Words for Wednesday: A Winged Soul Favorite RM Drake Quotes

Today's Words for Wednesday quotes are just some of my favorites (a very small portion really) from R.M. Drake. Though I know he has intended them about someone other than himself, there is something in them that speak to me on a personal level about my own soul. I have always been a head in the clouds, fly-away, dreamer. It is that part of my soul that will always be forever grateful that God chose a man like Babe to be my husband; a man that knew that part of my soul needed to stay wild and so he nurtures it, loves it and lets it fly, because he knows that is the way to keep it flying home...   

Words with Friends

Friends, the welcome to adulthood version!

So, after the first week back at school, and back to a realistic schedule, I came home and took to the couch where I then proceeded to not move. For the entirety of the afternoon. Did you know that the all 10 seasons of Friends are now on Netflix? Well, they are. I had planned to simply watch the final three episodes, which I did. I laughed, I clapped, I awwed!! I loved it as much now as I did in 2003 (yup, 2003!) And now I am well into the middle of season 1. So much for just a few episodes, right?

Watching Friends as an adult, you pick up on things you didn't as someone coming of age. You still watch the story, you watch it unfold for characters you fell in love with so many years ago, but somehow the words mean something different now. Or else you just hear parts you chose to ignore before.

5 Things I Reheard (with adult ears) while watching Friends

"Welcome to the real world. It sucks. You're gunna love it."
- Sure 'nuf! As a teen I know exactly what I heard "real world (ie adult world), you're gunna love it!" That whole it sucks part? Went in one ear and out the other. Adulthood was this glorious thing, that I was going to enter into, fully knowing myself, my place in the world and how it was all supposed to fit together. Adults sometimes forget to mention that to children, you know the fact that it doesn't all fit together right. Or did I just fail to hear them? Probably. But I do love it. It sucks. Somedays it sucks real bad. But then there are those days, or even those little moments that shine inside the really sucky days, that make me remember I love it. It's real, it can be real sucky, but I love it.

"When did it all get so complicated?" 
- Somewhere, at some point along the way it got way complicated. But that's ok. It's supposed to be complicated, if it wasn't we wouldn't be here, we would be in Heaven.

"What if we dont get magic beans? What if all we have is beans?"
- There are days where I feel like I have no beans. No beans anywhere. And then somedays? They feel like days full of copious amounts of magic beans. Days where I have beans to share with the world. "You get a magic bean! And you get a magic bean!"

"Do you have a plan? I don't even have a pl."
- I thought for sure I would have this amazingly, wonderful, glorious plan for my life by the time I hit the age of 25 tops and then by the time I hit 28 I would have it nicely tied up, with a beautiful bow sitting atop. Well, I have had many of those said plans. And then reality set in and God said, "that was really sweet, but that's not your life." And now here I am with a job I LOVE and a community of people I am blessed to have in my life. And yet, I would tell you that I just have a pl at this point. I am still trying to figure out what the rest of my life is going to look like when I "grow up" and that's ok. It's all a journey.

"I've got magic beans."
- The scene ends, the episode is winding down and the questions we all ponder as adults have been thrown around. "How do we find the magic in it all?" And the answer is, we really never have to find it. It is always there. It is in the little moments, it's in the friends we hold close to our hearts- you know, the ones that never leave you even especially when life starts to pour- it's in the small blessings that fill each day. We all have a pocket full of magic beans, we just simply have to see them for what they are.

One Little Word: Surrender

Halfway through 2014 I heard about this idea of 'One Word', of choosing a single word to help focus and change you through the year. I have never been good with resolutions. One, because I am a horrible long-term, follow-througher and two, because I feel like if you really want to change something or start something new, why not just do it, why wait? So the idea of one word to help me work with, to fit into my life, instead of a goal to work towards was appealing. I have also felt this yearning for something to help me focus during my devotional time and I think 'One Word' will help do the trick.

But that still left the task of finding the right word. What should I focus on for a year? What should my heart strive to, reflect on, build from?

To be honest I think God has been morphing this into my word for 2015 since I first heard of the idea. He has been planting seeds, watching how I water them and waiting for me to start tending them. Or really to start letting Him tend them for me.

He has been asking me to surrender.

And in typical fashion I tried my hardest to work around that. To keep surrender from being my word for this year. So it is only fitting that in order to choose my word, I had to surrender to it. Surrender to God. To let Him win the battle I had been waging over my idea of the "perfect" word. My original thought: "Surrender? Really? Why not create or joy? I would like a little bit more of either in my life."

Yet, so many times this year I have found myself saying, "Let it go. Let it be..."
After a year of nothing, of numbness and trying to walk through the darkest parts of my story without losing myself, I came to a new understanding of who I was. Of the way I worked around my life, constantly running on an invisible hamster wheel, turning things just so and at just the right speed to keep everything going. As if I had ever had any control. And when it all came crashing down I realized the truth; that there had never been any wheel at all. And so, in trying to figure out where to go without one, how to move forward without spinning wheels that weren't going nowhere, I heard this small little voice persistently calling me to just "surrender, to lay it all down." 

It was as if I could hear God telling me,
"Surrender. Let go and let Me. Surrender to me so that you can embrace more of me, embrace more of what I have for you. Know that it will be good. It may be hard, but it will be good. It will be by My plans, not by yours, but it will still be good. Remember, I work for the good of those who love me. So love me. Love me without plans and control, just let go and love me and it will be good. See where I take it."

And so I shall do just that. This year I will surrender.