Glass Prison

I look out a dirty window,
And see a lonely place,
Then the window becomes a mirror,
And I see my ugly face.
I close my eyes trying to forget,
But all the memories remain,
And what haunts me are regrets,
And then I open my eyes again.
All these ghosts in my waking dreams,
All of them scary and crying,
Screaming at me to set them free,
But how can I free them if I'm dying?

I am trapped like they are,

Trapped in this dark misery,
I take my hands and press on the glass,
Like I hoped it would yield so that I may pass.
It stood there firm, cold, and grey,
I hoped I would not stay here another day,
So I beat and I pounded,
On this glass that blocked my way.
I beat harder and hard,
But it never cracked,
My fists started bleeding,
But what concern was that.
I had to get out,
I had to get away,
But I fainted,
I gave up and prayed.
Then like a flash,
God was there,
He picked me up,
And He stroked my hair.
He said, “Child,
All you ever had to do was call,
If you'd held onto me,
You wouldn’t fall.”
He gathered me up in His arms,
And He broke through the glass,
Air, fresh and pure,
Brushed my face at last.
And now I know I will never stray,
But in God’s arms I will always stay.

"Again"

God, I’m here again,
And much to my surprise,
I’m beaten, broken, and compromised,
I’ve fallen again,
This feels like the end,
Then you reach down,
And take my hand again.

Lord, you show me,
One step at a time,
That by your strength alone,
And not by mine,
I can change the world,
One heart at a time,
But first of all,
I’ll change mine, I’ll change mine.

I was blinded by sin,
I was losing all ground,
It was an up hill battle,
And my defenses fell down,
I was all alone,
Not a soul in sight,
Then you came in,
And fought my fight again.

Lord, you show me,
One step at a time,
That by your strength alone,
And not by mine,
I can change the world,
One heart at a time,
But first of all,
I’ll change mine, I’ll change mine.

Lord, change me!
Into something more,
Then a mixed up soul,
In this crazy world,
Lord, shape me!
Into something more,
Then a piece of clay,
Lying on the floor.

Because you show me,
That when I turn to you,
You’ll fight my battles,
And love me too.

Lord, you change me,
One step at a time,
And by your strength alone,
And not by mine,
I will change the world,
One heart at a time,
But first of all,
I need to change mine,
I will change mine.

Imaginary Friends

Why do children have imaginary friends? It kind of makes sense. I mean, with real friends you have to put up with flaws, pet peeves, allergies, and you have to share your toys with them. So what I find very odd is that all imaginary friends I've ever had the pleasure of meeting have, in some way or another, had flaws. An imaginary could possibly be "the perfect" friend. You create them so you could make them act anyway they wanted but...
Once a week I babysit a sweet little two and a half year old, toe head, bouncy girl I love very much. I call her Lil M. One night while I was babysitting I suddenly found out Lil M had an imaginary friend she called "Doggy". He was a grey dog that was either the size of a quarter (because she carried him around in one little cupped hand) or he was the size of a Jack Russell Terrier cause when she petted his head it was at the level of her little 2 year-old waist.
After meeting Doggy, telling Doggy to go down the stairs a dozen times, and almost stepping on Doggy I don't know how many times, Lil M told me Doggy needed to go potty outside. She all three of us got on our coats and went outside, and while outside Doggy kept running off. First Doggy would run and hide under my car and we'd try to catch him. Then doggy would run to the front porch and we'd have to chase him. Then Doggy jumped a seven foot fence in the garden but just couldn't seem to jump out so *da da da duh!* super Abby had to go and save Doggy. And after reach time we would catch Doggy Lil M would tell him he was a bad dog and Doggy would be sorry and maybe whimper a bit and Emily would then pat him or hug him and tell him he was a good doggy again, and wouldn't you know it, he'd run off and they'd repeat the whole thing again. After Lil M went to bed I started wondering about Doggy. Why didn't Doggy act like a perfect dog? And why would Lil M keep forgiving Doggy if she knew he was just going to run off again.
Doggy is very real to her so, through what I've seen, she tries to make doggy as life-like as possible. So can a two year old already understand that nothing and no one (not even Doggy) is perfect? Does Lil M know (perhaps only subconsciously) that there is no such thing as perfection? And how can a child (no matter what age) that has never been to church or heard a Bible story take the concepts of unfailing love, repentance, and unconditional forgiveness and apply it to her imaginary friend? Maybe I'll never understand exactly how a child thinks but it sure amazes me how much I always learn from them.

The Two Mirrors

I stood back looking at two mirrors. One mirror on my left and one mirror on my right. In the mirrors I saw my reflections but each mirror held a different reflection. The mirror on the left was tall and wide with an elegant gold frame that had beautiful faces and beautiful things carved into it. At the top of the frame the words "The Worlds View" was engraved in big beautiful scroll work. The mirror on my right was just the normal full length mirror size. With a plan black frame and on a piece of scrap paper taped to the top. The words "Gods View" was written in plain block letters on that scrap paper.

I turned to the gold framed mirror and looked at myself. I gasped! Suddenly all my imperfections were gone! I was tall with long legs and long golden blonde hair. My face was smooth and flawless and I was wearing the nicest clothes! I turned 90 degrees to the left and grinned, and then I turned right and smiled, then turned around and looked over my shoulder at this lovely reflection and giggled. I turned back around stepped closer and looked into my eyes. They were the most beautiful light blue instead of the ugly grey they usually were. My teeth were straight and pearly white instead of the braces I had sported for six months. I loved this! I looked like a movie star or a model! I stood twisting and turning and grazing at myself for minutes or maybe hours until I noticed the buttons on the mirrors frame. Two buttons, side by side, one was lit up and it said "Outer" and the unlit one next to it said "Inner". Just for the heck of it I pushed the button that said "Inner" and stood back to see if anything about the mirror changed. Well, the mirror didn’t change but my reflection sure did. Instead of the beautiful, slender, model that I had come to see myself as I saw a horrible little mangled creature with huge black eye and teeth like needles. It was hunched forward and almost hairless. With boney, grabbing hands and skin as pale as a ghosts. But the scariest thing was the way it... I looked at me... myself. In one look I saw the greed, the anger, the self-pity, the hatred, and the lust. It... I wanted everything and was going to stop at nothing to get it because it... I thought I deserved it.

I covered my eyes and pushed against the edge of the frame until I found the buttons. I pushed the top one that said "Outer" and looked over into my reflection and I let out a sigh of relief cause there was the beautiful me again. I stepped back and scanned myself in the mirrors reflection to see if any traces of that horrible little monster still remained. I didn’t see anything abnormal but the memory of the beast seemed to ruin the appearance of the perfect me. It almost seemed too sweet now. so sweet I felt like gagging.

So I turned to the simple, smaller, and less attractive mirror to my right. I stood so I could just fix the full view of my body into the frame and sized the reflection up. It was... me. I was disappointed. It was me. Dirty blonde hair, dull grey eyes, paint-spattering of freckles, short, wide and unattractive me. But the longer I stared the more satisfied I became with my image. I wasn't going to win Miss America, but those freckles were mine and for once I didn’t mind. I stared for only a minute then got board and saw the same two buttons on this mirrors frame as I saw on the last. I reached out then hesitated... what if that same terrible thing was going to show up if I pushed the button that read "Inner"? I took a deep breath and held it as I closed my eyes and pushed that button. I waited a second then opened one eye and looked at the reflection of me. Then I let out my breath quickly and jumped back. That wasn’t me in the mirror! Not at all! It was a man! But he moved when I moved and waved when I waved. I was so confused but I stared at this man that was my "inner" reflection. He was a little taller than me with tanned skin, black hair, black beard, and deep brown eyes. The kind you could get lost in. I stepped closer and so did he. I looked at his clothes. He wore a plain white, well-fitting T-shirt with well-fitting, dark wash jeans. His shoes were Adidas running shoes and he had a small wooden cross necklace hanging around his neck. I reached up to touch the mirrors surface with my hand and the reflection did the same and I saw it. It was red and raw and horrible. A puncture wound was in the palm of his hand. It was the size of a quarter and the rest of his palm was still smeared with blood and swollen. It made my hand hurt looking at it but I kept on looking. Then I looked into the eyes of this man and saw the things I longed for most but never found. Kindness, peace, joy, hope, understanding, compassion, grace, acceptance and salvation. But above all I saw love... unending, passionate, powerful, enduring, crazy love for me. I smiled and I felt myself start to cry. I knew who this man was. This man was Jesus and He was inside of me because years ago I had asked Him to be there and, even though I had forgotten Him, He was still there. And because He was inside me it suddenly made the outside of me seem a whole lot prettier.

Finger hug!

My Baby

Outlining Abby

Who am I? I know many people have wondered this over the course of their lives, but I know that for myself I have struggled with this question in my past seventeen years of life. To know yourself you must understand yourself. And to understand yourself you have to know three important things: who you were, who you are, and who you plan to be.

Though only seventeen years old I am aware that I haven’t accumulated a whole lot of history of myself so far but I’ve made enough mistakes to learn from. From my beginning as the oldest daughter of Ed and Susanne I have been in good hands. I have a loving mother and father, two younger sisters, and many wonderful pets. My mother tells me I was the most outgoing child she knew. I would talk to strangers, make new friends on the play ground, and tell anyone who would listen about my newest adventures. My outgoing and talkative personality has extremely aided me in my life so far, helping me make new friends out of strangers when I was in a new place or situation and feeling lonely and forgotten. There’s a saying, “A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet.” And I believe that. As I entered my pre-teen years I had made two lifelong friends that I love and cherish to this day, I plan on naming any children I may have after them. But a few of us didn’t start out as friends. In fact, at the beginning of our relationship my best friend Tyler and I were “mortal enemies”.  We soon got through this phase and it’s fun for us to remember and remind each other of the “old days” when we would call each other names and fight about nothing at all. But as I look back on myself as a pre-teen I see myself being a little bit of a bully.  I would start arguments with boys my age or older than me to prove I was as tough as them. I would do anything I could to impress upon my peers that I was as tough or tougher than they were and I see now that I never needed to prove myself.

That ties into where I am now. I’m older and try to take life one day at a time and learn from my past and my parents. I stopped wear dresses. I can now spell tomorrow and sympathy. I still love to talk to people. I control my temper better but one of the few things that haven’t changed through the years is that, deep down, I still struggle with the urge to have to prove myself. Of course, I don’t do it by picking fights or arm wrestling like I did in middle school. Instead I feel the need to accomplish something hard to establish my worth. I don’t have to be “the best” but I need to feel needed, wanted, and useful. This trait can be extremely helpful or extremely harmful. For example, in the spring, summer, and fall I work on a produce farm in Underhill. When I first started working there I knew the owners as family friends but still needed to prove to them (and possibly myself) that I could handle the physical requirements of working on a farm. I worked hard! From weeding the strawberries to stacking hay bales on a moving wagon I worked that fastest I could while still doing the job the best. At the end of that year I got a raise, a yearend bonus, and, most importantly, a place in the farm family. Now I also said it could be harmful and here’s an example of that. Between the months of November and April I have one passion and one obsession… snowboarding. To those of you who don’t ski or snowboard you don’t know what you’re missing. I live, breathe, and dream of snow-covered trails, black diamonds, and terrain parks. One of the parts I look forward to when I go for a day on the mountains is sitting on the chair lift with a friend and watching the people skiing below me. We will cheer on skiers looking down an icy slope, give a supportive yell when someone lands an impressive jump, cringe when someone takes a tumble, and sometimes giggle when someone loses a ski or plows into a fellow skier. When it’s you on the slopes you know that there’s always someone watching you from above. So as a girl snowboarder I feel the need prove I am just as good as those snowboarding guys that speed by me and do tricks. Can you guess what I do? I go faster, higher and more recklessly. Yes, I have made a few judgment errors on the slopes. I have broken a bone or two, had a bloody nose, and always come home with a few more sores and bruises then I started the day with. Has this need to prove myself made me a better athlete? Yes. Has it once or twice almost cost me my life do to hypothermia or a concussion? Yes. But I think what we want is worth the risk of life and limb.

In the future I plan to join the National Guard and serve my country. That’s what I want. I’ve been told I could be in danger if I get deployed but if I’m doing what I want, serving my country, and protecting the people I love isn’t that worth the risk too? I want to be a soldier. I want to be respected. I want to prove to everyone that I can be and I will be the best I can. I’ve had people tell me the National Guard will be good for me because I need to grow up. I’ve had a person I love tell me I’m not mature enough to do anything like that. But instead of defending myself and starting a fight, I tell them to go on, to tell me they think I’ll fail. Because all that does is fuel my fire to prove them wrong, and to prove to ever other teenager like me that struggles with self-worth that you can be anything you want if you have to the fire and the passion to prove even yourself wrong.