Don't just wear a smile, Be it!

Hello world. Can we talk? I've just been lifted today. It has been one of those days where I can feel joy shining from the inside out. I have felt the joy growing from my heart, leaving through my arteries, and standing firm in my mouth. I want to share it. I want to show this love. I've had signs of love, signs of life, that have are typical of myself. I've walked along the slippery slope called love. Here, so easily, do I fall, but perhaps many times I find myself in a well of infatuation. Some of these wells are harder to escape than others; sometimes I find myself jumping back in, forgetting that the water only flows one way. My love will be a river. My love will be renewed and renewing.

Though today is a holiday, it does not feel like one. It's not that I'm down today. In fact, I've been quite full of joy today. The climate spiritually, relationally, and meteorologically has been great. But today we celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Have I done that? I wore green, not much else. But it's a great today to be living. Graduation is near, about a month and a half away. And community is here. I feel community in this place where I live. Now that I'm leaving I feel acceptance and friendship. I feel relationship with my fellow man. Life is a fisherman pulling me toward reality. I'm not ready to leave this, I still feel new discoveries. Inevitably the hook will attach to me and I will have to leave. Perhaps not outwardly will I fight the pulling line, but inwardly my heart may leave something behind.

So I'm not ready to leave, though sometimes ready to be done. Not quite ready to be gone. I see changing winds in the future, but not before a steady calm. I can smell the salt of the sea that is far off in the horizon. My life will soon be something very different, yet I will be a man made for mission. I will live out what I feel within, is there any other way to live this life. I do not wish to live a life of regret. So in due time we will see the next stage. It's an exciting transition, it's just hard turning the page.

I will leave you with a song. It may seem general, sending it out into a constantly expanding web of information, but that is not my intention. I want you to know in a very personal and true way that you are beautiful. You are the way you are for a reason. Don't change yourself because you were made with intention. You were made with an ability to love. You were made to be loved, and indeed you are. Don't let it go to your head, unless by way of your heart. Know deep inside that no one can take away the love that God has for you. No matter what you do, you are loved by One who cannot love you less and cannot love you more. His love is perfect, there is nothing that would increase it, try as hard as you wish. There is nothing that will ever cause it to leave you; all the mess of your life is washed clean in His love. Did you "hear" that? You're clean!