Hello Old Friend....

Man, it has been a really long time since I wrote on here. I will be back, dear blog, with more musings for you. Soon, very soon.

Lately....

Lately I have been busy.

I have walked among the granite giants;
I have heard silence;
I have visited the dead.

I have driven home;
I have wondered at my life;
I have visited the past.

I have conteplated beauty,
Forgiveness,
Grace.

Where I have been,
And where I am going.
Both lay in the hands
of a Sovereign God.

I have been growing...lately...

i am...

i am a rocker chick.
i am an aspiring writer.
i am a smoker.
i am a caffeine fiend.

i am passionate.
i am a warrior.
i am unstable.
i am afraid of life.

i am rebellious.
i am a sinner.
i am a whore.
i am appalling.

i am saved by grace.
i am living in the Light.
i am loved by the Almighty.
i am a child of the Kingdom.

Goodnight Lisa

I just got done talking online to a lady named Lisa. She has come to the belief that there is no God, and if there is, He only wants her to be miserable. I tried to talk to her. I'm afraid I failed horribly. Please pray for her. My heart is breaking for her. She is suicidal and desperately needs the Lord.

Men Who Were Wrong

An 8th grade teacher once told me that I would grow up to be a heartbreaker. He was wrong. Here I am almost 27 with no husband, no boyfriend and definitely no trail of broken hearts. Mr. Mario wasn’t the only one to be wrong. The apostle Paul was too. He called himself the worst of sinners. Sorry, dude, I think I have officially taken over that title. Somewhere in my cluttered life I have notes from a recent sermon. To prove how (not) spiritual I am, I can’t even remember the passage being expounded. What I do remember from that sermon is a taste of damnation. Our preaching elder was talking about how people try to save themselves by their works--an impossible task. Then a realization struck me quite painfully. While saying that I trusted in the work of Christ, I have been in the mindset of thinking I had to still DO SOMETHING. This has lead to much of the despair in my life. Feeling like you have to do something plus feeling like you can’t do anything equals frustration. I struggle with trust and control. But this sermon scared my eyes wide open. No matter how hard it is, my very salvation rests on me trusting in God and His provision and providence in my life. It’s so hard to balance how I feel about myself with the truths of the Bible. I feel utterly worthless and unworthy of anything good. To an extent, this is still true. I am what I am by the grace of God only. And the grace of God must not be denied! Yet it is so easy for me to give up! I bear the scars of my battle, both literally and figuratively. My skin has marks from burning myself. As awful as that sounds, the burns heal much faster than the gashes in my heart. Death, Despair, and Destruction: the unholy trinity of satan to which I have long been captive. A verse that I came across close to the same time as the awakening sermon was 2 Peter 2:22 “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire”. I do this! I get myself all worked up. “ I will be more disciplined! I will be ok!” Only to return to my own stench once again. It’s a constant cycle of bathing and then jumping into the sewer. This all comes back to trusting God. Prozac helps me, but it won’t heal me. People support me, but they too stumble and fall sometimes. Only God can once and for all rescue me from the putrescence of self. I know the struggle isn’t over and will likely only get harder but…

“Grace has brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home”.

Still kicking..

If anyone still reads this..I'm still alive! I've been thinking alot lately so watch out! A long post is forming in my spongy brain!!

History Starts Now

The following LONG post was hand-written on December 29 and typed and additions made on January 1 (and posted under dubious circumstances).

I write by moonlight and twinkling candlelight. I have been in bed for hours, thinking when I should have been sleeping. The hours before that were consumed by the pursuit of an unabridged copy of David Copperfield and a box of Nerds. I love to read. However, I become restless as I near the end of a book. How will it all conclude? Will it be happy or sad? If it be sad, will any hope remain for happiness in the future? Having read a few Dickens books before, I am doubly anxious! Some of his endings have left me in joyful tears, others with a wide mouth in exasperation and unbelief. As I have been thinking in my bed, my thoughts have ranged from the news I hear coming from the TV in the other room that Sadaam Hussein is dead. I remember when the bombings were aired on the news during the first Gulf War that I was so scared that I hid behind the couch. I have been thinking of my Mom lying in her own bed very sick with a bad cold. How I wish I could stay home and make her happy. But at the same time, I wish to have my own life and to be happy myself. I have been thinking of all the bygone days of my childhood. A thousand stars twikling in the summer night sky. A thousand lightening bugs flashing in vain imitation of the stars above. Listening to the whipperwills. Chasing June bugs. Hanging clothes out on the line to dry. Swinging and watching Dad till up the garden. Snowmen and snowball fights. Putting up the Christmas tree. These remebrances may seem dull and silly, but I am overwhelmed with tears-remembering what my life was, or at least what I thought it was. There are ill shadows from the past that threaten to overcome these happy memories, but other than to say they existed, I will write no more of them. This brings me to the cause of my current sleeplessness. Ask a normal person what their greatest fear is and the common answers will tumble out: death, public speaking, spiders and in rare, but delicate cases, ladybugs. What is my greatest fear? The future. The specter of the past is daunting enough, but at least he can be seen, known and dealt with. The specter of the future presents a double haunting. He is unkowable and unforseeable. At his coming there may be gladness and there may be evil. It tortures me. I can devour a book in a few hours and know what happens to the main characters. But what of me and those I love? There is no reading ahead. No fast forwarding in life. Doom or delight, it must be waited for. And while I have every ounce of confidence in the soveriegnity of God, it still frightens me that to some mysterious extent, I still have an active role in writing my own story. And over the lives of others, I have no control or influence. I am fearful. Fearful of making a dreadful mistake. Everyday people make common choices that affect them for the rest of their lives. Whether this be prideful perfectionism or sinful unbelief or honest-come-by fear or a mixture I don't know. But I do know it plagues me! But in the end I must say with Copperfield's friend Agnes, "There is still God to trust in!" Let the preceding stand as a warning to all of the dangers of mixing Dickens, sugar, a full moon and a full brain on a lonely night!

After writing this, I got to thinking some more. What if you (or I) were given a "Life Remote". It has two buttons, "Fast-Forward" and "Rewind". You can only use one. Which one would you use and how far would you let your life's tape run before you hit "Play" again? At first it seemed like the best choice for me is to rewind to the beginning and start over, but what's to say that the same wouldn't happen again? How would I know to make things different? Then it seemed desirable to hit "Fast Forward" and let the dang tape just run to the end! Then there would be no more anxiety. I would be at life's end and would know all that happened to me. No more surprises, just go Home. But then I realized, if I did that, I would know where I was but I wouldn't know how I got there. Through the pain of the past, I've learned many lessons. Painful at times, but always useful. So I guess the best course is to run the only one that is given to us, to let the tape keep playing and trust the One who casted us in this crazy play called Life to take care of the details.