Stories and Starlight

"Who I am and who I wanna be cannot connect; why? .... I know I like to preach to always be yourself / but my emotions make me feel like i am someone else Me and pride had made a pact that we don't need no help / which feels like I'm at war inside myself but I forgot the shells  I hold my issue up for all to see, like show and tell / A lot of people know me, but not a lot know me well."  from " WHY " by NF

Let me laugh for the sheer joy of laughing; laugh for the feeling of freedom that follows after a smile that can no longer contain itself. Let me cry over things both beautiful and heartbreaking; cry unashamed to shed the tears that bind us in our brokenness. Let me sing, let me shout, let me rise to great heights, unafraid of the name or the fame. With words and a pen, my voice and each choice, making this message heard, trying  to the very end. Let me see things strange in the mundane, see what You saw in a girl with great flaws, yet You called me by name. Let me cast off the fear that has shackled me, cast off the weight of the worries I carry. Let me marvel at the every wonder, at every star, at every tree, at every breath, every step, every beat of this unsteady heart. Laughing, crying, singing, sighing, trying - there's nowhere to go if I'm on my own, but with You, I will find  my identity. ______ Written: April 21, 2020

i wouldn't have known if i was alone,  i wouldn't have known  what it is  to step up  to stand up to speak up to grow up. if i was alone,  i wouldn't have known  how it feels to reach for a dream  to fail to fall into a sea of words holding me up, saying "it's not the end," "get up,"  and "try again," "fall, but fall forward." your words guide me onward. you've offered me an hand and pulled me up and now, i can't say it enough: thank God i'm not alone, because then i wouldn't have known what it means to love. _________________________ dedicated to each and every person who has been a light to me during my years in ICC (plus my mom). i think you all know who you are <3 poem: September 25, 2019 photo: January 16, 2020 at ICC's IGNITE Winter Advance, Cedine Ministries Camp, Spring City, Tennessee

Dear me, When you’re tired, turn your thoughts into poetry. When you’re angry, rearrange your armored walls until they open again. When you’re hurt, hurry to pour it out on the blank pages of a book. When you’re dying for things to be different, dare yourself - and find a way to change it. Don’t let your ugly feelings stay that way. Don’t leave them locked away. Let them out, but make them beautiful.

When I was younger, I wrote stories all the time. I don’t know exactly why I stopped, but for a long time, I didn’t write much. My fears definitely had something to do with it, because one of those fears was that I didn’t have anything worth writing about. Anything worth telling. Earlier this year, I remembered a certain poem I’d heard before. It was about overcoming fear, and had hit me so powerfully that it almost felt like it had been written just for me. So I decided to memorize it, as inspiration. But eventually, the poem I had only planned on memorizing for fun became a speech, and the speech became a message that I shared over and over again.  And after presenting this poem, I started writing again. The poem became a part of my story. And every time I shared my story, I touched someone else’s. I hadn’t expected this. Did this happen because the story I told was mine? There is this expectation that in order to be extraordinary, you have to make yourself different f...