all this, I sat down the other day, and wondered why something still feels like it's missing.
And I remembered God.
A little. Just a little.
He was a faint memory somewhere in the back of my mind. He was like the purple smear left on the inside of your eyelids when the camera flashes. He was sitting in the back of the room, in a big chair, behind all the other things.
Old.
No longer new. No longer the latest shiny thing. No longer exciting.
Why God, I wondered, Why did you have to be born old?
And I thought about those people who become succesful and famous and they dump their families.
God gave me all the shiny new things I wanted.
But he was old.
And he is the oldest thing I have. Old from of old. He isn't new at all. And it doesn't fit in my brain that I will ever want something old, that I could desire to see the same thing again and again. My dad says the angels revolve around god and see a new face every time.
Maybe.
But I never see his face to begin with.
I think we're afraid of the journey.
I think we're afraid to say our doubts aloud, to mention them, to scream them, to talk about them, to write them down. Our dark thoughts get swallowed by thick bible verses people tell us to read and remember. We ignore them until they pop up like bubbles in the middle of the night, and then we're suddenly caught wondering: what if God is the only thing I ever have to pass down to my children?
Will that be enough for me?

Whose been stomping on my bridge?

I stopped writing in my blog about one month ago when my blog reports told me no one was really reading it. Like a true writer, I died a little inside.
I have this little thing at the bottom of my page, and it tells me how many hits I'm getting.
To my surprise- this morning: I got 30 hits last week!
And the week before? 28!
Confusing considering that whoever is reading this, is reading old entries.
For your sake reader, I will write.
Thank you.

Marriage, Incorporated.

Yesterday, Josh called me and asked me where I'd want to get married, and when.
Yup. That's what I said.
You can feel free to reread that sentence.
Even as I write this, I seriously think I must be out of my mind.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
This guy has avoided and completely deflected ANY and ALL talk of commitment or marriage for three years- and he suddenly called to ask me about dates, times, locations, family involvement, and how much money we've both got in the bank.
?????
I am lost.
Don't get me wrong- this is GREAT! but, very confusing. Here I was thinking that my boyfriend and I were on the verge of a breakup, since I imagined that he never even thought about marriage, and very soon, we'd be going our post-grad separate ways.
???
UMM.
So I think my stance on this is going to be: this isn't happening. Until something is actually happening, then nothing is happening.
It's just too weird.
I've been told for two years to stop putting my hope in marriage. So, now, I can't even believe it's going to happen. It's as if after years of not believing, Santa Clause, just became real.
I am in the exact opposite situation as most of my friends. The majority of women I know have (or had) boyfriends who wouldn't STOP talking about marriage. I sat there, for two years, wondering what was going on in my own relationship.
And my boyfriend was completely silent.
:/
I just got used to it, I guess.

Access: Denied.

For about a year now (could be more) I have been learning about God's Grace.

I grew up in a points-based system.
You either got points by being a good kid (and of course, love- by which I mean affection, compliments and favor), or you didn't.
It was easy to get the favor and love of my parents as long as you did all the "right" things. The not-so-easy part was figuring out what "all the right things" were.

Like-
*Was it right to make the bed first thing in the morning? Or could it wait until after breakfast? *Was it right to leave shoes lying on the ground? Or did they need to be put in the closet?
*Was it right to express your opinion? Or did you have to keep your mouth shut?
*Was it right to ask for a hug? Or should you leave your parents alone when they're tired?

Yeah, it was like that.
My parents suffered from a syndrome I like to call "too much fear, not enough trust". They didn't have anyone to trust their kids with (some parents trust their children to the Lord), so they feared for us to a fault- and made sure we didn't get the least bit out of line. There was NO grace in my house. If you made a mistake, you paid for it by getting ignored or losing your rights to affection. On top of that, no one ever let you forget your mistakes. NOT EVEN THE SMALL ONES. And when you grow up in a points-based system, you become a points-based person.
So I have very little grace.

But don't pity me! Not at all. The beauty of growing up in points-based system is that you will ALWAYS have more awe toward grace. I am always AMAZED at God's grace. It is so different than anything I knew growing up, and anything I could ever muster out of my own person. And it amazed me when my mom became a Christian and began to exhibit GRACE for me and our family members. It changed my family! And still is changing my family to this day.

The greatest thing in all the world, in all of history, is God's grace toward us. In the realization of how pathetic we really are, how little what we do (or have) is worth, and how much we truly deserve to be left alone to die somewhere (you might think this harsh, but it's true) God is not a points-based God. His grace overflows to us not just on the day of our salvation (for eternal life) but everyday thereafter.

God always sees us through the eyes of his grace.

Day 2: No Complaining

So I finally caved.

I am giving up shopping for lent.

Honestly, there is nothing in the world besides PURE CONVICTION that made me cave- and other than the fact that yesterday I opened a book my super friend Taylor Yves lent me to explain Lent, and reasons behind fasting.
Now, usually I am not a bible dipper-

Bible dipper (n):
Person who opens bible to a random page in order to hear MAGICALLY from God in an out-of-context attempt to revolve the universe (and Bible) around themselves.

However- yesterday, I "dipped" into a page of this book, and opened to the page on:

G r e e d .

OY VEY.

So, I am reading about how our accumulated possessions eventually make us lose TRUST in God's provision. And when we begin to think he can't provide some clothing, then might be tempted to think he can't provide housing, and then maybe we think he can't provide a family, or eternal life, or even himself, and then maybe we might start thinking he can't provide anything at all.

SO now I know why I've been hanging on to my friends, my house, my milk, my college life, my old habits, my clothing, my stupid bed sheets, my dressers, my shoes, my sweaters, my toothbrushes... everything.

I just don't trust God to provide all the things he provided once... again.
The harder I try to attain these things on my own, the less I believe that God has the ability to provide them.

And the more I work to provide these things for myself, the less generous I become- because when you work for something, you don't want to give it up. You don't want to give it away to someone else.

I didn't work for my apartment- God handed it to me on a silver platter. That's why whenever I even think to withhold it from someone, I am convicted to be generous.
In the past, I trusted God for even slices of bread- and when people asked to borrow bread, I didn't hoard it- because I knew if he provided it once, he could do it again.
My greed has blinded me to the truth of God's provision.

I feel like God is trying to bless me by showing me his provision, his love.
He is able to give us everything we need- down to a piece of bread.
And, I personally, never really ask him.

So, for the next 39 days, I will give up being greedy.
No more greed.
And probably I won't complain either. If everything I have comes from the Lord, and his provision, what is there to complain about?

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. And he can giveth whatever he want. And he can damn well taketh too.

Hell.

My life is a slumber party, everyday.
There are brownies being baked, and girls laughing at the tops of their lungs, and art projects streamed across the kitchen table.
There are movies to be watched, and places to go, and boys to talk about.
Sometimes, there are games to be played.
We come into our house with a grand entrance, and we proclaim at the top of our lungs how alive we really are.
We work out, we stay out, we pass out, we laugh out, we do everything one can possibly imagine.
If there is ever a day when one of us stays home with a fever on the couch, the others pass along the ice packs.
If there is ever a time when the fridge breaks, then we scatter to pile everything onto the balcony where our food can rest easy at 29 degrees.
We clean pools of water, we take care of other people's dogs, we open packages in the mail, we tell stories, we cry.
We sit at our windows and look out over the city God handed us on a silver platter, over the lake he stopped 5 blocks from our house, and the snow he covered everything in for miles.
We make trips to Target, we take walks in the park across the street, we drive around frantically looking for IHOP, we smuggle new furniture in, we smuggle old christmas trees out.
But it's not reality.
People don't really live like this. Not forever, anyway.
And it's just begun to sink in that my long streaming slumber party that started in 2006 may come to an abrupt halt.
And I don't want to think about how much time I spent in my childhood sitting alone in my room, watching TV by myself because I lived in a house where closed doors were the expected norm, where introverts stared at me when I would walk into their rooms like I was some kind of a freak for wanting human interaction.
And so, I craved human interaction my entire life, human contact. I craved it so much that I hated Miami for all it was worth. I blamed my entire city for the one thing I seemed to be missing more than anything:
relationship.
And now, I've overdosed.
How can I turn back?
Yesterday some of my co-workers were joking that they'd rather go to hell and be with the fun sinners than go to heaven and be with the boring hypocrites.
And I thought:
What if heaven isn't a bunch of boring little angels playing harps and lyres and singing on the clouds all day long?
What if heaven is more like a culmination of every moment in your life where you knew real people, real relationships, real crying, real joy, and the real presence of an almighty God? What if heaven is the most real it will ever get? The most melded together patchwork of human beings smashing into each other in moments of sheer glory, doing things that are beyond their imaginations, and thanking God that he exists and created every single person NEVER to be alone?
And what if hell isn't a bunch of guys sitting on a couch and drinking beers among some small campfires?
What if hell is being totally and completely alone? No friends, no family, no God? Being isolate forever, with no chance of ever finding anyone or anything that could possibly bring a bit of relationship into your spirit?
What if that's hell?
Total isolation, apart from everything and anything, and completely hopeless of ever being found. No peace, no joy, no happiness.
I guess I don't think hell is funny, and although I can usually laugh at the things my friends who don't really know God might say (about other things). For some reason, yesterday, I felt a ball of fear grow in my neck and spread down into my chest when I thought about giving up my life now- and how much harder it would be to give up the hope of living a life even better than mine- in heaven.
It was terrifying.
And I didn't choose not to laugh on principle in order to "minister" to my co-workers and "show" them that hell isn't a "laughing matter".
No.
It was just the most terrifying thing I could ever imagine.
And I sat there, honestly afraid for them. And even, honestly afraid for myself.
And although some of you might say that I don't have to be afraid because I am saved, and try to comfort me with those "christianies"- I say:
To hell with it.
Let me be afraid of pure isolation from God and people.
It is the healthiest fear I could ever have.

A very fat tuesday

I don't necessarily agree with celebrating Lent- since I find it difficult to believe that God, who asks us not to live by works, would also ask us to self sacrifice for 40 days.
hmm.
But, some of my friends have come up with good ideas for how to celebrate Lent. In an effort to learn more about the world, and explore their sin (I guess), they have decided to refrain from certain things during the Lenten season.
I don't know how useful this is, since every time I try to teach myself something, God just reminds me that I need HIM to teach me, but I suppose God can use Lent for the sake of teaching, and even our self-sacrifice (which I am sure he doesn't want just for the sake of self-sacrifice).
Matthew 9:13 "Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."
So, out of love (for everyone around me, and for God), I have decided to give up complaining.
I know, the irony. Since, I have technically been complaining about Lent for 2 paragraphs.
Yes, I have decided to give up complaining.
And really, I don't even know what that's going to mean- since I think complaining is SUCH a part of my life that I often don't even realize I'm doing it.
40 days of no complaining.
I think I will fail everyday.
Maybe it will be more like "40 days of remembering God's grace for me, and trying not to complain"
LOL
So, my blog may not be any fun for the next 40 days- but instead, maybe I will replace my complaining with gratitude. God has been very good to me, even on the worst of days.
Today, as I was walking to work I was praying and thinking and I thought to myself: God, you know, we do all these works for you, and what do we get in return?
And the holy spirit, just said inside me: eternal life.
and I muttered back, "great eternal life for works?"
and he muttered back, "no Luisa, eternal life, and works. You get to do my works. And that is a reward in itself."
I always think of Paul dying in prison.
I wonder if he complained.
No matter what happens after tomorrow, NO COMPLAINING.

"F" is for February.

A list of 10 things I can't do in February
(in Chicago- since I know some of you will sarcastically remark that you can do these things elsewhere, but that doesn't matter to me since I am STUCK in CHICAGO):

1. Sit in the grass.
2. Roll in the grass.
3. Walk down the street in shorts.
4. Fall on the sidewalk and land on dry ground.
5. Eat ice cream outside on a park bench
6. Wear sunglasses (come on, it's ridiculous no matter how sunny it is).
7. Stand outside pondering things, or sit outside pondering things.
8. Ride my bicycle through the sludge
9. Pick flowers
10. Listen to the tweeting of little birdies.

On the flip side...

A List of 10 things I CAN do in February, which I could otherwise not DO:

1. Wear ridiculous hats, even indoors.
2. Jump over puddles of water and ice like a three year old.
3. Threaten people with snowballs.
4. Justify the total absence of all exercise.
5. Hitch a ride everywhere by complaining that I have "no car" and giving a puppy face.
6. Get snow days off from work! WOO HOO!
7. Warm my cold-as-a-dead-man's hands on people's necks (BWAHAHAHAHA!)
8. Sleep cozied up in my down comforter.
9. Justify the use of a Happy light.
10. Stop shaving. I mean, really STOP.

HAHAHAHAHA!
Sorry t.m.i.

Anyway- I'm not so bummed, but I am ready for March. Good thing February is known to be the shortest (and longest) month of the year.

Selfish little Piggy.

OH MAN I'm SELFISH?
Dang.
Really?
So you mean I always want to get my own way, and do what I wanna do, and have things how I wanna have them, and live how I wanna live, and think how I wanna think?
Oops.
Yesterday, I went to see a comedy show starring my friend Matt Jones (who is a comedy genius).
And I wanted to leave by 10:15 so that I could be in bed by 10:30, since I had to wake up this morning by 6:00 to get to work by 7:30.
Sidenote- I don't know if you know me AT ALL, but I COVET my sleep. I mean, I get reeeeeally pissed when I can't get my full eight hours, like BEYOND what's considered a normal level of pissed, to a new EXTREME level that becomes annoying to the people around me (i'm sure) and puts me in a REALLY bad mood. I mean, I am turning RED and mad, and grunting and hissing and hurrying everybody around me.
SO, Matt's show went long, and I ended up leaving the bar at 10:30. Whatever, 15 minutes right? And then, I ended up getting home at 10:40.
You would think a normal response would have been: Who cares? It's fifteen minutes.
No, my friends.
Not only did I manage to wring myself into a huff like the Tasmanian devil, and hiss at everyone around me, and stomp my feet, and do the "pout" (girls you know what I'm talking about). I actually started to remind myself of Scarlett O'Hara in that one scene (well more like, in every scene).
And you should've seen poor Stunkel.
He was so sad.
He had tried so hard all night to promise me that he'd have me home on time, and then to actually get me there on time. And he had gone out of his way to plan our date, and to be kind throughout it, etc.
And I was just huffing and puffing away.
OOPS.
Anyway- I ended up having to apologize (because how could I NOT apologize?) and then kicking myself in the butt quite a bit for being mean to him.
GAW! Selfish.
The worse part is that this morning, the Holy Spirit reminded me that it doesn't matter how kind we are to someone when we're in a good mood. We can be kind to our worse enemy in a "good" mood. It's when we've been wronged, hurt, or are annoyed, mad (pick your adjective) that being kind to others (and gracious) really matters.
I'll be praying for that, then.
Also- I began to realize that the majority of what Jesus asks of us is that we put others before ourselves. How can I do that when I've barely been putting God himself before my own needs, desires, wants, etc?
I'll be praying for that too.

The Gods Must be Crazy.

Don't feel like writing today, don't know why.
Tried writing some of my fiction story for submission, but just kind of ended up lost in it.
I find it's best on these days, to leave it alone.
I don't want to become disenchanted with my story- especially since it's taking off.
So, no writing today.
Instead- a funny picture:
As you can CLEARLY tell, this is the Nativity. Daniel, center (in the yoga pose) is the manger, holding baby Jesus (played by a stuffed hippo). Ryan, who looks like a cow, actually claims to be a sheep. Above him, we have Mary and Joseph (although I don't think they intended it that way). And as you OBVIOUSLY have already noted, I am guest STARRING (Ha, pun) as the STAR.

:)

Give it away, give it away, give it away NOW.

I drank too much caffeine last night, which means I stayed up all night thinking about my latest story/ contest entry.
I've come up with some good stuff, I think.
Well, I guess everybody thinks their own stuff is good.
Anyway, I mostly just laid in my bed last night twitching and shaking my leg, and bouncing like an old man with restless leg syndrome.
I hate caffeine.
I think I will ban caffeine from my life at any hours past 5 p.m.
Also, last night, thanks to Sara, I cleaned out my closet.
I am not kidding.
I must have thrown out (i mean "put into the donate pile") at least 15 items.
You must be thinking "Good job! You're doing so well."
Yeah, right.
Mostly, I will replace those 15 items with another 15 items.
If Joyce Meyer was here, she would say that "whatever you confess with your mouth, will happen".
"Expect the good".
So I figure, I will expect to be tempted to buy 15 more things, and that somehow, God will stop me.
I will confess though, that I did purchase a new pair of boots.
To which you are thinking "GAW! Luisa, come on! Stop! Can't you just stop?"
Here's my problem:
BOREDOM.
Sheer, UTTER, RIDICULOUS, ALL ENCOMPASSING BOREDOM.
I am freaking bored, especially at work. So, I spend most of my free time online "browsing". It takes me about 30 minutes per day to do the work I need to do, and in my down time, I don't know what to do with myself.
Okay fine, more than 30 minutes.
But, then I am bored again, and find myself browsing and browsing.
Why not read the news instead?
Because browsing makes me happy, and news makes me depressed.
Which is why, I have begun writing instead.
It's much more productive, methinks.
And less expensive.
In fact, if I win the latest contest, I will get 1,200 dollars. And then, I can pay off some student loans. This, is a very promising prospect. I owe tons of money in student loans, and I hope that I will win at least one of these contests.
In other news, unrelated, I think I have a coveting problem.
I think coveting is mostly just wanting something you don't currently have.
Without any real NEED for it.
Like someone's wife, or someone's house, or someone's position at work, or someone's talent, or someone's looks-
or someone's boots.
Yes, I have a coveting problem. At least God has made me aware of it, and I am not just sitting in my heap of covet-ness hoping that things will get better. I always trusts that God makes us aware of things because he wants to make sure that we can admit how powerless we are in that area, and then turn to him for help. And when we do, he helps us.
Rob Bell gave a sermon once where he talked about how everything is spiritual. And sometimes, as God's people, we can begin to live in the "material" versus the spiritual. I dont think he meant the material, like material "posessions". Although, that is part of it.
I think he meant more like the things we can see, feel, touch rather than the ethereal.
I think this kind of behavior really kills any hope we have in Jesus. The more I think about what's actually in front of me (like my clothing, my job, my co-workers, my community, my house) the less I can focus on God's greater purpose and plan, the way he is orchestrating our lives, his ministry at my school, and the material things he wishes I'd let go of so I could hang on to him instead.
The bible says "hate what is evil, cling to what is good".
Sometimes we label "evil" as a person, or a thing, or a behavior. But what if what is "evil" is a state of being? A state of living in the putrid stinking old habits of sinful man? Of experiencing only the things in front of us, the material?
And what if what is good is a state of living in the spiritual, of offering our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, a state of giving to others before ourselves and trusting that God will see and meet our needs? What if what is good is no longer coveting those things we can't have, and being content to give away everything we do have? What if we were truly able to let go?
Would we be willing to give away everything?
Even our very lives?
Sometimes I wonder why Jesus asked that one rich guy to give away all of his possessions. I don't think that it's because Jesus thinks it's bad to have stuff. Maybe it's because it's bad to LOVE your stuff more than Jesus. Or maybe it's because, ultimately, God asks us to lay down our lives (our dreams, our hopes, our desires, and even our physical existence) for his kingdom.
And if you can't even give away your tunic, rich guy, how can you give away your very life?
I ask myself the same thing.

I wish I had pictures to post from this weekend's amazing dance party.
Picture about 40 people crammed into a tiny vintage apartment in the south loop, the city lights coming in through the windows, the Christmas lights still hung on the walls, and the music beating in our ears. The glow on everyone's faces, the hands up in the air, then down again.
God, I love my life.
We danced to things we loved when we were young, and now things we love when we are old. We ate fake red velvet cake until our bellies hurt, and we stayed up late.
The apartment is packed with all those things your parents wouldn't let you put up in their house, paintings you made, street signs you found, pictures your friends took. And these people haven't gotten too old and stuffy to hang up those things. The great divide between adulthood and childhood. We found it at this house.
And we danced into the night.
I love knowing that God saw me many years ago while I was lost and misplaced in Miami, and gave me a desire: for a life lived in the high rises of a city I could not picture or imagine, with people who were REALLY alive, who really knew what it meant to be free, who could really taste the true side of things. He saw my desire for art, for music, for vulnerability in a community, for friendships that go deeper than last night's beer, and for love.
Real love.
He set me in the one place where I could have those things, in the place where I could walk down my street and say hi to my friends (who are also my neighbors). In the midst of buildings and parks, I live my life, I walk my walk, according to the author of freedom.
And I could dance on Saturday night knowing that he was smiling at us.
He gave it all. He gave us the places, the people, the moments. That one night, the culmination of everything I have ever dreamed my life would be, came true.
I'm here, I thought, it really happened.
He wanted me to have it just as much as I did.

a new story, an old story.

Sometimes, the dark places, dark things, can start to follow us. I mean, really follow us.

I started work on a new story yesterday for submission in February.
I've promised myself that even though I've graduated art school, I am going to keep submitting and hopefully winning some money for my writing. And some credit.
Unfortunately, sometimes my stories are pretty dark in nature.
The last one got me in a funk for two days, where I had nightmares and weird thoughts.
This latest story is starting to have the same effect.
I think sometimes when we open a door, we can't control what comes in.
In order to write these stories, I have to open myself (and my mind) up to some dark things. I have to be willing to think about my characters, and where the dark corners of their minds are, and just how far they're willing to go to get what they want.

The weird thing is- I like it.
I know that sounds bad. But, a part of me likes these dark places in people. They are more mysterious, they make better stories, they are a side of life that is exciting.
Not that I want to live that way.
But, it's just so interesting.
Don't get scared. I'm not dwelling there. But my characters are. They live there, they hang out in these dark places. They feed on them.
Yeah, I know. It's creepy.

But the creepiest part is that something inside of me really is a writer that never stops working, even in my sleep.
For example, I am writing a story about a bad boy and the good girl who starts hanging out with him because she's weirdly fascinated by him.
And last night, I dreamed with someone in my life who was very similar to this character. Someone in my past.
And in the dream, he locked my entire family in a house and burned it to the ground, while I was watching, because I had fallen for some "nice" guy.
Whoa.
So, I figure I'll stick this in my story. Hey, I may as well not suffer through weird nightmares for nothing.

But, I'll close that dark door once I finish it. And unlike my past self, I won't re-open it. I won't even walk in there, and I definitely won't make a home in it. Maybe my dark stories will help people wish for something light, maybe they won't. But they will for me.

heel prison.

I remember that becoming a Christian was an awakening for many reasons. But one night, as I was sitting out on the lawn of my apartment building, waiting for the breeze to pass- I remember the main reason that becoming a Christian rocked my world.

Hunched over, pressing my knees to my chest, eyes closed, I experienced the weirdest and greatest thing I ever have in my entire life:

God Talks.

Yeah, that's what I said.

And my life was never the same. For some reason, the thought that the God of all the universe could somehow communicate with me via thoughts, or the bible, or billboards, or other people, became an object of obsession. From then on, I thought, I pleaded:
GOD, PLEASE TALK. THAT IS SO COOL.


If you're not a Christian right now, you think I am crazy. Actually, even if you are a Christian, you might think I am crazy. But God has been talking to me a lot lately. I know some people think God doesn't care about the little things in our lives- but he does. He often proves he does when we least expect it. Although, he doesn't have to prove anything.
But he's God like that.

So, yesterday I am feeling down and bummed and miserable. I have been stuck in the house for six hours, the sun is not shining, and in a great vat of self-pity, all I can think about is how hard life has been post-grad. So, naturally, what do I do?

DSW.

If you don't know what DSW is, it's because you're a man.

DSW is the mecca of shoes. If you want a shoe, you can find it at DSW. They even have men's shoes. They have blue shoes, brown shoes, boots, heels, funny shoes, serious shoes, shoes on sale, shoes in leather, shoes in wicker, shoes that feel good, shoes that feel awful- but look good. Every shoe you could possibly imagine, and then some more on clearance.

Yes, I went to the shoe store.

And on the way, I felt so bad. I mean, the whole way there I kept hearing a voice inside of me saying: What are you doing? Why are you going here? What are you looking for? What do you think buying a shoe will solve?

And you might find it ridiculous, but for me, it's equivalent to alcohol or some strong narcotic. In the moment, buying a shoe will solve everything. It will make me feel better, it will give me a piece of identity for a few hours, and when I wear it for the first time I will feel NEW, just like my shoe.

Everybody wants to feel new.

But yesterday, I just felt bad. I just felt the voice of something inside saying: turn back, the more you buy, the more you own, the more you own, the more you are owned.
Life in bondage to your material possessions.

If you've never been to DSW, you don't know that in the back of the store, there is a cave-like structure, with dozens and dozens of racks filled with shoes, and this section, this cave is called: THE CLEARANCE. And in this section, as you walk through, there are full length mirrors. And the reason they put those mirrors there is so that you can pass by, assess your inadequacies, and decide that shoes will solve all of your problems.

Maybe you're just supposed to see how they look with your outfit.

But anyway, I was walking through the cave-like clearance, hearing God say to me: turn back, Luisa. You are already in debt, you already have stuff, stop buying more stuff, more stuff will not fill the emptiness inside of you. More stuff will not give you an identity. More stuff will not love you.

And I passed one of those full length mirrors, and saw my reflection. Now, mind you, women at DSW usually look pretty happy. They are galloping and skipping through the aisles, they make fairy movements. They stop, gasp at the "cuteness" of a shoe, and they pull out the box in wonder to try it on. Usually, this is me.

But not yesterday.

Instead, I passed a mirror, looked into it and saw a hunched over, frowning, baggy-eyed, dark circles version of myself. I was miserable.

And suddenly, I began to think how much I was disappointing God by looking to everything BUT him for my fulfillment. I began to realize how little faith I was having that he really was telling me the truth when he says that our material possessions will own us, and that the love of money is the beginning of many evils. So, I started to feel really down (which just makes me REALLY want to buy shoes) and I felt ashamed.

Then, a song came on overhead, one of those songs they play at retail stores that repeat the same thing over and over. And I AM NOT KIDDING. It said:

I love you. I have nothing but love for you. I can't give you anything but love.

God's voice.

And I ran out of there so fast, I mean, running-shoe fast.

And as I walked away, I thought: my God is a God of freedom. He frees me from even myself. Following him, I will never be in bondage. No matter how it appears to the outside world, I am free because I have been given the ability by God to say "no" to those things that cave people in, that make them slaves. And the power, through him, to say "yes" to those things that make us free.

:)

Bumps.

I spent my Saturday doing the last thing on earth a Floridian would ever do with the inside of a tire: sliding down hills of snow.
I've got a few brand new purple bruises (mostly on my knees and hip bones), and a lot of good memories.
I guess inner tubing is kind of like life:
You climb up to the top of this hill, and then you slide, slide, slide down.
And on the way down there are lots of bumps. Sometimes, the bumps are good, and you fly through the air, and when you land, you laugh.
Sometimes the bumps aren't so good, and they kind of throw you off your tube, and when you land, you hit your face on packed ice, and maybe you lay there thinking: what happened? The last time, that bump was fun. The last time, that bump made me happy.
And maybe someone comes careening toward you while you're facing in the other direction, and their sled hits your inner tube, and you come crashing down and slam (again) into the ice.
But then, you get up, and you brush yourself off, and you move out of the way (because you've learned your lesson) and you start your ascent back up to the top of that hill.
And as you climb back up, slipping and sliding your way up, you wonder if the next trip down will be one that ends in laughter or in bruises.
Either way, you're glad you did it.