Beautiful

I'm laying on the floor with my feet draped over a couch. The room is dark. A dog is barking in the neighborhood. I can hear the faint roars of distant traffic. I am in my grandparents' house, two hours away from home. A few minutes ago I was laying on my stomach, staring ahead at a globe I was spinning, holding my finger lightly against it. My mind went back to when I was eight or so. I'm standing in the basement Sabbath School area of my old church with my best friend Austin. We are eagerly taking turns spinning a globe and holding a finger against it until it stops. Wherever the finger points when the globe stops spinning is where we are "going." "Ooh!! You're going to Africa!" "Aw man, I want to go to Australia! I'm spinning again." "Wake island? Where is that??" "Haha!!! I'm going to the Pacific Ocean!!" We would spin the globe over and over again, never getting tired of imagining where we would go....

In two more days, I only have two full weeks of teaching left. The time really has gone by quickly, now that I look back, but it seemed so slow. I feel as if I have changed so much that I don't even know how to write any more. I guess I've just gotten out of practice. I used to journal constantly; almost every night, sometimes for more than ten pages at a stretch - by hand. It wasn't rich or meaningful thought, but things that I was experiencing and reflections on my issues. Needless to say, as I thought about my problems and analyzed them, I didn't really change much. I thought that I really needed to write in order to get my thoughts out and keep myself sane. It was just another coping mechanism in fact, and a harmful one. Like taught my students today; as sure as the law of gravity is the principle that by beholding we become changed. By re-reading about my past hurts and meditating on exactly how I had been wounded and figuring out the ways my hurt was coming ou...

God commands the light to shine out of darkness I'm sitting here in front of my computer, my head full of thoughts. A short time ago, the tone of my thoughts was primarily pleasant and calm; now a strong breeze is blowing, and stirring the placid surface into turbulence again. My heart sinks a little; when will these storms be past? When will I be continually at rest? It seems like all it takes is a tiny little thing; a word misplaced...a look from someone else...a faint memory...and it all comes back again. And I wonder if I have made any progress at all. But then I recall that these are not my own thoughts. They have been subtly placed in my mind by the enemy. And I have a choice whether or not to allow myself to focus on them. I can resist. I'm not doomed to continue the old patterns of thought, of overthinking, of imagining things that are not real. The only method that has given me any measure of lasting success in the battle against a diseased imagination i...