Praise Him.

{via}

I had my last devotions of 2011 today. Providentially, the final Psalm the One Year Bible had me read was [no surprise] Psalm 150. It's short, but as 2011 draws to its close, I think it says a lot.
"Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.
 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.
 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD."


There are a lot of things about 2011 I wish I could change; there are some things I wouldn't change even if I had the chance. It was a good year; a hard year; a year of testing and of refinement and joy. Not as bad as some years I can remember; maybe not as good as others.

At the end of this year, there's a lot of memories knocking on my door. Sometimes I'd like to question God; to ask Him why He thought that moment was right to bring a difficult providence into my life, or if He couldn't have let the sun shine just a little longer before dousing all my hopes in a sudden storm. Other times, I'm overcome with gratefulness at how good He has been this year.

I can't change the bad things that happened; I wouldn't change the good things. So, in the end, there is only one thing to do: praise Him.

I must praise God for every gift He's given me this year; praise Him for the trials He's brought me through.

I must praise Him for the sunshine and the rain.

I must praise Him for the times of happiness, for all the times I did something I thought I'd never do and did it well. Those things I'll remember for the rest of my life. And, in the end, I can do nothing but praise Him for the times I failed because I relied on my own strength to get me through, or simply because He had a lesson to teach me.

I'm so thankful for this year. I've learned a lot; grown a lot; written a lot; talked a lot [that's not unusual]; prayed a lot--though not as often as I should. I've made new friends, discovered new gifts, found new passions. I've read a heap of books and loved almost every single one. I've worked for about seven months now and am really encouraged by how kind everyone at the office has been to me. I got accepted into a college that I really like, and there's a chance that I might recieve a good sum of money to make it easier to attend there [that's something I'll have to wait 'til 2012 to find out]. For all these things and more I can only praise God.


Sometimes the providences I encounter leave me gasping for breath, but I can only praise God that He led me safely through. Other times, they leave me breathless with joy, and what better way to show my thankfulness than to praise the Lord?


Well, that's my formal farewell to 2011. I hope and pray that 2012 will be just as good a year, for me and for you.

As far as any New Year's resolutions go, well--pfft. Aren't mine always the same?


God Bless ~

Ps. One of the things I praise God for is my blog! I'm so glad to have the chance to write down my thoughts, post my stories, and read your blogs. In honor of that blessing, I picked my top ten favorite posts from this year. Here they are:

1. I Know I'll Understand Someday [10/16/11]
2. Another Short Story =] (6/18/11)
3. The Happiness [8/13/11]
4. An Apology [5/18/11]
5. Where Do I Start? [9/17/11]
6. Day{s} After [12/28/11]
7. Braking for Turkey [11/20/11]
8. Second to the Right, and Straight On Till Morning [8/28/11]
9. Is It November Yet? [10/13/11]
10. Ideas, Ideas [4/9/11]


What about you? What were your favorite posts from Something Solid Out of Air?

My Year {In Pictures}

Hey everyone. The year is almost at its end, and I was just looking through some pictures from 2011. It was a good year, to be sure; a lot of good things happened and my family has been blessed beyond measure. I decided to make a couple of picture mosaics, just to show you what the year has been like. The first one (right down there) is just a sort of summary of 2011 for me. It includes my trip to Louisiana for a wedding, most of my amazing summer (including my very first piece of corn on the cob in 2011!) and snippets of our trip to Maine.

Then I went a little further and made a picture mosaic of "36 Things I Loved This Year". That one needs a little explaining, so there's a list under it. If you dare to move forward, I commend you.

My Year {In Pictures}

36 Things I Loved This Year

       
Oh boy. Here we go: (from left-right)

1. I loved Maine. I loved the weather, the landscape, the fact that no one else was there AND sitting on top of a rock in the middle of the woods. Yes. Don't judge.

2. I loved East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It was a confusing but captivating story, skillfully written and masterfully handled. And I also loved the miniseries, which I watched before I read the book. Shaaame.

3. I LOVE HAVING A BLOG! It's such a privilege to be able to read all of your blogs and post little things for you to read.

4. I love that as of March 2011, I have two new little brothers. It's amazing how much they have changed since they first came as foster boys. They're so special, though sometimes difficult to love, and I'm so blessed to have them in my family.

5. I love that I got accepted into college! I don't know if I'll be going to Covenant next fall, but it was such a relief to get that letter in the mail and know that if God leads me there, the door's already open.

6. I loved seeing Les Miserables almost a year ago in January. The performance was just amazing, and it was so special for me to be there with my best friends to see the 25th Anniversary show!

7. I love the Irish Tenors. Yes. I know you knew that, but I thought you might want to hear it again.

8. I LOVED this year's GPCWC. It was just fantastic. I'm still sifting through all the stuff I learned and trying to apply it to my stories. I can't wait for next year! (See, they already changed the banner! August 2012, here I come).

9. I love learning about my great-great grandmother, Mae. I love her story, her spunk, and I love my grandmother for telling me all about it. It's so cool to be able to write her story over one hundred years later.

10. I loved seeing Schindler's List for the first time this year. It was such a great film, so well done and so haunting. It's currently one of my favorite films.

11. I loved going to Louisiana in May! The wedding there was beautiful; I was so happy to be able to be there. New Orleans was such a fascinating place to visit, even though it was SO HOT every day.

12. I LOVED being able to go to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with my German 2 class. I will never forget what I saw there, or how it felt to stand in that cattle car, or how emotionally drained I felt on the car ride home. It was a powerful experience and I would go back again in a hearbeat.

13. I love the books I've written in this past year. I know I'm still not even close to being done, but I got words down on paper and even had several new ideas pop up! I love writing, and I'm so thankful that I had another year to do it!

14. I love skiing! All the adventures my friends and I had are too many to post here now. I'm so excited to be going again this January!

15. I LOVE THAT THE HOBBIT IS COMING OUT NEXT YEAR. I just saw the trailer and, as a rabid fan of both the books and the first three films, I went a little berserk. I don't know if I can wait a whole year.

16. I love that I'm falling back in love with wolves. I started quite a few stories about them over the years, and I think another one's on the way. They're such fascinating creatures to write about.

17. I love pasta. Any pasta. ANY. I could eat it for the rest of my life. I ate quite a lot of pasta in this past year.

18. I love my Avaria books. I know I've been neglecting them, and not working as hard as I could to fix those plot holes, but I still think about them all the time and I can't wait until I start writing in them again!

19. I love Christmas. 'Nuff said.

20. I love latex gloves. Granted, they're really hard to get on, especially if your hands are wet. And it's really awkward when you're standing there fixing ever finger while people are waiting to start a procedure. But in a dentist's office, latex gloves are crucial. Since I work in a dentist's office, and I know more than I ever wanted to know about what kinds of nasty things live in your mouth, I really REALLY love latex gloves.

21. I love coffee. I love the effect coffee has on me (I think the coffee itself tastes pretty nasty). I usually only drink it on Sunday mornings, and I try to avoid it otherwise because it really does stain your teeth, but let's face it--I'm becoming an addict pretty fast.

22. I love painting. Over this past year, I've done a lot of painting and I'm starting to like it more than simple pencil or pen & ink art.

23. I love being part of the Class of 2012 (squee!)

24. I love how much reading I've done this past year. Goodreads, you are my friend forever.

25. I love the film Judgment at Nuremberg. Despite the fact that it's very long and pretty detailed, it's a captivating story and has unforgettable characters.

26. I love music from movies! I'm finding out that I really like movie themes--there's just something about them that clicks with me, I guess. I'll sit at the piano for a good hour trying to play my favorite themes by ear. Don't worry--you'll never need to hear the results ;)

27. I love Hershey's Cookies n' Creme candy bar. In fact, I love just about every white chocolate candy bar I've ever come across.

28. I love Ocean City, NJ!

29. But I also love Ocean City, MD! If ever I chose one over the other, my grandmother would disown me =)

30. I love owls. But you already knew that.

31. I loved that I saw my very first sunrise! It was spectacular.

32. I loved this year's NaNoWriMo. Even though I didn't finish quite on time, I have an incredible story started and I can't wait to keep writing it.

33. I love having a cell phone! Okay, so my phone is only a Tracfone, but as my dad says, phones are for making and recieving calls. No more, no less. Annnnd that's exactly what I do. Okay. Sometimes I text a little.

34. I love driving. I'm pretty bad at it still--I have horrible judgment and I've made blind turns more times than I'd like to admit, but I do love it. And I LOOOOVE my little red Honda.

35. I love that I've grown in Christ this past year. I've been lazy and forgetful; I've skipped out on my devotions and prayer time, but He has continued His work in me despite... well, me. I've learned a lot this past year; it's come with hard lessons and many blessings. I can't wait to see what next year has in store.

36. And, in closing, may I just say: I really love my life. It might sound a bit cheesy, but it's true.

 Anyway. I'll probably post once more before Christmas, Lord-willing, although my life is starting to get really busy as the big day approaches. If I don't write to you again soon, I hope you and your families have a blessed Christmas and a happy New Year!

God Bless~

I Know I'll Understand Someday

As my life gets busy and my high school days begin to wind to their final round, I find that there are a lot of things I wish I could do.

I wish I could dedicate myself wholly to my writing. I wish that the words would come as easily as they did four years ago, when I finished books in months and could write for hours without stopping. I wish that I could give my characters the time they so desperately need to develop and grow instead of clumsily moving from one to the next and buying them off with memes and quizzes. I wish that I had the time and energy to take every wisp of story in my mind and capture it in words, whether they be part of a poem or a novel. I wish that I could just sit back, breathe, and write. Like I used to.

I wish that I had more time for my art. Painting has become my obsession--the colors are so real and vivid. But I have no time to dip my brush into a spot of paint and run it across a blank canvas. I have no time to sit and think of concepts for paintings that speak to my soul with their colors and textures. I have no time to experiment, to learn by failure, to mix colors to find the perfect shade, to use every brush and notice a difference. I have no time to go to the store anymore and just stand in the aisle and breathe in the subtle smell of paint, or marvel at the canvas that's bigger than me. I wish that I could just slow down, breathe, and create. Like I used to.

I wish that I had more time for my reading. I love to read. I wanted to read every book ever written when I was little. Now I'm working on it, but not in the way I want to. I snap up a chapter here and there, always distracted, never focused on the words, the voice, the author. I try to rush through because "lots of classic books look good on a transcript", not because they develop my mind. I wish I could find a book I love and curl up, just to read. I wish I could enter back into the worlds I once knew, the worlds where I felt everything the author meant for me to feel and not just the superficial emotions I know now. I want that again. But I've forgotten how to find it. Or so it seems.

I guess I want to live again, or live life as I once knew it. I want to have the whole day to myself, to do the things I want to do, without all the confusion of school and responsibility and the pressures that I feel now.

But you know what I'm realizing?

I am living.

It's not the life a twelve year-old girl with straw-blond hair and braces lived. That life has been lived. It's a memory--sweet, haunting, sometimes even trailing on into the life I'm living now. But I am living. As I sit here, wishing for the things I once knew, the life I have is passing me by. There are new chances out there for me, things I never even knew of when I was twelve. They're not the same as the chances I had back then. But they are once in a lifetime chances, chances I'll never get to chase again.

The old things linger on--I still write when I can, paint when inspiration floods my mind, and read when I have a spare moment. I'll always have my passions. I am a writer, an artist, a reader. I'm a person who loves to draw and sing and walk outside on crisp fall days. I love chocolate and the warmth of a horse's breath on my fingers and taking random pictures and making beautiful memories. Those aren't things that are ever going to pass me by. Those are what make me me. They'll always be there, even if it seems like they're fading away.

All these thoughts that have been spinning around in my mind reminded me of the verses in Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Maybe I'm not "dying" and beginning a new life without the things I've loved ever since I knew they existed. Maybe this is just a time of transition, a time when those things can't play as large a part in my life. Maybe this has been God's plan for my life all along.

 Seasons change. They transition. Trees lose their leaves in the winter, but the leaves always grow back in the spring.

Maybe it's not the time you wish you had, but the time you're given that really matters.

In fact, you know what?

I know it is.

And that's all the writing I've done today.

And for once, it's okay.