I just wrote five paragraphs about hope, and I also just deleted them
all a million times faster than it took me to write them. I deleted
them because I think there is something underneath hope. There is
something that feeds it, and keeps it alive, and perpetuates it. I
believe that everything is undeniably intertwined, such as purpose,
hope, love, redemption and healing...specifically those things, are on
my heart tonight...

Many of you do not know me. Perhaps most of you do not know me.
You know the story, the image, the picture of the girl in that picture you
saw that one time...or maybe you know what I desperately long to
represent. Here is a little window into my heart and mind these days.

These are the days after the digging and burying. This is the part
where I stop running and fight every part of myself to slowly turn
around and look into the mirror. This is where I fight to feel, where
the ones that I love get clawed up in the process and my heart has to
learn how to apologize. It has to learn how to allow itself to be
weak and vulnerable as opposed to calloused and hostile. These are the
days that I have to choose healing. True healing, holistically and not
just where it hurts less. When we spend our lives trying preserve
ourselves, trying to escape, we build a dam. Sooner or later we have
to let it out, and the fear of that process knocked me down face first
in the mud time after time. My fear came from the belief that such a
weight would crush me, that feeling such pain after years of apathy
would kill me, and the unknown. What would happen to my heart if I let
it feel these things? What vices would I turn to this time? Would the
blow of such a burden wipe me out, put the running shoes back on my
feet...break me?
yes.
it would.
it will.
break me.
it will break me so that the parts that healed wrong from being
ignored so long might have a second chance.
it will hurt my heart so that it may heal.
peroxide.
my fight is not for hope as much as it is for healing these days, and
it has taken me over five years of sitting on her couch to touch the
edge of this idea. of this new direction.

The other day my friend thought he might have been bitten by a
spider. His foot was swollen and red to the point that he was sent
home from work. Despite the pain he was in, he didn't want to go to
the doctor. He told me he was afraid. He told me that if it was a
spider bite, the doctor would cut open his foot and squeeze all of the
poison out. I think that is what this is. I think that we fear per
suing help, healing, because of the pain we will have to go through to
get it. The pain might even be worse then the actual wound in the
first place. So, we are left with a choice. We can let the poison
fester and build, cripple, and potentially destroy us. Or we can
choose to face it, fight it, cut it out and let it truly heal. all the
way.

The other key component to this path, is who will walk with me. I, in
all of my determination and willpower, could not endure such pain on
my own. We aren't asked to do this alone, but our cruel little minds
would like for us to forget this. I know mine would. It is my mind
that would like to destroy me, it's the place upstairs that is driven
to destruction, and on it's own it would surely succeed. However, when
I choose to go there, and I invite someone else in with me, to hold my
hand, to carry me when I am beaten down, that is when healing is
possible. This is where I believe we find community and its value in
our lives, and this is also the role we are asked to take part in. We
are not asked to be the doctor, or the scalpel, we are asked to be the
ones who will stand by and hold your hand, when our hearts are not on
the table themselves.

We were never meant to live with poison. We aren't asked to walk
around with it determined not to let it impede us. We are not intended
to be crippled from our wounds, but we are left with the option of
accepting it, or biting down and getting dirty and feeling our pain in
all of its awfulness in order that we may be restored. This is one way
that bloodletting is good. Maybe that's where I got onto the wrong
track. I took that concept in my life and literally tried to cut out
my pain, I was a terrible doctor! But here, two years later, I'm
handing the knife over and asking my God to help me let out the
poison. I will not walk away this time, in shame or isolation. I will
move forward in love and community and with a new found strength, a
new kind of hope to offer. I want this healing, first for my own
heart, and secondly so that I might offer it to you, my dear friends,
dear hearts out there, walking around with spider bites, desperate for
healing and afraid of the pain. I spend my Mondays on a couch with a
blanket fighting to hurt, to heal, and it is my hope that you might be
encouraged to do the same in your own way.

So, hi. This is me. a human being, in all of my frailty. laying myself
out for you, that we might walk through this beautiful, awful, strange
thing we call life, together. I have exchanged my knife for a pen and
some dead trees. I am fighting to turn my will over and put myself on
the table. To not just admit that there are some things that need
fixing, but to see them for all that they are. It is possible. to
heal. to walk away restored from trauma. to acknowledge pain without
letting it own you. it is OK to be weak. it is OK to be powerless. it
is OK to be afraid. as much as we love to hate anything that isn't
pretty and presentable, sometimes we need permission to just, be. as
messy as it may seem, as sticky and heavy and slow as it may be, we
have to remember to be patient and gracious with our hearts. It is
worth it. There is so much more than merely surviving, and that is far
more beautiful than any cleaned up pretty version of ourselves we'd
like to walk around with. This is my where my heart is, and this is my
hope for you.

I spent the past five years of my life writing out my pain, my joy, my
struggle and the drive to find a new life on paper. Part of recovery
is finding new solutions to our problems and this has continued to be
one of mine. I always thought I'd be your modern-day Emily Dickinson,
that some tragic event would take place and I would die and people would
find my journals and publish them... instead I am still alive and happy to say
that there are some very exciting things in the works...but I'm pretty
sure Emily would have me beat any day...anyway, stay tuned, there
is definitely more to come.

This is incredible.

it's likely our paths may never cross again.

So what if they don't? Just this...in a world of cheap promises of wealth, health and happiness, I've discovered something that has made a lasting difference in my life. And what you have here in your hand sums it up.

You don't need to be somebody special to make this discovery yourself. I'm just an ordinary person. I'm no better because of what I have or who I am. But I know that there is something more to life than just lving for weekends, working a lifetime to stay ahead of bills, growing old, and then death.

In the past few days a lot from when I was younger or even a few months ago has somehow been brought up. It hurts me to know that Ive hurt others. It hurts to know theyre hurting for things that Ive done or things that have happened in general.

Its only 8:45 in the morning and now that I've started this blog I've already spoken to few that Id never have the opportunity to speak to again. Its neat that we're beginning to connect again. But its the cries of the broken that seem to worry me the most. I cant speak of names on here or of even what has happened but its been placed on my heart to deal with. In all, Im no better than anyone because of what I have or who I am. We were all created equally in Christ although sometimes we dont seem to act that way.

Im just really bothered by all of this. Most that read this on here dont know any of my situations, anything Ive been faced with or where Im even coming from. But more or less, this is for me. It's for me to express who I truly am because these words are never truly spoken. I'm at work and tears are welling up in my eyes that I'm trying so hard to just.. fight. I cant show who I really am or I haven't been able to in a while.

After moving out of Bretts house things have been so difficult. I've now been given a real taste of the "real" world. I'm paying for more. I'm being exposed to more. and I'm doing more of it than I ever thought that I would. But this is life now, and this is how it will be for the rest of my life. I used to think I was really mature and that I could handle everything within the blink of an eye. I am mature, or more mature than most my age and some even oler, but I'm starting to realize that its not humanly possible to continue to worry about and change every little thing that seems to go wrong. I'm starting to understand that you have to pick the battles that you actually want to fight, not the little ones, that in the end- won't matter much. It's been hard to adjust to how things are now, although I'm living with one of the best friends you could ever ask for. But change isn't always easy. It's never been easy for me. It seems like that for my whole life.. all it was- was change. I never had to move but things moved me. Friends, Family, Life, and Death. Things have never been the same and they never will be. I've bottled up more in the past few years than some will in their whole life. But it's just the fact that I'm not willing to talk to anyone, because I know that people will fail you. That's just how it is.  You cant rely on anyone because each will fail you and one small decision you make will change your entire life.

A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.

A lot of people in my life right now have so many things going on- the depressing, the good, and the okay. Today I had the opportunity to talk to people that I haven't been able to talk to in a while. It's neat to once again connect, and remember how things were. To hear the stories and the pain they're facing today is incredible. It wells up deep inside you and almost brings tears to your eyes. First, I prayed for them, the circumstances, and things to come. I wanted to change things and make them okay. I freaked out and wanted to be near them, but more than anything, I hurt for them. You want to change the unchangeable, and manage the unmanageable for these people. You want things to be okay because they deserve it and because they're special to you. But what can you do except pray? Recently I was listening to a song and now, I can totally relate it to so many things.

You have the power
to move past these broken years
You have the power
to draw passion out of fear
You have the power
to restore what sin has scarred
so Lord if you’re willing
You can take us and use as we are

Now, I've lost all direction to this blog other than letting things out. There was a point, but I was distracted.

I'll write more later.

When it rains these days, It seems to pour. Atleast thats how my life seems to be going lately.

First it starts out as something small, just a little cold. It grows into something larger
and seems to take control of everything I do. I can't breathe, I can't smell, hear or taste.
Then it grows into something thats larger than anything. It makes me mean and
disobedient. I'm disrespectful and hard to get along with. Everything is illuminated
in the light of the the past. It is always along side of us, on the inside looking out.
In this way we will always be along side of one another's lives. We will have shared something to exist for.

In our weakness, you remain.
When we're broken, you sustain.
God will you make us a people that love you.
God hear our prayers that we're lifting up to you.
God see our tears that we're struggling to see through.
God hear our prayers we lift them to you.

Make our hearts true.

All I've wanted is to understand, to be understood.
I've dissapointed but I've been dissapointed.
- Tonight I've hit one of the harder times in my life. But it's these times that I know
that I'm alive. It shows me that I still believe. It reassures my faith and puts hope into
every breath that I breathe. We're all so wrapped up in what the world wants us to see and believe.

I'm beginning to simplify the way I live and much change is
happening rapidly in my life right now. Change is happening
in what I'm doing and who I am. I'm figuring out how to live
in Love and what it means to listen. I am risking to love.

“A day is a day and a minute is a minute. And maybe, it is only our relations with the people we care about that actually affects how we perceive time’s passage: ‘Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.’”
-Jorge Luis Borges