I have no cutesy plan or inspired revelation to share right now, just a mish-mash of emotion I want to vomit onto the screen. I feel like a bi-polar personality whose manic and depressive stages come in bursts of seconds. Or they somehow exist simultaneously. I don't even know. I just know my brain is astir and can 't rest until I throw up something on this bleach white screen.

I went through a stage for about a month where I was on a mountaintop. Everything felt right and great. Nothing dimmed my view, even hardships. Now here is the valley. Yet, I have been through so many valleys much darker than this one that this seems only like a road-side ditch. I think that's the reason it doesn't seem so bad. God has prepared my heart for valleys so as a song says "the valley's lookin small when I'm with you/ don't land us til I see a clear view". I know I'm on His back and that's why it's not as dark and deep. He's got tall shoulders. He's walking in the valley with me. And the valley is partially by my own sin... how great and gracious a Father we have who will carry us through the consequences of our own sin.

That was a manic spurt. Sound too clean and neat? Yea, well here comes a bitterly honest depressive wave: the idea was presented recently to me that I don't share enough of my woes. People don't know what's going on in my life. They chided me for it. And perhaps they're right. But one, at the time that was my mountaintop stage. Two, now not at that stage, I don't even know how to begin explaining it in terms anyone can understand unless they have experienced it themselves... I feel a part of me has- well not died, it will come back, gone to sleep? No, too sweet. Yes, it has died. I promised to be honest. Part of me is dead, only I have a promise of it coming to life again. Forgive my cryptic style. I'm so used to not sharing personal information readily. I'm talking about the man I'm promised to. He's gone. And has been gone for too long. It's hard. That statement is an assinine replacement for what I actually feel but again this type of thing can't be explained unless it's experienced. Sadly I am alone in this (in the flesh, I know God can sympathize with all my weaknesses hallelujah Heb. 4:15). Only two people come close to being able to relate, one of them is the other half of me, my love and life, the man I will marry and my heart is already so bound to.

You can't even fathom how agonizing it is. Day in and day out living life apart. I was reminded by a dear friend, which is why I bear them no ill will, that he will now have a part of him that won't ever come back. That made it evident to me that this is a part that I will not have of him. Not that he will keep it from me. Just how could he explain something so foreign to me, so different from where I am right now? This does not mean I bemoan my choice, which people cautioned me about when I first chose to be here. Another friend, bless them, was almost upset at him for wooing me because they knew this day would probably come. I know they only thought of me and my welfare. They saw in me what I think most people see, this apparent weakness of mine. And yes I am weak, too weak to those who know me very well, in mind, body and spirit. Yet, what many don't see and I didn't always either is what Benjamin and I believe God called out in me- a dormant tenacity. I am strong in the midst of all my fraility. I know I am, and it must be only by His strength. I feel Eph. 3:16 lived out daily in me.

Yes, I don't feel whole anymore. Yes, I cry at night sometimes. Yes I feel an ache all too often and a buzzing of his name in my brain that feels it shall bore a whole in my head one day. I feel I am going mad sometimes and on the verge of suffocating when no one can understand and I just have to swallow it and smile, "He's fine. I'm fine. God is good." Still, in the end, I know I am not cracking. This is far from the end. I know our Lord, the only One keeping Benjamin and I together, has great plans for us. Don't fear friends, Ben and I are alright. We are not in any danger of going anywhere in relation to each other in case my honesty has you wandering. I just let you peek behind the curtain to see just how humble and small the wizard of Oz is. She is not all flash and smiles. Only her God makes her so. She truly is fine. Wesley Dara Casey is ok. Not even hanging on by her fingernails ok. The kind of ok where once I finish this blog I will slide down under the covers, and smile at the thought of Benjamin being somewhere out there, knowing he loves me more than any other human does and points me ever and always to Christ. And I will sleep peacefully because the thought of how mighty and loving my God is to have given me the strength to walk this road I know I am called to. It is my commission and I sense with suriety that as 2 Tim. 3:17 says we are equipped with all we need to accomplish every good work planned for us, so too do I feel I have and am being given the specific tools and measures of strength and grace to live out what God has ordained to be my life: the future bride of a distant Marine who waits in hope and faith of who her groom is and when his return shall be, living in faith that their God "is able to guard what [they] have entrusted to Him until that day." 2 Tim. 1:12b

So good night all. I pray even in your valley if it's anything like mine you can still sleep at peace like I have faith I will because you are being carried on the Father's shoulders.