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Dirty Sean

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Dirty Sean

Tag Archives: Nugget ‘O Truth

Quick! Write it down!

22 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by Meagan Sean in Dirty Little..., Dirty's Reports

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Tags

Dirty's Report, Nugget 'O Truth, Other People's Work, Personal Update, True Life

tumblr_lzsvrhiDWw1r7gx3ao1_500Instead of calling it “writer’s block” or “lazy” I have decided that in all reality, including Alternate Universe reality, when I am posting less often than I have set up for myself I am actually taking the time to be extra creative!  I’m being so creative, in fact, that I’m completely fudging up the mother’s day presents that I’ve been working on.  I also have been watching a fair few makeup tutorial videos on youtube.  Oh, and I finally got my nails done.  They are a very pretty blue, like a dusty sky blue, and even the nail tech said he liked the color.  It feels very spring to me.
I guess that what has really been on my mind is the idea of starting from scratch.  It’s easy to say that you are willing to start from scratch if you are talking about a project, but when it comes to rebooting your entire life it can feel really difficult.  It can seem like a punishment for persuing a path that didn’t work out, which I feel like I’ve been doing for years with just about everything in my life.  But it doesn’t have to be a punishment.  It can be an opportunity for change, for growth, for finding the path that God has for you that leads where you don’t expect it to.  Being able to accept that I have to give up dreams of what I want is critical to being able to accept what God is giving me now, and the ways he is trying to guide me. It can be really disheartening to think of all the things that I have given up or the time that I feel was wasted.  But ultimately every path I’ve taken, every step I’ve walked and every breath that I’ve breathed has been designed by a good creator to bring me to exactly where I am.  The reasons are above me, as in I don’t understand them and maybe I never will, but as much as that scares my human heart I chose to believe that these reasons are part of a plan that is better than what I could put together for myself. As silly as it may seem, part of what has helped me come to this place in my mind and heart was seeing the Goo Goo Dolls in concert this weekend.  The lyrics of their music and the way they put their songs together are what I like to lovingly refer to as Epic, and Johnny Rzeznik is by far my favorite voice forever and ever, in case anyone was wondering.  During the show they played music from their upcoming cd, including a song called Come To Me.  Johnny said it was one of those songs that “makes me want to grow a beard” and said “someone told me today that this song is enriched with vitamins… I think he was smoking the marijuana.”  It’s a catchy tune that has influences of the current folk style bands, reminding me of The Lumineers and Mumford and Sons, but it’s also very Goo Goo Dolls.  This song made me absolutely die, for real, because the lyrics were so incredibly sweet and uplifting, and they include in the lyrics a call to the singer’s (Johnny’s) beloved (Me, obviously):

You and me, we’ve both got sins
I don’t care about where you’ve been
Don’t be sad and don’t explain
This is where we start again

You can find a live version of the song here.

So now I am trying daily to chose to be exactly where I am, attempting not to constantly long for what I want but to want what I have, and to allow life to be this strange journey.  I am trying to remember that every day I can chose to start again, to make different choices and learn to love in different ways.  It’s scary, it’s strange, it defenetly goes against my nature, but I am asking God to help me hold on to the truth, that He knows my heart and what is best for me in this moment.  And I don’t mean to be overdramatic by any means, but so does Johnny Rzeznik.dirty

Self-Harm Awareness Day

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by Meagan Sean in Dirty's Reports

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Dirty's Report, Human Interest, Lies My Heart Tells Me, Nugget 'O Truth, Random, True Life

imageToday, March 1st is National Self-Harm Awareness Day.  You can read all about it on sites like this one, can read a very honest example of depression on Hyperbole and a Half.  Post Secret is also a good place to find cathartic confessions and resources.

Personally, I had no idea this day existed.  I’m pretty sure I realize it once a year after the fact, missing any chance to feel like I could help the cause or what not.  But this year, somehow, I’ve managed to find out about it on the very day and refuse to waste an opportunity to tell a small story and speak a big truth.
When I was 16 I started cutting myself with a really cool little knife that my parents got me in Vermont.  It was somewhere between a jackknife and a switch blade, and it had a cool fox on it.  I really loved that knife, but I really hated myself and my life, so I decided to start cutting myself.
Actually, come to think of it, I really loved life.  It was myself that wasn’t working for me.  I went to church and youth group faithfully, but felt an incredible amount of guilt and shame for not being a better Christian.  I was a smart kid, thirsty for understanding, and in a spiral of self-condemnation that would only get worse as I got older.  One thing that I have found to be true about self-injury or self-harm is that you can do it without cutting yourself.  One person I know would rub ice and salt on their arms to burn themselves without cutting.  Another would develop a vicious cycle of anorexia and bulimia.  Even drinking can be seen as a version of self-harm when done in excess.
I don’t have deep scary scars.  I have light small scars.  I stopped by the time I got to college unless I was really upset, it was a backup to make sure I was receiving the punishments that I thought I deserved.  My thoughts were so skewed that I thought Christ wouldn’t mind if I made sure that there was enough punishment on myself for His sacrifice to be worthwhile.  I didn’t understand the gospel at all.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” – John 3:17

The burden and weight of sin isn’t for us to shoulder, it’s one that Christ has already taken up for us.  He doesn’t ask us to feel guilt or shame, he asks us to let him shoulder what is too heavy for us, what drags us down into the pits of depression.
I think that it was when my best friend in the entire world discovered that I had cut myself, long after I thought I had grown out of it, that I knew it was unacceptable.  The pain across her face was worse than the pain I had been going through and attempting to expose on my body, even just for myself.

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” – Mark 12:30&31

The second is just as important as the first: to love your neighbor as yourself.  People see this as a really good excuse to throw themselves into service for others, to treat others “the way they want to be treated”, which is more often than not translated into “treat others way better than anyone, even you, treat yourself”.  But that’s not what it says here, it says to love your neighbor as you love yourself, which would imply that the same way you take care of yourself, the same way you minister to yourself, the same way you let Christ hold all of your life together by trusting Him, these are the ways that we should love each other.
In a nutshell, 1. There is no wound, physical or emotional, that Christ cannot heal.  He meets us at our worst, even though He is the best, and loves us regardless.  2. Loving each other is never easy, and neither is loving ourselves at times.  But it’s possible, through the grace of God, to be available to others as a safe haven, and to be kind to ourselves.20120611-101941.jpg

One Step Forward Two Steps Back

30 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by Meagan Sean in Human Interest

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Human Interest, Lies My Heart Tells Me, Nugget 'O Truth, Personal Update, True Life

lifemanI used to think that I had faith.  I really thought I did.  But when I am challenged my heart reveals that I don’t, that it’s not as engrained in me to trust God as I thought it was.

It’s difficult for me to accept that my anxiety, my freak outs, my mind choosing to believe the worst, my bad habits, are all symptoms of failure at trusting God. 

When I think that I’m doing well with trusting Him I get a new thing thrown at me that proves that I don’t.  Something bad happens and I just know in my heart that for some reason I have to be put in a situation where I’ll want to kill myself, and for some reason I think that will be the challenge, to survive it.  I don’t believe that God will do something good because I feel that I deserve to be miserable.  When I don’t get to have the things that I desire I believe that it’s because I am still too messed up to be able to receive something good from God.  When good things do happen I am afraid to enjoy it because it will be taken away, and missing something is worse than never knowing it. 

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  – Colossians 3:1-3

I have been trying really halfheartedly to turn my perspective from inside my own head to one from the eyes of Christ.  I have been allowing myself to be run over by the garbage truck of depression and fear, resting uneasily in the lie that my life will never be what I long for it to be.

But the truth is that God is still just and good, that Christ is still my one and only, and that even if this life is never what I long for there will be another life after this one where I will know what it is to be completely full of joy, to be satisfied entirely.  Until then simply to the cross I cling.dirty

What Is My Motivation?

26 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by Meagan Sean in Dirty Little...

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Human Interest, Lies My Heart Tells Me, Memo, Nugget 'O Truth, Personal Update

One of the most difficult things I wrestle with is impure intention.  I go into things with intentions that are not of God all the time.  I decide to read my bible because I know that when I don’t I get crabby.  I decide to stuff my anxiety down because it’s going to make me miserable, and it’s not being a very good Christian to have anxiety.  I go into Christian settings like church or bible study to see if I am still able to get or give anything to the group, and if I haven’t gotten some affirmation from someone that night I go home defeated. 

My faith seems to have become a word I throw around and don’t internalize.  I have been using it as a bookend, a wall, a refuge, but not in the right way.  I say that I have faith and then I turn around and don’t let myself think about things, give things to God, or pray.  I still walk the same way, wading through the same sins, because I don’t use faith as a reason to hold onto God’s promise of having been credited righteousness, just as a reason to pretend I’m tougher than the problems I am facing.

Stagnancy is gross guys.  It really is.  I’ve managed to let what could be a renewed heart turn into something you don’t want to find in the back of your fridge.  Today I am trying to turn my heart towards the light of God’s mercy, and there’s a little more shame to it than I thought would be.  When did all this mold get here?  What have I been doing with myself?  When did I decide I was too full to continue seeking God’s word?  I was so convinced I was full that I’ve started to starve.

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”

I thought I was going to write something else this morning, since it’s only been a month and a half since my last post.  But I did start this blog with the intention of being honest with myself and others, so perhaps a little honesty is all that is needed in this moment.

The Belief System of 25-year-old Me (Part 5)

21 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by Meagan Sean in Dirty's Reports, Holidays, Human Interest

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Nugget 'O Truth, True Life

  1. When our perspective is skewed we become more and more self-centered.  Whenever I let myself be a priority I end up unhappy.  I can never feel loved enough, never see my direction, never feel desired, supported, filled in the ways that I need to badly when all I can think of is how badly I need these things to fill up the big hole in my chest that is in all actuality filled with the H. Sizzle.  God made us for specific reasons and gave us a deposit as a guarantee of what is to come (2 Corinthians 5:5).  When I think of life in this way, removing my veil of selfishness, I see not only the things that I should be actively living out but also the blessings that are being poured into my life.
  2. Having a childlike spirit can be a blessing and a curse.  You can develop maturity while having one, because it’s not about immaturity, it’s about dependence on God.  But sometimes it’s a really good excuse to act like a child to the Father, ornery and rebellious and throwing temper tantrums over how that’s not FAIR!  It also has a really interesting effect on memory, in that you can absolutely forget what you learned about Christ and his character after about a month and relearn it to your own embarrassment and his glory. 
  3. There is no fear in love.  Even if its awkward at first, even if I don’t know what to say, I’d rather fail at love than let pride get in the way.
  4. Poetry is the verbal illustration of a postcard that you have captured or created in your mind and want to reveal to others.
  5. Being 25 years old doesn’t feel different.  Hindsight, though, does reveal the changes and seasons that have passed and stayed, the differences in my character that I am unable to witness.  And the best part is that God has done incredible things, and worst part is that in order to do so I am going to have to break apart over and over.  Then the other best part is that it’s worth every crack and splinter.  He doesn’t withhold his love, not even when I don’t deserve it.  That’s my Jesus, always the best thing ever.

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Who, me?


I consider myself an eccentric who looks good in jeans, or an amateur at adulthood. I live in Maine, enjoy writing and photography as creative outlets, and listen to some of the worst music you've ever heard. I’m good at sin and bad at following Christ, but I’m still letting Him take the lead. Dirty is my middle name. So is Sean.
The purpose of this blog is to keep a record while I'm unearthing treasures, mapping truths, and navigating life.

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