Category Archives: Dirty’s Reports

Plans Plans Plans.

19 Thursday Jan 2012

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I have discovered that Riteaid is one of the most depressing places in the world and that for some reason their lack of pricing make-up products will make me buy them. There’s no reason to spend my money on make-up but I did. Do I feel that now, finally, after having acquired the perfect colors and products, after having spent far too much time applying and blending, smoothing and powdering, that now I am beautiful? No. I feel just as empty and ugly as I did before hand.
I have been having incredible writer’s block. The only things I can think about are the things that I shouldn’t bother writing about because they are unedifying even to me. That’s pretty bad! My choice to push myself to write something substantial reminds me of the cold hard truth.

The heart is deceitful above all things & beyond cure.
Who can understand it? – Jeremiah 17:9

Just because I’m saved and cleansed in the sight of God through the blood of Jesus Christ doesn’t mean I’m perfect. It means that there has been a good work begun in me, one that will last for the rest of eternity.
I’ve been feeling anger and bitterness a lot lately. I’ve been unable to do much that is productive. I’ve been trying to wait on the Lord and I’ve been hearing so much noise about how things need to be done immediately that I get frustrated and properly pissed off. And all I have been wanting to do is wait on the Lord. But even when I have the opportunity I find ways to fill my time with vanity.

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. – Isaiah 40:31

So I’m going to be proactive and change this pattern. I’m going to push until I break. I’m going to start trying to live the life I’ve been wishing I have. And this is something I need to do before I move and start school in a little over a month. I want to be certain that I know where to stand and how to act and react before I’m put into another mission field. I’m not prepared as I am today to go, and the time that I’ve been given to spend with God right now is a gift. It’s going to be such a learning experience in so many ways. It’s a new season.

I’m also going to try to get some more blogging accomplished, as well as getting my testimony pulled together.  It’ll be a power point presentation. 

2012 Goals

04 Wednesday Jan 2012

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Here is what I think about New Years resolutions.  They’re not important, not alone anyway.  Goals!  They are what resolutions help you to complete!  Without the resolution to achieve a goal there is nothing to get you going!  So I’ve been compiling some goals I’d like to achieve this year, and I won’t get too far into them at this point but it’s good to put them somewhere aside from my graphing notebook.  (best thing ever to have with you for doodling.  There’s so many little squares!)

  1. Stop the Cycles.  I’ve found that my life is moving towards a stagnation state, and the reason is mostly because of the stupid cycles that I continue to let myself run in.  I see them everywhere, in my bad habits, my friendships, my non-existent love life, my work, my lack of blogging.  I like blogging ya’ll!  So I’m going to take a little time to pin point the really bad cycles, the ones that are keeping me from getting more out of life, and try to find the root issues and handle them.  I want to set a better example to those who are younger than me spiritually and literally, and I don’t want myself to get in the way of being seen as someone who adults can trust.
  2. Start a Group/Lead?  “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.”  – John 9:4
    This is something that’s been on my mind for a long while, and I haven’t figured out how to do it yet but I’ve been talking with some important-to-talk-to people about it and getting some encouraging feed back.
  3. Get a Clearer Map for Life.  This one is going to require a lot of the painful and desperate prayer that I have not always been known for.  But I want to know God’s directions, I want to know where He wants me to be and I’m determined to put myself in a place where He can pick me up and move me without me fighting back.
  4. Learn about Self-Discipline.  This one is going to be really hard.  That’s all I have to say.
  5. Show Grace.  “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people who are his very own, eager to do what is good. These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.”  – Titus 2:11-15

Everything will take some time, and steps will be taken before leaps and bounds.  I’m going to have to get into the Word like it’s my job and pray continually, and learn the true meaning of crucifying the flesh (not literally).  But I want to be able to look back on this year and see that I did start to really dedicate my life to God’s work.  I want to see that I set my dreams and myself aside.  I am not sure what that will look like, but I’m willing to find out.

Merry Christmas

25 Sunday Dec 2011

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I am not happy with myself today.
I’ve been given so much in the past year, but because of all of the hard things, the difficulties and the painful experiences, my automatic reaction is the same as this person’s: I wish I could forget it all happened.
It’s time to begin a new season in my life, I’m so sure about it that I’m practically deodorant, but it’s scary to think of how opening myself up to God’s plans might take me farther from home, or away from my community, or back to my parent’s house, or into poverty, or into vulnerability.  There’s a big plan out there with my name on it that I’m going to try to accept, because God has written it out for me and has given me promises that cover every angle– Yes, it will hurt sometimes.  As a human it’s impossible to escape pain, as a Christian it’s impossible to escape persecution.  No, there is no promise that I will get exactly what I want out of my life.  His thoughts are higher and his plans are greater than I can imagine.  No, I will not need to worry about it.  Constant prayer and devouring the Word will keep me operating in the spirit, and keep my perspective on my spiritual needs and less on my physical needs.  No, I will never be alone.  No matter how lonely I get, I have the perfect Prince of Peace with me, fighting for me, listening to me, interceding for me, and loving me more than I can even imagine.
Recently Tink asked me if I would be happy with my life if I had done nothing with it but loved other people.  Yes, I would.  She also was giving me some much-needed encouragement, reminding me of ways God has been using me and I realized that I would hate for anyone to see that as something I did.  I only want people to recognize what I have done for God in a way that makes Him seem all the more wonderful.  I don’t care if people see me as a lost cause or a saint, I just want them to see me as a vessel that God knows how to use perfectly even when we can’t imagine how it would work that way.

“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” – Esther 4:14

The Quarter Life Crisis Begins!

16 Friday Dec 2011

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When someone tells you how happy they are to not have you in their life it’s not necessarily comforting, but it does give you a kick in the pants to move past whatever feelings you had for them.  I only know this because it’s happened to me.  Recently.  As in today.
There’s not much to be done about letting emotions get the best of you, at least not after the fact, and honestly I’d rather let them take their course than harness them.  When I harness certain things they come back at inopportune times.
My BFF told me once that when I go through break ups (at least, the important ones) it’s not like I need time to get over the person, I don’t deal with things like a normal person; I go into mourning.  I literally mourn the death of a relationship.  And she’s right, I absolutely do.  I can’t always let go when things are over because the person is still there, and the end of what we had feels like the death of a close friend.  I’ve experienced both.  I can see the similarities.
I’ve been doing a lot of processing lately.  Painful, good, hard, enlightening and relieving processing.  I’ve been remembering more and more that God is great, strong enough to save, and absolutely sovereign over what happens in this universe.  His blood has covered my sins and cleansed me, his law is written on my heart, his gospel is what I want to live to tell and his word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path.
My dissatisfaction with my life is a signal to me that I need to figure out where God wants me to be right now and whether or not he wants me to be going anywhere else.  These days I get smacked in the face by realizations of my sin, of my selfishness, of my denial and my ignorance.  I do not want to be an opportunist of the grace that I have been given.  I want to live a life that is for the King, not for myself.  But that’s hard to hold to sometimes.  It means that I have to give up dreams.  It means I have to do things I am afraid of.  It means that I have to be willing to bend and sometimes to break.  It means I have to handle rejection.  It means I have to let others go.  But in all of the discomfort I find peace, and in the sorrow and pain I find healing.  His promises are for a time such as this.

I hear You say “My love is over,
it’s underneath, it’s inside, it’s in between
the times you doubt Me, when you can’t feel
the times that you’ve questioned ‘is this for real?’
the times you’ve broken, the times that you mend
the times you hate Me & the times that you bend
well My love is over, it’s underneath
it’s inside, it’s in between,
these times you’re healing
& when your heart breaks
the times that you feel like you’ve fallen from grace
the times you’re hurting
the times that you heal
the times you go hungry & are tempted to steal
in times of confusion & chaos & pain
I’m there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame
I’m there through your heartache
I’m there in the storm
My love I will keep you by My power alone
I don’t care where you’ve fallen, where you have been
I’ll never forsake you
My love never ends, it never ends.   –  Tenth Avenue North, Times

I’ll update again soon I hope, to explain why I’ve been MIA, to tell anyone who will read about the musical I’ve been a part of, to tell the story of my toe infection, to explain my epiphany of storytelling, and more.

I love it when someone else can verbalize what I want to tell you.

14 Monday Nov 2011

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“When I was a small kid, there were plenty of hugs.  My parents are big on hugs.  My father gives bear hugs, tight and quick.  My mother usually puts her arms around your shoulders and bangs on your back, as if she’s trying to burp you.  My friends and I always hugged.  It wasn’t as if I’d never been hugged, as many of the Clients had not.  But at the same time, physical contact has not come naturally to me.  It seemed, and seems, laden with significance, so laden that one might like to avoid it altogether.  One might, in fact, over a few years, begin to avoid it like the plague, begin to claim such absolute ownership over one’s own body that contact itself–the brush of a hand, even, let alone the startling number of emotional and physical nerve endings jangled by an embrace--begins to seem a threat…Hugs are difficult, however.  Kissing is perhaps more intimate than sex itself.  Similarly, hugs imply emotional, rather than sexual, intimacy.  They are a gesture from one person to another of nonsexual caring, and the idea of being cared for in a nonsexual way was not something I could understand.  Contact with another person reminds you that you are also a person, and implies that someone cares about you as such.  This felt to me profoundly false, and I felt I did not, in any way, warrant such care, such contact.  Contact with another body reminds you that you have a body, a fact you are trying very hard to forget.”  (Wasted, Marya Hornbacher)

This is what I try to tell people that I feel like, but it’s been a long while since I have found this description and I have failed at being able to communicate.