this is what spring looks like.

On Thursday...

Today...

♥

Bekah Joan

just life

   Once she’s done looking at the photo album, she sets it down on the worn, wooden table. “What’s so important about them? They’re just pictures of things.”

   He shakes his head. “No, they’re much more. Those pictures are someone’s life. They’re the little yet important things. They aren't ‘just’ anything. They’re significant. They have meaning. They’re precious.”

♥

Bekah Joan

i am radioactive.

(listen to Imagine Dragons-Radioactive)
  For the past few weeks, I've felt fairly purposeless. I know I have one—serving God—but doing schoolwork seems pointless in that area. I know it's not, because I'm obeying my parents in doing it, which means I'm obeying God, but still. I want to do more.
  I feel like God has called me to write for Him, but I feel guilty for writing, because that means that I'm on the computer a lot (me and writing longhand can only go together for short periods of time. Besides, if I ever want to show it to you guys, it's got to be typed up at some point anyway). Something about that just feels wrong. I can get distracted so easily and end up wasting time on the internet, especially when I don't know where my story is going. And, for the past week or so, I haven't known where my story is going. At all.
  And then it all clicked at some point yesterday evening, and I got it. My story made sense. My life (at this point in time) made sense. I had a purpose again. I don't know how much I wrote last night, but it felt like a lot.
  To top it off, I discovered Imagine Dragons this morning. I had heard of them before, but I stayed away from them because they seemed weird. (I don't know what I was thinking, either.) When I heard their song "Radioactive," I felt even better. To me, that song is about someone who is emerging from a deep hole of depression or a "prison" of, oh, I don't know, maybe purposelessness. This person is fully charged and ready to complete the job he/she was sent here for.
  And that's me. I'm fully charged and ready. I'm back. This day is barely half over, and I've already written over five thousand words.
Bam.
♥Bekah Joan

blue skies

  The first blue skies of the year are always the best. They're the bluest, even if they're faint. We're so sick of the white or gray blanket that covers our glorious canvas of blue. So, when that blue shows up, we longingly wish it would stick around forever.
  But that doesn't happen for awhile. So we spend our days wishing for summer and warmer days, when the world is vibrant and fresh.
  Soon, though, we'll be wishing for that white or gray blanket of blah again. We'll be sick of shorts and want our sweaters and gloves and hats back. We'll be taking our blue sky for granted, even though it's a very beautiful thing.
  How fickle we are.
♥Bekah Joan

A Child's Poem

This is a poem I wrote today about a one-year-old girl at my church. She's on the verge of learning to walk, but her mom says she just doesn't seem to want to. I thought that maybe, once she tilts her head back and sees all of the wonders up there, she'll want to walk.

A crawling child,

Too scared to stand,

So oblivious to

What is above.

But soon, she'll yearn

For the blue skies,

The birds that are free,

And the shining stars.

She'll reach up

With her two small hands,

Grabbing for new discoveries,

And stand on her own.

♥Bekah Joan

maple syrup

We had 26 gallons of sap. We boiled it for 9 1/2 hours. The results: a little bit under 3/4 of a gallon of pure, delicious, precious gold. It was worth it. The taste is so amazing.

Making maple syrup is a spring tradition at my home (minus the past two years, where we managed with syrup from the past years). We tap our neighbors' and friends' trees, hang our buckets, and wait. Once we have enough sap, we boil. And boil. And then boil some more. But after that, we have some maple syrup all bottled up for pancake-breakfasts or waffle-dinners.

And then there are the spoons. We scrape the pan once the syrup is done boiling. It hardens on the spoons almost instantaneously, turning into maple-candy. It's delicious and sugary.

I can't wait until we have enough sap again. While it can be fairly boring sitting there watching the sap turn silver and then brown and then a beautiful gold, it's a good time for reading or doing school or writing or just plain old thinking. And while I'm not usually the one watching the sap alone, the times that I am watching it are peaceful and unusually quiet.

But there won't be any boiling today. So I'll just finish up a short story about a guy named Jerry who...well, you'll find out. Eventually.

♥Bekah Joan