what's in a boo

i'm between corinne bailey rae's "trouble sleeping" and kenny latimore's "for you."
you might think i would have learned by now after the pb dibacle of 2010 that i shouldn't fall, but i'm a smitten kitten.
he didn't have to do much either, just tell me that he doesn't believe in divorce reminding me of what i once believed and say that children mean you stay together reminding me of the beautiful emanuel wedding.
i can't say that i'm head over feet, but i can say that i'm well on my way.
$%&#!

a greater love

it is newer and nicer.
it is my strength, yet i didn't embrace it.
it is straightforward, yet so hard to grasp.
it is here, now it's my turn to experience it.
i wanted it all for myself, yet knew its power was farther than just me.
i wanted to give it away, but its sweetness made me selfish for it.
i thought i wasn't worthy of it.
i will fight the enemy of it to my death...

an end to the shame spiral

i felt it, some kind of attack; i lashed out.
truth be told he didn't deserve it. he has a walk too. was i to scorn his walk, and put thorns in his way? was i to make him question what he knew, bring doubt into his belief in redemption? am i a warden? a crab in a barrel? that crab in reference to the fact that when you put crabs in a barrel every time one tries to climb out, the others pull it right back down...
"they are just people too..." -Debby, in reference to our discussion on men
on the grow it's tough to come to terms with all that i fail to understand, especially with all the growth that is already in motion. i try desperately to wrap my head around things that i really don't need to know at this point. one of the proverbs says it nicely when it speaks of not understanding everything along the way.
one man's ephiphany is another man's cliche, i once said.
i think i need to live this one: "let go and let God..."
and this one too, "take time in life, you('ve) got (a) far way to go..."

from mentor and friend to acquaintance

i don't know when it happened, but it did.

i think it was the day when i told her i liked hip-hop music.

she is a strong christian, sanctified, commanding the utmost respect.
she got a whole lot of mine, and i followed in kind in my faith, as best as i knew, to the point of almost losing myself... but so much of me remains.

i like hip-hop, still do, so i reminded myself of the lyrics that remain with me even now.

"i wanna take your misery, replace it with happiness but i need your faith in me, i'm a sucka for love..." - 2pac Shakur, "Sucka for Love"
"what (do) you call an infinite brawl, eternal souls clashin(g)? war gets deep, some beef is everlasting..." - Nas, "One Mic"
"i can't see them coming down my eyes, so i had to let the song cry..." - JayZ, "Song Cry"
"Never looking back or too far in front of me, The present is a gift and I just wanna be..." - Common, "Be"

i don't know if that's exactly why she flipped, but if she would take the time to listen as closely as i have, i think she might possibly like hip hop music too.

comfortable?

gotten comfortable with that which was not genuine or true.
that which was incomplete and insufficient.
that which was surface and supposed.

somehow, "seems" was better than the real deal.
there's nothing 100%, i thought.
nothing's perfect, i knew.
nothing lasts forever, i mused.

somehow, that was a comfort.

good thing that, truth be told,
Jesus is 100%, God's will is perfect, and His word lasts forever...

i need not settle for less than that comfort.

QOTD

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” - C.S. Lewis

no voice

don't want it to have a voice, but it still comes up.
know it has no power, yet it swelters just beneath my surface waiting for a moment of weakness
don't want it to have a voice, but to deny its existence is falsehood.
understand that it's defenseless against the spirit within me, nevertheless there it is: anxious for me to let my guard down
won't dare let it escape my fingers,
can't let it bleed from my pen,
absolutely will not let it escape my lips,
because i don't want it to have a voice.

word to the wise

sometimes, you just should have known better, but you do it anyway. there's always some 'reason why' and it's always 'totally justifiable.' however, when the consequences rain down, you can always harken back to the simple fact that you just should have known better...

at the time, my 'reasons why' felt like license to do whatever felt like release; my reasons why were many and ran deep. straight and narrow felt like an impossible path, and what i needed was a good dose of some other way. so, temptations came to me and met no resistance. self-control became something i practiced some other time, just not now.
after all, i was forgiven.
and let's not forget, my reasons were many and ran so deep...

but time always has its way of giving a view from the hindsight. the real fact of the matter was that the lover of my soul knew every single one of my reasons that ran deep, and even in those, i should've known that He doesn't put on me more than i can bear. having taken the cross for my sake, the least i can do is fight tempatation in times of trouble for His. the whole "some other way" idea, became a huge message of "that was so obvious". it's like i forgot whose child i was.

oh, and because of "some other way," i returned to work about as productive as a historectomy and sharp as a pencil stub. and i had gone from taking every thought captive to having every thought take me captive. and my quest for love in all its forms with a man turned into me having the fray's "how to save a life" stuck in my head. this man and i might barely have philia left for all i know.

[sigh]

all that for "some other way"?
was it even worth it?
absolutely not.

it's a valuable lesson, i thank God for teaching it to me, and its one i won't soon forget.

word to the wise: let's turn all the 'i should have known better's into 'of course i did better's.

and let's always start now.