Porcelain Hearts

Deep down I think we all want to believe in love. ♥ ♥

Yep, the person next to you on your morning commute that you barely notice because you're already frustrated with traffic flow or if you're like me you're singing along loudly to your latest addition to your i-tunes. The person next to you wants to believe in love. Your co-worker who endlessly complains, your boss, your friends, the homeless man on the corner holding a grungy coffee cup Starbucks discarded ages ago...the one common thread is love and the desire to hope and believe in it because it gives us something to cling to that makes us all the same and makes us all human.

The housewife who feigns love because her idea of love has been polluted since she went her teenage years...the teenager who can't say "I love you" to her parents but can text a thousand "i <3 you's" to her friends a gazillion times a day...The husband who claims to love yet "forgets" his wedding band every morning when he leaves the house...

What's happened to us? We want to believe in it, we want the media to puke love to us in the form of romantic comedies & valentines and the saturation of our social lives to serial date. We want to believe in the "idea" of love, but we don't want to truly love, expose our souls in such a way that others would see us for who we really are, we don't want to act on our feelings, we want love to remain a "feeling" and not an action.

I was thinking of this when I talked with a co-worker over lunch today and she told me how she met her husband and how she fell in love and she just knew he was the one...her face lit up when she was speaking of her husband like fireworks on the Fourth of July. She told me they have almost been married 3 years now and she sounds like she's fresh off her honeymoon. It is LOVE. Good old fashioned L-O-V-E. It brought tears to my eyes and renewed my spirit to believe that one day I will experience that kind of love. I didn't realize how jaded I had become to love until speaking with her today. I have built up these castle walls so high and put all kinds of crocodiles in the moat surrounding the castle that no prince dare pass this way...

For at the end of the day, I know love isn't a feeling. Love is HARD WORK. Feelings are feeling, love takes give and take, it takes commitment. It's washing his laundry every week just because this is a form of love...it's sacrifice, it's a kind word when you just want to scream in anger...love is beautiful.

Love means that one day I won't have to wake up with my arm wrapped around a pillow because a man will have his arm around me. It means that when I turn my key in the lock I won't have to come into a dark and empty apartment and figure out what's next on the agenda for my night. It means I will have someone kiss me goodnight and good morning and not have to worry if he's gonna call me the next day. I will have someone who makes me laugh til it hurts and someone to dance in my bare feet with on the kitchen floor. Someone to have babies with and with tears streaming down my face welcome a new life into the world with him by my side and I can't stop crying because I can't quite believe it finally happened to me. That little life will be part of he and I and that is love in the form of a sweet bundle of joy. I'll have him feel every kick of that baby and hope he always looks suprised and happy, even if he doesn't feel a thing. ;-)

That's the kind of love I hope to "fall into." I don't need a movie to tell me how it should look, and I don't need to rush it. If I have to wait forever plus another day, I will do it because when he gets here and I see that 4th of July sparkle in his eye when he looks at me, I'll know. I'll know that his hand is the hand I am forever meant to hold. His arms the arms that will cradle me like he's afraid to let me go...his kiss the only kiss I will ever want until my dying day. I will kiss that man every single day in order that I memorize his lips so that if he should die before me, I will never forget.

Love, I can't wait for you to get here. As I type this I look down at my lonely ring finger and my eyes brim with happy tears in the anticipation of you. Not yet, but someday. Some sweet day. You have my heart already...your lady is waiting.

Love,
Me
♥

I don't often share my heart as openly as I should. Sometimes I sit back and let things reside within me until I am about to burst with emotion for I cannot sit by another second. Don't be deceived, I wear my heart on my sleeve 90% of the time, but the other 10%, where I should speak up, I remain silent.

Once upon a time in my younger years, a guy who I dated a few times told me, "Meghan, I think you would be the perfect wife, but...(the lovely "BUT"...I hate that more than any word in the English language) BUT...you just aren't perfect for me."

Mind you this was just a couple years after my dad had left and we hadn't reconciled just yet. So brimming with insecurity and self-doubt, I sat. I soaked it in. I allowed that comment and the words he spoke to me that night in the cushiony chairs at Starbucks to become a fiber of my very being. This was just a piece of the story of my relational life. I allowed people to dictate who I was and tell me who they thought I was when really, I was who I was the entire time. I was Meghan. I love all things girly and yet I love to lift weights and run 7 miles at a time. I like to play in the mud. I like getting dirty in serving the people of this earth and my greatest dream is to hold orphans and speak words of love over them. I want to be married. I want to wear the white dress. I want to be a mom and feel that life growing inside of me. I want to glow. But...not yet is what the Lord tells me to some of those dreams.

In the meantime I am supposed to be who I am and true to who I am without anyone telling me who they THINK I should be. It isn't just in dating. It isn't just with my family. It is with friends, family, & the loves of my life. I cannot be silent any longer for I am slowly learning that that very fiber than began to run it's course in me so many years ago is dissolving along with the insecurities that have held me captive for so long. I am captivated by my God who loves me when I wake up in the morning with crazy "Fraggle-Rock" hair, glasses on...blindly stumbling for my coffee in the dark. He loves the freckles on my nose that I try to cover up with makeup. He loves my loud laugh and my love for people even when they walk all over me. And guess what? He loves you too...in all your insecurities...with all the things you think flaw you. Those flaws make you YOU.

So thank you Guy who I wouldn't make a perfect wife for...for helping me to realize that it's not of any fault of my own. It's just who I am and who you were and it didn't mean we were "meant to be." Thank you for helping me realize that I have to remain true to who I really am and not settle for being less than who I was called to be. If a man cannot fall in love with who I am as I am, then that is ok by me. I'd rather live alone the rest of my life than be a fake version of myself. :-)


PS-**I was reading a blog yesterday about sweet little Lucy, a 5 year old girl who is struggling with cancer and she needs all the prayer you can ferverently pray. I do not know or understand cancer and why children get it, but I do know that our God is mighty and awesome in power and He CAN heal this precious little girl. Please think of her and pray for her sweet self. Let us live beyond ourselves and think of others today and everyday.** Here she is...

I will leave the light on for you...

I'm tossing my kitten heels over the next cliff I come across.

I want to exchange them for the sound of your laugh and your smile, your sweet embrace that I don't yet know of. I want to trade them in for hiking boots I can climb a million mountains in, with you by my side. For the magic of that first time you touch my hand, fingers lingering on my palm for just the right amount of seconds before they slip down to intertwine with my fingers. My chipped pink nail polish so obviously girly against your calloused hands. A perfect fit. And you don't even mind that my nails are chipped.

I am going to collect all my lonely & sleepless nights and put them in a jar, a jar to throw off that cliff along with the heels, to trade in for your embrace and your arm around me while I sleep in peace because I know that when I wake up in the morning you will be next to me, and maybe you'll keep me up snoring all night, but I will even be grateful for that sound because you're right there. To trade for my last "first kiss." Warming the normally empty spot next to me. To see your face when you wake up with your sleepy eyes and messy hair and fall in love with you even more because you're not "perfect," but you're perfect for me.

I don't know you yet, but I hope to know you soon. I press on through my days, making myself a pot of coffee each morning that I can't finish alone and having leftovers for days after I cook because there isn't another to feed. I don't care if you don't like my cooking once you get here, I will keep trying, even if we have to order take-out for a full year. :)

My friend told me something very wise today while I await the next adventure in my life, which I pray includes meeting you...she said, "We never know what He is saving for us, or saving us from, or bringing us to, or keeping us exactly where we are, but if that's where He wants us, it's right."

Amen.

I'll leave the light on for you love.

<3

Chicken Avocado Wrap!

I have been getting requests on my facebook to do a recipe blog for healthy eats & tips to eat clean so here is my dinner from tonight! I just bought ingredients fresh from Village Market by my house. I probably spent $2 on this. I would have paid $8 for this at a restaurant! I try to buy everything fresh & local if possible!
I am doing another Fitness Competition in May at Fitness New Mexico 2011 so I have to keep eating healthy! Hope you all enjoy and use the recipes! :)

-Chicken Avocado Wrap-
YOU'LL NEED: (for 1 serving)
-1 whole wheat tortilla1 chicken breast
-1/2 can of Hunt's fire roasted diced tomatoes with garlic
-1/2 avocado...bell peppers (as many as you wish)
-mozarella cheese
-lemon pepper and/or fresh lemon bit of olive oil

HOW TO: -Simmer bell pepper, avocado & diced tomatoes in pan with a bit of olive oil for about 10 min.-
Grill chicken. I defrosted it in the microwave & threw it on the George Foreman grill cause it's QUICK!
I added a bit of olive oil to chicken breast, sprinkled lemon peper on both sides, and squeeze fresh lemon juice on chicken breast.
-Strain your diced tomatoes, bell pepper & avocado or else you'll have one soggy burrito! Throw on tortilla, add chicken, throw a bit of cheese on top and VOILA!
EASY, inexpensive & HEALTHY! YAY!

Friends for life...

Swept Away

A couple weekends ago I went up to see my family in Durango and go snowboarding. Before I even got to snowboard down the mountain, I managed to misplace my gloves...my poor dad had to buy me another pair. I ended up having a blast though...

I got separated from my family for a lot of the day and as I was snowboarding down the mountain, the sun was slowly setting in the wintry sky...the trees all over...the scene was breathtaking...I came to a stop and just stood. It had been so long since I just stood and didn't move. I'm always going going going, I never seem to stop and breathe.

Well as I stood upon that mountain top, it seemed that entire mountain was all mine...I didn't see another soul around, no one was on the run I was going down. I felt like God was telling me it was going to be okay. So much I worry about, whether I will ever find "the one," desiring to have kids one day, paying bills, friendships, simply put, LIFE...I felt this impression on my heart that God wanted me to know it was all gonna work out in the end. For God was still directing it all, even my snowboarding the mountain that day. In that moment in time it was like my soul breathed a sigh of relief. It really all is in His hands. I can't push Him into anything or hurry his plans just because I'm human and I get impatient.

Sometimes I dream of it...I dream of my future, I dream of a man standing at the altar and although I can never see his face, I feel this love in my dream unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life. And no, my whole life isn't wrapped up in getting married, I just feel like God has impressed upon me the desire to take care of a sweet man someday and that I will love every second of it. I already love life...in all its joys and sorrows...it is laced with a sweetness I can't quite manage the words to describe.

This mysterious man, in a black and white tux...standing there...candlelight dancing around his face, his eyes sparkling, yet his face is blurry. God is telling me yes, but not yet...but he gives me glimpses in sweet dreams such as this one that I have had more than a few times. I can feel the bustle of my dress swimming around me like a princess gown...and I can look my friend Stephanie in the eyes who has been there for me since we were little girls...we have been through it all together, from being goofy teenagers together singing loudly in the car or her braiding my hair for me cause I never could quite manage... to her wedding where I cried through the whole thing because I couldn't believe we were growing up so fast...to the birth of her first baby boy who is a light in my life...

All I know is I'm going to look Stephanie in her blue eyes and I'm going to announce with a smile that comes from deep within that my time has finally come...No longer do I have to help another bride lace up her gown or find her missing gloves...no longer do I have to wear a bridesmaid gown that in all honesty (no offense to anyone) I can't wear again... No longer do I have to be a spectator. My time will have come to be swept away.

Oh dear reader, how I felt swept away on that mountain...swept away by the God who created everything I stood on that day from the mountain to the snow to the trees, to me...yes, me. Little old me standing there with my heart sighing and yearning for my next chapter to unfold. It will unfold...page by page, line by line, of this I have no doubt. My heart beats wildly just thinking about the adventure of it all.

Swept away...I am so happy where I am at right now in my life just knowing that beauty lies around every corner. I am willing to wait for anything life has for me because I don't have to fear the end. My heart will remain on that snowy mountain and I will remember...

The beauty in "can."

Remember when you were little and someone told you that you "couldn't" or "shouldn't" do something? Didn't that make you want to do it all the more? As I prepare to fly out to Vegas tonight for my fitness competition at Fitness America, I am reflecting on all the couldn'ts and shouldn'ts that have been thrown my way over the years...

To put it simply, and it may sound cliche, you CAN do anything you put your mind to. It's all in your mind. People fear what they "can't do" when in reality they CAN, they just let their fear control their entire existence. Trust me when I say, I don't walk across that stage in a bezazzled bikini fearless. I do it because I know the work I have put in: sweat, tears, caffiene withdrawals, sleepless nights, mind-numbing amounts of tilapia and celery later...I step a toe on that stage because I know beauty isn't just an outwardly thing- I know it lies within me...in my heart and in the heart of so many of my dear friends who are my fellow competitors. I don't go in expecting anything...medals, glory, trophies, accolades...I go in expecting to give it my all. For that my friends, is how you play the game.

You give it your all while all the naysayers and people who feel it is their place in life to question your diet, your lifestyle, your motives, your exercise plan...let them stay on the side where the naysayers belong...you don't hear their criticism anyhow...because all that is in your ears is the roar of the crowd and the beauty that beats within your chest. And no, it's not that bikini that makes you beautiful, or those clear heels...it's what you do in life to make a difference that counts.

Make it beautiful. Treat others kindly. Love people. Love those who continue to tell you that you can't. They'll come around, and if they don't...they were never your friends to begin with. I'm off to Vegas now to shine a light in a city of unending lights. Thank you all for your support and love and care through this whole training...I will be thinking of you as I stand on the stage! I will hear your positive voices and encouragement in my ears. Those of you who have stood by me, you know who you are. And I love you for it.
xoxo
Meg