Testimony Meeting at Girl's Camp

My soul is billowing, billowing more and more, getting bigger and bigger, and closer to Heaven.
Warmth, flickering and flashing, causing my eyes to water and my conviction to strengthen.
The crack and pop induces goose bumps to run up and down my limbs.
Inspiration lands soft and white in my eyes causing tears and my fingers to fly on a page.

"The Spirit of God like a fire is burning"

I'm Thinking

I'm thinking of all the places I need to go, the things I need to do, and the people that I need to see. I'm thinking that I might not have time for all of it, especially now that I'm taking a minute to write. I'm thinking of my blessings, and how bountiful they are. I'm thinking that even though I'm feeling nervous about the unknown I'm going to be happy no matter what comes my way. I'm thinking that I think too much and that now is not the time for thinking but the time for doing.

A Nightmare

One late evening in Autumn, Night reached her icy cold fingers to grip the streets of a small town and the heart of a little girl.
A father starts walking, hand in hand with his daughter, down a dim, damp street. The pale green of the patriarch’s eyes hold a hint of sadness and the daughter’s light blue eyes look around unseeing. Clinging to her sole parent, the pair walks past store after store.Music is heard coming from a bar. A pebble skids across the hard, cracked, cement sidewalk.  The pair walk on.
Past drunks coming out of a bar, the pair walk, not hearing their slurred speak and or seeing as they wobble by. Passing a huge man in a dark rain coat, just standing at an entrance to an alley, they go on and on. The moon is hiding it’s familiar face and the lamp lights shutter spookily. Leaves piled up at the base of a nearby tree rustle, and the wind brings the sound of a train whistle while the tightly joined duo walk on.
A teenage stranger approaches the pair who are snapped from their numbness when she inquires if they would walk with her home. She seems frightened, a bit on edge, and she reminded him of a little girl, a little like his own daughter, so the father agrees. Still clinging to the strong hand of her father, the girl studies the stranger. Strangely dyed, curly hair is pulled up on her head in a bun. A pretty necklace graces her neck and a gangster-like jacket hangs about her slim shoulders. And so the now trio walk on.
An old, orange, stray tabby cries from its seat on an abandoned car. They travel past a hole-in-the-wall, long closed, Pizzeria and down the long street. An owl screeches when it‘s prey is found. A car drives by with its bright headlights on, temporarily blinding all three. The girl still clings to her father’s callused hand as they all walk on.
With the strange teenage girl leading the way, they take a sharp right and find themselves in a dim alley behind a small Mexican-American restaurant. People are lining the wall to their right and a few large silhouettes line the wall to their left. The teenage stranger thanks the father for accompanying her home and the father daughter team turn to continue their tedious walk home. The biggest silhouette, one who reeked and wore a gangster-like jacket similar to the one the teenage stranger had on, left the wall and placed a pair of arms as strong as heavy rope around the unsuspecting father, suddenly tearing him away from his beloved daughter’s grasp. Although the father was no match for the man he commenced his useless struggle, desperate to not be parted from his little girl.
Deeply miffed by the cold she felt when the warm hand left hers, the daughter goes after the thug who is dragging her father to the back door of the shop. She throws herself at him and manages to place one good kick to the scoundrel’s shin. Before she can strike again however, another massive thug grabs her from behind, stopping her pitiful rescue attempt. He pins her to the ground while they continue to take her only mortal parent away. In a last ditch effort to free her father she pleads for mercy from the seemingly merciless thugs, screaming, “NO! NO! NO! You can‘t take my dad! I don‘t have my mom anymore, I need my dad! No! You can‘t take him! He‘s all I‘ve got left!!”
A confused consciousness fills the girl and she reaches one small hand out in lonely anguish for a mother who is no longer there. Her father, after hearing her cry out, comes into her room and holds her till her self-pitying sobs end. The daughter then grabs hold of her father’s strong hand and clings to it till a numbing sleep frees her from her current woes into the arms of nothingness.

Life isn't a Movie

What could be better than watching Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr as they fall in love? Or watching the epic story of true love in “The Princess Bride”? The other day I just kept watching a fairly good PG movie called “Runaway Bride”. I wanted to understand how Julia Roberts’character finally found herself. And how come she fell in love with Richard Gere and not groom number four Christopher Meloni? I got absorbed into the characters’ lives and analysed almost everything about them, what they wore, the way they talked, the way they handled a situation, and even the way their hair was done up. Everytime you watch a movie you can observe different things. That is what I love about movies. And if the movie is a good one then you might want to watch it over and over again so you can observe different things, or maybe that’s just me. But it is like reading different versions of the same book and it almost doesn’t feel like you’re watching one movie over again. But I've been noticing lately that when I'm sitting down watching movies, I'm becoming a couch potato. And who wants to be a veggie that sits on a dark couch somewhere with so many eyes? There are only twenty-four hours in the day and as a way to help me stop spending so many hours with movies I wrote a list of reasons life is NOT like a movie.

Life doesn't have mood music constantly playing in the background for everyone but you to hear.

There are seldom chase scenes.

Unless you have your hair professionally done or you are a hair stylist yourself, your hair will never look like the characters' in the movies, especially when you've just woken up!

Although the coincidences aren't coincidences in either, in the movies it is because the writer dreamed them up, in life it is because God knows what's best for us (although we do wonder sometimes what He had in mind).

The main characters are physically pretty but they are only beautiful because we consider them to be so.

People actually have faults that aren't endearing or cute.

Science fiction is fiction, and it won't become real, although someday it might come close.

Your Fairy Godmother died with your childhood, sorry.

Life will never be as glamorous as Audrey Hepburn or as over-the-top hilarious as Bob Hope.

There are major consequences to gambling, drinking, smoking, being promiscuous, and eating a lot of chocolate and ice cream without exercising.

Life is not a movie but it's more fulfilling than watching one, especially if you actually embrace your life and live it.

Think and Be

Just a minute ago I felt myself slowly slipping into a fowl mood. And I thought to myself, "I'd sure like to stay happy, but how do I do that?" when I came across this quote.

As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.

-James Allen

And so in answer to my own questions I simply told myself to be happy, and now I am. The answer to my questions was so simple it's insane. I'm not sure of it myself except it worked and I'm still happy right now. All I had to do is want to be happy, and since that desire was great enough, I am. But I can't claim that all of my good mood is because of myself, I also prayed and I know that that had a huge effect on it too. I just know that thought has a major effect on us. So if you are feeling down, maybe you could just tell yourself that you want to be happy now and ask your Heavenly Father to help you. He will help you. I know He will. And if you don't believe me, ask Him yourself and He'll tell you, in His own way ;)

Hungry? Thirsty?

Do you every have this feeling that you want something but you can't seem to figure out what? I get it all the time. For me, it's a hunger, an intense yearning. But I seem to always have a problem figuring out what it is so I can fix it. I don't realize at first that the yearning is a hunger; I simply begin trying to fill it with anything I can get my hands on. I watch movies. I read books. I eat food. I play the piano! Anything I can think will fix it I do. When I start getting desperate I go for a jog up the road. And there, I finally figure it out. First I need to explain something. Where I live I can walk down the road and look all around me and not see anyone, just sky and fields stretching out forever. It is my secret place where it seems so natural just to talk with God. And that is when the hunger is finally abated. When I reach out to Him, that is when I finally receive relief.

"The story is told of a vessel stranded off the coast of South America whose Captain signalled to a passing ship to share their water with his passengers as they were suffering from thirst. The passing ship signalled back telling him to let down his bucket into the water in which they were floundering, because they were in the mouth of the Amazon River and the water was fresh.
The message of the ages to all people stranded in their sins is that they are in friendly territory and all they need to do is to let down their buckets and have their thirst quenched. The Master is ready always to listen to the cry of a repentant person and let him drink of the fountain of life freely."

-The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball 

Time slips through our hands.

We can't stop it or slow its escape. Although sometimes time won't flow fast enough, I mostly wish it would flow a little slower. Time is a none-renewable resource. It may become renewable when we leave this life but each day we are allotted a certain amount of time. And we can chose to spend  our time anyway we'd like but since we can never retrieve a lost moment and since a wasted hour can never be recycled, the question to be posed is simply, how do we spend our time?  I found this story about time. The author is unknown.

“And in my dreams I came to a beautiful building, somehow like a bank, and yet not a bank because the brass marker said, ‘Time for Sale.’

“I saw a man, breathless and pale, painfully pull himself up the stairs like a sick man. I heard him say: ‘The doctor told me I was five years too late in going to see him. I will buy those five years now—and then he can save my life.’

“Then came another man; also who said to the clerk: ‘When it was too late, I discovered that God had given me great capacities and endowments, and I failed to develop them. Sell me ten years so that I can be the man I would have been.’

“Then came a younger man to say: ‘The company has told me that starting next month I can have a big job if I am prepared to take it. But I am not prepared. Give me two years of time so that I will be prepared to take the job next month.’

“So they came, ill, hopeless, despondent, worried, unhappy—and they left smiling, each man with a look of unutterable pleasure on his face, for he had what he so desperately needed and wanted—time.

“Then I awakened, glad that I had what these men had not, and what they could never buy—time. Time to do so many things I wanted to do, that I must do. If that morning I whistled at my work, it was because a great happiness filled my heart. For I still had time, if I used it well.”