"Never write about a place until you're away from it, because that gives you perspective”-

I'm not the one to always have the coolest dreams. Lately, my dreams have been consisting of tripped out proportions that don't usually make sense. Hey, its better then the nightmares I use to have, right?

But the other night, the day before my birthday, I had a dream. There were different colored people all sitting at a Burger King, like outside it at tables. They all had sheet music, or at least I think they did; I remember looking at a pile of sheet music. The sheet music each person had was from their own religion. When I woke up, I intrepreted this as these different people having sort of a singing war to seek which religion was the best.

But the next day, I pondered on it. My first thought about the dream was: war. I automatically took it as we were FIGHTING. I thought about it and came to another conclusion-- I didn't remember why we were all there in the dream, or why we were all sharing the sheet music with eachother; but maybe that was just it-- we were sharing it with eachother. Maybe we were just sharing about what we believed in, what we put our faith in.

Why did my first thought have to be "War." ? I have gained two new curiousities from this dream...

a) why do humans think the tiniest bit of controversy means someone wants to start a fight, debate, ect?

b) what happens when people look at a different perspective to get a different result?

Referencing to a). I remember talking with an old aquantance that I hadn't seen in a while about how he was doing. What I got: he resorted to drugs. Parties. Sadness and prayer stand in my heart for him, his definition was misunderstanded and not comforted enough; maybe not even at all. And when he asked me if I didn't go to parties, I don't remember my reply exactly but it was amongst the lines of "Never did, never will. It's just not me" and he asked, "Why are you trying to start a debate?" I felt bad because that's the exact opposite of what I was trying to do, but look at his mind. His first automatic thought when I told him the tiniest disagreement I had with him, he thinks I'm trying to start a war. What a great definition of society. We build up sides, teams; so we can 'debate' or 'fight' or whatever with other teams about what we disagree on, and what our differences are. And with this, it makes me think: all of us are differnent in SOME way. NONE of us are EXACTLY the same. So we might as well just go to war with one another, one on one; why even bother making trusses, right? Wrong. Let's put aside our differences and see what we DO have in common, better yet; let's look at our differences and agree we're different but exactly the same in the fact that:


all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.


Letter b. Perspectives. When I changed my angle of perspective on my dream, I got a COMPLETELY different picture. I find that in the littlest of everyday things, if I look at something from a different view or a different thinking then usual; a whole new thought is produced that I can ponder on and think about even more. Take the tree picture above the first paragraph for example. When you first saw it, did you see trees and clouds and the sun? It seemed kinda sketchy, maybe you figured it was just the reflection; but still, looking at it from this angle nature just seems more bolded. When I took this picture, I just thought it looked cool at first; but after looking at it, I asked a few of my friends if they thought it was a reflection or the actual image... the friends I asked agreed it was the actual image. How weird, when turning things in even the SLIGHTEST of an angle, you can see a whole new image; or possibly the same exact thing, but it's tricking your mind.

Is that the devil? Can he look like something beautiful but turn out to be fake? I don't like that thought at all but I think it's true in some cases.

But I mainly liked the idea of making your brain look at something, read something, or even stepping away from your typical opinion on something in a different angle or perspective; you find there's a LOT more than meets the eye. Is this with God as well? Turn our eyes a little bit; maybe stray away from our negative bitter thoughts, maybe towards the thoughts of "could there possibly be a power bigger than I or this world or universe?" or even "could there possibly be someone or something that loves me JUST the way I am, completely?" you COULD go with "could there possibly be something out there that is PERFECT?"

I thought about it tonight: you can't see the whole world at the same time, but you know the rest of the world is there, right? You can't see the wind, but you can feel it and you know it's there, right? Why couldn't this be the same with God?

"Never write about a place until you're away from it, because that gives you perspective”- Ernest Hemingway

"Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." - Marcus Aurelius

So maybe, what we DON'T see has truth? This is not a maybe for me, I know it in my heart; but what about you?

If society, if you, if I can learn to change our, yours, my perspective and our way of automatically thinking negatively or "HE/SHE WANTS WAR" maybe we can plant true peace in us, you, me. Maybe we, you, I can actually have clear thoughts, a cleansed mind and soul; souls ringing God's constant songs of promise and love, and with our peaceful & newly cleansed minds we might be able to hear that song. It's playing on the highest volume it can be, society/you/me just decides to listen to other songs sometimes.

God, turn it all the way up. Block out whatever distractions or loud songs are in the way of yours.

Hmm, I like this song; alot :)

--Chrissy Z

"I Never Gone with the Wind, Just Let it Flow; Let it Take Me where it Wants to Go"

It's been a while, a good while :)

I've started up a journal again so that's probably why. I'm really trying to get back into writing, get into the swing of it; not that I never stopped but I need to write out my thoughts and prayers clearly again, not just 'blog' about it or write is musically (though writing it musically is probably my favorite ways of writing).

Today, I saw Avatar the Last Airbender! :) it was gooooood. But Brooke and I realized something as we pondered upon the Bendin...

you need air in all four of the elements: in water, in fire, in nature, and in air itself; to produce the element.

Like you need God in all elements of your life to produce faith, hope, love...

Yes. God is our air. We breathe Him in.

In the movie "A Walk to Remember", the movie ends with the main character (memory loss, what was his name again?) talking about how he feels his girlfriend in the end (if you haven't seen the movie, I kinda just gave away the ending. Sorry.)And it reminded me of the amazing book I read, "Orphaned Anythings: A Memoir of a Lesser Known" by Stephen Christian. He talked about feeling God in the wind towards the end of the book, so whenever the wind blew, He would feel Gods presence.

It's like this: you know the wind is there. You can't see it, but you can feel it.

That's exactly what God is.

--Chrissy Z

"Scars don't dictate who we are, they only dictate where we've been"

I continuously think about the following:

1. Will my dad ever heal?
2. Am I really doing what God wants me to do rather than what I want to do?
3. What would I be thinking if I saw what I was doing now in 7th or 8th grade?

On number 3: I would be thinking... who are all these people surrounding me? Why are they laughing with me, why are they showing love towards me? Where did they come from...?

Besides the obvious questions, I think one I would ask is, "How did I become so blessed?"

and I still ask that question. Daily. Why, God, did you bless me with all these amazing friends and family I have? I am so undeserving, and there are so many other people in the world who need these blessings more than I.

with the good things that come along in life, and especially with the trials that come along in life, one statement remains at the core:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." -Jeremiah 29:11

and another amazing thing to remember:

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." -1 Corinthians 10:13

I wrote a song on Monday called 'New Year.' I feel like the beginning of summer is the beginning of my New Year. I feel like this is when change enters in myself, my surrounding, and other people. The good kind. I always say I'm a 'summer girl', and this is partially why. I start over in the summmer, I restart my system; my thinking, my joyfullness. Everything.

There have been summers where I have been scarred. (No, I didn't mispell 'scared' I meant 'scarred'.) Scarred severly, at a young age too. But nothing from intention, it's all from what is usually scarring me and continues to do so.

There have been summers where, I forget my scars are there. I can feel them from time to time, but I forget about my scars; and remember the parts of myself that aren't.

This is one of those summers. But not only will I remember the parts that aren't scarred, I'll embrace the parts that are. I'll love them and be thankful for them just as I'm thankful for the parts that aren't scarred, that are clean. I'll treat my scars with care, that almost; they're cleaner than the scarless parts of me.

A revolution is beginning this summer. I don't know what's going to happen. And I hope this summer doesn't go by fast. It's almost like I can't see past the summer. I don't really want to anyway, I'm not looking that much forward to high school. But hopefully I'll learn to embrace high school like I now embrace the things that hurt me the most.

If only the whole world could embrace what hurts them. No, don't go cuddling with a machete. But embrace the people that are out to abuse you. Because obviously, something is abusing them as well.

In the song I wrote on Monday, the lyrics said:
"The New Year's starting point is in the summer, the new song begins with pace set by the drummer... January comes around like a broken friend, but the broken are most beautiful in the end"

(there's a bunch more lyrics where the ... is, but i thought those parts fit best together)

I feel like, it's the broken that need to be embraced the most. So I'm doing that this summer, embracing what's broken inside of me.

It's funny... I don't really feel like anything is broken inside of me right now. Yeah, I see scars; but I mostly see amazing things bound to happen.

God is good. Way more than good.

--Chrissy Z

"Yet"

Psalm 55:21--


"His speech is smooth as butter,
yet war is in his heart;
his words are more soothing than oil,
yet they are drawn swords."


Hmm...

But in Truth, people truly fail because;

Another reason why people fail:


they don't feel appreciated; they don't feel loved. They don't feel motivated to strive forth for anyone or anything when they lack feeling loved. Even if they ARE loved; if they are lacking the knowledge that they are in fact loved; they fail. Love never fails. Let people know you love them, that way, they can never fail.



That's what I'm gonna do.



3 words I don't like:

1. milk.

2. if.

3. fail.


I love you, ti amo.

--Chrissy Z

Why rely on Faith when you have a Shortcut? Because;

I never realized it before, but I think I found the reason why failure exists.


People want the easy way out.


If that's not the only reason, it's definatley one of the stronger reasons why people fail themselves.


I know someone who doesn't do to well in school. This person used to do things to get A's, and he/she said it was okay because everyone else was doing it. But it was considered cheating, and it didn't truly practice his/her skill in the subject. And you know what? He/she is failing the class.


I used to know someone else who went to this big, blown up church; the kind of church so-called "Christians" go to on Easter and Christmas Eve, then never go back. Which, I still question if you need church to call yourself a Christian; but anyways. His/her whole family would go, then they would leave and still continue their terrible, selfish ways. They go to church because they wanted the easy way to heaven-- too bad there isn't one.


I'm learning that, if you seek things in life that will truly fufill you, it won't be easy finding them. Strangely, or maybe not strangely; naturally rather, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with working for things in life. I won't even touch the 'easy' way if it's not the right way. It's almost the 'smart thing or right thing' scenario. I've learned doing the right thing proves to be better than doing the smart thing. Easy to say, people often associate 'easy' with 'smart', or reverse. I've told myself to not think like that anymore... no matter how lazy I feel.


It's ironic that this occurred to me when I was sitting in geography asking to copy someone's study guide answers (which we didn't need to turn in, so I thought it would be okay). It also proves that I am hypocritical, which I'm willing to accept and change.





Please keep praying for my family, pray intensely and passionatley for them.

--Chrissy Z

And this is how I choose to live, As if I'm jumping off a cliff"

It's been a while, but I think Writer's block and not alot of free time is all I have for an excuse.

for those of you who actually read this, thanks! it means alot to Haley and I, even though I've been a serious blog-hog... again, sorry haley.

reily minton and i were hanging out last night, having what we now call a 'forever younglife friday' where we basically get a bunch of our friends together and chill/do whatever. fellowship, worship, messing around-ship; and every inch of it's fueled by God-- even when the 'awesome' team pwns the opposing team in kickball(which we successfully did :D) anyway, riles (reily) and i were laying in the cool grass, staring at the stars; and it was silent. a GOOD silent. the kind of silent where the quote, "sometimes there is peace in chaos. a serene lullaby in disorder and anarchy of life. one just has to listen." (Stephen Christian) would be TOTALLY appropriate. i shattered the silence by finally telling my good friend why i love stars so much...

because, they are a perfect representation of how a true Christ followers life should be. they should be such lights in the dark, so light and pure; that other little stars are made just from there light God has put in them. we should be THAT bright; always being pure, and following God every step of our lives. and help other people reflect God's light as well... we're are the stars, and God could be considered the moon; in this sense. we try to shine as bright as the moon, and eventually we blow up and go to star-heaven... (i didn't really mention that last part to reily... hehehe :D)

a few more subjects were tossed around, and she eventually told me she likes to live life of the edge. i think we came across it because she said she's a big risk-taker or something. when i hear 'on-the-edge' i think of your typical edgy, dare-devil never-thinking-before-doing kind of person... and the label definatley did NOT fit reily! then she explained why she lives living life that way: she likes the view from the edge.

we were sitting on a hill at the time, and she said, "see? i like the edge, like i like the edge of this hill. i like sitting on the edge of the hill because of the amazing view" (at the time, the view was of a big handful of city lights... it was nice.) it made me realize: i think i like living on the edge because of that same reason, too. the view is amazing. and most of the time, we don't know how the view from the edge got there, or why it's there, or how it came crumbled together as a handful of city-lights; but it's true and it's there. and that often proves to be the one core thing a human can always depend on-- the truth.

wait a sec... "He is the way, the TRUTH, and the LIGHT."-- John 14:6

lights. stars. moon. city lights. view. truth.

this seriously JUST all came together as i typed this. it's amazing how God makes thins work together like that sometimes... TRULY amazing.

maybe God wants us all to live on the edge, then. after all, if we fall; He'd catch us.

a Relient K lyric that went well with this apiffany: "And this is how I choose to live, As if I'm jumping off a cliff, knowing that you'll save me..." (Life after Death and Taxes)

Jumping off a cliff, seeing the view from it... we'll be pushed to the edge eventually in our lives, and when we're there, we'll have the choice of running away, jumping off the cliff, or embracing the view from the cliff. me personally: i haven't decided yet, but for now... i'm just embracing the edge.

--Chrissy Z