So I'm going to be gone...

Dropping by to say...

So yes, I'm going to be gone. I planned to write one last post before I leave for a ten day vacation, but then Writer's Block attacked and I was nearly killed in our epic duel.

If you're curious, I wounded him, but sadly, he escaped with his life and an elixir of healing.

Thus, you get a really lame post telling you that I will be gone and will not be blogging or writing comments on other blogs for a little while.

Try not to miss me too much. I shall endeavor to write something worth sharing while relaxing in the cabin by the lake.

It may or may not happen.

Oh, and if you see WB running by with an elixir, shoot him dead and take the elixir and return it to me post haste.

So long!

Yours,
Hannah Joy

Monday Madness S1 P9

Pinterest

"So first off," I said after the shock of what this random kid had said had worn off a little. "First off, I don't have any biological brothers. And second off, my name isn't Li." 

The kid shrugged, in the meantime, pulling off his hoodie. "Whew, it gets hot in there," he said. Then he turned back to me and grinned. "Sorry, if ya prefer Keilah, I can go with that. But if I accidentally call ya Li then it's just habit. As for comment number one, you do have a brother and he's standing right in front of you. Actually you've got a few more, but I happen to be the one who got to rescue ya."

"Okay, hold on. Can you either wake me up from this nightmarish dream or explain to me what is happening?" I said, irritated.

"Sure. But can we do it while we walk?" 

"If you tell me where we are walking to," I said, crossing my arms. 

"We are walking to a rendezvous point. I was a little early, which is why we took cover in this little cellar for awhile," he said. I turned back to him, intending to continue scowling at him, but was shocked instead. In a matter of a few seconds, he had entirely changed his attire. He now looked like a thorough nerd. I wondered if this was his normal look. He was wearing a black t-shirt that said, "I'm Tall for a Halfling", jeans, and glasses. He gave me a lopsided grin. "Okay, throw this on," he said, tossing me his hoodie. 

"It's sweaty," I said, thoroughly grossed out. 

"I took a shower yesterday. Plus, you'll need it. It's gonna rain." 

A crack of thunder shook the cellar, so I obliged begrudgingly. "What about you?" I said, after I had it on. 

"Don't worry about me. I like getting wet."

"And who says I don't?" 

"It is actually more of a disguise. So put the hood up, kiddo." 

I rolled my eyes and did so. 

We started off, and he said, "Okay, so fire away with your questions." We walked at a leisurely pace, as if we didn't need to really be anywhere, which probably took suspicion off of us, if the black hoodie I had on didn't.

"What's your name?" I asked. It was not the most pressing question, but it was the first one I could think of.

"Eli Tan. I'm eighteen last Tuesday, my favorite color is red, I like drawing, and came to the United States when Meng, your oldest brother, was old enough to take legal guardianship of us, three years ago. Next?"

"Why did I never know about you?"

"You didn't know about us.... Well, adopting a little, cute-as-a-button girl is much more popular an idea than adopting said little, cute-as-a-button girl with her four older, rowdy brothers, who'd already been in some...trouble. Therefore they listed you in the adoption agency without any ties to us." Eli's face had darkened at this. I bit my lip. He continued, "We only agreed because we needed you out of country."

"But why?"

Eli turned and looked me up and down. "Because they would have killed you if they found you." 

"But why? There's nothing special about me!" 

"You seriously don't know?" Eli looked shocked. "Gosh, we are going to have to go back to square one with all of your training! Otherwise we'll never get that password!" 

"What password?"

"To Dad's computer." 

So Lately...

I'll admit it, I was like, "I need to post today. What should I post?" And this was the easy route. To do a "Lately" post. It is, as most everything is, inspired by Cally Declan, because she is awesome and she generally doesn't mind if I steal her ideas. XD

So Lately...

Life has actually been kind of crazily slow. After a breakneck-speed summer, I feel like I've come to a sudden halt, yet my mind is still in high gear, so I'm feeling a bit like a car in neutral that keeps getting its engine revved.

I have been...

Reading...

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare. I have read it multiple times but it is still just as glorious as ever. Man, it is so powerful. I'm thankful that I dropped my "I need to read new things because my reading list is too long to allow rereads" and just did it. So worth it.

Plenty for Everyone by Corrie ten Boom. I made it my goal to be reading one fiction and one nonfiction at a time, and so I read this along with my devotionals. I've only just started, but I love it already.

The Broken Warrior by Cally Declan. Because I am special and I get to. I haven't restarted it yet, but I think I am going to print it off chapter by chapter. And it will be epic, I know, because I love all of the characters with a fierce and loyal love.

Writing...

I've taken a bit of a hiatus from my Steampunk novel and retaken up my fantasy novel, and I am loving the change of scene. I've needed some time to stew on my Steampunk ideas for a while, and while I was writing that one, I was stewing on ideas for my fantasy one, so it all kind of works out.

I have also been writing some poetry, of course. And trying to cough out some lyrics but it's hard when you don't know exactly where you want to go with it...

Listening to...

Mostly Indelible Grace. They do hymns and they do them so wonderfully. I'm particularly in love with this one and this one. I was listening to an Indelible Grace mix this summer while I was pumping up air mattresses to see if they had holes, then washing them, then letting the air out of them. And so "Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah" came on when I was laying on a quickly deflating air mattress (because the pressure of my weight on it makes the process go much faster), and my heart just heaved with the beauty of the words. It's been kind of an answer to prayer, in a way, since this whole year I have been praying for guidance and purpose and for God to show me the next step. Yet the answer has been less of a "Here is your next step and your five year plan and the exact steps that you will take," and more a of a realization of the promise that the lyrics of that song express quite well:

I am weak, but Thou art mighty

Hold me with Thy powerful hand

Bread of Heaven

Feed me now and evermore.

For my goal is not to do the good work of the Lord. My goal is to win Christ and to spurn all earthly gain. All else will fall into place.

Loving...

Quiet mornings with God as summer heaves its final, most glorious breath, before autumn chills the air and turns the leaves to fire and gold. 

Hellos, because goodbyes are too hard for me, but hellos are just right.

Long emails that you don't expect. 

Sisters here and sisters in far-off places.

Piano music. There's something about it that makes me want to get lost in it. 

That God is our Shepherd, that we are His sheep, and that we know well His voice.

And that's all for this time, kids! See you on Monday for Keilah being Keilah... 

To be Lost

source

If life was an ocean, I'd be lost in it. Even now, as the waves of turmoil and change beat upon my little skiff, I fear it might sink. It's taking a lot of water in, and the sail appears to be in shreds. If only it were faster, stronger, more sea-worthy...

No.

It does not have to be all of those things. I have learned to forget praying for my own strength, forget saving for better wood and better sails. I don't need my strength, because He is strength.

So I grip wet rope and let the wind rip at my clothing and my hair and beat against my skin.

And most days, I can't imagine the other side, the emerald shores that are just beyond the horizon, the still waters that I may rest in. Most days I just feel emptied. 

Yet faith is never the assurance of things seen and never hoped for. Faith is blindness, for our Captain never called us to see. Faith is knowing that there is a lighthouse by the glint of light on the dark waves, because hope says that there is one around the bend. 

Faith is knowing that behind the clouds, there are a million stars. 

So emptiness? I count it as fullness, for I may be emptied of every eloquent word, I may be emptied of every emotion or feeling, I may be emptied of everything, stripped bare of all that I hold dear, yet I am never emptied of my God, who makes His sanctuary within me. 

So silence? I count it as deafening, for He has called me to a time of silence, that I might learn to rely on the strength of His hand, not on what I can perceive or understand. 

So being lost? I count it as being found, for when I have lost myself I have found my true identity in Christ.

The storm may rage and the waters may roil, but my Captain is sure and is true, and we are headed, steady as she goes, to the Other Side. 

A Challenge of 7ish Proportions

Because...Robin Hood. From Pinterest. Well, actually from Locksley, but you know.

So I was tagged by the beautiful Cally Declan AND the lovely Becca to do the 777 challenge. Basically I open up my book (or one of them I suppose) and then I go to the seventh page and then I pick seven lines to give to the world. O.o Because I'm awesome, I'm going to go one step further and make the first line that I'm sharing the seventh line down. Ooooooooh so I'm totally going crazy with this because I'm AWESOME. And so daring! Living on the edge here.

Okay.

On to the snippet.

Zis is from the book I'm working on that I started during Camp NaNo. It is a crazy one because it's Steampunk and that's the first time I've ever dabbled in such a genre.

Without further ado...

Mr. Deeds paused again as the recording stopped, then repeated his inquiry after her name. Amber responded with the positive this time, so Mr. Deeds said, “I am very pleased to meet you, Amber.” Her name was just the recording playing back, which made Amber laugh.

          “You’re a polite little tin can, huh?” she said with a chuckle that turned into a cough. When she stopped coughing, she noticed that the light was fading. She looked at her watch, with a flutter of anxiety, though she didn’t quite know why since she didn’t actually have a home to get to before curfew. It said that it was a quarter past three, but Amber had no idea how much it had lagged since that morning.

VOILA.

I'm supposed to tag 7 people so here goes... ABBIE at Cyan Typewriter because I would do something drastic to hear any part of her writing, TRESKIE (muahahahahhaha yes you totally have to do it yes yes), JACK because she's epic in general, MARY SHELLEY REID because I'm just getting to know her through her blog and what better way to go about that than to read her writing, LORRAINE because everyone needs more Lorraine, DALLY  because she seriously needs to post some posts, and LAUREN because her writing always moves me.

I'M OUT.

To Addy

From Pinterest

 

Chaos in my brain.

Like a blistering hot snowstorm freezing holes in my sandals,

I can’t even hear myself in the frenzy of voices.

‘Cause I went from chasing the broken tough girl down the hill,

To chasing an answer up the hill,

And it’s still silent from the One I want to speak.

So my heart and my soul and my brain unify in their cry,

Answer me, please answer me.

Oh, God of my salvation, I’m not ready for the answer.

So I weep. On my bed, on my own, I tear myself apart,

‘Cause I just keep messing things up.

And in the middle of my unpracticed hands doing self-surgery,

You come.

Whatever words the Spirit spoke as you sat inside, you listened.

And so you made your way out into the recesses of your calling,

You knocked and you entered.

And maybe you couldn’t see the blood on my hands that was so visible to me,

Maybe you couldn’t see the pool of anguish or the broken bones,

But you could see the trails of tears down my face and my red-rimmed eyes.

Still, you didn’t comment. You sat, and in the comfort of quietude,

My fear seemed less of a giant beast to fight.

I needed you. Not that I would ever admit it then, but now I see the blackness

Creeping upon me like a storm of wrath, while, I, unknowingly, let it come.

And you, unafraid of darkness, brought light.

For God so loved this girl that He hung the moon in this night,

A reflection holy, innocent, marvelous, and bright,

And I followed it Home.