I miss you

I miss you I said through my heart today

The miles are so long you are so far away

Do you know that I thought of your nose at noon? How it nuzzled and kissed mine I miss that too...

I wanted to write, I wanted to cry, I wanted to hold you and deeply sigh

sigh out my heart, sigh out love, sigh out peace in your arms again

I hope each day that you'll come and stay. That you'll want me like I want you.

But the truth of the day is I'm alone here to stay.

you're not here. I 'm not there. We're not going anywhere.

The rain falls like my heart cries, to long to know any more. ITs a heart song its a love song. You're long gone. So long gone.

Will you find me? please find me.

Whoever you are. Whoever you've become.

once you chased me around a couch see, and you said you'd never leave me.
That you'd find me if I left you...but your not here your words did no come true.

but i still miss you.

My wild, wild ...East

I grew up reading all of the Little house on the prairie books and many other westerns. I used to always dream of discovering new land. What it would be like to pick up and move out into uncharted territory and try and make a go of it. And i thought those days are over. There is no more adventure and excitement. Everything has now been discovered.

however, as I was walking back to my apartment here in Taiwan. Surrounded by foreigners and pavement. A language and world that is completely not my own I had this thought that I a too am discovering a new land. Only in a new way. Survival is still unknown, the future full of possibility, set back and unknowns. BUt there is this idea of adventure because for me this is all new all foreign and completly different from anything I have ever known.

Its not easy. Some days its really hard. Living with 9 girls is never easy throw in 5 different cultures let alone personality and its like you are on a different planet.  But its amazing...its wonderful....I have never felt so alive.

This frontier though peopled with incredibly smart individuals. Is still a vast unknown. There is ground and territory I have never covered and never seen. I ask myself about my future and my calling the purpose for which I was created. AS I prepare to go home in two months and part of me wonders...am I called here?

Was I made to not live at home but to be a vagabond and world traveler? I don't know.

Stella and the knight of Lockheart wood

"Stella there is another tournament. I think you should go." she looked at him with eyes of disbelief.
"You know I always go and nothing, ever happens. How many years of rejection should we go for and the last one! you know how long it took me to recover. I am still recovering"
"Yes but after 5 years and besides he has moved on, so should you."
"But I only found out he moved on Monday!"
"Welp there is no time like the present for you to jump back into the saddle and go and enjoy another good joust."
"Which will only be a good joust until the man realizes, its me he is fighting for and hightails it to another waiting girls arms! Good job girls! way to be creative with that toilet paper, keep twirling!" Rose said in two voices, one addressing her friend and one her charges.
"His horse has your secret name." That stopped her.
"Fine." She said fighting the terror twisting her stomach. The pain of rejection so many times it was a wonder she wasn't more hardened to it. Surely vomitting would have been appropriate but instead it was silent agree ment. And the two stood there watching the girls laughing and dancing on the village grass. Unaware of the turmoil inside of their leader.  Happy to dance away never knowing and never caring.

"You will go with me?" Stella asked silently.
"HAve I ever not?" They both smiled though fear still twisted her gut.
-------
The Joust
It was not your normal day for a joust. The air was not electrified the crowds were not even paying attention. When the knights lined up to compete.  She sat there nervously, not sure which knight was the one she was to watch that day as several were about. The horse bore her secret name, she scanned them there was only one that caught her eye. A Paint white and red with a crystal blue eye and a soft brown one. ITs rider didn't look like the other knights. He must be a foreigner she thought as she saw him sitting there twirling a leaf upon the back of the Mare. He was actually laying down, not even sitting up preparing and his armor did not look like a man prepared for battle. His helmet was in goofy colors and he just twirled the leaf smiling. Even his armor was a bit of a rag tag assortment. Perhaps that should have warned her off, been a sign. Maybe it would have saved her from heart break...but she liked him.

There was something warm and care free, confident and awkward all at the same time. Like a boy waking up from a dream and realizing he is a man but unsure exactly how to be one, caught in a world he never fully wanted to be a part of. Almost like a man broken out of a long dark spell and cast back into a world of light, rediscovering truth and beauty.

She liked it. The bell was wrung and the joust began. She had almost left before it started but her friends told her to wait.  He went out and it wasn't epic. He did not arrogantly sweep her off her feet or kill the other opponents he faced that day. BUt he seemed to know her heart, her mind and he ran each phase of the course like she would have, like she had in the past ...or so it seemed.  Something in it all felt so right and something in it felt off, just a hair but not enough to stop her interest. not enough to keep her from jumping on the back of his horse and riding to the top of a cliff over looking the valley of all of her dreams and watching the sun set in his eyes with only the soft nuzzle of a horses warm breath between them.

That had been the first test and he had past. not 100% he had forgotten dinner, but he had passed. With more flair and poise and love and passion than anyone she had ever met, and her heart skipped a couple beats and she couldn't help but wonder.

She wasn't supposed to go down to wear the knights stayed and stabled their horses, but she couldn't help it. And he was supposed to tell her to leave but he didn't. HE always welcomed her with open arms and a beaming boyish smile that more than melted her heart. They never kissed but their eyes were melded to one another and he nuzzle her neck and her nose with the tip of his and she would giggle and run away and he would catch her and they would walk and talk and she would sing to him. And he liked her singing like no one had ever liked her singing and she feel madly and passionately in love with him, unlike any man who had ever tried to win her heart before.

And though the High King knew they were breaking protocol he never seemed to stop them, or maybe they had stopped listening.  Hadn't it already been stated that moonlit walks unchaperoned were unwise? BUt still Stella found her melted heart enraptured and she didn't care. Didn't care that merely a month or two before she had received a summons to leave the country for awhile didn't care that he had been called somewhere else. They had waited forever to finally meet and surely this love was one that could never be defeated that would find a way...or so she hoped and she melted beneath his gaze and waited with expectation for the King to announce him the winner and set them apart as the Lord and Lady of the Lockheart wood. To reasign her to another calling or a different way...to change the heart of the knight from the quest that he was on.

But alas they were two that never should have met. Or should they have, as we know God is sovereign...

There had been lapses of judgment and two times when the lovers had fought so bitterly with that they almost ended a couple of times when her heart had wanted out for he had neglected it, but over all he had won her and she stood in the stands waiting for the High King to declare that this was the day, the day the knight and his lady would become one.

But that day never came. Instead the knight was sent off on a quest. Stella did not want to let him go on the quest fully so she held on to him.  He had been called to battle a mighty dragon and the woman who had once enslaved him with her intoxicaitng liquor. The girl did not want to leave the one she had finally found but she was never made to be a lady who stood and waited. For she had a calling on her life to go. Quests she too had to fulfill. Something in the knight scared her to let him go and fight this dragon. Some how she knew this woman and this beast still held him in their power. She had caught faint traces of their lingering spells on him. flares of their magic at moments, old wounds on him not quite healed. Things that made her love him more.

Instead of the King sending them into life together he seperated them and sent them to different worlds. Where they could not be together. SHe yearned to know how he was and everyday they would talk so much that neither was focused on where they were and then one day she saw it, something had changed. His eyes were not his own, his voice...
Stella fought hard she did all in her power to get to him without denying the kings calling. But she was held back her hands tied in another world her heart and tears unable to reach him, to free him.  She wreathed in agony as she saw him fall deeper and deeper under the spell of the woman, and her beast, the spell that she didn't realize, but had caught her paritally too and now threatened to destroy both of them.

The knight saw it before she did and tried to cut their ties, lashing out at her trying to seperate her but he was so trapped that all he did was cut her through the connection she held.  FInally broken and sobbing she ran to the King and laid bare her soul and He said she had to let the knight go completely. BUt he won't make it she begged Him. SHe had tried to get others to go to his rescue but no one could enter the land that he stumbled into. ITs my fault she cried if I had let him go sooner maybe he would have defeated...."No," the high king said. "He made his choices and they are his and his alone. You bear no responsibility as he bears none for you. Be faithful to me I will see you through."

And turned one day as minion from the drag snaked its way between their worlds and cut into their heart and she shattered their connection. Destroyed it best she could.

And there was silence for two months. During that time the King was finally free to work and He allowed the enemy to capture the knight and bring him down as low as they could.  unti lthey thought he was destroyed.  But at that point the king had created a door that he set the man through and rescued him back out into the light.

When Stell heard that her knight was free she quickly without the Kings say connected and did her best to begin restoring the relationship. Only to later realize how foolish her hasty actions were.

Shoot no time to finish this story but to make a shortened story even shorter she realized that this knight though free of the strong hold was still not finished with his quest and neither was she. The high king showed her that he had to fight this battle alone as did she and so once again only this time, with both  of them not under a spell they prayed and severed their ties so that they could focus on the missions before them.

Neither know if they were together to be brought back forever or if their lives and love was only for a season.  IF another knight in a far away place is fighting for her and if a maiden he has not yet met is in need of him...or maybe their paths will cross again...only this time forever.

ok needs major editing but since I don't know how to save and come back to it...here goes!


The next day he rode up on a different ride a

priscilla & rain

Laughter filled the air. "Again, Again!" A voice shouted followed by the smiles of sweating beaming faces.  Well done ladies! thats a good days work I will see you again to morrow at Dawn.
A groan rose up, "always at Dawn" Priscilla grimaced to her freckled friend rain.
"Yes" rain smiled always at dawn.
"what is it with her and dawn?" Their instructor walked away, twirling the ring she always wore about her finger. A look on her face both anxious and at peace. She did not fit in here. In this school where everyone had jet black hair and eyes as graceful as the horizon. Small and delicate they were. But she was tall and muscular, not lean and wispy like the girls here.  She looked like strength, yet there was a wounding she was hear to heal from or something. No one really knew where she came from. she had come in Drugged and tired they said. YEars ago, a wearly look upon her face. On a quest she said. She always whispered about two knights and a king. Would the one come or was there another in a far off land, but year after year, she battled alone. Trained. She was happy.

The crowds were cheering, the sky was blue and clouds were floating by. As I found my seat in the high box over looking the arena.  How many times had I sat here? The memories came in like flood. An old wound began to throb as panic and bile rose in my throat.  I shut them down. NO and pushed them aside focusing on happier thoughts.

 I had been happy tending the children in the village on the outskirts of town. The knights I worked with were kind and did well by their families. My heart was starting to heal I didn't need any more pain. I could just walk away and enter into a quiet life happily serving like many others.  No one need know who I am.

Yet here I was. I had sat here one to many times. In the arena below horses snorted and shook their heads feet stomping nostrils flared. knights nervously checked themselves. THe rattle armor, the shouts of men. A horse reared and more men came to its aide. Children laughed and talked and giggled.  I could feel my stomach rolling again, terror rising up I pushed it down and took a deep breathe.  Maybe a walk. There had been a garden ...somewhere...I had time I was 45 minutes early yet I felt anxious like I was about to miss somthing.

The trees and the flowers they calmed my nerves. I took a deep breathe and just walked.  Suddenly there was a man, lieing on his back twirling a leaf looking up at the sky.  He wasn't dressed for the tournament. so it was hard to say who he was or why he was there.  I walked by, forcing myself to look in his eyes and smile and nod.  His blue eyes caught mine and held them for a second then he was lost back in his thoughts and the leaf and I walked on in relief.  A little more confident.

Back to my seat.  I could do this.  IT was a jousting tournament to win the hand of the princess and the High King had called me here.  The men would run out and they had to do a series of feats to win the hand of the maiden. Only they were not allowed to know who the princess was. Although often the princess would know.  Countless times I had sat there and watched ...and been overlooked.  Countless times I thought I had been told this time is your time, this is the one.  Only to find out that I was really to be learning something else. My friends had been caught up and whisked away but never me.

Then I saw him. The man with the leaf. He was tall and proud. But there was something about him.  I watched him sit upon his horse like a gentle giant. still twirling a leaf looking around.  I wondered whose heart he rode for. And then the High King called me to stand.  I looked up at him not knowing what was going on and in the next second I felt an arm around my waist and before I could scream the man had lifted me up onto the back of his horse and we were off.

It was a breathe taking ride. I barely had time to notice that it was the man with the twirling leaf. Later I found out his name was Sir Lockhart. His story is long and great and arduous. And I loved his adventure and him.  I would find him in the stables and throw myself into his arms.  I knew it wasn't time yet. That the proper course had not been run, but he had won my heart and my heart was completey his.  Although I held back to some measure but only on to the barest.

My head kept trying to slow me down to think. But at each tournament there was nothing I could see but him. I even stopped listening to the High King so focused was I on the knight. If my heart had not been so enraptured, so enamored, so in love...But no I don't regret any of it.

Except I didn't listen to the High King. I wish I would have been a little slower taken my time. maybe I would have seen the signs. But he had started to back off to. Oh there is so much to the story to tell but I only have a moment to write down this part of the tale. You see the tournament to win a bride can take months and sometimes years. I was supposed to be one who took months...not years.
 But as the year came to an end something was not right. The High kind had not given his blessing that this was what was to happen.  Oh there are so many more details to this too but to skip them all...
Well the next thing I knew I was pulled away from the knight. We were each being sent on seperate quests. Only I kept looking back kept thinking about him and his quest and where he was. And finally the King Said NO MORE.

You must focus on the mission set before you. or you will destroy the knight and yourself. SO with tears in my eyes I smashed the mirror and  a devestating hole was left behind.  Trapped in a new world. A million miles from the cheering crowds.  I let my love go, lost in a jail filled with dark souls.  A single light to burn.  Lord help him on his journey.
 Amen.  Someday when I have time hopefully I can make this make sense!!

One night in a storm

One night in a storm I stood on a hill.  The world around me like a spinning windmill
The rain lashed my face, whipped my hair tore my tears
away
No one could see, no one would know. All alone on the hill.
I cannot go home I screamed to the wind
My house is all changed
my heart is all changed
My hope is now changed
My futures ordained.
He's gone I cried out with a longing so deep. Did I want him to stay or to go.
numbness took over
my hair now knots my shoulders dropped
I slumped to the ground.
the world swirling round.
Suddenly just as quickly the rain stopped the pain stopped the sun broke the clouds...
a meadow lark sang on the first passing breeze.
My hair was still wet, my heart was still torn. My legs had not met the path that was worn
but I sat, I sat in the sun, in the midst of the rain that now fell so sweetly in sunlight set deeply back in the clouds
a soft fluid sound
the earth sent its scent
the rain cleared away, the grass glistened in new lovely dew.
A rabbit came out
a bird flew on by
the clouds they dispersed
the world refreshed, everything changed. A new day a new time
I sat
I sit and I will not go till he bids me go
though I know not where,

My Boss!

Today we studied 2 Timothy. I am astounded how calously I have read the bible. I read the stories, the books and my mind is like hard ground. The words, the life that inspired them  they run off with no meaning to me and little respect. I have such little understanding of the wisdom that can be gleaned from the lives of those that lived so many years ago.

Here Paul is at the end of his life...And all of Asia, he says has turned from him.  Except this one man who was faithful and found him and not ashamed of his needs, and Paul boasts of this one man. I wonder how I would feel if at the end of my life I had at one time traveled the world and lead thousands to the Lord and I am about to die and all that is left of ministry is one person...would I feel like a success? would I be able or willing to brag?

I think back to Rapid City and all the schools I went to and kids I talked to. What if only one person heard or learned anything. If only one persons life was changed. Was it worth it? Would the grant people say my salary was worth it? I don't know if they would.  BUt I am SO glad that God does.

ITs strange to think how little credit I give to God and how little I really know him.  I do know that if I leave Taiwan ...If I live my entire life and Anna (my friend from Subway) is the only person I was able to be a part of leading to the Lord...It would be worth it. Just seeing the Holy Spirit at work in her changes my out look on life. Its amazing!! GOd is SO amazing. FOR ONE, he would do anything for ONE!! I am so glad He is my boss and not the world!!