West 55th St

I'm taking on New York City for my second time around in less than a week. Excited? Yes, if I'm trying to describe one small ounce of how I feel.
This intensive is going to be amazing. We're dancing about 8-9 hours per day and rehearsing for a project performance at the end of the week.

I was hoping that we would have a few classes in an old theatre, but all our rehearsals are going to be at the Alvin Ailey studios - which are quite beautiful.

Honestly, I cannot wait to be back in that city. Sounds crazy for only being there once... but it's just one of those places, I think for a lot of people. I was introduced to New York in a unique way and I instantly knew that I would forever love it there.
Maybe there are places like that for all of us. The area has taken hold of something and we want to explore the solitude or business of it at every chance. That's how I think adventure helps us grow. When you're open to letting things take hold of you or your area's of passion... things are bound to happen.

It's the whole style of "Living In The Now" and experiencing things for what they are and what they might be - not cutting short an experience.

There's this amazing interview with Suzanne Farrell where she was asked "Can you describe the feeling you have when you are in the wings, waiting for you cue, and your hear the music and you enter the stage?" She said "Before I go out, I have these feelings of insecurity, this 'what am I going to do?' feeling. Even though I am a professional, and I know what the steps are, I don't quite know how I'm going to do them, because I haven't lived that moment yet. I always feel very insecure and I get very excited. Nervous, not so that I can't dance, but excited with nerves because I love to do what I am doing. The minute I get out there, I realize that I'm more in control than I thought I was. Because there is no turning back. It's when we think we can turn back that we don't make good decisions, or we don't try hard enough. It's when you jump off the cliff that you are suddenly in control, in a way that you don't have prior to that.

“It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence, and our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and I remember thinking, ‘How did he know to put the pursuit part in there?’ That maybe happiness is something we can only pursue, and maybe actually we can never have it, no matter what. How did he know that?”

Mundane Life

Thoughts From The Diary of a Desperate Man
"Have you noticed that a goodly number of the New Testament commands deal with the mundane? They deal with the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, the importance of hard work, keeping guard over your tongue, etc. The reason is, most of life is mundane."

Two weeks ago I said I want to accomplish many things, but I repeatedly found myself shutting down and not wanting to do the work. I didn't want to study, dance, or work. The answer is not that I was not being firm enough with myself because that is a whole different meaning and topic; it's that I've been struggling to honor God in the mundane. It's impossible for me to find joy or satisfaction in my studies or work when I'm choosing not to have faith-based outlook on them. And it didn't just spill into those area's, it's been spreading in my language and the way I've treated my parents.

Dry spells occur - and I've learned that they are not wrong, they are actually necessary. In the deepest place of loneliness, even there He understands. Even there He can refresh us. He's more than a plural or feelings.
















"Joy and bliss compose approximately five percent of your life, with terror and pain composing approximately five percent more. You spend the remaining ninety percent simply living -- doing dishes, and pulling weeds. The authenticity of your faith will be seen in the part Jesus plays in the in the mundane of your life."

I'm refreshed and renewed. Ready to work. Ready for the mundane.

The Blue Book

I'm beginning to write a book for someone very special to me.
It's called the blue book.
It's actually a journal right now - but I might edit and try to publish it as a book someday.
I think it would inspire a lot of young women trying to stay pure and patient.
I'm excited about it because it's going to challenge and comfort me.
It's definitely a unique and inspiring step in ministry, I think.
So from now on out it's in the making!

I mean, how cool would it be to have a book you started writing at seventeen become an actual book and give it to that person you wrote it for? Gahh! I think that would be one of the neatest gifts ever.

I want this someone to be aware not only through my future actions, but since I was fourteen the profound effect they've had on my life. That I am here for them now, forever, and everyday in-between.

This week has been extremely better.

I've decided that I'm basically drawn to failure.

I feel that I'm contending with it constantly in my own life.

"The larger view always and through all shams, all wickedness,
discovers the Truth that will, in the end, previal, and all things, surely,
inevitably, resistlessly work together for good."
-Frank Norris

Different Pages from the Same Story

This past week I've been really down.

I'm working at being happy - because I realize you have to work at being depressed also, but I'm struggling.

I want to accomplish many things. I want to see potential in myself.. or feel potential.

I want to learn and grow.. but I find myself shutting down and not wanting to do the work.

Am I too hard on myself or am I not firm enough?

I'm really trying to keep my communication open.

I'm striving to be positive and productive with my time.

But these past two weeks.. I just feel as if I've taken a step back.

I don't even know where to pin-point how or where.

I'm just beginning to feel like I'm failing in so many aspects of my life.

Where and when does the balance come in? Will I find it or do I have to make it?

I want to feel and see myself from the correct perspective - God's perspective.

I want to rest this weekend.. and listen.

I've been listening to all the wrong voices.

That's probably why I feel this way.

We learn from trial and error and trial and error. Again and again.

Keep moving. It doesn't matter how slow as long as I'm moving.

"We are in this life together, even when one moves
without the other. Different pages from the same story.

This aching is familiar... it's something I remember.

We can't touch without feeling. Can't heal without healing.

Only the young could fall so hard, could be so careless
and ignore the scars. So we will move out of the way this time, making room for each other, one without the other.

We are broken, but we are moving still.

A thousand different ways."

-Erin Taylor

The Choreographers Opinion

What does it mean when God isn't pulling you away from something...

but you also don't feel Him pulling you to it?

I have little doubt that God has different plans than me just being a dancer.

Bigger Plans.

He does.

I'm just striving to not spend time running away to realize what I'm running toward.

It's okay if I never get to experience the stage professionally. But it's such a burning desire for me to share and satisfy my physical capacity as well as my emotional. I love the work that goes into it. But, anything can happen. I believe in mystery, and miracles. I just know I have to be working for something because what we do here on earth echoes in eternity.

Yesterday I had a discussion with my mom about what I've done in the studio's had echoed so much into my life.

I put my trust in my choreographer, as a person who won't put me out there if I am not going to be able to handle it or look bad, because it's a reflection on them, and they want the best. So I have to decide every rehearsal that I will trust them, and listen to them only. It keeps me from having to account on other people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But if you ask ten people, you get ten different opinions. I decide to trust them because their standards are very high and they have become my standards. I choose not to listen or look at the face of another teacher watching the dance -- who hates it and has to put in their dumbing-down opinions. I respect the fact of the original choreographer work, I choose to respect their vision of what they are trying to have interpreted through our bodies. The maker of the dance always sees the bigger picture - they always see the little things that we don't catch at first. But that's why they push. They know we can get those little pieces of perfection that make the simplest movement have power behind it. And it hurts if you listen to the wrong person.

I just always think, "Well, I thought it was good, I did my best," or "This wasn't so good, I have to work more on that." It keeps me from going crazy. I don't believe you can be an honest performer and a spectator at the same time. You have to choose who you listen to carefully. It takes different eyes to be a spectator.

All of that echoes into my personal life. God sees the bigger picture. He has each step planned out and He strives for the perfection - and it's softer with Him. He won't give me more than I can handle and leave a spotlight on me with nothing for me to show. My life is a reflection on Him. So, I'll listen to Him.

The Ingenuity of Dreams

This is the part where I discovered one of my major failings in both life and art. It’s over thinking things. It’s over analyzing to the point of paralyzing my mind to make any relevant decisions at all. But when it comes right down to it, I know how to separate what matters from what doesn’t. And that separation usually flouts out on paper.

Yesterday was the day where I learned that it’s okay to have more than one dream. God gives many many dreams. To have multiple passions expands the story’s you are able to communicate through your ultimate passion. And as soon as I decided I believed that, I almost felt a ray of emptiness because I didn’t know where my other interests rooted.
But He didn't fail to show me them. He faithfully handed them to me with a bundle of faith.

There are many choices to weigh my options with right now.
I became so overwhelmed, that I spent a majority of my night on the bathroom floor. How is it that I can gain serenity on a dirty bathroom floor in the middle of the night?
Because I knew it would pass. I knew that the color would appear back in my face and that my stomach would settle and start to function the way that it was made to function.
I didn’t know how long that would be… but I knew just like everything, it would pass.

I don’t where I will go to college. I don’t know if I will end up studying dance or if I will major in psychology at a Christian campus and go on to help artistic teenagers or young children communicate with their parents. Or maybe I will go on to start my own group/program for young artists to show their gifts and communicate it clearly. I want to help children and young teenage girls through eating disorders. I want to communicate to them their worth and potential.
Right now, I have more dreams than ever and I'm allowing myself to explore what compels me.

I know that I have to keep surrendering.
I know that I can rest on His works, not mine.
I know that I want to serve my life with His direction.
I frankly don’t care where that is anymore.

I want to use my body, my hands and imagination to help people discover parts of who they are. I want to be what I am… I want to be the best that I can be so that I can learn use each of my capacities and parts of my personality. I want to contribute by being in my mind when I plan and work it out in my body.

I want to take a lot from teachers of all kinds and absorb their suggestions.

And generate a tremendous variety and depth of material to people who will use it. I want to be used in the way God created me.
It’s a constant journey of sorting, but He equips the called.
People use many excuses to not pursue God’s greatest for them. Peer pressure seems to be the biggest excuse around me. There’s no such thing as peer pressure. If you believe within yourself, there is no peer pressure.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

-Marianne Willamson

Clear Territory

“The inner murmur of self-reproach...
There is on the one hand your external work, and you do need rest from physical exertion... but there is a deeper problem.
There is a work underneath the work.
There is an eternal inner murmur.
There is an inner machinery of self censorship.
And it's not guilt --- it's the need to prove yourself -- to yourself, to others.
That work, makes the other kinds of work incredibly weary.
That’s what brings the weariness!
And that work which is very difficult; you're always trying to prove yourself – and it's never enough.”
-Tim Keller – Teaching on “Work & Rest”

This is the part of my life where my thoughts are becoming very channeled. I’m eliminating things in my life, and it’s also giving me more flexibility because I’m constantly admitting what’s truly important. And some of them won’t last forever. To me, forever is as long as it lasts, because as long as I’m still productive and trying to be the best that I can be, I think that is what’s important. And what’s not important is whether I’m popular or the best dancer at the studio or the girl everyone likes; I just want to be the best that I can be.
I’m leaning on the truth that God looks at me and says, “It is very good!”
At first, it blew my mind that the more I just keep surrendering, the more peace and understanding I would gain. Now I find myself constantly surrendering things. I’ve never been in this territory. No black, white, or gray. Just clear truthful territory that I get to experience and share for the rest of my life.

It’s true adventure.
I’m no longer struggling to keep my balance on the edge of the fence. I have no doubt of this. I’ve never been so sure of anything. I’m discovering. I’ve living. For the first time in my life; I’m alive. Something in me is aflame – there is a clarity and warmth that wants to burst through my chest.

Towards the end of the same teaching, Tim Keller said:

“To be a Christian is to say I rest not on my works but His.

I rest on His finished work.
Accept me not because of my record, but His record.
Accept me not because of my works, but because of His works.
And the minute we say that, God imputes our sin to Him (2 Cor 5:21) and imputes His righteousness to us.
And that means that when God looks at you, in Christ, He says It Is Good!
And everything necessary that you've got to do is finished.
And the only set of eyes in the world that you should have to prove yourself to has already said ‘This is my beloved child, whom with I am well pleased.’ “

I stumbled through that teaching. It was the part of my life where resting was explained to me. We need that deep rest. We need that spiritual rest. It’s not the amount we sleep, it's not the amount we rest, it’s the depth in which we rest. If not, we’re going to be in fatigue all the time.

I continue to wrestle with God and he continues to do brain and heart surgery on me each day.