The Beast

So I think we have hit another one of the major issues. I started thinking about what the challenges I face with losing weight are. I have always known that I eat for comfort. The key to changing this is going to be figuring out what it is I need to comfort and changing it permanently. The problem is, I don't want to fix it. I know the pain therefore I like the pain. I get so confused when I try to think this through. I'm conflicted between what I should feel and what I do feel. This is the dangerous subject. I have been trying to change the way I feel and live for a lot of years. I started out suicidal looking for every way to hurt myself, revelling in the pain because at least it was something. Over the years I have tried to introduce myself to good feelings. For the most part, it has worked. I actually feel good when good things happen. The problem is that it has been very hard to learn how to feel good and I am afraid that if I stop holding on to the stuff that hurts and the emptiness, then I forget everything I've learned about feeling good, I won't feel anything. I remember what nothing felt like. It was worse than anything else. This is further than I have ever gotten in this contemplation and I am having a panic attack. Even thinking about the nothingness scares me. I think I am going to wait until someone can help me with this one as I think I am going to end up going to a very dark place and may need some help coming back from that place.

My "Little" Quest

So my little quest is to lose 50 pounds. Not because I feel like I have to or because everyone wants me to. I want to lose it. I want to be able to wear the cutest dresses I see in the stores. Right now when I see something I like, I have to just keep walking because I know it won't fit me and that hurts. The problem is that When I hurt, I eat...alot. I can't turn to drugs or alcohol or sex or abuse anymore. God has asked me not to because they consumed my life. The problem is, that leaves me with nothing to turn to. I want to turn toGod when I hurt, but I don't know how to and by the time I realize I haven't I have already had a major binge. It doesn't help that when I am PMSing I feel like the is a hole in my heart th size of the grand canyon. The real truth is I don't want to lose weight. If I actually succeed at losing all of my extra weight, I will have to be careful about what I eat and that means I can't self medicate anymore. I would like to say I wouldn't need to self medicate anymore, but the aches and pains in my heart will always be there. I wishI knew how to get out of this cycle. I guess the next question to ask is "What am I medicating?"

Friend

I love that your deep desire is to love God well. I know that you are frustrated because you don't think you are doing it, but I believe he sees the desire in your heart and is praised by it. I learn so much from your walk. It has taught me integrity in my relationship with God. It is easy for me to say "Oh yes, I love God" even while I am chasing my own desires and turning from the plan he has for me. You show me that that is not pleasing to God. I know that you are learning how to be satisfied with where you are even though you desire so much more, but I pray God would share his intimacy with you. I pray you would feel his gentle hand in yours not guiding you but walking with you. I know that God smiles when he thinks of you. Your sweet innocence and desire to serve him are a blessing to him.

God the Unchanging

It's reassuring to know that no matter what I go through or how much I change, God does not. He is still there doting on me, praying for me, loving me. He knows that I will come to fully love him and stands waiting for that to happen. My God is assuredly my steadfast strength.

Worship Again

So I have finally taken down the walls between me and God. The last time I tried to answer his call to worship without abandon, I ended up hurting really bad. It's hard to come back from that, but I realize that it's me and the people I was working with who made poor choices. I have been really nervous about getting back into a worship mode again. I keep thinking God is going to put me back in the same place I was in before. The thing I need to realize is that God didn't put me there. He let me stay there because he needed me to see that I could go through that and be okay, but he did not put me there. I find it funny because once I have dealt with the pain and the mistrust, I always default to the same thing. I don't just like to worship God, I need to worship God. Like I need to eat food and drink water, I need to worship him. If I don't I get lost and make terrible decisions. I started writing a song a couple of days ago. I've never written before so it's going to take a while, but it started in a dream. As I was waking up, I could here the line "Ze O, Ze O by credit, by concerto, by sonata, by prelude, Ze O" and I could hear it being sung by a choir with some very rich harmonic textures. I reiterate that I haven't written before so I know the line is a little hoaky, but it's a start. The only foreign language I know is french and I knew Ze O wasn't French so I started looking it up trying to find out what language it was. Turns out it's Czech. It means "through within". I think the idea I will go for is that the music I make is created through the power that lives within me. I'm not sure how much Czech I will include, but I may try to find a few more phrases. It was really strange when I woke up from the dream. I knew how the line was pronounced and the kind of mood the music to go with it had to have, but I had absolutely no way of knowing what the phrase meant. It's kind of cool when God makes it absolutely clear that he has given you the song. As I started working with that phrase, as with every song, it went through a few different styles. I think I am inspired to do a simple folk style worship song with just an acoustic guitar as well. The lines of the song were this, I would take out the "Ze O" lines and rework them as I want to keep them for the choir song.

Ze O, Ze O
through credit, through concerto,
through Sonata, through Prelude,
All my life is in you

I bring my voice with the angels
To worship at your feet
and you make your home
within my heart
so I live Ze O

It needs a lot of work, but it's not bad for a first try. I'm going to consult with the songwriting teacher at my old school and get his help with it as well. I'm really excited since this is the first time I've had the confidence to ignore the fact I've never written a song before. I mean, there's no time like the present to start right? And if I'm going to start a Christian band, I've got to have a repertoire, right. I need to be careful with this too though. Some of my friends may be overwhelmed with how quickly this change has happened so I need to ease them into it and be understanding when they cross the boundaries. I'll need to be firm with where my boundaries are, but people will learn as I go.

Heavenly Father,

I have a prayer in my heart. I pray that those I touch, would feel your love for them. I pray that those I have hurt would understand that I take responsibility for it and find it in their hearts to forgive me. I pray that you would show me how to live a life devoted to you without excluding people who don't know you. I pray that you would give me a place to worship every moment of every day.

Worship again?

So the question has been rolling around inside my head of late. I started this blog to help me with the changes I would need to make to become a worship leader. It has been a very good tool, but now I am finding it has become the tool I use to process life in general. Lately I have been asking God about the calling he has given me to lead worship. When I ask him about it, I usually have fear in my heart that he may ask me to do it right now from this place where I am terrified of people, men and groups. From this place where I am finally in contact with the real me. Learning about what makes me tick and who I want to be. I still feel the calling to be a worship pastor, but God is showing me that patience is essential. For so long, I have been trying to dominate the fear that runs my life and have ended up hurting a lot of people as I try to make my point that I amnot afraid of anything. The problem is, I'm overcompensating. I don't want anyone to know how afraid I am of being strong and getting to do what I love so I go in with grandiose gestures and spout off as if I knew what I was talking about and end up making a fool out of myself. The moments I have felt true worship are the ones where it begins with just me and God. When I stoptrying to live my life a certain way and give the control of the moment over to God, he steps in in a very sweet and intimate way. He shows himself as not only "God", but MY God. The one who meets me when I pray and the one who soothes me when I hurt. I want to share him with people, but I don't know how to do it without people hurting me.

All who are thirsty
All who are weak
Come to the fountain
Dip your heart in the stream of life
Let the pain and the sorrow
Be washed away
In the waves of his mercy
As deep cries out to deep
(we sing)

Come Lord Jesus come

Something I have learned over the years is to trust the instincts God has given me. He has shown me that he is craving the intimate time we had together when I wanted nothing more than to be with him. Honestly, I have been missing them dearly. It's just so hard to maintain a balance and so easy to maintain the excuses. I have always believed that if something is truly important to you, you will make time for it. I lost my devotional bible though. It helped cause there's a lot of stuff in the bible. I never know where to start with devotional time. I'll have to see if I can find it today. On the other hand it was only $40 so I could probably replace it if I needed to. I haven't been living to chase God like I used to. I think I use the excuse that I don't want to be alone on that quest and I keep trying to get my husband to come with me, but I can't let that hold me back any more. I am missing out on the sweet consolations God has for me and that's nobody's fault but my own.

What are you?

I wish I had somewhere else to post this or talk about this, but I don't. You put me in an awkward position,but I decided to drop it since it was my personal beliefs that put me there. I could overlook this until you took me for granted. It hurt when you didn't think I was important enough for us to spend time together. I thought we were not just acquaintances, but true friends who love and support each other. Apparently not. I thought you felt that my time mattered. I have tried to show you that I care about you and that you are special, but I feel like you don't feel the same way. I can't even tell you this because you haven't given me permission to be your friend. I don't know how to reach you and I am getting tired. When you want to be loved, I will be here waiting for you. Until then I suffer in silence.

Aaaahh...

So vacation began today. I have been so stressed out that my psoriasis flared up really bad, even to the point of bleeding, my asthma was making it hard to breath and my muscles started hurting even though I wasn't exercising. So I have huge expectations for my vacation. I expect to relax, deflate and enjoy both my house and my husband. The only thing I need out of this week off is to reconnect with what I want out of life. I expect I will derail about Tuesday or Wednesday as I always do on vacation, I am just hoping that some of the work I have been doing with my spiritual director and my psychologist will pay off and I can pick myself back up a little faster than usual.I guess we'll see how it goes cause I'll have 24 hours a day to think about it.

Reality

Some say reality bites, some say they avoid it, some say it hurts. I don't know what reality feels like as I lost touch with it when I was very young. I wanted to be that kid in the movies who has everything but does nothing. I hated it when adults interrupted my fantasy by telling me I was neglecting another one of my responsibilities. The kids on TV never had to do chores, the kids on TV never had to go to their room when they screwed up (that is except the Huxtables, but they were the perfect family. I always dreamed of being part of that family.) I hated it when life interrupted my fantasy and the harder I tried to stay away from life, the harder it tried to come find me. The problem is that with no contact with reality, you also lose contact with the people involved in that reality. It makes for a very lonely existence. The problem is, reality hurts. In every memory I have, there is some pain. There is always a little bit of joy as well, but I had enough of the pain when I was young and started throwing any memory that hurt. My piano lessons were tainted with my dad's push for me to be perfect. Jazz tap was tainted with the "there's a reason we didn't name her Grace" comment. Graduation was tainted with pregnancy, Junior High Grad was tainted with loneliness as I didn't get asked to the dance. There is a key skill that would begin to make a difference in everything I do. Separating the pain from the joy and using the joy to rekindle my heart and not feeling the pain. I laid down to go to sleep earlier and I couldn't sleep. All I could see was the layers around my heart peeling back and just as I was about to see what was really in there, the picture started over. What am I so afraid of? I said to my mom tonight "if I don't have the pain, I don't have anything." That's not completely true, but that's what scares me. What if I learn how to stop reliving the pain and it turns out there is nothing there? I already know that's not the case, but that's what my heart is afraid of. I disengaged my heart years ago as I knew I would not survive if I felt all of the guilt, all of the shame, all of the rejection, but reconnecting it is a lot harder than you would think. I have spent my life feeling ashamed of the things that have happened to me. "Normal" people don't have to deal with this stuff. How do I let people in and have something to be proud of when I show them who I am? It begins with believing that I have something to be proud of. The things I am proud of cannot be directly dependant on having the pain. They must stand alone as things I have done or been in my life.

1. I am stubborn as an ox. Some people would be frustrated by this, but I try to only use it to help people. Lately I have been using it to get other people to let me medicate, but I like to know that I have done everything in my power to help someone. I know that sometimes I cannot help, but I want to be the one my friends come to and go away saying "I really feel like she tried her best."

2. I am good. It feels good when I do things for other people. My favorite phrase is " you made my day". Goodness is hard to describe as it is something that has always come naturally to me. It means I have compassion for the wounded and the weak, kindness for the broken, patience for those who need it and love for anyone who wants it.

3. I am wise. Every time my instincts have said " this should be a certain way" it has turnd out to be true. I still jump into things too quickly and don't know how to get out of a situation my instincts are warning me about, but at least I know what the right thing to do is. I don't know how to live this one and not come across as pushy. It would be kind of awkward if I met someone and just started telling them they had to isten to me because I am wise, but this is not about how to get people to know things about me. It's about what I have to be proud of.

4. When faced with hard decisions, I don't choose what would benefit just me. I keep other people in mind. If me being satisfied is going to be a detriment to other people, I am willing to make a sacrifice to protect them. I am still learning how to make more decisions that protect me, but that will come.

5. I am not selfish. I wouldn't say I am selfless yet, but I may get there someday. I put others before myself. It used to be to my detriment but these days I tend to look out for me and give where I am able.

I wish I was able to put that I am honest on the list, but as of yet, I still struggle with the truth. Part of that is that I am not comfortable with the truth that is my life yet. It is disappointing. I wanted to be a huge star with a massive folowing by now. That was an unrealistic dream, but I still wish I could have achieved it. Honesty is something I have always struggled with. When I was a child, it was because the only time the truth really mattered was when it was going to get me in trouble. I was creative enough as a child that I could make up a new reality that was pretty believable. I almost had my parents convinced a couple of times...almost. Now I have been hiding from the truth for so long that I am afraid of it now. I wish I could face it, but what if it hurts? (I have just noticed that 2 words that are very interchangeable for me are hurt and disappointment. How to accept disappointment without hurting and how to set myself up for success I think are 2 huge things I will have to face)

My mom has been trying to teach me that it's not the destination that matters, but the journey to get there. The disappointments in life color our journey. Just because something doesn't turn out the way you expect doesn't make it a failure. It makes it an event. Something that happened that minutely or majorly changed the course of our journey. I got beat up when I was in Grade 10. I'm still not really sure why. This minutely changed my journey as it's the reason I ended up changing high schools. I had a baby when I was seventeen. This majorly changed the course of my journey as it started my quest to find the truth about God and be true to myself. I married a winderful man. This changed the course of my life, but I'm still finding out the impact it's had. The truth would be easier to take if I stopped thinking of it in good andbad, pain and joy, black and white, all or nothing. Instead if I were to see the truth that is my life as an event that is good for some, bad for others and for others just a blip on the radar it would be a lot easier to take.