So this is the new year, and I DO feel different, unlike Death Cab's lead singer

The Almighty has deeply blessed me this morning.

I woke up and this song I've been listening to non-stop for the last two days was lovingly ringing in my head... Your love will not let me go, even when I try...over and over and over again, drums beating, bass line lingering in the background, soft voices lifting up inside my room, a whirlwind of heaven.

I've been reading someone else's blog for a couple weeks now. I don't know that person, and she certainly doesn't know I check her blog daily for updates. But she's inspired me in many ways.

When I was younger, I used to lay in my bed at night and imagine how my life would be with an older sister. Never an older brother or a younger sister, always an older sister. Throughout the years the person I would imagine to be my sister kept changing. She'd always be someone who I looked up to. Someone who I had seen do something extraordinary, as extraordinary as it can be for a seven year old. She was always someone real. Someone I knew from school, or church or just around. In my fantasy she'd hold my hand as I crossed the big streets, pick me up when I fell from my bike and chase off dogs when we'd go walking around the neighborhood. But then I grew up and stopped dreaming the impossible. Years later, God remembered me, and brought to life the impossible, giving me my very own older sister... (heh)

Yet this person whose blog I read reminds me of the "older sister" I used to dream of... I care for my real sister, as real as she can be I guess, as I would a blood related sister, and she cares for me the same way. But the blog girl, it's uncanny. She's quite a fitting projection of what I spent so many hours of my nights making up. She reminds me so much of myself in a more mature and discovered way, and as I read what she writes I come to recognize many of her thoughts as my own, although processed and refined of their rough edges. A beautiful person on the inside, her meditations reflect passion for God and a desire for a deeper knowledge of Him. Only 22 and a half years old, a couple months older than my own sister actually, but her words still convey the frailty and faith of a child's heart. I wish I could meet her.

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I won't get tired of saying it: This year is going to be a great year. Mark my words, for my God responds to the truth in them... I need to get something to eat.

Oh, and this year, I plan on writing a whole lot more than I did last year. This time for myself thought.

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Love is strong as death, never ceasing always yearning, reaching seeking after me