Thursday, December 31, 2009

Tomorrow will be the start of a new year and I'm quite uncertain about how I feel about it. This year has been extremely difficult. I would like to say I won't miss 2009 whatsoever but there are parts of this year that I will truly cherish for the rest of my life. However, there are also parts of this year that I wish I could easily place out of my mind. I don't think I have ever been this emotionally vulnerable in my life and I never want to experience that again. I hope 2010 will be a year of peace and joy yet I really don't see that happening. There is still so much I am dealing with, and so much I have to do. On the positive side, I will be starting school again to become a licensed vocational nurse. I am very excited for this oppertunity but this will be a huge challenge financially and emotionally. I am really afraid of the oncology units I have to complete, but I at the same time I know I can handle it, and hopefully I can use what has happened this year to inspire someone else.
So, goodbye 2009, and hello 2010. I can't quite say I welcome you with open arms but I hope you will be good to is all.
Also, thank you God for the blessings you have bestowed on me this past year. I know you will continue to bless me and be there for me. I hope only to serve you better in 2010.

Friday, December 25, 2009

What's Christmas like in Heaven?

The Holiday Season seems to be a very bittersweet time for me. Since I lost my grandmothers a few years ago, it has never been the same. It feels almost empty. Now, with two more recent losses, the Holidays really do seem quite empty. I found myself crying out of nowhere several times in this past week. I would be driving somewhere and suddenly tears would be flowing down my face. Not cool. Today, as I was missing my grandma dearly, I started thinking. What is Christmas like in Heaven? I mean, Christmas is the birth of Jesus Christ, so I imagine they celebrate it. I like thinking it is the greatest Christmas imaginable, but not in terms of all the materialistic things we value on this Earth. I like to think its full of love, family, and watching us down here on this Earth like a Christmas movie. I like to think that Heaven's streets are decorated like no one could ever imagine, and everyone is wishing Jesus a happy Birthday. It seems like a lot of people down here seem to forget that Christmas really is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, our savior. The most important birthday of them all. I want to celebrate just that one year. No presents, just family and fellowship. That's what I think Christmas in Heaven is like. No wish lists, holiday obligations, and horrible traffic. Just enjoying time with our families and our savior. So to Grandma, Meemaw, Chris, and John, I hope you can send some of Heaven's Christmas celebration down to Earth and I can't wait to spend Christmas with you all once again.
Merry Christmas everyone :). I hope this Christmas you focus on what really matters, and may it be a wonderful day to celebrate the most important birthday of them all.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Let The Waters Rise

Mikeschair "Let The Waters Rise"
Don't know where to begin
It's like my world's caving in
And I tried but i can't control my fear
Where do I go from here

Sometimes it's so hard to pray
You feel so far away
I am willing to go where You want me to
God I trust You

[Chorus]
There's a raging sea
Right in front of me
Wants to pull me in
Bring me to my knees
So let the waters rise
If you want them to
I will follow You
I will follow You
I will follow You

I will swim in the deep
Cuz You'll be next to me
You're in the eye of the storm and the calm of the sea
You're never out of reach

God You know where I've been
You were there with me then
You were faithful before
You'll be faithful again
I'm holding Your hand

[Chorus]

God Your love is enough
You will pull me through
I'm holding on to You

God your love is enough
I will follow You
I will follow You

[Chorus]


That song pretty much sums up what I'm feeling right now. I'm fearful, my world has turned upside down, and when I pray nowadays I am constantly brought to tears. Yet I still trust God completely. I will follow Him because He is so much bigger than any of my fears, anxieties, and worries. God is still so good through all the turmoil of this life. Things may not be getting any easier but without God, there is no way I would have made it through this year. It's through the tough times of this year that I have learned so much about myself, so much about God, and so much about His plan for me. I can't imagine a life without my faith, and that is wonderful thing. We are so loved by our Heavenly Father, and nothing we can do will ever change that. Love on this Earth is conditional but the Father's love is never ending. How awesome is that?
When things get rough, I mentally go back to that river in Africa. A place where I made a promise to my amazing father, to follow Him to the ends of this Earth, and to serve Him all the days of my life. I know by remembering my promise I made to Him, its easier to remember all of the promises He has made to me. I will never be able to wrap my head around why God works the way He does, and why He cares so much for someone so undeserving, but that's what makes Him so wonderful.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

I went to write one thing and it turned into another...

Involuntarily I have been off klonopin for about two weeks now. I take klonopin to help manage my anxiety. However, one of the side effects of klonopin that I have never enjoyed is memory loss, the same effect that seroquel had on me as well. I also joke around about my short-term memory problems but in reality its not so funny. Unfortunately medication is necessary and in these past couple weeks I have remembered that.
I don't know if I can blame this on the lack of mind altering drugs lately, or on the recent assault, but I have unfortunately been remembering many things from my childhood that I knew I had forgotten for a reason. Remembering them seems to do more bad then good but here is me trying to put a positive spin on things. I recognize that my fears and anxieties didn't just materialize out of nowhere and now, finding the source of these inconvenient feelings, I am able to work on them in a more efficient manner. Also, I know realize that the two completely lifestyles I grew up with really ended up giving me two frames of mind which I toggle between seemingly involuntarily. I have a rational, reasonable, predictable side of me where I need to calculate the outcome before I make any decision. Then, I have the side of me that will literally say eff it; no matter what I do the same patterns will repeat over and over.
Well, they have repeated for about 20 years now. Same cycle, same feelings, same endings. Over and over again. Yet, there is a force much stronger than me working harder than I ever have. For every mistake that has been made, over and over, there has been a lesson, over and over. Until recently, I didn't get why I always fell into the same traps and how, like clockwork, that cycle would come and go. I see it now, and I understand it. God can't transform me, He can't work from the inside out, until I'm ready to face my fears, to learn from my mistakes, and consult God in every thing that I do. For the past few years I thought I had been doing that, but I see that I was just bargaining with God saying, "Alright God, I'll let go of this if I can just keep this other thing over here." That's not how it works. God doesn't to bargaining because He knows me better than that. He knows I need to give it all up. To deal with it and to finally hand EVERYTHING over to Him. Including things that happened fifteen years ago that I can barely remember. If I want to stop the pattern, and if I want God to work wonders in me, I need to be more willing, more sacrificial, and more reliant on Him.
I thank God for the clarity and I thank Him for the strength He gives me to do the things I know I have to do. If I can predict next year, I know it will be hard. It will be full of cleansing that I have never experienced before. It will run wild with tears of both pain and joy. Most importantly, if I continue to learn, it will be a wonderful year of growing closer to my maker and a year closer to permanently getting myself off these meds. Who knows, by the end of next year, I may be medication free. What a wonderful day that will be.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Weeping for my safe place

There has been so much going on in the past few years that sometimes I just break down and sob. I wish I was just sobbing for the recent things, but it's the accumulation of the past two years that makes me just break down. As I'm weeping right now, I realized that it all somehow goes back to the biggest loss in my life, my Grandmother.
I miss her horribly. Worse than that. She came up in therapy today and my therapist brought up such a great point. Grandma was my safe place. No matter what was happening in my life, no matter how bad I hurt, she was always there to make it all better somehow. I knew that with her, I was safe. I didn't realize how important that safety was to my life until I somehow remembered some pretty traumatic stuff in my childhood, and recognized a horrible pattern in the generations of my family. Grandma was the one who fought for me, my voice was heard through her. She was truly the one who saved me from myself, and now I realized she also saved me from my family. Without her, I think I'd just be continuing the vicious cycle but because she fought so hard on my behalf, I am so proud to say that it all ends with me.
I wish she was here daily. Especially this year. I need her comfort, her strength, her voice. Mostly, I need my safe place. I want that refuge and stability. I want her to fight for me, to help me be heard. I seem to miss her more and more as time goes by, as life gets harder and I feel so alone in so many decisions I have to make. If she was here, she'd be so upset. She'd be so angry to see what has happened to her family, how we've just fallen apart and forgotten about all the important little things. What a wonderful day it will be when I get to see her again. When she can welcome me home, and once again I will be safe. Until then I pray that God gives me strength and I thank him so much for the safe places I do have.
But it's days like this, when I weep for my safe place. Wishing I could be there to sit safely and just watch the storm as it goes by.