merlin.

i wonder if merlin wanted to be young again. if he had the option if he'd go back and farm his fields again. if he'd take another shot at taming his never-fail demonic kittens. if he'd give me another blanket or tell me not to drive after dark. he was on the verge of unresponsive when i told him i was driving out to orange city tonight... his face scrunched up (he must've known what time it was) and he whispered "noooo"... and from there i will replay--from memory--what merlin woulda said after that.. had he felt better...and it's from memory because i heard the shpeal every time i left for orange city. usually at an odd time of day.

"i don't want you drivin after dark. ya get tired and ya can't see straight. then ya start drivin like the devil was chasin ya and..."

this isn't actually from memory.. but it's similar to what he woulda told me. i'd call him on my way home to talk for a while.. kill some time on that five hour trek. he'd say "are you drivin?" and i'd confirm.. and then he'd say, "girl, i don't like you drivin after dark.." and then i'd ASSUUUURRREE him that i'd pay close attention and i wouldn't drive like the devil was chasin me and i'd keep my eyes peeled for deer and i'd get home safe.. and then i'd pray, "lord, get me home safe.." and then we'd talk for a five minute maximum that i never could get him to talk past. and we'd hang up. he'd see me when i got home.

he gave me a wool blanket with cool fringes one time. i've slept with it just about every night since i left for northwestern three years ago. that's pretty much when me and merlin started being friends. i graduated early from high school and worked full-time at the care center in elkader. he always had bingo on mondays...or wednesdays.. i never can remember.. i never COULD remember (which caused problems..).. bingo was right after lunch.. i'd clean off tables as fast as i could and merlin, instead of waiting around and watching the process, would help me stack plates as high as possible ('possible' entailed how high they could be stacked before gravity won out or how high they could be stacked and still allow for the cart they were sitting on to be moved and navigated around the dining room without toppling over.....which happened to me once. it caused problems..)... merlin and i would talk small talk.. actually, merlin would do most the talking. which, later i gathered, was most often the case in all dimensions of life with merlin. one day i was ranting to merlin about how i was going through WITHDRAWAL! we didn't have any kitties that year. NO BABY KITTIES.  he told me he had some. AND that he'd like to get rid of some.

i throw my hands up in the air sometimes. and it's usually when i wave frantically in a 'PICK ME' fashion when i'm volunteering to make my house a home for baby kitties. merlin's baby kitties, in this case.

so, i followed merlin's white ford truck out to his farm one day. i felt kinda shady. i didn't really know this old man and i was following him to his farm out in the country and SOMETHING in my upbringing was red flagging and telling me that this could POSSIBLY not be a good idea. but... i risked it. i prayed jesus would keep me safe. and i drove.

kind of ironic in relation to the prayer i prayed to jesus in that last paragraph is this next part: we ended naming the two kitties Spit and Spat the demon cats. why? BECAUSE WE KEPT THEM IN QUARANTINE FOR ALMOST A WEEEEK IN THE SHOWER WAITING FOR THEM TO CAALLLMMMM DOWN.. (it's a nice technique. most wild cats love it. and then they waltz outta the shower a couple days later changed cats smelling slightly of herbal essences.) anyway. these kittens were different. they were possessed. not really. but, i mean, REALLY--we don't know what got into these kitties the day they were born.. but now i realize how merlin got that scratch on his pinky finger when he wrangled them into their wire pet carrier.

anyway.. that was how merlin and i became friends. then he started coming to all my birthday parties. and he'd come boating with us at the ambro. and we'd eat ice cream. actually, i'd mow half his lawn and then we'd have ice cream and talk for an hour... and THEN i'd finish mowing his lawn because otherwise, i told him, my mom and dad were gonna wonder what happened to me. he'd agree and then offer me a cookie.

i broke into his house once. i told him i did and then told him to check his freezer for evidence. i left him a note in his freezer accompanied by a selection of blue bunny ice cream (payback for the oodles of frozen stuff i'd eaten of his)... merlin felt a lot of things. he missed his wife and knew to the day what day she passed, what day she wasn't herself anymore, what day he took her to the care center, what day they were married, what day they met, the day he left her to serve in the army....and every day in between it was (so richly and thoroughly) implied that he loved her.

and everybody loved him. well, who knows, i guess. but iiii love him. and i love that blanket he gave me. and the teddy bear. bearS.

s'all i got for now.

i don't know why i keep posting these.

reasons why i doubt god's goodness:

bad diagnosis after bad diagnosis
medication after medication
fail after fail
good choices yeilding no seen results
hard choices yeilding no seen results
sickness after sickness
i don't trust him.
i don't know if i love him.
i'm having a hard time seeing the point in obeying him.
i feel betrayed by him.
i feel left by him.
i'm sick of the 'mystery' of faith. i'm not interested! cut the crap. be real or don't be.


there's a war for my worship going on. it's no mystery to me. it's not something shadowy or foggy that is made perfectly clear once someone sheds light on it. i KNOW it's there. i've KNOWN it's there. i know satan wants me and i know god wants me..but it all feels so anticlimactic. i feel like i see satan sitting at my mental kitchen table or something. just a businessman making an offer. and nothing. i kinda feel like jesus wants me but couldn't make the meeting. he sends a note with a secretary who runs into my kitchen panting and hoping that the note hand-signed by the lord will hold me over. keep me from making a brash decision.  and i don't feel an urgency to join a side.  but i do feel tired. i do know lies when they enter my head but i've no urgency to crush them. i know i need to read my bible but i've no care to uncover it in the crap of my just-moved-in-ness. and i feel like this: (in the most positive way possible) i feel like i could be like an orc off of lord of the rings... down in the hot, sweaty pit where the orcs pop out of the ground. fierce and ready to kill the instant they get that imprisoning slime off their bodies. i feel like i COULD make the choice to pop out and kill the enemy and say "hey SATAN. THINK FAST! i'm fighting this one. now WATCH ME read my bible." and i'm good with that. like, i'll read my bible before i go to bed. but with the attitude of 'for some reason i'm doing this... but there's nothing in here that'll help me.'

there's a war for my worship.

i am head deep in the snares of the devil. his ploys, his speeches, his business cards, his customer service. i got it. i've heard it. and it's because i've agreed with him. when a bad diagnosis hits my family, sure, i might hear god's tears falling but what help does that DO me? why doesn't god HEAL my family? why don't those people SO JACKED UP ON THE LORD'S ABILITY TO HEAL come and meet MY family? the one god HASN'T HEALED. and i'm not ignorant. i know god's been so good to me and i know god's been so good to my family. and i'll talk myself out of self-pity after ten minutes.. and then it'll still bother me so i'll pendulum right back again and... i want somebody to be mad at god like I'M mad at god. mostly cuz i hate seeing other people so happy at how the lord supernaturally healed their paper cut. or their knee screws evaporated or something when somebody prayed. my response: well, isn't that great and don't i want to KICK YOU IN THE SHINS! both shins! and then don't i want to be bitter and pissed until my knees give out....... and as much as i hate to say...it's true, it's jesus that i feel all around me. i recognize him. i know it's him. and he's got me. and my legs are broke so i can't stand but i'm swinging and i'm hitting my head so hard against his chest again and again because can't he SEE... can't he see? and i get tired and i cry myself to sleep in his arms.. holding me soft.. my last glimpse between my swollen eye lids are bruises on his arms and on his chest. guilt flashes through me but jesus says "sssshhhhhhhhh". and he runs his fingers down from my forehead, manually closing my eyes and my thoughts forced to turn in for the night. i sleep so deep and wake up in optional peace. take it or fight it.

there's a war for my worship.

best not to mention cory asbury.

do you know the way you move me?

that's jesus saying that.
he's talking about howwwwwwww MUCH he loves us.
each individual because he treasures us and we're his own
if we let him make us that.
no matter if we accept it we ARE his children
his workmanship is our everyday vehicle of a body that
lives and breathes and carries us everywhere we need to go

but whether or not that's straight into the father's arms is another story.

and i don't complain because i know my savior loves me
but whether or not i feel that love in ushy gushy ways on a daily basis is another issue.
maybe it's not an issue
maybe it's just the way i work.
and i won't assume that i'm poorly wired and inept when it comes to the father's love just because i don't feel it all around me alllll the time.
some christians would tell me that i'm meant to live in the FULLNESS OF CHRIST ALLLLL THE TIME.
and i get it.
i DO.
i get it.
but i also want YOU to understand that my sin and the sin of this world BOGS ME DOWN sometimes.
like my suzuki that had dirt in its carburator. it wouldn't run cuz all my times around the woods made it a little dusty in the insides and spat and sputter because machines don't work like that!
and i don't either.
you saw that coming.

maybe my skepticism takes the best from me
maybe my skepticism keeps my heart from deceiving me because the heart is deceitful above all else
but god's heart's not.
but maybe i'm supposed to feel this distance
maybe i'm proving my faithfulness with the grace god gives and the stubbornness i muster.
maybe the desert is some place everyone else is too wussy to walk through.
maybe i've put up an umbrella and ordered a lemonade from a passing camel who didn't understand what i meant because no one is supposed to MAKE CAMP in the desert, content on STAYING there.
but maybe i don't call the shots on the calendar god goes by.
and maybe i'm right where he wants me.

BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE YOUUUUUUU.

AND I DON'T WANNA TALK LIKE YOU.

AND I DON'T WANNA WORSHIP LIKE YOU.

AND I DON'T WANNA TEAR UP OVER THE SAME THINGS BECAUSE MY HEART'S NOT YOUR HEART (and not that i think we're so inexplicably different... but ME=ME and YOU=YOU)

but there's questions left to be asked. and the questions tire me out and god waits and waits and waits for me to stop talking and stop ignoring and stop pretending like there are no answers to be had.
there are answers to be had.
i'll just have to cancel my lemonade order with that camel and get ready to move. because god DOES have bigger and better in store for the likes of myself. and i'm not fatalistic or pessimistic contrary to popular belief. but sometimes....
sometimes i just get tired.
and sometimes i just need a new paint job.
and sometimes i need a nap.
and sometimes i need out of school.
and sometimes i need to just be.
and play outside for hours and hours and some minutes.
and sometimes i just need a dog. and a kitty. a baby one.
and sometimes i just need to do music without stipulations.
and say "i don't care" to everything that doesn't involve crayons and gramma.

so.
i need a breath.

i need nothing.
god knows what i need.