Trying to Breathe

I really need to just write this down and get it out before it consumes me any further. I feel like I'm losing the battle again and that the darkness is going to envelope me any minute.

I went to visit my sister and niece so we could celebrate my niece's 2nd birthday. I know that its important to both of us to keep the door open in our relationship and I really thought I had my emotions under control this time. I guess I should know better by now. My sister isn't the problem here, but its everything she represents for me.

She was around when life sucked the most. She is my only link to my family (as I have deleted them all from my fb account). She is happy with them and they are her home. She is the image and desire for a family for me. And while I enjoy her company, it is hard because she lives a very different lifestyle than I am accustomed to in my life. She embodies the life I left behind and the family that betrayed me. And while I don't blame my sister for anything that happened, she too loves my abuser and chooses him. My therapist often asks me why I don't have a serious talk with her and its because I am too afraid she will choose to be in his life and she won't fight for me. I just can't be hurt by family again - I don't think I could survive it.

So now, a few days later, I find myself trying to keep my mind occupied so that I am not crying or letting the thought of self-harm get too strong. I find myself in pain over the decisions my family has made and the fact that I'm back in this small town without my family.

I am grateful for my life here. I have many people who care deeply for me and I for them. I have a great job and friends to hang with. I have a wonderful church where my soul is fed and I am able to serve. I have amazing opportunities to reach into the lives of others and share the love of Christ with them. I have an apartment and food. I am grateful that I no longer live the life I once did.

And yet, even with all that, the wound in my soul aches, threatening to rip open at any time, throwing me into a downward spiral that I won't be able to get out of. It is in this place of pain that I should let someone in and ask them to be there as I cry and yet all I keep doing is fighting the tears away, trying to breathe and regain control of my being. The darkness that waits just inches away for an opening to take me under frightens me into silence and I can't find my voice. I look through my contacts and can't find a person I would want to show this side of me to. It is here that I feel most alone and most worthless.

And while I know my God is not far away, I can't handle going deeper into the wound. I don't think I'd survive the pain that is overwhelming even while I'm keeping it at bay. I'm trying to hear His voice but the pain from inside shouts so loudly. I'm trying to stay calm but the anxiety within has me hyperventilating.

So I smile and I try to breathe......

I Just Keep Learning Trom Cartoons!

My last post was about what I learned from the Smurfs....this time it's Mickey Mouse!

I was over at my friend's house yesterday and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was playing in the background. If you've ever seen the show you know that the clubhouse has "Handy Helpers" which are basically a bunch of mechanical butlers shaped like Mickey's glove (which kinda sounds weird so here's a picture).

So in the episode the doorbell rings and the handy helper gets stuck and is unable to open the door. This throws Mickey into a mini whirlwind because he fears his friends can't get inside without the handy helper opening the door! Eeek! Then good ol' Pluto comes to  the rescue and points with his ear to the doorknob which Mickey realizes he must open himself in order for his friends to join him. Once inside, the friends join Mickey in figuring out what's wrong the machines and how to fix it. But it was the beinning of the episode that grabbed my attention....

We are so dependent on technology these days that even Mickey Mouse doesn't know how to function without it - in turn teaching our young ones that they too will have a hard time without technology. I have a friend with a 5 year old boy who can search youtube.com all by himself and knows how to use the laptop. My other friend has a 3 year old girl who can open up the dvd player and get the movie she wants to watch all set up to play. And younger and younger kids are exposed to cell phones and laptops.

Its like we're set up from infancy to be dependent on technology. You wouldn't even be reading this and I wouldn't be writing this without technology. I noticed that once I got a smart phone I couldn't put it down and even today, 6 weeks later, I have a difficult time stepping away from email, twitter, facebook, games and text messages. We can follow what celebrities are up to, checking out the pictures and videos they post and the websites they recommend. We can follow blogs about food, animals, organizations, politics and any other topic under the sun. We live with the whole wide world at our fingertips.

I shut down my facebook account on August 31st and while I've had time without facebook before this time it is different. I've noticed my friends are going through difficult times and they just assume I've read their recent status and so they don't reach out to me any other way. I notice that I miss the statuses of friends who post encouraging Scriptures or quotes. I've felt much more out of the loop with the people that I'm around daily this time around than before - not to mention all of my friends that are at a major distance from me.

I think I (and possibly the majority of Americans) have become dependent on feeling connected to the world and this false sense of connection takes me away from the only true connection that can fill the whole in my soul. As hard as I strive to feel connected to the celebrities I follow on twitter, I should be striving twice as hard to feel connected to my Abba Father.

The sense of belonging that we're looking for in facebook and twitter and blogs won't be filled there. The desire to be connected was placed in our souls when God created us. He knew that we would need to have strong, intimate connections with Him and the people He's placed in our life. He knew that it would be good for us to have strong bonds with some of His other creations so that our souls would be whole and not lacking. The heart strings that we form with people help us know that we are not alone in the world - even when it feels like we are. And the most important connection we can develop is the one with have with Christ.

I am committing my lunchtime at work to spend in God's Word - because I know that mornings are busy and evenings I'm tired. I am going to turn my facebook account back on and use it for sharing information (like this blog, articles I come across and what not) and for touching base with a few people. I will not check my facebook before 8am and refuse to be ruled by it! My goal is to take the excess time that was filled with facebook, twitter, games and surfing the web and put it into forming my connection with God and strengthening my friendships. I'll keep you updated!

Lessons from the Smurfs

I love when God speaks to me while in a movie theater.

A few weeks ago I went to see the Smurf movie with a friend of mine. Yes, I am 24 and absolutely loved this movie. It was fun, had cheesy cgi animations that cracked me up, two actors that I happen to know because they've been on Glee, recognizable celeb voices and of course the underdog wins in the end! And still there was a deeper lesson I learned.

All the smurfs are named for their personailties: narrator smurf narrates, clumsy smurf is clumsy, vanity smurf carries a mirror, handy smurf fixes stuff, grouchy smurf is always grouchy, and baker smurf is the baker. In the movie the smurfs are asked if they're they way they are because of their names or were they named because of how they are. They answer "yes."

While sitting in the front row watching a big screen of moving pictures my heart broke a little. I wondered if we humanoids are not that much different from the mythical smurf creatures. When a girl is called stupid her whole life does she succeed in school? If a boy is called nerdy does he join the football team? If a girl is called fat does she eat? When a boy is called a jock does he do well in school?

When you are called something your whole life, don't you tend to fit into that sterotypical category? Don't we see ourselves as the ugly, nerd who hides inside all day or the fat, brainiac that reads all day?

I think this goes deeper than the sterotypical cliches of life. When you've been mistreated your whole life do you believe this is all you're meant to be? When no one shows you love do you believe you're unloveable? When you've been abandoned do you believe you'll always be alone? And when you've struggled all your life do you believe it ever gets easier?

Watching this movie and having all of this play in my head I felt God whisper to me, "Beloved, what if I called you beautiful? What if I called you loved? What if I called you warrior? What if I called you joy? What if I called you mighty? What if I called you Mine?"

And I got to thinking, what if everyone knew what God called them? What if everyone knew how precious they were to Him and how in love He is with them? What if you knew God called you wonderful? What if you knew that God called you strong?

Would it even matter that the world called you weak, ugly, dumb, useless, worthless and dirty?
What if everyone knew they belonged to God and not the world?

I imagine the ones who listen to the voice of truth live by that truth. You can see it in their smile, in their fierce overcoming spirit and in the way the can enjoy life despite the storms that come. I also imagine that when a person grabs tight to the truth that God speaks over them, there is nothing that can stop them from living a transforming life that brings the love of Christ to everyone around them.

Thanks to the Smurfs for helping me hear the difference between the voice of the world and the voice of God.