Drive and drive and drive

If life is a highway then I want to ride it. I cant ride it all night long because honestly, I can't stay up past midnight and function. Proof today. I am pooped. I am exhausted. Physically: my buns and every part of my leg that I never knew existed ache all from a good Funk class Friday night. Yes, I dance in a mirror with about 15 other middle aged folks and I love it. During that hour I am convinced I'd make a gay man straight. Friday: 5:30-6:30 may be my favorite hour of the entire week. My second favorite is pilates on Saturdays. Needless, yesterday I was a little antsy for no reason. I couldnt make any decisions about even what color of socks to wear and so I went back up to the Concourse (my gym) for the 2nd time. I ran stairs until my legs were throbbing and shaking and then wobbled out the door with everything I had left in me. Hence the soreness.
My mind is exhausted too.
My eyes just started to water.
I want to hop in the Honda with the moonroof open and really drive til I hit Tulsa.
Seriously.
Not to run from anything. Dont be mistaken.
I want to put on my new favorite 937 songs that I just reloaded on the new ipod. What a chore this was! Do you know how hard it is to put every memory and every feeling I hope to feel that every song I love portrays into one mini-player? This was an all afternoon process. So, no, not to run really from any one thing. And not because when I get back I think things will be different.
I want to go back to camp Greystone like in summer of 2001. I want to make the drive through Georgia and the Carolinas and breathe easy again.I speak of it often. We ate cheesey chicken for dinner and had the most perfect apples every day at 11 to hold us over for lunch. I expent all of my energy throughout the mid morning and then the bell rang after lunch and I would grab my mail. I ALWAYS had a letter. And then the rain would come. Almost perfectly the rain would come. Every single afternoon. I'd read my mail, write atleast 3 letters and then nap like I'd never napped before. The rain would beat on the tin roof the whole time.
My family was really far away. My friends were all scattered. I'd really never been so far away from everything I loved for any extended period of time. And I was at peace beyond comprehension. I talked to God throughout the day like He were courting me. I would tell Him on the way to my first class of the morning that I was tired and that I needed strength. I would let the tears come and just hit the dirt as I walked down the small hill beyond the lake because I missed my family. I woke up every morning without an alarm around 5:40 and went and ran up the hill as the sun would begin to peer from the east of the camp. I dint question. God did something so powerful and so real to me that summer and it had to do with my genuine trust. I knew He wanted my best despite what the circumstances might show. I grasped that which He so desires...my heart.
I want to go back to St. Thomas street in Charleston too. I want to run to the Battery and watch the sun come up over the bay. I want to sit on our porch in the afternoon and drink a lemonade (maybe even with that splash of tequila (ashley!)) and laugh until my tomach cramps and look into the smiles of some of my favorite people and feel like a favored princess. God is sweet beyond understanding. I want to serve a God that I dont understand. I dont want to understand Him for if I did that would mean He is only as Big as I am. I dont want to be able to understand His ways. I know why He does what He does and that is nourishing alone. He finds ways to our hearts. He doesnt want that thing which I cling to. He wants what that thing leads to which is my heart.
I have been in a rut. You know it.
I feel it.
It's been a few years now to be honest. In everything I do I do seek to praise God who is the Gift-giver. I fail often. But really, even in my aknowledgement - I have been in a valley.
The whole drive to Greystone that summer I listened to Ginny Owen's beautiful words about these valleys we encounter. And I purged myself of any further tear I could shed. I had fractured my ankle in junior camp 3 weeks prior and my parents had dropped me off on a corner in Athens and I headed to NC while they headed to Boston. I kept thinking this may not be the way I would have chosen...when you lead me through a world that's not my own. But I know that He never says it'll be easy. He just says we'll never go alone. CS Lewis said it simply as well, He is not safe but He is good.
I pulled up to the camp and really my senses were on overload. Everything even down to the smell and the density of the air was comforting all the way to the bone. Thus you can see why I want to get in my car in drive. I know it had something to do with the place but more so with the place God had me. It was my vulnerability that lead to my dependibility. I crave the summer of 2001 and the summer following in Charleston. Not to say life since was anything but fabulous. I just know that is where I first began to really trust Him. It is where I began to know Him initimately. And you think it gets easier as we get older and surely wiser? It really doesnt does it?
My stomach is literally flipping as I write this and I have that icky feeling in my throat. Everything in me utterly desires to let go like I did that summer. I allowed God to pursue me. I didnt resist. I didnt think I could do it on my own. He only allowed me to think about the moment. And I think because I squeezed every drop of goodness out of every moment then that that is why I can still feel the serenity once felt in my veins. And it makes me want it again.
Apart from intimacy with our Creator - we will always want more of everything. Nothing on this earth can fully satisfy us and I know that and I am thankful that He has created in me a constant desire to want more and to long for more. In all circumstances, my lips do praise Him. This has been a lesson in the making as I have lolligagged in this little rut the past few years. It doesnt mean we like where we are presently. It may not mean that we are comfortable. It just means we find praise and the overflow of my heart is praise.
Shawn McDonald is singing melodies in my ear as I type. Hear I am with my arms open wide. This is where I am God. My arms are spread. I am open to Your lead. I will embrace your direction. I can not do it on my own ....Lay myself at your feet. Asking you wont You meet me.
On the way to Tulsa. (Or maybe just around 285 a few times but nonetheless.....windows down, every song that says it all for me on the speakers and no where definite to arrive and no time frame to abide.)
I want to yearn for you my God. I want to yearn for you.

Help me to never get enough of You all the while reminding me to trust that You surpass my realm of understanding. It is that place of balance that my body longs for.

Yes,inspiration is: Tom Cochrane - Life is a Highway (for real)
Shawn McDonald - Here I am
Ginny Owens - Valleys