This is a post i stole from Amber's blog. Someone anonymously posted it on her page.
Anonymous asked: sometimes i'm so tired. sometimes i feel like no one gets it, y'know? sometimes i just want to fall asleep forever and not wake up and just melt into my own little world, and i'd wake up by the ocean. the sky, it would be a light gray, and it would rain sometimes, but the sun would be slightly visible behind the clouds. i don't really like sunshine. it bores me after a while. no one would be there, just me, and my pony would come up out of the dunes and i'd ride him forever. we would be able to ride right across the water, just like that. and there'd be sharks, too, but they wouldn't hurt us. no one would hurt us. hurt would be nonexistent, and perfection would exist. because perfection, otherwise, doesn't exist. earth doesn't keep perfection. it's impossible. like walking on water, and falling in love, and understanding what my dog means when he stares at me and wags his tail. i wish i knew what he was saying. i like animals more than i like people. isn't that strange? everything i wish i was, will never happen. whenever i create people in my head, they're tall and they're excellent runners, and they play beautiful music and create lovely things that i wish i could. but i'm just a kid. i'm sorry i left you to read all this, but i didn't know who else to leave it too. and you're an artist, amber. when i die, i want an artist to have my things, because i feel like they'd be able to figure out what i was thinking better than anyone else. because truthfully? i'm a wannabe artist, right inside my head. i don't have the stuff to do it, but i like to pretend. isn't that what we all do, every day? pretend? on a side note, you don't necessarily have to post this on your tumbler. i'm so sorry i bored you with all of this. if you don't want to, you don't have to even acknowledge that i wrote this. please, have a lovely day, amber.
Im thankful for hope. For a faith that makes every moment worth it.
1.19.09
I came across this while flipping through one of my old journals. Its a conversation i had with God.
"Do you trust me, Shelli?"
"I thought i did, but maybe i dont..."
"Do you believe i can do it?"
"Well, i know you can, i just dont know if you will..."
"I think you need to trust me, little girl."
Genocide
This blog was written in October, shortly after i got home from Rwanda. Emmanuel let out a sigh as we pulled up to the church. A rudely built, but beautiful old building, used for many years as a place of worship was now a memorial. Purple is the color of mourning in Rwanda and i saw purple everywhere, along with bullet holes.
As i walked up to the church, there was a pungent smell, a dirty smell. Its hard to describe. Before i even got to the door, i thought "Je ne veut pas etre ici." and the feeling intensified as we toured the church.
Fifteen years ago, a genocide occurred in Rwanda. The events leading up to it are complicated and the history is long, but in April of 1994, neighbors started killing neighbors because of what tribe they belonged to. The killings lasted for 100 days, and the death toll was around one million people. Thousands of people came to this particular church for refuge. Roughly 4,500 people packed into the church thinking that they would be safe when the killing started.
Our guide, who was eleven years old when the genoicide hit, explained to us that the holes in the cement floor just under the door way were from the grenade that the attackers threw to blow open the door.He also told us that he survived by burying himself in the midst of dead bodies, blood and limbs and playing dead. He struggled to breathe because of other people's blood that pooled near his head and when, after two days he got up, he had to peel his face from the dried blood on the floor.
The piles of clothes everywhere were the clothes of the victims who weren't so lucky. The alter of the church was blood stained, and there were 'tools' of killing laying on it.
Once again it thought "je ne veut pas etre ici." We walked down into a little memorial. There were skulls laid out in rows, one even had the person's name written on it.
Behind the church, there was a crypt. A mass grave, if you will, of the 4,500 people who died in the there. There were a few steps to go down into it, and i could see caskets at the bottom of the stairs. My dad asked me if i wanted to go down there. I told him no, i didnt, and then went down the stairs.
There were metal shelves about 8 feet high. On the shelves were bones, piles of bones, and skulls. Or what was left of them. Some of the skulls were just fragments, i shudder to think how they got that way.
Just fifteen years ago, these were real people. Who laughed and sang and danced. I couldnt shake the feeling that there was evil in the crypt, these people died because of evil. As one Rwandan put it, during the genocide satan was loose in Rwanda.
The Rwandans have a proverb that says something to the effect that God goes all over the world during the day, but he sleeps in Rwanda. They also say that he slept somewhere else during the genocide.
After the genocide, Rwanda was reborn. In the wake of such terrible things, Rwanda has responded well. I was reminded of this, as i came out of the crypt, and i heard the sound of children's voices.
They had just gotten out of school for the day.
Ringing in the Skies
I woke up to the sound of thunder and the dramatic flash of lightening. Marching over the hills of Rwanda were thunderheads just waiting to unleash their anger on the city of Kigali. Being from Oregon, i'd never really experienced a thunderstorm of this magnitude, we dont really get thunderstorms here. I was actually legitimately afraid.
It lasted for about a half hour, the heavy rains, the continuous flash of lightening and the thunder rolling over the hills. I opened the curtains in my room, and watched the storm. There was no chance of falling back asleep. I was wrapped up in my blankets, the first time i'd used them since i got to Rwanda.
I sat on my bed in awe, and in fear. Such a display of power, i felt so small, so very much at the mercy of the storm.
In my awe a song came to my mind, the words of which i guess i never really understood until i saw that storm. I went out on my balcony with the rain falling around me and the thunder telling me of the threat of lightening not far in the distance. With my arms outstretched i sang.
Its falling from the clouds
a strange and lovely sound
i hear it in the thunder and rain
Its ringing in the skies,
like cannons in the night
the music of the universe plays
You are holy, great and mighty
The moon and the Stars
Declare who you are
Im so unworthy
But still you love me
Forever my heart will sing of how great you are
I heard the music of the universe that night, and joined it in worship to the Creator.
If there's one thing that sticks out in my mind about growing up in the Emerson household, its tea parties with daddy. Believe it or not, thats the thing i remember most my relationship with my dad prior to my teenage years.
It was pretty simple for him. He'd say something like "Lets have a tea party!" and we would go scurrying off to get it all ready. My sister Jami and i would get dressed up in our best Daisy Kingdom dresses, and then run to my sister Traci's room and ask/beg to borrow her miniature tea set for such an auspicious occasion as this. I remember the tea set well, it was mostly white, with lavender accents and lavender and white checked mini napkins... I always was jealous of it, i think Traci still has it. Anyway... We'd then run and ask mom if she had something to eat for our tea party, and we usually came away with some stale graham crackers or something like that. To be honest, im not sure i know what a not stale graham cracker tastes like...
All that dad really had to do was show up and smile and talk to us and tell us we were precious. Bingo, AWESOME dad in one easy step!
My dad and i laugh about this now, but truthfully, it did a lot for my relationship with my father. He cultivated in me a trust for him and an absolute security in fact that he loved(s) me. Having a tea party suuuch a girly thing to do, but my dad loved us, and so he came to our silly tea party with undersized tea cups and stale graham crackers, and loved us by speaking to our little girl hearts where we were at... Im thankful for my father, and for my mother too... I am who i am as a woman because of my dad's love and my mom's example... Well, and a plethora of other reasons too...
Tonight, after spending a good part of the last few days reading theology and thinking about the Christian faith in a very logical manner, im ready for something a little less cut and dry, a little less controversial... I decided to have a tea party with my Holy Daddy. While logic, theology and critical thinking skills are important, there's something to be said for an emotional connection with my Daddy, Jesus... I can theorize and think and live in a world of abstract possibilities, and miss the relationship. Tea parties with Jesus are important, at least for me. Jesus still looks at me over a cup a tea and some homemade shortbread cookies and smiles at me and tells me im precious while i tell him about all of my theories and hypothesis... or even just dump all of my silly girlish feelings on him... in spite of it all, i am confident in his love, and his steady and soothing voice compelling my wayward and sinful self towards his holiness...
I may not dress my best for Jesus, or bust out the stale graham crackers, but i connect with him over tea in a way that can never be rationalized.
Thanks goes to my earthly daddy, who, while still a fallen human, gave me a small picture of what a heavenly father looks like.
My mom, for stale graham crackers, and her nurturing of little hearts
Traci, for her tea set.
And Jami for being my tag-along. :)
And Jesus for having tea with me tonight, as i try and figure out what the heck predestination is all about.