"my cup runneth dry..."

This morning started off on a negative tune. I automatically felt this extreme sense of emptiness.. and I realized that I had missed church and was horribly regrettful of that.. I needed fellowship, and time with God... and I stayed up too late last night and couldn't afford to go to church with such a low battery. I would most certainly get nauseated and even sick...

A curse since I was a child.. no sleep= blehhhhhhhhhhhhghhhhhhhhhhhhh (that's my vomiting sound)

so I took care of the baby... then tried to take a nap... and started to burn up from heat.. I took a hot shower and prayed that somebody anybody would contact me.

Two of my friends invited me to join them at the park... it was a beautiful sunny day but I hesitated.. laying alone in my bed under my covers seemed more appetizing... I thought maybe the world would miss me and not take advantage of my presence if I hid myself from it for awhile...

this is the feeling I get when the devil has taken hold of me some how.. whispering lies in my ear that solitude is best...

I just felt empty, dry... I needed people, I needed affection.. I needed... something.. and yet I didn't want to put myself out there to get it..

I realized lately that my practical needs are not being met... Almost all of my time and energy is used towards my daughter... which is expected being a child's soul parent... however.. it is now catching up to me... I already have low serotonin levels in my brain causing me to see things in a more glass half empty way if left alone with myself too long.. but now with lack of sleep and motivation under my belt I am simply left feeling lost....

I decided after awhile that since isolation was the garden of the enemy I shouldn't choose to stay home alone and decided to join my friends down at the park.. the minute I got in the car I noticed my mood started to shift to a more positive mood.. I realized this must've been due to the fact that I was going somewhere with an intention of seeing people...

go figure.

I arrived at the park only to find my friends leaving "we've been here since noon" they said "we're tired"... I admitted that I spent too much time moping and not enough time making the decision to go there, I confessed that my glass runneth dry.

"we'll fill it up with fellowship for you, but we can't fill it up with God" one of them said...

I decided I would join them at the perk...

but upon arriving to my car, my friend Rachel agreed to speak with me, so she got in my car and listened to me cry about how my finances are stressing me out, and my practical needs aren't being met, and I am lonely and feel empty and as if I am in this mundane rut! And everywhere I go I feel that my existence screams "I have baggage stay clear" and she listened and listened and listened and then pointed out where the enemy was lying to me and prayed for me and I immediately felt full and glad.

I felt loved... We are made for this; community.

This is what we were created for.. to be there for one another..

I then joined my friends at the perk and we play a game together and joked and laughed, and Katarina was full of joy and happy and let me have fun with my friends and I began to feel lighter and more hopeful... the enemy no longer had a strong hold on me because I had love.

Love is all we need.

I am so grateful to have a God who has blessed me with so many amazing people. And who loves me and is with me every step of the way, and whom has a bigger more beautiful picture and plans for me that I can't even see... but they are here and now, and even though they are masked and disguised by lies of the enemy, behind their facade is my beautiful fate, my answered desires. My Father in heaven who knows his plans for me and they aren't to harm me but to give me hope and a future.

Praise Him! He is GOOD!

You have bewitched me, body and soul

Ok, so prepare to gag due to overly mushy romantic stimulation.

I feel like my heart is on my fire, my stomach is doing loop dee loops... and I feel like that tiger that has been chasing me, has caught up to me and I am victim to it. I have submitted to and am being devoured by what used to be my greatest fear.

I am in LOVE....

and with whom you might ask?

well.. nobody at the moment... well at least not concretely... but I am in love with LOVE.

The whole idea of it, the whole realness in it.. and the hope that I thought I had lost has completely come alive.

for awhile I was anxious... so anxious to find the one I was to be in love with, I wanted to A) know that I could be in love B) know that I could love somebody who loved me in return C) have someone to share my everyday existence with... because happiness is only real when shared and to be quite frank... being a single mother is sort of mundane. My daughter brings me more joy than I can imagine.... but it's almost not worth anything because I seldom have anyone I can share it with, so it comes and leaves in a swift gust.

and then it's gone....

After the damage of my last relationship, I thought I would never fall in love, I said curses over myself that I was not meant to love, that I was designed to strive in solitude... because I have not been in love.

I broke someone's heart terribly... I have broken several hearts... of young men who said they were in love with me... one pursuit of a man lasted 3 years... and I constantly broke his heart because I could not love him back...

and of course as fate would have it.. I would fall in love with one... but one person... but he would find me to be undesirable in his eyes.... and he would devastate me terribly.. so I would wonder to myself...

"does love even exist?"

The bible says love never fails, and yet love has only ever been a hit and miss in my limited experience...

But then something has come over me recently.. I don't know what it is, it is something in the air...

But I am just enraptured by hope... with a new sense of newness... as if something in me that was terribly damaged has begun to hope...

I now own that part of me that I lost as a child, the part of me that was a hopeless romantic... whom would dance in my living room, and run through orchards, and who would lie awake in bed at night and sing songs out loud about love and pray that there was a boy made for me out there singing songs in his bed.... just like in some corny child's movie... similar to a Disney duet.. only I would do this every night. And I would go to sleep and hear a man say "she is mine"

and I knew I was loved... there was a love out there made for me... I now know that there is a great love bigger than I can even fathom that is not of this world that is constantly pursuing me... but I also now have relinquished hope that there is a earthly love out there too.

it's as if a part of me that was dead has been awaken by true loves first kiss.... And now it is alive, and thriving, and knows that some day.. some day it will live a happily ever after.

I could cry and laugh and scream and run and dance I could lay down in orchards, or spin in the rain, or sit on a mountain top and stare into a deep valley right now and enjoy the beauty and splendor that is this emotion.. but not one of those events could even do it justice...

Love is real. And it is out there. And it is waiting for me....

until then, I have a Lord, who is my husband who can fulfill all the parts of my life that need fulfillment, that are empty and dreary and lonely and hurt... He is everything a husband ought to be until He hands me off to the man on this Earth whom He created for me...

until then... I will be FREE.

PRAISE HIM! REJOICE IN LOVE!

To be Alone With You

Well as you have probably noticed I am blogging a lot lately, well I am sure there is a lot to that.... things have to be (as my friend bri quoted nicely) really exciting or really pressing in order to be written down...

The mundane just doesn't look good on paper... or...er.... blog.

well right now a lot is going on inside of me; a hurricane of emotions that I need to to write in circles in order to make sense out of, and the interwebs is the perfect medium to do that... some may beg to differ but hey "some" you don't have to read my inner workings..

I feel like I am having a heartattack.. I am excited, I am hopeful, I am scared, I am disheartened, I am overjoyed, I am grateful, I am anxious, I am lonely, I am_____.

I am all over the place.

Something really exciting is happening in my life right now, but I am not ready to share it yet, nor do I know if I ever will be, so don't wait around for me to reveal it...

All I can say is that I go from feeling like I am being chased by a tiger, to feeling like i've been caught by that tiger, to feeling like i'm being mauled by that tiger all in a swift second...

One moment my heart is in my chest, the next it's in my stomach, the next it's behind my eyes causing me to choke on tears... of pain, of hopefulness.. of all of the above.

Right now I am filling out paper work that I feel like nobody in their life time should have to fill out... demeaning paper work.. heartbreaking paperwork... necessary paperwork...

and without going into detail all I am going to say is if it wasn't necessary for my daughter's well-being I would burn it in a huge fire and throw it off a cliff.

God's plans for us entail that certain things be in a certain order for a reason, not to be cruel to us , not to withhold from us, but to protect our hearts.... the wellsprings of life.

the wellspring of whose outpouring the mouth speaks...

all of this becomes more and more evident to me each day (God's order and it's reason) when my heart breaks for yet another reason because I did it in the wrong order. Free will may be a gift from God, but it only ever ends up hurting us unless we look to HIM and listen to HIM...

we alone can do no good. We alone cannot love.. without HIM.

I am waiting patiently for the rainbow after the storm for the calm.. for the beauty... I will work my way back to the order of things.. my path will be made straight.

I am going to do it right this next time around.

Good thing God is a God of second chances.. and third.. and fourth....................................

Praise Him!

He is our hope!

Selah!

unlike the lilies; a life of excess

first off let me start off this blog by saying that if my dad catches a glimpse of this blog ( in the off chance that he's on facebook and not watching a laker game) I can safely assume that he will just scowl at my openness of emotions. Sharing my feelings for the public eye has always been looked down on by him, he thinks it's a call for sympathy, when really writing is my venue or medium for sorting out everything going on inside my being...

And since the creation of the blog, I have the ability to share my disgruntled state with the world.. and maybe just maybe someone will understand, or feel better knowing THEY are not alone...

(my dad tends to think that I think I am the only person who encounters emotions as these)...

anyway...

on with the blog.

let me start it off with a bible verse that I aspire to be more like:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^b?

28“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these."-Matthew 6:25-29

I feel like lately I am living my life in excess... I am anxious.. I am pursuing things too much...

My latest struggle (here it goes) is....dun dun dun BODY IMAGE. I know I am in good shape, I have never struggled with my weight before, but something has come over me and I am determined.. determined to lose all of my body fat... my most insecure point is my arms... I long for and desire skinny arms... and no matter how much I work out, how much yoga I do, how much fast food I don't eat... they are still (in my eyes) huge; unappealing...making my whole view of myself distorted.. I know what you're probably thinking.. "that's dumb"... but this is the truth of how I am feeling right now.. this is how I am.

I started a cleanse today... a master cleanse.. also known as the "lemonade diet" which consists of pure lemon juice, pure maple syrup, cayenne powder and alkaline water, and instead of eating for ten days I am supposed to drink a glass everytime I am hungry and go to bed with a laxative tea... I did this.. initially for the health benefits.. or so I convinced myself.. I thought (and told others) "I will rid of my toxins" I thought... it wouldn't be in vanity if I thought of it as a fast and leaned on God for strength and support during it... but the truth always wins... and the truth was... I wanted to lose the weight...

The minute I owned that I was diet stir crazy, I couldn't go through with the fast... I started getting anxious, not being able to wait... I wanted the weight off now, I wanted my arms skinny and beautiful now!... I saw pictures of myself with some sort of significant other and I was beautiful.. complete with my skinny arms wrapped around him... awful I tell you... awful...

In one of my favorite movies "What happens in Vegas" which happens to ironically be a romantic comedy... one of the characters tells the other "it's like you're trying to come in first when it's somebody elses race"

That's what I feel like right now... I feel like I am making myself unattainable goals for no known reason.. I am pursuing everything in my life restlessly right now I.E my goal to lose weight, my goal to obtain financial security for myself and my daughter (a big one), my relationships with people.... and other things I can't even give a name to... it's like my desires are so strange... I am trying my hardest to get to the finish line, to see the finished perfect picture that I have of myself and my life... and I can't even see the finish line.. because it's not my race....

proverbs say that we create our path but the Lord directs our steps (or something like that.. it's paraphrased) and here I am trying to have control of everything, trying to obtain everything I THINK that I NEED... when really I need to pick and choose my battles.

God knows His plans for me. He knows what I need more than I do... and yet.. I am trying to take the steering wheel when I merely should be reclined in the passengers seat enjoying the scenery.

I am not in control.. and right now I don't even have the eyes or ears or knowledge for the things in my life I really need. (translation: I don't know which of the things in my life I am pursuing endlessly are a waste of time or not)

I need to seek Wisdom from the Lord as to what I should be prioritizing my desires around... He knows the desires of my heart but can He show me which ones I can rid of and which ones I should concentrate on?

Because right now it seems like I am giving the world what I want from it in return.. (I.E giving certain people or a special "person" special attention in hopes that they will give it back etc...etc...)

This pursuit this "give to get" mentality is one skewed paradigm... it leaves me feeling life everything is one sided.. it's expectations.... in disguise. expectations which I loathe, which I think are toxic to anyone or anything...

but I inadvertently have them.. in my pursuits.. in my life.. I am human.. I am a hypocrite in this way.

I need to not be anxious.. to just be ok, to just lean on the Lord and let the cards fall where they may..

I need to relax, smell the roses... be like the lilies... I need to NOT NEED... but to Trust.

It's easier said than done.

I need to not do everything in excess... but give what I'm called to give and receive what I am called to receive and be happy in both.

Lord may these things be done in the name of your song Jesus Christ.

AMEN.

Tis a fickle fickle thing; the heart

Lately my brokenness has been showing its true colors.. I find myself wanting to pretend I have all my ducks in a row, I want to smile and pretend everything is hunky dory, because I believe this is what people want.

However, it is by no means honest... We live in a broken world; a fallen world... we are broken, and yet we are beautiful.

God created us in His image, he created man to be his strength, to establish a picture on Earth of what it means to be a father, like He is.. the FATHER in heaven.. a provider, a protector.. a lover.

He created woman also in His image to show that He can be nurturing, and emotional.. He is jealous for our love.. He is emotional..

I realize that even after i've reached these revelations over different chapters of love and loss and storms and rainbows... I am still terrified to show people that I am broken. That I am weak, that I don't have all my sh*t together (to say bluntly).

I stumble, I fall, I cry, I have anxiety, I panic, I desire things I shouldn't, I appreciate so little sometimes... and Intrinsically humans weren't meant to experience these things!

These are not the emotions God had intended for us.. these things are the fruit consumed from the forbidden tree.. the knowledge we thought was so wrongfully robbed from us... the knowledge we desired to obtain because we were lied to by a serpent and believed that God did NOT desire what was best for us and held out from us.

Ever since that apple everything has fallen, everything isn't in order, everything... is broken..

and yet, I still want to pretend I am some sort of exception?

Everyone who has ever known me who has ever seen what i've seen... can know that a facade is simply not agreeable with who I am.

I am an emotional being, I feel a lot, I feel more with my heart than my head, I am not the cognitive version of our species... I am the emotional one.

I find that when anyone else lets me in on their weakness, it's beautiful. But whenever I experience it, I think I am hideous... I immediately fear rejection, if I let my guard down I am vulnerable... I am scared, I am a target for more pain and anguish....

Because.. (God forgive them)

PEOPLE have failed in their loving of me in the past... causing these scars to run deep in my being... they were (for lack of a better word) fallible.. tsk tsk tsk them for being human, just as I am human.. Just as I am broken and fallible and have failed in my loving of people constantly!

Today I cried in front of someone... I let my guard down... and instead of being a scared turtle in my shell I opened my eyes and the thought that entered my mind was "it's a beautiful day"

I felt... vulnerable but somehow in my vulnerability I felt beautiful.... I immediately wanted to hold my daughter, to embrace the most beautiful blessing in my life. The most beautiful ever shining rainbow that came after a treacherous storm; an awful gale.

Look to the blessings, that's what's gonna get us through this shattered world.. it's what's gonna open our eyes to love better, to find the glue to bring it all back together, back before the apple, back before the tree, back before the serpent lied to thee.

(the last part was somewhat phrased from a song called no more apple no more tree by Kacie Mcleod)

May we look to the glass half full. May we not fear what we were created to be, may we embrace who we are, what we are, because it's all we've got, and HE will bring us back to Him, One puzzle piece at a time... until we see... the big picture.

God bless you all.

A Love Like Theirs

the desires of my heart are so great
it's time I lock more out
the hindges of this gate
are closing me in
the agony of waiting for my fate
has me weary and faint
sometimes my heart spins so fast
I feel like i'm falling
like I'm being chased
but I don't want to be caught
and You are there You are always there
and You see me falling apart
You know the desires of my heart
You know the pain within me
and You never depart
and yet it's not fair
I want a love like theirs
I want a love like Yours
I want a love
a love
so great
So deserving that we can end this race
please let me not fear the chase
let my heart find peace
in You, in He
show me
show me
your plans already
my patience is running thin
You don't have your hands in
bad things happening to good people
so why?
why?
I wanna know..
why
me?
a life time of dreams
a life time of wanting the best for myself
of believing deep within I was worthy
why me?
when is it my turn?
the desire and ache inside me burns
it burns
for a love like hers,
and a love like theirs
and a love like Yours
wash me clean of everything
heal my heart of everything
teach me that I can be whole again
that I can be my complete self
everything you made me to be
hold me
show me
Ican have a love like hers
and a love like theirs
and a love like Yours
i'm tired
tired
tired
of emptiness
what's in store
Dearest Lord
I am closing this gate
All I can pray is that you open a door.