desperate prayer

Lord God I keep running. I know I am hurrying from one email to the next...asking everyone for advice...everyone except you. I know this stuff with my roommate is her opinion and her issues. I know that I have sinned and I know that I have confessed that to you... but Lord for some reason it makes me frustrated with well, not you...but with misused Christianity. Its an excuse on my part...because nothing should hinder me seeking you. I know I need to look to you regardless of how crazy things get or how hurt I feel...but in this madness and confusion and pain i find it so hard Lord to seek and find you. I know you aren't hiding. I know you are waiting, desiring me to come to you. So why does it feel so empty Lord? Why does it feel like my words to you are nothing more than the right things to say? I desire you. I long for you. I know I have perhaps too much of a fixation on touching and feeling how real you are. Its like I am a sponge and I just soak up love and affection and touch and protectiveness and use it all up constantly. I keep returning to the well that wont quench my thirst...and yet i can't understand how to figuratively take you and allow you to meet the physical need. God I can't figure out what is wrong with me that I can't just understand like everyone else. I do think that's the biggest hindrance. I mean i know its trust and everything as well... but i think i feel like I have this huge physical tangible need. I need to be held and loved and cared for and protected and for my hand to be held and i feel like those needs are very real...and i want to deny that they are real. I want to believe I can meet them all myself but Lord I can't. I have everyone telling me that you are really the only one who can do those things, meet those needs, but since I cant see you or feel you or touch you i can't comprehend how to allow you to meet them in a tangible way... to the extent that you are the only thing that can meet those needs. It is like I am thirsty...really thirsty...and so i keep eating food to quench that thirst...and even though it helps, its not the water i need. But the thing is everyone is telling me the only water that will meet this thirst is this invisible water. So I keep pretending to drink this invisible water and yet i feel like we all know we are not drinking anything. Trust me, i want this invisible water to work. I really do. I just don't understand how to make the connection with this water i can't see or feel or touch and yet drink it to quench this thirst. I want to understand. I want to not thirst again. But I need help. So I keep trying to eat food even though i know its not going to make me less thirsty.. but at least i have something in my stomach. So im confused. Hurt. Broken. Lonely. Afraid. Desperate to try and make a plan of action so i don't have to feel like I am in this all alone. But its hard to not feel hopeless. I feel like I should get this by now. I should know better. And i try Lord. I try so hard to trust you. I try so hard to believe you are your word. I read your word and i go to church and i worship you and still something is missing. There is something i am not grasping... something it often times feels like I never will get. It actually reminds me of people who are just happy. The see the world and feel hope and joy. I don't know whats wrong with me that I can't grasp that. I want to believe that and feel that way deep inside my heart...but i can't figure out how.

Lord please open my eyes to you. Please help me see you as clearly as I see the reflection in the mirror. Help me to trust that you have me in the palm of your hand. God open the doors you want me to walk through and shut the doors you don't. Help me to listen to the people you have placed in my life...people who know you and love you...people who know me and love me. I want to do your will. I desire at the core of who I am to do your will. So I open my heart to you and your desires for me. I will do what you set before me and trust that you are bigger than a treatment program. You are bigger than finances. You are greater than sickness and disease. You are God and the world is in the palm of your hand. At your word creation bows before you... I can't do this in my own strength. I place my hope in you. Only you can heal me... so speak to me in a way that I can hear your...give me the chance to yield to your guidance. Set the choice clearly before me, make the path clear and help me to follow you with boldness.

Thank you Lord for a mom who is willing to do anything for me... go into debt for me. Thank you for the healing and restoration you have done in that relationship. Father God keep working your will into that relationship. Help me to let go of her into your hands so that I can be free to walk without the weight of trying to carry her. God I love her so much. Help me to love her well by also loving and taking care of myself. Bless her God. Give her joy despite all the pain she has walked through...she deserves for life to not be so hard. Shower her with your love. God I thank you for a therapist who knows you and who seeks you. Thank you for placing her in my life and allowing me to learn to trust, to be parented, to be cared for... thank you for allowing me to let someone be the adult, the parent...someone to take care of me... thank you for using her to show me what it feels like to be loved. Thank you for letting me be a part of her life. She is am amazing woman who loves you and I am so thankful for her. Continue to work through that relationship Lord.

God I need you. I need everything about you...your peace, your joy. I need your hope and your power. I need your love to be real...to be tangible. I need your forgiveness
Lord... I need you. I submit my will to yours. Work miracles in the situations I am facing. I pray for the resources for treatment...whether through scholarships or payment plans or just an understanding that treatment isn't how you are going to work... I know you aren't constrained by the limitations of our situations or finances. So I ask for your power to be made know...and let it bring you all the glory.

I thank you Lord for your grace. I thank you for never leaving me or abandoning me. I thank you for your love and that every time I fall and come back you will take me in...I worship and praise you God. You are mighty to save.

life's change

As the wind blows my hair and the sun shines on my face, I sit here contemplating the lack of predictability that comes with being on this earth, being in the flesh. In an instant life can change and turn you in a direction you never imagined would be a part of your future. I have known moms who have gone to the doctor with their children expecting the diagnosis of a virus and driving home facing childhood cancer. I have known the reality of a single hour taking a life without any warning, only leaving behind the wake of grief and disbelief. My own control issues and fear stem from this very thing... never knowing what a day will hold and how drastically it will change my future. I am a classic example of how tragedy can forever scar a child, leaving them not understanding how to function in a world that often times seems cruel, cold, and harsh.

It's honestly not that i expect a life of perfection. I don't expect our days to be free of pain and loss...we live in a world where sin is the driving force of so many and truth and love are long forgotten in an attempt to satisfy the desires of the flesh... we all ache for something to fill the void that dwells so deep within us. A void that can be filled by Christ alone and yet can be temporarily met with lust, power, and money. And so it goes. Life speeds by like a hurricane never stopping to take caution to the destruction it might cause. It doesn't seem fair. It would seem as though equal distribution of pain would be the solution to overwhelming events repetitively happening to the same people. However it just doesn't work that way. Thee is no doubt that our choices effect our pain. I have most certainly made choices which went against warnings from those around me and the path led to misery. I think that's part of being human. Our past affects our future choices and our future choices often times repeat the pain of our past...all in a desperate race to break free. But there is hope... He is Jesus. Our healer. Our Savior...and one day we will be with Him. Until that day we push forward, seeking to live a life to glorify Him and share His love with others.

As a Christian I know that Christ is the solution. He alone is the healer and the one who brings change. I was in church the other day and the pastor was talking about the price that was paid on the cross. It was a perfect offering. A complete offering that took away the cost of our sin, of what we deserve, which is eternal hell, and gave us the greatest gift that could ever be given, reconciliation with God. But in that perfect gift was the assurance that God has more love than we have anger. He has more hope then we have despair. He has more healing than we have pain. He alone is the one who will judge us and we are told that if we confess with our mouth that he is Lord and believe that God raised Jesus from the grave we are saved.(Romans 10:9). The beauty and freedom in life comes from walking in a daily relationship with Him, allowing Him to lead us from glory to glory... but salvation is found in confessing and believing. It's beautiful. It's amazing. And it's that kindness that leads us to daily repentance. THAT is the truth we have to offer those who don't know the Lord. That's the truth that we can bring to a hurting world. The world doesn't need our judgment. The world doesn't need one more person to threaten their eternity with hell. The world needs Jesus to reach them...to be His hands and His feet and its in that relationship and outpouring that they are drawn to the Lord...and desire to change the sin that does bind them to hell without the redemption of Christ.

Jesus didn't live among the righteous. He didn't seek out the ones who went through all the right motions and said all the right things. He didn't come to promote Pharisees, he came to heal the broken. He came to love the unlovable and be among the worst of the worst so that they may KNOW the love that will set them free. "For God SO LOVED the world that He gave his on and only son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)" Who am I, a sinner redeemed by grace, to get to judge the authenticity of the heart of any other towards the Lord. I can love them. I can encourage them. I can walk beside them and explain the tools that local churches have to help them walk out of the pain they are in...the "sin" that they battle in order to fill the hurt and pain that comes with this life. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:15 that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners -and I am the worst of them all." He didn't stand in a place of righteousness only to condemn...He remembered what he was saved from and stood as a witness that God could save a sinner like him, explaining that if Christ could save him, he could save anyone.

This week has been devastating. It has made me press into the Lord and remember that my security is in HIM alone. That when I repent of past mistakes, of sin, that he REMEMBERS THEM NO MORE. (Isaiah 43:25). Never before have I felt so judged and so condemned...and I am so thankful that I am secure in my relationship with Christ or I would want nothing to do with Christianity. In Romans 2:1-3 it talks about how we are not to judge others. My sin is not any more beautiful to the Lord than yours. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Every one of us.

It has been a very emotional week. I have been asked to leave the home I have lived in for the last 2 years because my past mistakes and current struggles are causing "spiritual warfare" to increase in the house. My other two roommates were just as surprised to learn this as I was...anniversaries, break ups, past trauma being stirred up and now this have shaken my heart and threatened to prove the degree to which I find my hope in the Lord and not in my circumstances. I am far from perfect and I'm sure I am not the easiest of all people to live with. I am in a battle for recovery from a life plagued by an eating disorder. I am processing years of un-dealt with sexual abuse. I am learning how to trust the Lord in new ways that go against all my self taught rules of attachment and self protection. I am a broken child of God searching for healing and restoration from my maker... I am a sinner saved by grace. I know I have two options...lay down and die or stand up and fight. And the fight isn't against against flesh and blood. The fight isn't done in harsh words of disagreement and accusations of holier than thou judgment...what gain is there in that? My fight is against the lies of darkness. I fight to know truth despite the confusion and despair around me. I choose to stand on what the Lord says about me in His word...not on the interpretations of people's claims of what the Lord tells them. There is no absolute truth apart from the word of God. I can seek the Lord for direction, for clarity, and for how to walk out day in day out decisions... but the responses I hear will always be swayed by personal emotions and experiences. I am human. I can't claim direct knowledge imparted from God as absolute truth unless it is written in His word. When we claim the Lord's absolute guidance for every decision we make we take out all personal responsibility which therefore opens the door to a lack of accountability.

I don't have all the answers. I am far from perfect. I have such a long journey ahead of me to get to being more and more like Christ. So I keep walking. I don't know which steps to take next. I don't know where these closed doors will lead to... I just know that one part of a journey is ending and another will soon begin. So I hold tight to those who are walking beside me, and lock eyes with the one who is leading me. I am such a long way from my true home...but just like "much-afraid" walking on her journey to the high places, I know the Shepard is never far and will always be there when I call.

longing for good

There are times when I feel like there is nothing tangible left to the memory of the day my dad died. I feel like it was a life time ago. I feel so disconnected and emotionally separated that when the loss, the grief, the searing pain hits me, I feel as though my world, yet again, has been shaken. It all comes back in a wave and washes over me so forcefully that I shrink to the ground in fear, anticipating the unexpected blow of another wave. One loss bleeds into another and like undertow I am pulled under, not knowing which direction is up. I wish I could make you understand just how much I believe I am making up the flashbacks and the trauma. I wish I could help you see how genuinely I search my mind for explanations of why I would "act out" in this sort of way. I try to find a way for it to make sense that I loose time in reality and somehow travel back to a time when life should have been simpler...and yet it was a nightmare. I try and piece together the segments of information that I do have and analyze it over and over again allowing myself to potentially set up a timeline all while agonizing over the truth of its reality. The way I see it I am screwed either way. Option one is that I am totally insane and have made up memories in my head...to the point where I am so traumatized by them that I have flashbacks of events that never actually were/are real. OR these awful things did happen and I am implicating something was done by a man that could legally give him time in prison. I am making an accusation that could forever impact the lives of his family, of my family, and the world in between the two. How do you make such a bold statement that it could have the power to destroy someone in an instant... and yet I can't help but taste the bitterness in me that recalls the impact of another person's decision made on me. However I guess that is all the more reason that I am fearful to make a statement if there is any chance that it could be wrong. I think of my longing to write a book one day to help reach other men and women who have walked this very same path and I can't breath at the thought that he would know that I know. I can't adequately explain the terror that almost takes my breath away at the very thought.

Nothing makes sense. I don't even really know that it was possible...I was so rarely left with others and how could I forget? And still I feel too normal to be crazy enough to make it all up. It seems so silly to want so desperately to be loved... and to feel so abandoned at the though of not being wanted...and to feel so hurt that God wouldn't give me the desire of my heart...to be wanted, loved, cherished...to be a wife, a mother. You would think the innocence of the desire would have to mean you are good at the core. Right? It sounds silly but I feel so deeply that at the very center of who I am I have this longing, this burning desire to just love other people. I hurt when others hurt and I cry when they are in need. I don't want anyone to feel abandoned or rejected...in fact I want to do whatever I can to protect them from it. I feel like all I desire is good...and all that comes out just isn't. I keep thinking i can think my way out of this...when all along i have needed to feel. It seems so cruel...this whole world seems so big and so lonely. How desperate I am for Jesus...because even though I can't grasp hold of how real He is to me...it doesn't change that He is as real as He has even been. It's HIS grace that carries me through each day. I guess for now I will stop trying to figure out a past that broke me apart...and start focusing on the one who can put my heart back together.


Lord God, help me to desire you above all else. Help me to grab hold of you and your promises. Help me to believe who you say I am. Help me believe that you love me and that you will never let me go. Be my truth when my mind and logic fails me. Help my heart to heal. I long for you. Hold me Jesus while I sleep. Never let me go.

Severe Storms

I need sleep. Today's weather was a perfect match for the way I feel my life is going right now. There were severe thunder storm's with tornado watches that turned into tornado warnings... which turned into rumors of a touchdown 1/2 mile from where I was eating lunch. Rain was flying sideways and the dark clouds that turned an eerie green only added fear to an already anxiety provoking situation. In my typical "California girl" fashion I begged if I could bring my little Bella inside and keep her in my purse until it all passed... her little 6 pound body and fluffy little head peeking out, thrilled to be out of a car in the middle of a storm.
I couldn't help but think about how often i see myself in the same situation Bella was in while outside the restaurant in my car. I feel trapped inside of my body, my mind, my past. The storms rage on outside of me and I panic. Bella's version of panicking is running from window to window searching for me...desperately trying to find the person she knows will save her. I on the other hand crawl down onto the floor so to speak and close my eyes, hoping if i can't see the storm then maybe, just maybe, it won't be real.
I started IOP tonight and felt like a total failure. Ben had text messaged me 30 minutes before, after an agreement initiated by him, not to talk for a few weeks. But he had something happen today that felt like a major blow to his face in the battle he is already fighting...so he texted me. Of course I responded. Of course it felt wonderful to have him reach out to me. Of course I felt relieved that he missed me more than I thought he did. He was hurting and I love him. I wanted to be the person he went to...I wanted him to love me. And then, after my encouragement, the conversation ended...and I felt worse than I had minutes before. I gave room to that much more hope that I am pretty sure will only hurt me more in the weeks to come. My love and empathy and desire for good in his life got ignited and So I responded the only way I could...I loved him, encouraged him, and turned him towards the Lord. My roommate told me that He is being the girl in the relationship right now and I am being the boy...an oddly typical pattern in the men I date. Then I go to renfrew and try to eat and my heart is just breaking and feelings are everywhere...and there are new people who don't know my past, my crazy inability to always stay in the present....and then the topic of men and sex comes up and I just about lose reality and fall into a flashback. The lightning and thunder roared outside and my ptsd had me on edge, jumping at every clash of thunder as it sounded. I left on the brink of tears...wondering how i let myself get back to this place. Wondering what is wrong with my heart that I feel things so deeply...what is wrong with my mind that I can't process things efficiently... that I can't be free. I am terrified that I am in over my head. I'm exhausted and longing for Ben to call me and tell me he was wrong...that his love for me is enough to make him want to stay with me...that I am enough. But i'm not enough. I know being enough would only be a disservice to him, because in all reality we both need the Lord to be enough before we can love each other well. But as the storms in life rage on I place my hand against the cold window of my car and long for someone, anyone, to run out and bring me into the safety of their arms, out of the storm...it's a dangerous place to be...especially when Jesus is the only true savior.

Father God I am desperate for you to be the calm in the storm. I am desperate to find the strength, your strength, to face this storm before me. I am afraid of the trauma left unprocessed. I am terrified of the emotions that boil beneath the surface of my skin...taunting me...saying if I let them out no one will want me. How could a God so big love such a mess like me? When I feel alone please remind me that you are there. Help me to seek you and your freedom even in the moments when I long for the safety of my cage. I need you like I need my next breath. Help me walk through each day, one day at a time.
amen.

Heaven on my mind...

It's the unexpected blow that cripple me. The surprise and the shock inevitably transform me into a paralyzed child, begging for feeling to return. I start speaking without thinking. I start trying to fix what just happened as if getting more and more words out will make everything that happened disappear.
The problem I find in relationships is that it takes two people to make them work. I have never exactly been the best at working in groups for school projects or in situations where there is a distribution of responsibility. I can't be in everyone's head making sure everyone is doing what needs to happen...knowing that the efficiency of their actions will contribute to a grade or a perception of me. I like to carry the load of responsibility so that I can make sure nothing takes me by surprise. If I fail, I know I am failing in the process. If I am executing the details to make sure they are perfect, I will know that nothing else, or nobody else for that matter, can take that away from me. Relationships make things messy. I like to be able to know what someone else is thinking or feeling about the status of the relationship, how we are communicating, what improvements need to be made...in order to prevent a falling out, and a heartbreak. The silly girl that I am forgot that nothing ever goes according to plan. Nothing ever turns out just like its supposed. And often times its the bumps in the road, the diversion from the known path, that turn something that could be normal in to something extravagant. However, there is always the chance that the turns and bumps could lead you to a dead end...where heartbreak is inevitable.
For the moment I consider Ben and I to be broken up...which was his decision, not mine. See that wasn't in my plan. The road I was looking down didn't include this sudden turn that is heading straight into the middle of nowhere. My plan was step by step, leading to a future that one day included marriage, children, growing old together. How do you hear the words "This is the end" from someone who promised you forever. How do you let go and be angry when all you can find is a love so deep that you can't stand to wish any more hurt or pain into their life. How do you stand in the strength of the Lord when you feel like those words are an expression, not a reality.
I am trying not to fall apart. I am trying so hard to not go back to the comfort that takes the pain away...I am trying to accept the support of friends and family and am trying with everything in me not to call him and beg for him to love me once more. I feel pathetic even uttering those words out loud. My heart is so tired of the pain...it's hard not to long for heaven.