April 22, 2010

Before It Hits

Along with the realization the God desires intensely that *I* be happy, I have been finding it helpful to focus on myself.

Yeah, I know, the red lights in the back of your mind just turned on and the siren is getting louder and louder. I have been working on getting up the courage to say this out loud, but not gotten there yet. Just saying "God wants me to be happy" is crazy enough for right now.

I have been trained most of my life (or at least, my parents tried to train me) to not "focus on self."
Do not put yourself first
Die to the flesh
Think of others
Sacrifice
Give

The harder it is, the better it is for you (and the more spiritual?)


One of my biggest battles is against depression. (On the topic of warning lights, just admitting this is a HUGE step for me. #1, it is dirty laundry, #2 it is admitting that I have a chronic sin that I have not conquered by God's strength, #3 it is going along with man's system of giving every possible imagined illness a name and trying to treat it...)

Yes, depression IS REAL.
As Hillary, from Quivering Daughters said just today:
DEPRESSION is NOT a sign of weakness, it is a sign that you have been trying to be strong for too long...
I have been working a lot lately on trying to diagnose myself BEFORE I get into that mood.
I usually wake up (not literally, but in the mental sense) to realize that for the past X amount of time everything I have been thinking, saying, and feeling has been depressed and a direct result of depression.
Then, I have to backtrack, usually apologize to someone for being a terrible bore, wish I hadn't said or written some things, and then work on getting OUT of it.

I have been better a lot, with the spring air and the color coming out everywhere, and the warmth. Then, it will get cold again, and before I know it I am over my head in darkness and despair.

In feeling better, I have also been able to sense a change in my mood. Sometimes it has been coming on all day. Sometimes just reading a couple paragraphs of something can set me crying and all.

SO--I have been really working hard to conquer it when I feel it coming. I try to relax, to get some sleep. Or, I sing happy, fun, dancing songs, like this one.
I try to take time to pray. I want to let God know that I can't fight this battle on my own. I want to exercise trust in Him

It has not been a very easy thing to do, but my success rate has been encouraging.
For instance: Yesterday I was almost there, and God gave me this.
Then, later in the night, it was coming back. I didn't realize it until someone asked me how I was. Before I wrote down a couple of sad adjectives, I realized where I was, and I said honestly that I was struggling (with feeling depressed). They cheered me up with care and love, and I prayed a little bit before I fell asleep.

I have been watching myself for patterns, and most of all for triggers. What sends me careening into doubt, anger, hurt, and frustration? What keeps my spirits up? What ministers to my soul?
It has been a slow, but rewarding journey.

April 21, 2010

< 3

Today, as I was driving the car home from soccer and shopping, I saw a heart in the sky.

Thin lines of cirrus clouds made up one side.
A jet plane was leaving a white trail at an almost **perfect** 90 degree angle from the end of the cirrus clouds.

Little poufy blobs of white were scattered above the V shape and without much imagination---there was a big <3 in the clouds!!!!

I felt His touch again.

I didn't have the camera, but I pulled out my phone.
It was so big that I couldn't get it all into my little cellcam.
But that was alright. It is now in my heart.

April 20, 2010

Question:

I John 4:18
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.

If you are afraid of someone, can you still love them?

April 19, 2010

What God wants for me:

James 11:7 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

Luke 11:10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.

Psalm 37:3 Trust in the LORD, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.


My father always decried what he called "Comfy Chair Theology." It is the method of teaching which says (basically) "Come be a Christian and everything will be sunshine and roses." He focused a lot of time and energy, therefore, on a view of the world as a war zone. He covered thoroughly the necessity of "dying to self", and "the heart is desperately wicked." My mother taught us the 11 "ologies" of Doctrine, and the nature of God.

But to say something that my one friend told me last September, like "God wants me to be happy," would have been (might still be) completely heretical. When she said it to me, I saw the sparkle in her eyes. She was at peace. She was glorying in God's presence in her life.

It didn't fit with my training. I tucked it in the back of my mind for further pondering later.

In my reading, in my new life these days, I have been finding (more and more) that God is putting little surprises into my way. Like the way the sky looks....it makes me melt. Like that funny song on the radio that is always playing whenever I walk into my room. Little things that make me gasp and remember Him.

Most of all--the peace deep in my soul, and the happiness of my life.

Yes, I just said that my life is happy.


The more I ponder it the more sense it makes. The purpose of life is not to make it through. the purpose of life is not to fight through battle after bloody, exhausting battle. The purpose of life is to GLORY. To give God glory. To glory in Him. Can you feel the abandon, the sheer happiness in the word "glory"?

GOD WANTS ME TO BE HAPPY!!!!!!!!!

Ps: today is a good day, in case you couldn't tell. I am home alone doing a couple things for my mom and the rest of the day is my own.

April 12, 2010

Progress?

After a discussion about me taking a snack from the cabinet (club crackers) without asking permission my mother said: "Ask before you get anything out of the cabinet or fridge, ok!"

Then, she thought a little bit and said "I guess, maybe, we could change that for you in the future, but just ask, ok?"


I am still confused as to what that meant.

April 11, 2010

Ghosts

One thing that I am amazed by now (that I never gave a second thought of back then) was the level of involvement my grandparents had in our lives. Even though we lived halfway around the world, they took rather frequent trips to see us.

On these trips, my grandfather brought along his little camcorder and recorded us and our antics.

I asked my grandfather for a copy of these recordings, and he graciously lent me some of them.
I have been watching them this week, and I find that his perspective of our life is intriguing.
My grandmother told me the other week that our home was "an American island in the middle of the Philippines."

In the process of finding myself, I am finding out how others think of me. It always takes me off guard...and I usually want to react: "No! What?!"

In watching myself at 3, and 9, and 13 is definitely like watching a ghost. I want to climb in the screen and have serious talks with myself, and others. I want to re-live some of the better moments. I suddenly remember other things too. The camera catches the last bits of an argument between my parents. It shows me using all my older sister's sand when we are playing together . It shows me when I was young, and it shows me growing older. Young and carefree. Older and more cautious. Older and still rather stupid...

I remember some of these things suddenly for the first time in a long time.

April 3, 2010

A Case Study:

(Manipulation)


He told me to do something. I don't remember what. I just know that him telling me to do it was incredible. I mumbled under my breath “You don't!”. Unfortunately, my mother and brother heard it, and reported me.

He got off the computer and told me to come into the other room. We sat in parallel chairs.

He began by throwing his hands in the air and asking what needed to happen in order for him to get a little respect out of me. (oh, the drama) I replied simply “Earn it.” That got me a lengthy lecture on how respect has to be given, not earned, and especially when it comes to authorities (the whole was copiously absent of Bible references.) I laughed under my mask at this. What absurdity!

Then, he began to employ different tactics. He came about from a previous conversation I had had with my mother about getting a job/leaving and making out better. He explained how he worked so hard so that we could all sit pretty. How he wanted to give us a platform from which to minister to this family primarily and to other families and witness to people in the community. He whined a little about the lack of appreciation pampered kids in these situations seem to show (referencing another family we know with whose father he had recently talked). He explained how great my position here was and then he threatened me with the same isolation as my older sister is now experiencing (should I continue in being so ungrateful and disrespectful).

He then burst into tears and explained how much he really loved me, and for all these years of my life. How much he wanted for me. I felt nothing. Watching him cry I felt strangely distant, like I was out of myself and watching the whole charade from the roof. I didn't feel like laughing, but I wondered if I should feel more. I refused to feel guilty, and I refused to allow my emotions to reach out to him.

He then told me I was an adult and I needed to bear adult consequences. He then went back and referenced my post on the anniversary of leaving the RP and gave me a lengthy lecture on God using me where He put me and me not being responsive. He called all the “TCK stuff” I subscribe to “victimization” and (although he did allow some of it to have some possible merit) that I needed to give it all to God and move on. The moment he brought the post and being an MK into the conversation I threw my mask off. Oh, if looks could kill they wouldn't be able to find all the pieces of him. He noted a little later that “If I was reading facial expressions into this conversation you are not ...” something about paying attention or agreeing with him.

He then gave a personal spin to it with all the terrible and not-so-easy-to-deal-with situations that he had been in in life (school, roommates, work, etc) (and my mother nodded and exclaimed in agreement) and how he had been accepting of God's work in his life and how he had gone through them and been victorious. He used both hands to show the dichotomy of being obedient to God versus being stubborn and proclaimed that there was no middle ground “...unless someone is half-crazy or refuses to think.”

He then threatened me again. He said that (as my mother put it) “unless there is immediate change” in my attitude I would be given 30 days notice. We would meet again in a week and discuss how things went.

He then asked me if I had anything to say. I said no, and he got up, seemingly satisfied that this issues had been dealt with.

My clock is ticking. I have been trying to keep myself tied up, but when it slips out I don't regret it.

I am mostly concerned about being able to bring my cats with me—or having to get rid of them. My sister mentioned that I might be able to board them somewhere. I will have to look into that. The next thing will be finding a cellphone of my own, probably a car.

I doubt that I will have visiting rights, but I don't know if I should stay in the area or move to where my sister is. Somehow all this is inevitable, yet my two years is less than half over.

I emailed a lady a couple days ago about a nanny job in MD. I will check up on some of the reader's link for positions/companies. Thank You, shadowspring.

PS. I still cannot comment, sorry.
PPS--Yes, that is a link for my "other" blog. You are welcome to look through it. I have a lot of growing pains on there...

Ecclesiastes 4:13

Better a poor and wise youth
Than an old and foolish king who will be admonished no more.

April 1, 2010

John 8

I have suddenly been hearing a large number of sermons/discussions recently about John 8.
John 8 was a passage that never used to stick out much for me. In fact, most people do breeze over/by it because it concerns things that are not fruits of the spirit and definitely not pure, lovely, etc (Phil. 4:8).

It is a raw chapter. About sin and dirt and shame and blood-and-guts type action.

It is a chapter that I had heard about in a sort of detached manner. "This passage shows us how Jesus could get out of a trap..." or "In this chapter we see the grace and forgiveness of God offered to the 'least of these'."

But no:

John 8:

This chapter is about a woman.
About a low-life scum woman.
And she comes to the end of her rope.

She is lost, caught, mangled, and probably crying.
She knows that this is the end.
There is no more hope.
No hiding anymore

I wonder if she faces this with a resolve.
Or maybe she is scared to death.

She is finally let go of.
Alone
On the ground
As low as she can get.

All her life she has known what it means.
She knows the emptiness
and the pain
The wracking screaming pain
Of life this way

People are yelling
Things are going on around her
She is not listening
No, she cannot hear
It is all she can do to lay on the ground and weep.

Alone
No hope
Crying
On the ground
As low as she can get.

Why can't there be silence?
Wait....it is silent.
She tenses, waiting for the blows
But still silence
She suddenly begins to use her senses
She is in a circle of people

Crunch!
She flinches, but realizes
It was not her that was hit
She opens her eyes to take a peep
She is still in a circle of people

But she is alone
On the ground
As low as she can get

There are more stones dropping
Beating the packed earth, striking hard
An unsteady, agonizing beat
She finds a breath somewhere
But she holds it in, still afraid

The last stone--crack-- on top of the pile
A hurried scuffling of feet
Little whispers of voices in the background
Still, mostly silence
She is too afraid to believe

She looks around quickly
She looks up
He knows
He sees

She is alone
Afraid
Dirty and worthless
On the ground
As low as she can get.

But He speaks
He speaks to her heart
His eyes cleanse her
His voice is like a river

She does not understand
What does all this mean?
How could no one condemn her
Such a ludicrous thought.

All her life she has known what it means.
She knows the emptiness
and the pain
Of life this way

But so does He!
Oh, so does He!!!!