I’ve struggled with forgiveness for at least three years. Two for sure, but three I think.

The pain sort of pours forth when your last straw has broken. You have a chance to breathe. To think.

All I can think tonight is about how much damage sin causes. It has made much dysfunction in our family. I believe it has contributed to so many impoverished relationships in my life. It has isolated me. It has isolated us. It has given me evil desires. I have let sin take hold, and I have defiantly let myself drown in various lusts. Again and again. Somewhere, in the darkness, I call out to God for forgiveness I don’t deserve. For restraint which I fight against. For peace and a softening heart.

Tonight, for the first time, I almost feel it again. Finally, a deep repulsion for my sin and a deeper love for those around me. A desire to learn about God a little more again. A hope that things can be set right. A strong, strong desire to be God’s.

How is it when things get bad I forget Him? And when bad things I like go my way.

Why have I gone astray and led others astray?

Forgive me, Father. I sin repeatedly, but You say You will forgive. Let me draw near to You. Let me have a gentle heart and quiet spirit so that I might be yours and stop hurting others. Cleanse my mind and fill it with light.

I cannot tell you how much I thank you that You haven’t struck me down or taken loved ones away from me. Rather, my beloved brother is talking to me again.

Please remove my mind from myself and turn it toward others. Turn it towards You.

I beg Thee Father. Do not forsake me or the ones I love. Do not leave us. Give me the trust of a child. Bless all.

Amen.

The emptiness I feel is full.

Usually you think of emptiness as lacking something.

But sometimes it’s so vast you can feel it.

Instead of dripping out, the bucket just grows fatter and fatter with the water.

Each day, trying to survive. It hurts. My knees hurt. My neck hurts. I feel my sad family. I wonder about You, Lord, and if You are real.

For year. After year.

“Maybe tomorrow will be a good day.”

But it isnt. Or sometimes kinda.

I swing back and forth between giddy and wanting to pass away.

For a year, it’s been a process of not wanting to get out of bed. Then being in bed. Then not wanting to get out again.

I can’t do it, Lord.

I can’t do anymore. I feel so empty.

I know if I can make it, I’ll grow. But I should never have sinned.

I should never have breathed, never loved, never held so fast to the loveliest blossoms that would never stay. Why do I expect beauty to stay with me? For everything there is a time.

I don’t want to go on, but I don’t know if I want to stop. I don’t know what I have to hope for. Each day seems empty. Constant droning. I used to imagine living with You in paradise, but now I can’t picture it. Even You in my life seems distant. That prayer I prayed to You, Lord, a few days ago was comforting. Right now my hair smells like chicken nuggets, but I didn’t eat any.

I feel so alone. There is no human to talk to that I trust, whether that fear is merited. I go through such strong moments of distrust after trusting people with too much. Those who I have felt comfortable talking to in the past have gone.

Why do I give my heart away to people who just want my body?

Please make me not be gullible, Lord. Help me to find peace in You through this darkness.

Help me to know true Love.

I am so tired of fighting.

And hearing fighting.

Listening to raised voices.

Feeling trapped.

Walking on eggshells.

Feeling numb.

Shaking from hearing screaming.

Hiding it from everyone outside the walls.

Losing friends from being a Christian

…but were they ever my friends?

Maybe this too shall pass.

I talked with the Lord as I walked through the aisles and felt naked with shame. It was as if the shame leaked from me, as the Bible says, with blood on my skirts. Menstrual blood that showed my vile soul and vulnerability…the secrets that haunted me day by day. I have been hurt, but more so, I have hurt others. And while licking my introspective and exaggerated wounds, I have scratched and ignored those who need their wounds licked most.

Near the campus was Target and Trader Joe’s. I remember walking through Target (which irked me every day because of its pricing) and watching people pass by me. They were in their yoga pants, had blonde hair. Tall, dark, and beautiful. And I was in a pair of torn up jeans with the old plaid jacket Mrs. Maureen gave me, anxious brain somewhere behind my drained pale face, not smooth and tan like theirs…my dry hair up in a messy ragged pony, not in a beachy bun as theirs. I caught my short and stocky self in the mirror, and felt so ashamed.

My friend had belittled me at his house when he saw a FaceTime video my brother sent that had glimpses of our messy hallway in it. Clothes, papers, books everywhere. Mind you, this boy was a clean freak. Thrift stores were new to him. He had an iPhone….

We proceeded to watch a documentary that had poor rednecks in it. My wealthy friend, son of a doctor, who spent quite a bit of his work money on girls and White Claws, kept nudging me and saying, “Oh look. That’s your house,” every time a trashed up trailer park graced the TV. He had a bit to drink usually–well, one to three beers–and he wanted me to drink too, and I’m not sure if I did or not. Anyway, I don’t remember all because I was there a lot, so my memories are a blur, but I do excuse his insensitivity for the fact that he may not have been completely sober. Regardless, it really hurt because it showed me that no matter how much he wanted to hang out with me, he ultimately saw me as white trash. To him, it became clear, I was exotic. He always made fun of me from being a Christian girl from south, just like other classmates. I looked different. I acted different. They knew I wouldn’t go to places if I had to pay money. And I went through the stores almost delirious like and thought, “They can see that I’m poor. There’s something different about me. They can smell I’m poor. They know it. They can see my messy house, and my dirty animals, and my screened-in porch of ten plus cats.” And I was so embarrassed. 

At home, in the south, I’m embarrassed for having a nice house. Nowadays, I’ve even wondered if we are rich. Our house is big and beautiful and more than what most people have. We have loads of stuff. Antiques. Hand me downs. Our own personal stashes of things we have bought that we have yet to give away. So many people don’t have as much as we do. And we didn’t have to work in college, although we did. And I have been able to go to school which many of my friends have not been financially able to do. And I am blessed enough to take my home for granted. And everything else in my lifestyle. There I felt poor, and I prayed to Jesus in my embarrassment. Here, I feel rich, and I often forget Him.

Please help me not to forget You any more, my sweet Jesus. You died for me. Give me joy. And love. And wisdom. And thankfulness. But most important…obedience. Thank You, My Love, for caring for me.

Here, I am provided for. But not always was I safe. While pulling from You, I reached from You, and You for me. But now, here, You call to me, and I am slow to answer. Forgive me and help me to do better and not worry so much about what others think, but about what you think.

There is always chaos. Sometimes it’s a storm, sometimes it’s confusion under a rainbow.

The words came tumbling out the other day…this year has been a storm, leaving rainbows for scars.

Evidence of good to come.

Or that has come.

From the badness and the darkness.

But when you’re in a rainbow, or the sun comes out brightly from the darkness, you can’t see. And you don’t know where you’re going.

That’s where I am now. In a happy, pleasant chaos.

I’m so excited.

And scared.

I’ll save the rest for after my friend gets the letter I wrote her.

Dear Lord,

You saw me crying in the chapel. Where broken people go to pray. And I asked that I’d grow stronger. As I’ve lived from day to day. I searched and searched and I couldn’t find a way on Earth to find peace of mind. But there’s a place where people gather in the chapel to praise the Lord.

You heard the cries of my heart. You saw the numbness of my soul. You saw what I’ve done that dishoners You. You’ve also seen me weep on your breast, crying for You. You saw me ignore You, even though I could feel your eyes staring at You.

I fail and fail and fail. But I see how you’ve cared. And now my heart is aflutter this week, filled with love and fear and even crushes. I saw a kind face smile at me, and heard kind words, and I’m excited and confused and scared. I’ve also realized how dumb and niave and rebellious I am. So many things.

I see how cruel I am to others. And how lazy I am. Please help me focus on You, LORD.

My only hope is that I know You hold me. You care for me. You care for my dear friends, too, and my family. And You are so loving and kind. You listen to me

Thank you, my loving God.

In Christ’s arms,

…

I watch you hurt yourself. 

And my eyes look away. 

I see you gorge yourself. 

And my eyes vomit tears. 

An ache inside my intestines. 

Wont you get up? Won’t you stop watching the TV? 

Woddling to the room. I feel my butt jiggle. Watching. 

I see you fight over food. 

And sneak the bag of chips when no one is in the room. 

What life do you live? I have nothing for you. Only food and a TV. It hurts too much to look at you sitting there. And the only way I can afford to help you is by working, working, working, and I can’t work with you there next to me because it kills me that I can’t pay attention to you because of my work, and I can’t work because I’m distracting by you interrupting. Interrupting. Interrupting. And my heart hurts so badly. Because you hurt. You hurt and have no purpose because I won’t let you; and it burns me inside. 

We are trapped in webs that we weave ourselves. 

It’s 8.6.2020. I’m so tired.

Lyme flare ups.

Body aches.

Caffeine and then adrenaline crashes.

But also lots of great things. After all, I only come on here to whine.

The common theme is loneliness and fear. Always fear of what’s next.

I’m too comfortable at home. It makes it hard to leave.

And the worry. The unbiblical worry. Because Christ has it all.

Carry it, Christ. Please.

Isn’t it glorious to be told you’re loved?

True, not everyone means it when they say it. Or they say it so much that not ever time carries the weight. But some people never hear it. And I’m blessed to hear it often, and be able to say it, too.

The pandemic has been one of the best things in a year and a half. Perhaps more. So many have died from it, and that saddens me. But for me, personally, ironically, it has been wonderful.

When I left for the New Land as I’ve called it on this site, my family wasn’t in a good place. The week I moved there was good though, which made me especially sadder to be leaving.

I was so scared to even move into the apartment with the other girls. I almost cried myself to sleep even though I thought it would make too much noise. A lot of people don’t expect transitions to be hard for a post-college grad. But they forget that 21 and 22 isn’t so far away from 18. Especially when the past 4 years were mostly one routine still at home.

There is something heartwarming, too, that the whole world is sharing suffering at once.

And despite my first restless, “can’t pin me down” energy during spring break when I was quarantined, I really do like being stuck at home.

Again, things are better than they were–all praise to Jesus. Can’t take a day for granted. The sun is out and shining. I’ve been doing school, so much writing, so much hanging with my brother, so much reading and sleeping. The Bible reading has gotten hard, and yet reading about Him has not. I drink of His word at a slow and steady pace, but still drink it.

Do you ever dream of something strongest and realist when it’s about to leave? My strongest dreams cue transitions. I dreamed so much about someone the other night that this person was almost there. Cue not hearing from that person.

The same kind of dream of loss before leaving. I remember telling my brother before my dad’s surgeries, a few months before we knew: “Something bad is going to happen.” It did.

I felt the same way at the beginning of a friendship not so long ago. More like, “This is gonna be hard work, but it’s too late now, and my heart’s gonna break.” twas right.

But now, hallelujah, perhaps the Lord has dunked me in cool water after melting us through refining fires. Perhaps this is the time of rest and happiness before the storms come again.

Today consisted of getting topsoil out of the garden truck. Writing. Eating meat (ew!), calling a friend, texting another friend, falling asleep, and hopefully going to bed early.

Thank you Lord for rest.

Have you ever wanted someone to offer you something grand, say, like a horse-drawn buggy stuffed with Cinderella dresses, just so you could say:

“No thank you, I don’t need a horse-drawn buggy stuffed with Cinderella dresses. There’s a Tabebuia tree on the freeway to Pasadena, and if I had a buggy instead of a car, I wouldn’t see it”?   

Because, somewhere on the way to Pasadena, right on the ramp before you zoom onto a freeway, there’s a yellow blossoming tree that you’d miss if you didn’t have a car. You could definitely see other tabebuias, but you wouldn’t see that one. There are, in fact, two of them, quite fluffy with petals although it’s a bit sparce and skinny. They look like the kind of trees that everyone sees in the dawn, but to whom no one ever says “good-morning.” 

Of course, gasoline and oil and all that can be bad for the air. We know that, yaddy, yaddy, yaddah. But if I wasn’t here, in my twenties, in the twenty-first century, I’d never have seen this bright yellow tree bloom. 

It was trapped between the trails of cars.