On Your Mark

Get Set.

GO!

We all heard this when we were children. We stood in a line, looked at our friends or classmates next to us, and prepared to take off running.

We heard the words like a gunshot in the air. We heard them like a whistle. Like a command. Like a promise of a win, of a finish line, of a race.

On your mark.

Bend your knees and touch your fingers to the soft earth. Lift your tale and take a deep breath. Feel every muscle in your body.

Get set.

Look forward. Visualize yourself running. See the finish line. Feel the race about to begin.

GO!

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Airborne

The average mosquito cannot fly far or fast, often staying within several hundred feet of where they were hatched.

 

Airborne travel is my family’s love language but it seemed to fissure and break as I stepped on the cross Atlantic flight. I could smell every meal, the packaged cookies like an off-brand Christmas and the bitter coffee a reminder that my eyes sagged. The meat made my jaw tired and the rice tickled my teeth. The air was thin and each breath made my throat tighten. I started watching the horror film, It just as the plane reached the Atlantic. Pennywise, with a drooping smile, sharp teeth, and a lazy eye, morphed to fit the child’s biggest fear, a walking infection, a burnt corpse, a headless body. I wondered what he would become for me. But then I knew he could not become my biggest fear. A small mosquito already had.

The Storm’s Purpose

You might be in pain. You might be battling sickness. You may be suffering a loss. You may feel insecure. Lost about the future. Worried about your child or your friend. You may suffer from anxiety or depression or helplessness. You may feel dragged down with guilt or struggles you can’t seem to overcome.

You might be in the middle of the storm.

But remember three words that Jesus once spoke that still apply today: “Peace. Be still!”

Your pain is not too big for God. And your pain will not be pointless. The storm may not end how you want it to, but it will end, and God will bring beauty out of the pain.

How often do you feel you need to be in control of life? In control of what happens tomorrow, in control of what grade you make, in control of your job, in control of your relationships, in control of your weight, in control of how the world sees you.

Falling

Fear, uncertainty, release, vulnerability.

The fear that you’re not supposed to be moving so quickly, so assuredly to an unforgiving landing. Uncertain if the land will leave you with breath in your lungs or intact bones in your legs. The release of the pressure that is standing, keeping yourself whole and unbroken and tall and strong. Vulnerable because you are no longer standing and strong, but defenseless to the ground that is rushing up to meet you with a smile of disaster.

Falling usually ends in breaking, in disaster, in needing to be fixed.

But sometimes falling is good. It’s fun, thrilling. When you fall out of an airplane and feel that rush of excitement in the bottom of your gut. When adrenaline is fire in your veins before you pull the string to release the parachute.

In My Darkest Days

I started this blog over five years ago with this post. I was about to go to YWAM in Kona, Hawaii for some of the best seven months of my life. I was getting ready to catalogue everything I learned while at YWAM, everything Jesus did, what I saw and who I met and what was happening in my life. I was 17, about to leave home for the first time to live across the ocean from my family. I knew it was going to be a crazy time in my life and I wanted to have a written history I could return to just as much as I wanted to share my experiences.

Look how cute I was in 2013

I’ve had this blog through my entire college career. That first semester spent in Hawaii and Amsterdam getting to know myself, Jesus, his world, and making him known. I had it when I started college in Fayetteville, when I entered the worst two years of my life (all fault my own for that dark period), the faithfulness of Jesus when I left the dangerous situation I got myself in, the year I took off of school and lived at home and worked full time. I had the blog when I grudgingly enrolled at A&M, my dad almost died, I worked in news, and now. Finally my last semester of college.

Forever Magical. Forever Young. – Final Part

Photography by: Brandon Woelfel

Peter is my best friend.

More so than any of my other children, Peter and I enjoy each other. We laugh and cook and clean and I even teach him some of my potions, though to truly work they need a bit of my magic. He helps me through grieving when Lionel, Abigail, and Theodosia leave. He becomes close with Abram, who is only a few months older than him, and helps me with the two girls I save a few months apart a year after he came home with me. Peter and I explore The Wood and meet all the creatures that loan me their gifts and strengths. He listens to my teachings and even comes with me once when I go to save a child. That one ended up refusing me, though. That doesn’t happen often, but enough to make me question everything I do.

Forever Young. Forever Magical. – Part 3

Photography by: Brandon Woelfel

I can’t take it anymore. I need it to end. Please.

I sit up in bed, the cry from two towns over echoing in my dreams. It’s a young boy, about nine years old, sitting on the floor of his tiny bedroom. He’s crying and bleeding, listening to screaming in the next room. Usually, I would wait a week and assess the situation and get my current children prepared before leaving, but today is different. If I don’t save this child, he will take matters into his own hands. I can feel it.

Forever Magical. Forever Young. – Part 2

Photography by: Brandon Woelfel 

My house has already tripled in size since Nissa saved me that day ten years ago. She returned to her own woods the following day, after teaching me how to build my new home, but I saw her a few more times before she passed. Her home now houses hundreds of Woodland creatures and floral life. The magic that still resides there keeps them safe, happy, and healthy. It also acts as a home for roaming witches. For those who have not found their place, their Wood or their clearing, Nissa’s gives them safety for as long as they need it.

Forever Magical. Forever Young. – Part 1

Photography by Brandon Woelfel

There’s a scar on my left thigh.

I tried all I could to get rid of it when I was a child. But even human devices did not work. They use their own forms of potions, such as pastes and oils, to cure their injuries. However, all they create must be applied immediately, which I was not able to do.

So I tried all the potions and spells I knew. I even sent a message to a fellow witch a few towns over. Her reply was kind and caused me to hide in my bathtub, shaking with sobs, but did not help with getting rid of the scar.

Life Update – Little Rock Internship

The summer started off kind of rocky and for a moment I thought I was going to have to cancel the rest of my plans. But, God’s timing is always perfect and better than what we could ever plan. So, a week after my Dad got home from the hospital, I got in the car and headed to Little Rock.

For the past six weeks I’ve been working with THV11 in Little Rock. The internship has been one of the coolest opportunities I’ve been given and each day I got to learn and experience something new.