'It looks like a planetarium, only better'. And it did. Standing outside the locked door of my church tonight, looking up at the millions of illuminated snowflakes, catching them on my hands and marveling at the beauty. It can't get much better.

But it does. And so I'm thankful for a friend who can appreciate it just as much.

I'm not quite sure why exactly my feelings and emotions are so prone to disaster. Perhaps it's the melancholy streak - the one which flies through the hearts of all people, but brands only some as it's own. It is accompanied by a want for solitude and silence and feels coward under a cloak of guilty desire for loneliness. Can one desire loneliness? I sometimes do. Even the greatness that shadows popularity, however unwanted or unmerited, gets overwhelming and soon overbearing -to the point where quiet and introverted thoughts are my only desired companion. An entrance into selfish living. Is it the solitude, the silence that I desire? Or am I simply still selfish and wanting time for me, myself and my interests?

Loneliness doesn't scare me. Solitude doesn't frighten me. Quiet doesn't unnerve me and alone doesn't equal lonely. Selfishness is what scares me. The moment I become so drawn to my own person, my own desire to satisfy me is what scares me. It is what makes me want to run in the other direction, as far away from any hint of my past character flaws. Character Flaws. When it scares me to say a kind hello to another, or offer a smile in return for a caught glance, to ask you if you'd care for a drink or be only known as one who wears a 'Hello, my name is...' tag because I'm too weak in the knees enough to introduce myself to you. THIS is what frightens me.

A little less than a year ago I remember a conversation I had with Jax. I worried that I was too cold, too rude, too shy and with no apparent reason - simply because I hadn't a clue what to say. She said 'You don't even try to be anything different.' My fear of man rose in it's ugliness and shouted in my face, in the face of every conversation I would begin to have. Silence would be my only comfort, until one day I realize that this sort of silence was no comfort at all. Comfort in itself is a good feeling. How could I be covered with such guilt for my actions if it was a good silence? It wasn't at all. It was selfish humanity trying desperately to remain unsanctified. And I didn't even try.

I guess I've been finding myself falling back into these harmful patterns. The time where loneliness becomes appealing and introverted analytical musings of daily life take over my mind is the first sign that I've ceased trying and began the complacent route to stagnancy.

Loneliness isn't altogether bad, it is simply our humanity telling us we have a lack. Sheldon Van Auken, in one of my favorite books A Severe Mercy says of a conversation he had with C.S. Lewis,
"One night at Magdelen we talked. . . about that something we're longing for, whether it be an island in the west or the other side of a mountain or perhaps a schooner yacht, long for it in the belief that it will mean joy, which it never fully does, because what we're really longing for is God."

What I'm really longing for is God. It's not to have my personality be validated, not to have my gifts to be noticed, or my future be secure. Whether I live long and prosper or die young a pauper matters little. As long as I realize that my insufficiencies are opportunities for His glory to be manifested and His power to be shown at work in my life, my longings are complete.