Summer romances begin for all kinds of reasons, but when all is said and done, they have one thing in common. They’re shooting stars, a spectacular moment of light in the heavens, fleeting glimpse of eternity, and in a flash they’re gone.    

He was a beauty memory (And still.) 

Do not give up on love - to love is to risk. Therefore, to love, is to be brave. It's better to cross the line and suffer the consequences. Than to just stare at that line for the rest of your life. I admit, I was afraid to love. Not just love, but to love him. For he was a stunning mystery. He carried things deep inside him that no one has yet to understand. And I, was afraid to fall, like the others. He was like the ocean and I was just a girl. Who loved the waves, but was completely terrified to swim. 

But I took a risk. And the ocean engolfed me. The waves carried me away. And sooner than I thought, through the beauty of it all, the ocean spit me back to the shore. Shaken and eyes filled with tears. I lost my heart in the ocean. But I don't regreat a single moment. I found that piece of magic poetics write of - love. I took a risk. My heart will heal. And soon I'll swim again. 

“We have the ability to choose … We can choose what will occupy our minds, and how we will act.” - Kathy Kalina 

Fun date idea: sitting under the stars talking about Jesus

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

 Louise Erdrich

You will be shocked, kids, when you discover how easy it is in life to part ways with people forever.

That’s why, when you find someone you want to keep around, you do something about it

You will always be too much of something for someone: too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy. If you round out your edges, you lose your edge.

Apologize for mistakes. Apologize for unintentionally hurting someone — profusely. But don’t apologize for being who you are.

“Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease.” Lamentations 3:21-22

The axe forgets; the tree remembers.

"From here on out, I am only interested in what is real. Real people, real feelings, that’s it, that’s all I’m interested in." - Almost famous

We danced into
a spectrum
&
then dwindled
into ash.

One day it’s going to be 2:11am and you will realize that there really is going to be someone that you’ll love as much as you loved that one person who broke your heart, in fact you’ll love this new person in a way that will make you forget the baggage back home. Because you’ll have a new home to go to, a new heart to love and be loved by, and the world will suddenly look beautiful again. You will wonder how you ever thought that you could never love someone as much as you love this person who has called you their own. You’ll wonder why you spent so much time thinking about all the other heartbreaks, because now you’ll know how refreshing love can be, and how it was never meant to be a war zone, but rather a garden where beautiful things grow and produces lovely fruit.

One day, you will see how love can be a good thing, and your broken heart will be but only a shadow passing into the night, never to be seen again.

I always feel like I’m struggling to become someone else. Like I’m trying to find a new place, grab hold of a new life, a new personality. I guess it’s part of growing up; it’s also an attempt to reinvent myself. I do not think I’m easy to define. I have a wandering mind. And I’m not anything that you think I am. 

unwritten letters to you

I hope you find a love that seems as natural as breathing the purest mountain air, and I hope you have a love that is as refreshing as a summer rain. Don’t settle for the smog of lazy love, or the thirst of failed promises; you should have someone that is as consistent as the sun, and as warm and inviting as only that wonderful light can bring.

i want my children to grow up barefoot running through the woods. I want them to know the feeling of the trees growing around them, to recognize the gurgle of a stream before they see it, to know the taste of a blackberry from a bush long before the taste of a chip. I want my children to experience the earth we came from through touch, not pictures, and video games. And I want to be right there with them through all of it. I want them to experience all that our Father has created, for them. To grow up knowing the earth beneath their feet. And the blue sky above them. To understand just how beautiful the world outside your window can be. 

tonight i thought of you and my heart started to ache, but this time it wasn’t aching with the pain of missing you. my heart was aching with hope. like it was telling me that it’s okay now. that i don’t have to look back anymore because there is so much ahead.