Quiet isn't silence

Someone is practicing a music piece in Phillips; I can hear it through the open window. A distant, urgent, grey sound rises and then fades; a flock of seagulls has passed over somewhere high above. I can hear life as I sit here with my open books. Birds are somewhere among indistinguishable sounds of water, wind, trees, sunlight, and human voices. Laughter, conversation, yelling, footsteps.

First teardrops

They fell today, unexpectedly, as usually happens.

I love my family, and being so far from them reveals new aspects to that love, new ways to see the how they have been loving me all my life.

I am truly happy where I am. God has brought me to where He wants me, and He has taken me far from what I know, far from what is comfortable. And even amid the tears, my heart is rejoicing. This too is new, and beautiful - because the testing of my faith is creating in me a perseverance that in its full effect, will allow me to be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. I have been learning to shed my timidity when facing the prospect of attaining perfection - I have been called to strive for it. Not the perfection of God, but the perfection of His design for me. Rising up to fully occupy the original vision of what a woman is to be - I should pursue that for Him with all my heart.

It is the love of God, my creator, that my heart cannot live without. My soul needs His arms to enfold me, and nothing else. My heart wants the people, and desires their love; I wish and hope for the support, devotion, and care of His other creations - but it is the Lord's love that I would die without.