Oxygen & Helium Love {Guest Post}

My friends Hannah wrote this wonderful poem that I absolutely love. So I thought I'd share it on my blog today! I hope you all enjoy!

 Oxygen & Helium Love  

I am but a lowly blue balloon, a sack of wasted breath staring openly at she of helium who is high to the ceiling. I roll along the floor’s dust to no particular end, but that I might eventually lose gusto, that is, that the breath or harsh winds which blew me up, but not up even, for still I am down. If I could further confuse the meaning in that sentence I would, as my days have but no meaning except to stare at she who is lofty.

If I may describe this balloon, her color is the perfect shade of pink, a kind of soft bubblegum color that makes lips smack. Yes, and her shape is full, like a budding rose that bobs gently in the air while her string waves happily at me. 

Do I deceive myself, is this but an illusion? Days have passed since our coming into existence, and I think that now she is slowly, painfully, but surely, falling downwards. If I had the ability, I would jump for joy and float through the air in pure happiness. Her string tickled me first, my wrinkling self, but soon she sets herself down next to me, and she blows me a kiss. 

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Read more from Hannah at http://insanitysparkles7.blogspot.com

Beautiful Chaos {Guest Post}

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Today, I have my lovely friend K.H. Williams with me. I was thrilled when she said yes to writing a guest post for my blog. I love her writing and her poetry. I hope you all enjoy!

"A few weeks back someone asked me to describe my life in only a couple words. Being the writer that I am, several adjectives popped into my mind. It was easy to look at all those adjective and pick out some that fit my life. But I wasn't satisfied with what I found. So I kept on thinking about what my life really was about. Living for God, doing school, doing work, writing... but that didn't describe me. I was reading on some personality test websites about my MBTI personality type (INTJ) and was surprised at how accurate all of those things fit my life. But personality tests don't define us, they simply give us a name for our thought processes. So back to the drawing board. I thought some more on it. Who was I? What made me special to the world, to God, to my friends? I looked back on all the physical, emotional, and mental pain I have gone through. I looked back at every invisible scar that had been burned upon my soul for all eternity. And I imagined them being pencil, pen and paintbrush marks, making a picture of chaos. But my pain hasn't just been black and white. Color has been added. It was beautiful.
There it was. Right before my eyes was the answer to the question. Two words to describe my life would be "beautifully chaotic". I didn't choose this road of pain. I didn't choose this road of loneliness. God chose it for me. And He makes it a beautiful journey for  us to travel. He holds our hands through it all and never lets us go. And even when our lives seem chaotic and disastrous, there's always color and beauty that are added into the pain by the most amazing artist in the world: Jesus.
So chin up, darling. Because looking at the dirt is boring, but the blue skies are pretty. And even when it rains, look up. Because feeling water drops on your face and dancing in the pouring rain is a beautiful thing. <3 br="" style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">


Beautiful Chaos

you could see it in her eyes,
a beautiful chaos that was shinning bright...
and you could feel it in her words,
the way she loved life and all that was in it...

even though she lived in pain,
and even though it never gave her rest...
she always had faith, had hope in the future,
now she wants you to see it, too...see the love of life...

...see the love of poetry, and words...
...see the love of paintings and long walks...
...feel the intertwined fingers of a lover,
...and hear the late night whispers of a friend...

she was a mix between disastrous melancholy,
and gorgeous abstract, that shined through her soul...
and she enjoyed the art of music and dance,
longing to live as long as possible...

...longing to see the world...
...to /feel/ the wind one last time...

she rarely cried, saving her tears for important things,
keeping her emotions locked deep in her heart...
until the right moment when she could freely express
her mind and dreams, and hopes...

~K.H. Williams "

The Passion of Loving Others {Guest Post}

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I've been thinking that I haven't had a guest post from one of my fellow writers in a while. So the past few days I've been in contact with one of my friends Michaela. I asked her if she would like to be a guest blogger and guess what, she said yes!! I was very excited about her acceptance and I loved what she wrote about. I hope you all enjoy. 

"So Messy asked me to write something I'm passionate about, or New Year's resolution stuff. (patiently I must add, I'm not a punctual person, and this is one patient young woman to have had to deal with me). And so I'm going to choose “What I'm really passionate about” thing, and see how this all goes (just hold with me darlings).

M'kay. So I think everyone is deeply passionate about a good few things, and for me those things are poetry, adventure, nature, and music, but I'm not going to talk about any of those things, even if I could probably go on about them for hours. Instead I'm going to choose this new found passion of mine, a growing one, Loving others. Sounds pretty whatever, but you have to hear me out.
These last couple years have been quite doozy's for me. I had a lot of bad things going on in the external world, stress from work, stress from high-school, that nasty drama between close friends and family, sickness in family, and myself (a journey of discovering I have Celiac disease), a couple deaths in the family and an unexpected death of a close friend that happened last Spring. And in general I'm a calm and steady person, nothing really rocks my boat too much for me to handle, but there was this constant sanding of all these things that slowly wore holes in my ship, wearing me thin, and forcing me to shore. Not that the storms were too much in themselves, but that I now had a completely useless ship, that even the slightest wave was making me sink. Kinda a trippy place to be in, so I got desperate.
I turned hard and bitter, hoping that would patch me up. If I could just be stone hard, and cold as ice these things wouldn't sand me down as much (That is the twisted logic of a depressed person, it is totally faulty, and honestly the worst thing for me to do). I became unaffected by things, a boring numbness fell over me, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The sorrows in life soon became mere annoyances that I could handle, and the tears dried up ( I literally didn't cry for about a year). But even if this was convenient for me with the stressful things, it had side effects. Numbness to pain is also numbness to joy. I was never more than “somewhat a good mood.” Nothing made my heart jump anymore, I never had those feelings that shook you with excitement, The thrilling things that people live for, like love, passions, obsessions with all things beautiful and good, were just whatevers for me. I was never truly touched or moved, the world lost its wonder, and things became boring and taxing, and I became a hard and cynical person who, at first is what I wanted to become, but we are never fully aware of all the terms and conditions, I hit “accept” before I had even read half a page of the contract.
So things got sucky, and quickly. I had been baptized earlier the previous years, but I was almost sure after a couple months that I didn't want to take God's wondrous path, it was childish in mind, a fantasy. I stopped asking him for help, because honestly I didn't think He was all he was cracked up to be, and I never actually doubted His existence, I just doubted that He was the God of love, the great friend and healer of man, so I guess I didn't exactly grow bitter towards him, just indifferent, really indifferent. And this had nothing to do with anyone around me really, I have a set of loving parents, and loads of siblings here to support me, it's just I didn't want to be crying in my room anymore, so I signed up for the heartless club.
But being heartless and cold wears on you on different ways than being sad and helpless. People started telling me I was unsympathetic, people called me heartless, sociopath, mean, cold, Sherlock(random one I know), too objective, and insensitive, and by gosh were they right. I'm not easily insulted, so those things at first just got brushed off my shoulders, but after awhile I wondered if maybe they were right (because apparently it just didn't sink through my thick skull for a couple months). I knew I needed to check myself before I got worse, and what was probably the leading factor that pushed me into actually doing that was when someone very close to me took me aside quietly and asked me what was wrong, why I was becoming so mean and rude. And in the moment I f course just shook my head and said nothing was wrong at all, and they left me alone for awhile. But I knew it was time to sit myself down and discuss some things over with myself. I was so numbed it pained me, and I was so bored that nothing in life seemed worth living for (I was never suicidal, just extremely bored).
So I forced some change, and at first nothing happened. I opened myself slowly, bit by bit to God, and still nothing really changed (except I became more aware of my sins). But about a month after I had asked God to take the numbness away, even if He just replaced it with sorrow, I just wanted to feel again, I had to know I was human. And apparently God didn't think it good to pour it all down on me right away. I had worked hard to become so hard, I was going to have to work hard to become soft again. I'm really glad God didn't just go “Oh! My darling Kaila is finally seeing sense! Lets give her all she wants right away.” because then I think I would have turned back to being hard-hearted pretty quickly. If God would just grant me my wishes right away, I doubt I would have appreciated the gift. So yah, I'm really glad how God had that all planned out, but in the moment I thought He was just sorta ignoring me.
Now! Back to the beginning of my passion for loving others. It's not really my passions at all thought, it's a passion I begged God to share with me, and He, like the darling He is, obliged my weak heart. He showed me that I need to love him first, because once you love God, loving others is sorta this sweet bonus pack, it's hard to come by sometimes, but it's still a pretty rad bonus pack. I wanted God to change me instantly like in the movies or testimonies of others, but I realized that just like any relationship, you need to take things slowly. And there will be amazing glorious breakthroughs, where you look up with tearfully joyful eyes and whisper things like “This is what you were talking about, you really love me, it's all around me, the signs, the whisperings of your romance for me.” and I swear you can feel God smiling back down on you and replying: “Darling, of course I love you, and nothing makes me happier than when you see that.” and it's like, a chills and shivers moment of the deepest love, an everlasting love that is gentle, yet so strong that nothing can break it, and it will never grown hard.
And I discovered that this is not so much a religion, but more a relationship with God, that this is what my life was lacking, and everything slowly cleared up. The clouds and fogs lifted, but they also shifted a bit, meaning I do not have it all figured out. I still find myself tripping up and being the bitter and unloving person I loathe (I slip up more than I want to admit, but since I want to be real with you here, I slip constantly through every day, like, a lot). Sometimes I will stop and think “Great Scotts. What is my life even about anymore?”, and I'll stumble along for while before I grasp the remembrance that this life is about God, it's about life, and that I'm here to love, and that above all, love!
This is the greatest lesson I have learned so far in life, this is that one piece of advice I would pass down or up to anyone I can. Love always, love deeply, love faithfully. And yes you'll be hurt, and yes you'll have hardships (but I'll inform you now that those always deepen love in the end). Just never close you heart to love, that's never worth it. Even in the moment when you're like “Ah yes, finally life doesn't rattle me anymore.” that's not the point in life. We're not here to master this feeling of numbness. We're here to be touched, to be moved, to really love every second of life, to all be the messy paintings that might not look perfect, but always makes you feel the thrilling things you had no idea were possible. We're here to love every inch of others, and to discover that love truly does conquer all. Love is worth it, love is worth any hardship, every pain, every dear teardrop, it's just all so worth it, and I hope I can help you see what I'm talking about. Because I used to think love was nothing more than tolerating others. That being like “Well, I'll love you, but only because I HAVE to.” no, I was so foolish. When you actually feel love, a true love, not a knight-in-shining-armor love, but the marvelous love of God, everything just makes so much sense. You love others because you want to, not because you feel obligated, you find beauty in life because it's there, and you don't have to strain your eyes to see it. You truly start to love others flaws and imperfections (and your own), you start to serve others because you just need to show them in every way you can, the love that's around us. The most poetic love engulfs you, devours you in the most lovely way, and pours out of all your broken pieces, and it shines on the shadows, and it's just so lovely, and I wish and pray everyone has a chance to see it, to feel it. Because nothing has shaken me like the poetic and wild love of Jesus Christ. Nothing has changed me in such a wonderful way. It is my most passionate of passions, and I send out invitations to you all to join me in it. It's so much better shared."

If you would like to read more from Michaela you can visit her at her blog, A Novelist Garden. 

Dorybatman {Guest Post}

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Hey there readers! Today I have a guest blogger, one of my very good friend, Dorybatman! Today he is going to share some of his thoughts on cloudy months. Enjoy!

"Hi everyone! This is dorybamtan here. I am SO excited to get a chance to guest write on Mess’s blog for the first time and share my thoughts with you guys. It’s gonna be a crazy loony trip inside the brain of a fish, so batten down the hatches and make sure you’ve got your root beer floats on hand because you never know went you might run into a thirsty whale in my writing!
    I’ve heard it said that people spend days and maybe even weeks in a haze, but have you ever spent whole months in one again and again in the same month every year?! Well… maybe it’s just my genuine wackiness, but I have always had one or two reoccurring foggy months. It feels like I’m in a cloud… I’m high and happy, but I really don’t know why. Kinda like when you’ve eaten eight bowls of ice cream: at that point, all that is in your mouth is ice cold fluff, but you’ve still got a sugar high that would make Washington state legislators appalled. Ha! I can see the tomorrow’s headlines in the Seattle Times; “Olympia OKs marijuana. Disses excessive ice creaming.” XD Anyways where was I?... Ah yes, foggy months… (and just in case you were thinkin it, all have you know I am NOT smoking now. This sporadic insanity is quite normal for me thank you very much) OOP! Sound the foghorns and grab you’re floats! We just ran into a random thirsty whale! XD Now where were we? Ah yes, month long haziness.
    It seems it happens every August. Though I never really have had anything against August, it seems to have something against me… or at least… is unsettled with me. Which if that is in fact the case, who can really blame poor August? It’s not like I’ve been very agreeable to her. Whenever she comes around, she almost always is greeted with the melodious sound of my grumblings against her masked blessons of school’s beginnings and 4-H’s endings. I must be a very difficult child for her to break to the normal wave of responsibility and formality which is in fact intended for my ultimate good. Maybe this hazing has been intended all this time for me to come to appreciate her for her strike beauty: like a Mary Poppins of sorts. Potentially; I really don’t know. One thing I do know though is what I must do in response to this ever hovering yearly foggy August.
    Now, I don’t know about you, but whenever I get in a haze, especially extended stay hazes, I tend to get selfish and only focused on myself waking up from this annoying haze. Along with that, I tend to let my thoughts fly by like bats in the night sky: hardly even seeing them as they pass right in front of my eyes. Obviously though, these are terrible alternatives from the truth. The Bible talks about in 2nd Corinthians 10:5 how we are to “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” That’s not to say that when we are in a safe place and want to rest or get creative by speaking from our hearts, we can’t set our minds at ease on the cross and go running around barefoot fun and fancy free on Skull Hill. That is in fact one of the reasons Jesus died: so we could have freedom in our minds to rom the green pastures David was talking about (See Galatians 5:13). However, though we are called to be free, we can’t just randomly follow every seemingly attractive butterfly of thought that flies into and out of the pasture; they could actually lead us away from freedom and into captivity. We gotta stay focused on the gatekeeper in those moments of subtle thievery (see John 10:1-18). I also can’t just sit back and think about how to get myself out of my own personal haze and forget what I’m here for; to serve others in order to make Jesus look like the loving, freeing, forgiving, everything He is (see John 13:1-20). I know God will take care of me (again see John 10:1-18) if I make myself low and cast my all the worry and doubt the haze inspires in me (1st Peter 5:6-7), I will not have to worry about branching out and following my call because He cares for me.
    So my question to you is; do you have cloudy months where you are kinda in a 30 day haze you can’t seem to wiggle out of? Which month is it? Do you feel like you worry too much about it or do you cast your cares on God? If you can answer any of these, send me a shout out or comment below! I think I speak for both me and Mess when I say, we’d LOVE your thoughts on monthly hazes!... *sigh*…. And this alas leaves me to my ado’s. It has been fabulous fun Mess! Thank You for having me on the blog. ^_^ And to all my scatter brained bewildered readers out there, au devoir! "

Dory, thank you so much for being willing to share your thoughts! I hope you all enjoyed! As Dory said… we would love to hear you thoughts on what you think about cloudy months so please feel free to comment. :)  

Please be sure to check back because I'm working on a short story that I will be posting very soon!