What's a Christian girl, anyways?

So... shout out from this stranger! I've been busy. I have a lot of excuses I could use for not blogging lately buuuuuuut I think the biggest reason is: I haven't felt like it. I can't write good post without feeling like it, I'm not that talented. The words spill out when they are ready. 

In case you didn't know...

I'm a   C h r i s t i a n  girl. 

What's a Christian girl? Does a Christian girl have to dress modest? Listen to Christian music? Read Christian books? Talk Christian? Get a Christian education? 

-i could go on-

I think for a lot of us a Christian girl means all of that. We're a clan...a group of girls who are good, encouraging, nice. Jesus lovers. That's what a Christian girl means right? A nice girl who shines like Jesus. 

When I was younger, I felt like I always had to prove myself...somehow prove I was a Christian. I posted verses and little 'Christian phrases' all the time online. Just like some people smoke or swear to be cool, I posted God girl posts online to be cool around my Christian friends. There was nothing wrong with the posts, just something wrong with my heart. 

I'm a Christian girl... but that doesn't mean I always have the right words or I'm perfect. I guess if in the inside you really love Christ, and trust Him, and have faith in Him, some of that is going to seep  out in your actions. You don't have to prove your a Christian, you either are one or you're not.

Sooo... incase you feel like you've got to keep some holy reputation. Incase you feel like you have to be enough. Let's just think back to what that Christian girl really is. 

Christian girl: someone who's not enough but believes in Someone who is, who is more than enough

<3 storyteller

Four Years Ago...

The air breaths salt. The shells sleep along the shore, s C a T t e R d  pieces, broken, a graveyard across the bed of sand. Waves try to reach the sky, then fall, crash to a bubbly death. (had to be dramatic)

The beach healed me. 

I guess I was kind of stressing out and worried about this year and then I left my world for a little while and found this beautiful place. 

Slowly all my promblems didn't seem so big, not next to this and the Creator who made it. 

T h r o u g h b a c k 

Four years ago... my life changed. 

It was a tiny  change. 

A tiny change that transformed my entire galaxy.

My world before four years ago is kinda a hazy dream, half fantasy, half real. 

It's kinda pitiful when I look to the future and am scared because I should know by now that if God could be with me for those last four years, he'll be with me in the future. He will. 

And all my petty dreams are scattered broken across the seashore like shells because God has a better plan.

But four years ago His plan didn't look better... it was.

So things change and we start getting a tiny glimpse of the beginning of our story and we smile because its so totally outside our wildest imaginations. Dreams are fictional and sometimes nicer but not prettier, never prettier than God's plan. 

Four years ago...

Memory: me walking on a beach only a couple miles from this one. Me before the change. Me when the change was just an echo. Me missing my home. Me writing a letter each day to my best friend. Me buying sea shell earrings for her.

Funny how different my world is today... and how I didn't know any of it that time four years ago before the change.

 So I left the beach this year after an exciting week with friends, a half written sea story, a handful of shells and a heart refocused on His will...

<3 storyteller

Little Doggies

// PUPPPY //

On one of those beautiful days, the kind of days that you're just happy to be alive, I tripped upon a fact about myself that I'd never tripped upon before.

{The Fact About Myself} All it takes to make me happy is something small 

I love, simply love, little pleasures. Books. Chocolate. Puppies. Fun small things mean the world to me. 

A tiny fury face can make me the happiest person in the world.  I hope they bring some beauty into your world just like these cuties brought beauty into to mine.

<3 storyteller

Bird

~ soooo I got a camera...not a fancy camera but nicer than an iPhone and better than my old broken camera so I'm thrilled. This is the first time I've been able to photograph birds because it's the first camera that has nice enough zoom~

So there are my birds. More pictures coming soon! 

<3 storyteller

<<< au revoir brother >>>

Us girls are sprawled in the back of the car with books to take us to different worlds. I disappeared into 200 pages of mine, hours dragging by. We make it to the college campus, an interesting place for a writer. All around there are nervous looking teens and teary eyed moms and I keep putting myself in their shoes, trying to imagine what it might be like. That was enough to interest me through the long lines and traffic, that and my book. 

Then, we have to say goodbye.

He's nervous, but he'll be fine. 

So at last we leave and wave even though we can't see him. 

That's when the tears come. I never cry around people and I have a book to distract me, so my eyes 

 are dry, but others cry. 

We stop for ice cream. It's some of the best ice cream I've ever had, but somehow it's sweet creaminess can't soften our moods, so we climb back into the car and let more miles and miles separate us from our brother. 

It's a first, and firsts are terrifying, so were all holding our breath and hoping everything will turn out ok. It will. God is here. 

Then the sky falls and every crystal of light is smothered behind the horizon. 

We make it home and argue about who should take the pup out. It was our brother's job. 

Letting brother go to college isn't sad because I will miss him. 

I will, 

s o m e t i m e s , 

but the sadness is more complex.

It's the pain of stepping back and being left behind. That's what hurts. It's the pain of looking forward at two more years of high school without all those friends who left for college, without my brother, without a boy in the house. That hurts. 

But, on a brighter note, I have plenty of goals to keep me busy. My junior year will be different, very different. That's ok. God is here. 

So there is an update.

< < < Latest news: Our family is growing up > > > 

<3 storyteller

Wilderness Part 2

Water|| life in liquid form 

• crystal •

• drop •

• corner •

• power •

Wilderness Part 1

For brother's graduation trip, we wheeled our big car full of bags and kids down to West Virginia. I brought along a 500 page book and disappeared into it from start to finish. I've said it before and I'll say it again, reading makes me happy. Literally, it lightens my mood and makes me smile. 

Here I have the first part of a series of pictures. 

I'll let them tell there own story. 

 

 

 • cowboy town •

 • country store •

• step •

• front yard •

• vacation tradition •

• run •

• love of reading •

I got it from my parents)

• wild •

<3 storyteller

{777 challenge}

 

 • reach •

•write•

• find •

Sliver from my novel After Ever After:

At home, Mom is humming, which means she’s in a good mood. “Hey, Aria, cookies on the counter,” Mom says. “How was school?” she asks like she always does. Not that she really cares, just out of habit. That’s my mom. Every move she makes follows habit. The world she lives in is just built off the world she has always known.

   
 “I’m going to be a librarian,” I tell her. 

   
“Sounds good,” she answers absently. Same answer she gives to so many things, and I wonder if she ever means it. Do words really sound good like music notes?

   
The cookie makes me feel a little better. Cookies are yummy, especially these ones that Dad brings home on Fridays fresh from the bakery at the store. 

   
 I don’t feel like doing homework, but I have to get it done some time or other. I start by pulling out my Literature textbook, but my mind won’t stay on my work. 

   
“Want some help?” Mom offers, like I’m still in elementary school. I don’t mind though. 

   
 “I can’t pay attention,” I groan, as if she could make my mind focus. I turn to her, “Mom, what’s the point of life?” It’s something Bobby asked that keeps nagging in the back of my mind. 

   
“Turning Bobby on us?” she teases. “The point of life is to be happy.” 

   
“So we were just made to be happy?” I’m not trying to be like Bobby, but I hear a similarity in my tone that scares me. 

   
“I guess so,” Mom shrugs her shoulders. “And to get to Ever After.” 

 
  “Ok,” I smile at the floor and try to sound like Mom has answered all my questions, but she hasn’t. She’s only made more questions. 

   
 “Aria,” Mom looks straight in my eyes in a way that means her full attention is on me, and for a sliver of time, she’s snapped out of the cycle of habits.“Sometimes we don’t need answers. We just need to make it to the end.” 

   
So we are just surviving and trying to be happy. My heart feels empty, like a glass with no water. A glass with no meaning. A glass that has no reason to exist, and is just there. There to be happy. 

Tears fill my eyes, but I won’t cry. I turn to my school work and try to take refuge in it, but nothing works. I think of my friends. They’re all just empty glasses. I am one of them. Empty.

~~~

My lovely friend and fellow blogger, Isabell tagged me for this challenge. I've never done a challenge, but this one looked kind of fun. 

{rules}

~ share 7 lines (I totally went over 7) from the 7th page of one of your manuscripts

~ tag 7 bloggers

I tag:

Ester

Rachel

Gabrielle

Lydia

Abie

Embers

Caroline