“I’m beginning to think that there is something wrong with the way that I react to things.  This has been on my mind because times that make others feel happy make me feel sad, and ideas that should be wistful feel like weights on my chest.  The fact that I can’t pay my bills feels like a brick that is hooked to my ribcage.  What I should see as wonderful I see as terrifying, and I am finding myself more and more frightened by things and can’t seem to figure out why.” – One of my entries into the Emo-Journal I cry into before listening to old MCR and wearing fish net shirts

I don’t know if either one of you readers have noticed, but when I’m emotionally torqued I get quite whiney.  I’ve noticed this, and I feel very grateful for those who put up with my constant “waaaaah!”  Believe you me, I would rather be productive, or even just happy, but apparently I was created to be in touch with the sides of myself that finds anxiety in many situations. 
This anxiety is triggered by the following, but is not restricted to; the current job hunt, relationships with my female friends, food, relationships with my male friends, money, my family, planning things, food being stuck visibly in my teeth, the fact that my hips hurt a lot these days, the condition of my skin, the sound of people coming up the stairs or slamming doors, the idea that I or someone else cannot logically control themselves on an emotional level, whether or not there is hot water for a tubby, whether or not one of the cats got stuck somewhere and will pee on things or die, cigarettes and how much I need to quit smoking, alcohol and how much I think I should quit drinking, television, singing in front of other people, self-medication in all forms, trust, and generational curses.  

During my college years I went through some interesting and possibly defining moments that involved all kinds of things that gave me anxiety, including a few of the things listed in the Anxiety Triggers List above.  Usually I would end up talking to my dad about the money problems, fears, and anxieties, and he would always tell me to look up a certain verse.  (“What does the bible say about that?  I don’t remember what part it is, but Jesus says not to worry about it.  That he cares about the lilies but he cares more about you.  So look it up.”)

I did.  I had that verse staring at me each time I opened the bible for 4 years.  It was obnoxious, really, because of how simply it states God’s views on anxiety. 

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?  Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?  Consider how the lilies grow.  They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!” – Luke 12:25-28

Sometimes I think God loves to proverbially slap people in the face with the bible.  I understand why, because I am also a big fan of people understanding what you’re saying the first time and trusting you to mean what you say, but it’s not always pleasant to be hit in the face with a hardcover. 

Of course he’s going to point out the obvious here, when you worry about things you aren’t having faith.  Well, I must tell you that I DO have faith!  I just also have realistic ideas about what can happen in my life if I lead it the way that doesn’t scare me into anxiety spirals, which would be not leaving the house, putting the communication devices in the woods out back, reading and writing and drawing and watching movies and nothing else really at whatever time of the day I happen to wake up.  That doesn’t provide much opportunity for God to work his plans into my life, especially if they involve other people.  So I do it on purpose, I scare myself with life because it’s important not to miss everything.  (Please note: I do not care about missing every possible thing, I just care about missing anything that could be good or bad or challenging because I decided to truly turn the house into the next Grey Gardens.) 
Writing about these struggles now requires me to make two points. 

When I was a really young kid my favorite bible story was from Mark 4, the story of Jesus and his disciples taking a boat trip that gets hit by a bit of rough weather.  Jesus was napping in the stern, which is cool because he had been busy telling stories with double meanings all day, when one of his guys woke him up and asked if he was cool with them drowning.  The poor kid.  Not only did he wake up the son of God (Which is something you want to really think about for at least a solid 20 minutes, no matter why you think it’s necessary) but he also woke him up to flip out on him in a passive aggressive way.  So Jesus got up, told the weather to stop, it did, then asked the disciples “Why are you so afraid?  Do you still have no faith?”

When I was 4-years-old or somewhere around there I went to a birthday party where they played us a nifty 80’s cartoon of this.  I loved it, probably because I was geeking out on frosting and candy, and this I remember: when my mom came to get me she asked me in this person’s living room about the movie, quizzing me on my bible stories, and when it got to what Jesus told his disciples about the entire faux pas… well, I don’t know if it’s because I had a lisp and heard everyone through a lisp-filter, or if the adorable little cartoon had shoddy craftsmanship, but I told her Jesus asked his disciples “Where is your faces?”  Mom still think this is a very funny story, but I’ve been thinking about it for other reasons.  When I was little and I got scared I covered myself up.  If I was afraid of things I couldn’t see in my room (with a sister who sees demons and feels God’s hand, please don’t judge me) I would make sure that my blanket was tucked around me, and I would put the blanket up over my head and tuck that in.  (Even now, if I hear something late at night in the house or something, my feet are going to be tucked.  It’s logical, if they get through the blankets and get my feet I can’t run away!)  So I thought Jesus was making an excellent point at the time of hearing the word Faces instead of Faith, because scared people don’t have faith, and scared people cover their faces instead of facing what’s scary.  Hence I refuse to let myself be scared by things like public speaking, meeting new people… my extroverted side completely gets this story.  So while I was a lispin-lass I also was brilliant, if you hadn’t noticed, because I made this connection when I was somewhere in the 4-year-old age range and have sort of lived with it in the back of my mind ever since (which might add to my constant list of things that make me such a child most of the time).  I have always considered myself one who lives looking forward to the promises that God gave me, and I am stubborn enough to say that my refusal to debate what I believe he will do for me, or that he means anything less than what he says, can be called faith. 

This leads me to my second point:  I strongly believe that the areas of your life that cause you the most anguish, grief, drama, discouragement, etc, are the areas that have the best possible potential for God to work and blast your socks off with his amazingly creative ways of following through.  I really truly and honestly believe in God and his promises and miracles and that he loves me and has a great plan that I have no clue about.  I also struggle with not knowing the plan, with not feeling loved (5 love languages anyone?) and with not getting to “experience” miracles in my own life.  So this has to be important!  Why would the devil give me such a hard time with these things otherwise?  He wants to fuck up what could easily and powerfully give glory to God.  And the devil is smart, because he knows that most of us look at the areas of our lives that are hard and say “No, thank you, I’ll do other thing instead.”  He’s a thief who comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.  And obviously he would like to steal some of the glory that should belong to God or else he wouldn’t have gotten fired and exiled in the first place.  So he’ll steal your thoughts, lie to you, kill your hope, and other things that Hitler would have loved to know about during WWII because it will leave us desolate, useless, and most likely completely drained in the area that would offer the most glory to God. 

And so I would call myself a woman of faith, on those days I think I’ve acted like a grown-up, and I do think that because of the challenges I face with it there is strength there that I haven’t figured out about yet.  Same thing with prayer, but I’ll give that one its own post or 40.

There is a occurance in my life as of late that makes me cringe, scrunch my face up, and yell at my mother.  It usually goes something like this:  We are in the company of young men and she says hello, then moves directly on to a burning question of her heart, “So what girls are you interested in these days?” 
I am so tired of making my adorable face look ugly, and even worse, the fact that she laughs off my polite, rude, and heartfelt pleads for her to stop asking such things.  It’s bad enough to hang out with a bunch of dudes with my mom, asking about romantic inclinations in mixed company is asking for trouble or a brush off, which she usually gets.  (Technically, since she gets the brush off I shouldn’t really care, but it grates me so!)
I decided to get a little more educated on what the Bible says about all this jazz, and the first thing I wanted to know was what it thought about us guys and gals getting jiggy with it.  Apparently, God didn’t like Adam being alone (Gen. 2:18) and when he made him an Eve and they christened Eden he said it was good.  So there’s that.
Later, in Romans 12:9&10 it says that “Love must be sincere…Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.  Honor one another above yourselves.”  This is how, when we aren’t all hitched and making babies, we should treat each other.  (I try, but let’s be realistic, I don’t always succeed.)  I’m going to break it down for a minute here.
When honor is used as a verb it means to treat each other in a way that holds someone to honesty, fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs and actions.  So when I talk to a guy I should be treating him as though he is honest, fair, and has integrity in his beliefs and actions.  Why?  Well, when someone treats me that way I want to be that way.  So that’s a good enough reason for me. 
We should be devoted, which means to be zealous or ardent in attachment, loyalty, or affection, in brotherly love, which means to have a kindly and lenient attitude toward people.  So I should be ardently attached, loyal, and affectionate towards my guy pals while being kind and lenient.  Why?  Because we all fall short of glorious, and if it weren’t for human compassion there are quite a few people who would be seriously unhappy and some who might just choose to die instead of disappoint people further. 
Lastly our love should be sincere.  Sincere has too many great meanings to skip: free of deceit, hypocrisy, or falseness; earnest  2. genuine; real  3. pure; unmixed; unadulterated  4. sound; unimpaired.  This word, all of these words that are behind it, this is how I need to love my guy pals?  Yes.  And that’s how they should love me.  Why?  The only reason I care to even use is that it would be wonderful.  To have the kind of love in friendship that is described here would be a precious thing.
So this is how (I try) to love my boys.  Yes, sometimes I call them that.  And it’s a challenge for me at times, because sometimes I want to believe that they lie, that they aren’t fair, that they are sneaky, I want to tell them to fuck off and die, I become a version of myself that ignores the things I can’t be honest about, I even have been known to get crushes!  That’s not in this description of love!  Thankfully it’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with one of those, but that’s beside the point.  My point is that when I am surrounded by people who are just doing this, loving in a pure and unadulterated way, I am set-ski.  Good to go!  Then there are the Yentas.  The gossip-y, busy-body women that have to start playing matchmaker.  Well guess what?  I don’t want a matchmaker!  And I don’t want to talk about “interest” and other vom-inducing topics like that.  And Jesus doesn’t want you to either.
Ephesians 4: 29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, MOM.

 “Why do I never feel like I belong?  Or I feel like I belong in all the wrong places.
Reason and emotion do not always come as a package deal in my mind, especially at night.  I find it difficult to connect the two when every doubt in my mind come compulsively over and over, not filling a void but reassuring me that one still exists, reminding me that I have a front that I wish were closer to my reality.  When secrets and sorrow are too close it becomes a smother poultice, a false remedy, soothing because it lulls me back to a place where I feel isolated from others, from God.  I am labeled: whore, addict, thief, liar, hypocrite.  And these are all only from myself, only what my human mind uses to keep me feeling desperately alone.”

You were bought at a price. – 1 Corinthians 7:23

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.  No, I worked harder than all of them–yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. – 1 Corinthians 15:10

Christ has paid the ultimate price to add me into his family.  He gave more than 12 goats, more than money, more than letting me marry his cousin.  He went to God and after a brief discussion they agreed that he would die in my place so that when the time comes I will be with him forever.  Jesus Christ decided to do that for me.  Now I am called daughter, beloved, and new by his blood.

This is the reason I get up in the morning, because I have the hope and faith that Christ has big plans for me that don’t include sitting in my room and thinking about sweeping the floor, but it’s so very hard to remember sometimes.  I find my mind wandering to the wrong side of danger all the time, and it’s hard to harness.  It’s easy to remember the worst things I’ve done and to feel compelled to explain to others why I’m not actually fit to be around them, that I’ve been tainted by the sick things of the world and that I still have to struggle with some of the things that don’t want to be left in the past. 

When I feel I don’t belong I should not dwell on the pit my mind creates but find the Living Word in my hear, recall what he has said about love and salvation.  And that is so hard for someone like me.  I feel every part of me is a bit off, too much of something, too little of something, no place I call home, too much guilt.  But Christ didn’t die for anyone who was already perfect.  He died for all so that through his blood, by dropping my sham of a life and placing it at his feet he can create a new life for me, a whore, addict, liar, thief, hypocrite.  There is no hope but for what he promised to do with my sad little life. 

I have decided that there must be some reason, some purpose, for each and every part of my life and experiences.  I think of the story from Luke 7, of the woman who washed Christ’s feet with her tear and poured perfume on his feet.  When he spoke of her he said “I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven–for she loved much.  But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”  I don’t know if I did it to myself or if it took me a period of indulging my sinful self to understand these things, but I hope more than I can articulate that my understanding of how much is forgiven of me will help me to minister to those that feel they have too much sin to be forgiven.  I hope that my feelings of not belonging anywhere or only in the wrong places will give me the ability to find myself in places others wouldn’t feel comfortable.  Perhaps I will be able to show those who others can’t quite reach that I know what it’s like, I understand how it hurts.  And someday I will be able to create a place where I know I belong, have a real home of my own, that I can use to show God’s love and kindness just by opening the door and welcoming others in.