.


I am so grateful for my God, who tells us to be still.

.
.
"I wish I didn't have to make
all those mistakes and be wise

Please try to be patient
and know that I'm still learning

I'm sorry that you have to see
the strength inside me burning..."

- from "The Hill" by Marketa Irglova



I was so thrilled when Glen and Marketa won Best Song at the Oscars... their performance and speeches were the two most genuine and beautiful moments of the show. The whole soundtrack to "Once" is brilliant, actually. The raw emotion and soul, as rough and imperfect as it is, leaves no room for pretense at all. That's why so many people have loved this CD and movie. It captures the essence of a human experience shared by almost everyone, and when you see or hear it, it cuts straight to your heart and you relate deeply to it. I actually haven't seen the movie yet, but I plan to someday. At this point, I don't feel the need to... I want to take in the story that the music tells, before putting visuals to it. And there's still so much of it to take in! Deep stuff. :)


By the way, speaking of deep, I just got through an awful cold, thank God. One night, it was pretty bad, and my throat was so irritated that every breath I took scratched like sandpaper at it. Obviously, I couldn't exactly sleep, or do much else for that matter. Which got me thinking (this is where it gets "deep") ... when my breathing, which keeps me alive, is damaged in even the slightest way, I can't function to my capacity, even to half of my capacity. I can barely function at all!

God spoke to me in that still small voice. And, being sick, I let my guard down and didn't shut it out. Here's what I learned and want to share.

If my relationship with God -- the thing that keeps my spirit alive -- is damaged, I can't reach my potential. I can't live the abundant life Jesus wanted me to live. And, considering that my relationship with God is damaged (on my part) about 99.9% of the time, I'm not living the abundant life, am I? On the average day, I'm living the semi-abundant life, and I've gotten used to that. I've become accustomed to not reaching the capacity God gave me. God paid with his own life to give me that abundant life -- and I don't even bother to try living it?

That night, I really, really, really wanted to breathe. I also wanted to get right with God.

Oh, and he healed me the next day.


Love, Oksana

… tear your curtains down
for sunlight is like gold.
and you better be you
and do what you can do
when you're walking on moon beams
staring out to sea…

- "Gold" by Interference



"I am very fond of sunsets. Come, let us go look at a sunset now."

"But we must wait," I said.

"Wait? For what?"

"For the sunset. We must wait until it is time."

At first you seemed to be very much surprised. And then you laughed to yourself. You said to me: "I am always thinking that I am at home!"

Just so. Everybody knows that when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France.

If you could fly to France in one minute, you could go straight into the sunset, right from noon. Unfortunately, France is too far away for that. But on your tiny planet, my little prince, all you need do is move your chair a few steps. You can see the day end and the twilight falling whenever you like . . .

"One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!"

And a little later you added: "You know--one loves the sunset, when one is so sad . . ."

- from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery


Yeah, sometimes I feel like the Little Prince, and I think I have to wait a long time before I see peace again ... then God reminds me that I only need to move forward a little - just a step at a time - to see the light once more. So I'll keep walking, keep walking, and God will keep the peace of twilight on this horizon...

Love, Oksana

Slowly, I'm learning to love writing again. I had given up on writing stories years ago - poetry, I dabbled in sporadically because it was shorter, quicker, and required no long-term commitment. But after a few amazingly fun Writer's Craft classes and after reading an incredible novel by my friend Natasha Poholka, I caught the writing bug at last. It's so much fun to put down thoughts and feelings on paper as you explore somebody else's life. It shapes you as a person, I think... when you ask yourself, how would you act in this situation, you get a good grip on what your values are. And you learn about how other people feel when they act in ways you wouldn't -- it really develops your sense of empathy. It's incredibly soothing to sit down and forget everything for a little while, and immerse myself in painting a picture with my pen.

I'm writing two short stories at the moment. One is set in the early 1800s, about a little girl named Analise who works as a servant for a cruel and abusive master. She does manage to find someone to love her in the end (I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying that), but there are big twists in it which hopefully make it more than the generic Cinderella story. I will add it to FictionPress once I'm done.

The other story was actually inspired by a brainstorming activity we did in Writer's Craft. We had to create plots based around inanimate objects, and I got a lock, so I began to make up a story about a poor Mexican woman who lost everything in a house fire. (This was a day or two after that incredible story about the baby thrown out of a burning building in Germany, so fire was fresh on my mind). I actually managed to get a really good plot, which, upon revision, didn't involve a lock ... or a woman for that matter. It's about a young girl who emigrated from Mexico with her family to go to University in Toronto. I won't say much, since I like this one more than my Analise story, but after losing everything, she met Jason, a man who would change her life completely (and it's not a romantic relationship at all -- that should keep you guessing! :). Again, off it goes to FictionPress when I finish.

Love, Oksana