a slow return

so i have returned to the world of xanga............

poem

Why do I like to think I’m something

Or that I’m someone strong

Then when my heart breaks

And I fall along and alone

I realize who I really am.

Sometimes I feel this sharp pain inside me,

Sometimes I feel so helpless and alone,

Heartbroken, with a heart of stone.

I keep on going on,

Even if it’s only half of me.

People can say the sweetest things about me,

But if I’m locked in self-delusion

None of it can be accepted as true.

Even though I try to act like  I can be on my own,

You alone Lord know me fully, deeper than I know my own spirit.

It comforts me to know You know me entirely, and love  me completely too, in spite of me.

My darkest insides, my worst temptations, can’t drive You’re all-loving and powerful Spirit from me.

I’m glad  You’re so much stronger than me.

I’m glad You hold me when I can’t find comfort anywhere else, not even in myself.

I’m thankful You speak truth to my lying heart and mind, I’m glad You shine Your light where I’m dark.

You know why I hurt inside even when I can’t explain why I cry,

You know the loss that comes to me,

You know the regrets that encompass me,

You see my deepest fears,

You see the false conclusions I make about myself

The false things I call myself ,

Based on  what happens  in my life.

And You come to me, take me into Your arms,

And You make me strong.

You tell me what to believe, what to think,

About life, about me,

And You chase out those lies deep down inside of me,

That I am in bondage to, sometimes claiming them to be truth,

Even though feeding them hurts  me,

I guess sometimes we would rather not know the truth then love and live it.

Why do I fear  the truth?

Why am I scared to live what I believe?

Do I think I could gain everything by losing You and me?

Do I sincerely believe You are infinitely worth more than my kingdom to me?

Why am I scared to give You everything?

I fear You would take something from me, that I love, that I’m clinging to,

Maybe something I’m finding my identity in, instead of  You.

Why am I scared of pain and suffering?

Why am I  only wanting things to be my own way?

You say pick up your cross  and come to Me.

I’m sorry, but I’m focused  on me.

I wanted to be something special, everyone believed me,

But I couldn’t feel right on the inside,

Cause I was scared of what You thought of me.

Why is it so hard to see You as loving, more loving to me than anyone or anything,

Why  do I seem to think You’re just waiting to punish me.

I guess I feel unworthy, and I can’t shake this internal feeling of guilt.

I either think I’m not that bad or terribly fallen,

But there is something beautiful in things that are broken.

There is something sacred in tears.

There  is something priceless in pain.

There is something sweet in suffering.

There are so many tragic beauties that make up life,

Lost potentials, bitter-sweet losses, carrying crosses,

Sacrifice, work, and pain.

And when the dust of all this mess settles a few things remain,

That really define me and you,

They are  that Christ really  lives, that He really cares,

That after all, He’s really there, and He wants to help, He wants to minister, to our needs, to our spirits’

 failings.  

And we triumph out of our miseries, out of the darkness that we call home,

Like the dead phoenix  He awakens us  from our ashes to become new and whole.

Our spirits need healing, there is something askew on the inside,

We don’t know why we hurt, only that we are hurting,

Everything can be going alright, but our insides  maybe twisted  into seeing only night.

Sometimes we have to go through heart break, redemption, and loss,

Don’t be afraid to lose what you  love most to gain Him Who is worth more than all cost.

Maybe for the minute I called to rough road,

I’ll take my tumbles and stumbles,

I’m prepared to shed  some  tears, I’m prepared to fear, to feel really bad,

But  I am confident that in spite of it all I will come out renewed and repaired.

I am willing through whatever pain, if only, it’s all I need, You to gain.  

And I know that I will something horrible, I know I will like drowning in my sorrows,

But I’m  not afraid cause I know You’ll be there with me, smiling at me, giving me light through the

storm.

I know that pain will past,  that this heaviness can’t last, and if it makes me desire only You or Heaven

Then I am happy to go through that. 

My sufferings humble me, I see how gracious and merciful to me by them.

You make all my trials providential, they happen at the perfect times and in the perfect ways,

And although the reason for falling into them be lame, You will be my solution, my “healing rain.”

You will carry me when I can’t  walk, give me words to say when I can’t talk.   And  I when I can’t be

happy, You will give me a reason to press on.

I’m so fallen I should look at it as dumb to worry and not trust You that it will be all right. 

Why do fear what can or will happen, when You will hold me  through it all?

I can’t help but be disappointed if I don’t find my refuge in You, or if You’re not my all-in-all.

I’m sorry for not trusting that Your grace will be all sufficient, I’m sorry for not believing You’re all need.

The only way for me to feel steady, at peace,  and happy on the inside is for You to cleanse  me there,

and to put in order the chaos that dwells there.

Whatever happens I am not going to be disappointed, because life is great and beautiful even if it’s not

the way I want it to be, even if I’m not feeling what I want to feel, just to know You rule it all, and it’s

perfect because you planned it that way.  I’m not going frown if I don’t get  my way.

so here it is, early saturday morning, and next Friday is the start of college.  this means i have less than a week at home, and of the life i have known here.  i have still not purchased bed sheets for the dorm bed(these beds are longer than usual beds), nor have i completed the amaeuteur project of writing an essay from reading a book which they assigned.

But the idea of college amuses me.  the fact that you are away from home and what you previously knew as life and daily livng and that you are to create an identiy that is not based on people having known personally and in a direct way of your previous family, economic, geographical, educational, spiritual, and socail life.   usually your friends or classes or  acitivies are based somewaht on these factors.  most poeple there you have never met before, so you don't have a history with them, and neither of you know eacha other's history.  there are some freinds we have had forever, we've had family forever, it's diferent wehn this is not the case in our socialization. So then what do you do then, when people don't know your history or where you come from or who you are and were?  Do you act like someone totally differnet just to see if you could pull it off or what it would be like to assume a differnet attitude or type of personage? 

Yet, you can't separate your past from who you are, but you can act like you are not from it or ignore or repress it(not saying that's a good idea, although it is possible).  Like do I want people to not be able to guess what kind of education or family life I had growing up?  Do I want to ignore sharing specifc things about my present life just so I wouldn't be judged on account of them?  It may sound stupid asking these questions, but I have to think of who I wnat to express myself as.  Do I want to seem different, or just like everybody else?  haha, I couldn't be like everyone else even if I tried.  Am I worried about relationships?  Like not feeling really close to people or having bad or difficult ones?  Or ones I should not be in?  Or of people not accepting me?  Or what I will do if someone really doesn't like or love me?  I can't expect everyone to love me, but that sure would be nice.  Or maybe it wouldn't be. 

ugh, it is so stupid to go around gossiping about who you don't like.  it destroys community.  i mean there are certain poeple you most definitely need to be warned about.  but it's just naive to go around saying who you don't like because alot of times you won't say it to the person's face, and ideally, you shouldn't be going around saying something about someone if you didn't have hte intregrity to say how they disappointed/offended you to their face.   And it's dumb to say you don't like people, certainly there are some poeple who do not make themselves necessarily likable, but in that case we all know who they are, and we don't need to be gossiping about it.  but i don't like wehn there are two or three girls saying or talking abuot not liking another girl.  it jades thier opinion of her and places them in a unified position against her.  freind and peer influence is powerful, your freinds can adopt your opinions of things or intrests(lik ehave you ever watched somehtingj ust because you know of some friend that really enjoyed it?) and the stupid thing about not liking poeple is that you may have liked them a long time ago, and presently you don't, that's just inconsistnet unless like they majorly changed.  but seirously, how necessary is it to tell someone you don't like someone else?  does it help them, does it help you, does it help the person you are speaking of? 

but who do i want to be, or think would be nice being, or know i should be(or know i should desire to be)?  not just at college, but in my inner life, in my heart of hearts, in my spirit?  ugh, its so difficult, you can think of nice things or things you know you should want for yourself but how do you know you sincerely want them?  i don't think we really do wnat all of them.  ohh well, if you don't, then pray forthe desire to!! I want to be, or know i should desire to be, generous in my heart, i want to be sincerely spiritual, i want to be happy with what i do and love life, be a good friend, love out of purity in heart, sincerely joyful, deep, i want to write becuase i need to, i want to be awake instead of sleepy for hte importnat stuff, i don't wnat my sibligns to see me as grumpy when i get up in the mronings although i do that, i want to be interdependent, i want people to feel comfortable opening up with me about what is really going on in their live and insdie of them, and i want to be open with poeple, i want to be loved, and loving, and i want to be moral, but i want God to be real in my life and the center and movitvaiton and reason of and for it, although i need conviction for that, and for willing to lose my life or what i want it to be for the life He wants to give me.  i want to see God doing miracels in my life, guiding me, loving me, providng for me, revealing Himself to me, letting me see Him at work in my life,taking care of me showingme that i didn't mess everyhing up in my life and that theres an eternity He wants me to be in and that i can't make go away.   i wnat to know i am where i need to be and who i should be in that sitaution.  iwant to bein the center of God's will.  i want tobe righteous, but im scared of what that looks like, i want to be moral.  yet i am aware, from a fallen standpoint, that i still want to do things my own way, and don't want to let God have control of them, i want to control things myself and not listen to Him when He asks me to do things His way or to trust/belive in Him instead of myself.  i know how i really would rather live in my own self-forged prison then be totally willing for Him to save me from that if it meant not getting my way and obeying Him or admitting that i really do need help.  I simply put inthese last two sentences, becuase i want to be sincere, i don't wnat ya'll to think that i am not struggling or not highly sinful or not have isseus sincerely desiring to obey and beleive in God and that I have a specail place in His heart.  my spiirtual state is not doing hte best right now, and i don't wnat to try to like cover that up or not admit it.  and im sorta, or a little, confused or twisted when wirting this part.  where you are at exactly spirituality is not always the easiest thing to figure at.  id ont think i'll ever entirely know where exactly during my time on earth.  but i'l know more thane nough, plenty to live on. 

from here on out

please read this...well at least towards the middle and end...thanks

    You always like to think people have bad impressions of you when you don’t know what impression they really do have of you.  maybe we think people misjudge us and are more “severe” with assessing/judging us than is true.   They really do not think about us the way we think about ourselves.  They do not think we look stupid or unstylish or unattractive--whatever we feel and fear and dreadfully hope they don’t think of us. (oh by the way, don't think people think anyhting about hwo you dress or look that you wouldn't think about thier dress or looks, for instnace, if you don't think people are unattracitve, then people aren't thinking you're unattractive too!) It can really impair you to think people are thinking the things about you that you are thinking about yourself.  It makes one insecure, and fearful, and on the edge of her seat waiting and looking for confirmations of her suppositions.  If your own shadow doesn’t scare you, the slightest remark from another person will.  You will wonder what they meant, and if indeed they were showing confirmations of your horrifying guesses!  Yes, it is possible to be in great fear of yourself.  

    We do think too much about what people think of us, and what we wear, and do and are and go and what kind of education and background and economic status we have.  But do we think about them?  How they may be hurting or feeling bad or just as insecure as we are?  We don’t stop to think what they are thinking about or feeling right now, or whether they are going through a time of great agony.  Is there a simple formula to get over insecurity?  Yeah, get your eyes off yourself and on the person next to you, or even better take your eyes off this world and focus them on God.  Instead of asking do I look good today, or do I look in style, you ask do I look like my Daddy(God)?  I may be in what’s considered cool, but my Dad(God) might have a different opinion on it.  and we must be aware of this fact, and be unafraid to embrace it thoroughly and fully.

     It scares us to think that God might alter what we wear.  We are perfectly fine, or maybe we would like to believe that we are, with Him making adjustments and changes to every other area of our life(relationships, educations, life style, friends, etc.), and we do know that we need these changes and adjustments, but we tremble and spurn His words when He asks us to do something radical or to give up something we love or really want to have. (oh yes, I know, there is something in your life you really, really really, want to have or keep even if deep down inside you know you need to give it up for the good of everyone and yourself, but most importantly you need to give it up for God cause He asks you to, and He wants to be first in your life, and He wants you to be giving up each and every Isaac to Him.  He wants you to be able to give up anything and everything for Him and for His glory.  In submission to Him.  so that you can truly love Him wholeheartedly and find in doing that the fulfillment of your joy, spirit, everything your spirit needs, wants, and chases after. 

    He has such a beautiful life for us if we would just let go of the lives we have written for ourselves.  But don’t worry, even if you keep on trying to be in control of your life God is still ultimately controlling it and planning it all out.  We only think we are in charge, but He knows it all, made it all, and takes care of all of it.  But back to this thing that we don’t want to give up.  Because we really don’t want to give it up, when God asks us to,  we scream, we pout, we hang on with clinching and desperate fingers to it when He is gently asking us to let go.  And we will not let go—not even if our whole life sinks and falls because of it, not even if we lose everything else in the process, not even if everything else we love and value and hold dear suffers on account of this thing,  not even if we lose all of that, and all of the life we knew and know now.  We have glued ourselves in our spot, we will not move. 

     So then God has to do what He doesn’t want to.  After asking us, pleading with us with tears in His eyes to give this up, breaking the news gently to us, so soft sometimes we doubt it’s Him and dismiss it because we don’t like what it is asking us to do.  So God comes to us, and because He loves us, takes this idol we have attached our hearts and selves to away from us.  We knew somehow that if we don’t surrender or submit it to God that He would do this.   We knew that if we didn’t break off our relationship with this thing, whatever it is, it would break us.  So God stops us before we are broken.  He knows our weakness.  He knows when we can and can’t handle a situation, and when we can’t He is able and willing to deliver us from it, even if we want to stay behind.  We may prefer to stay in the shackles and chains we have forged for ourselves, but God breaks us out of them.  He will remove something from our lives if we cannot master it or if  we are letting it control or ruin our lives, that’s His job, He’s our Daddy, He has to protect us, protect us from idols, and protect us from ourselves. 

   So when we don’t have this thing anymore, we are not entirely heartbroken, because we knew deep down inside that it created conflict within our beings.  We knew that our hearts and spirits were split over keeping this up, over maintaining our it and our relationship to it, with our own life blood.  So we are not sure what to think.  It’s a process sometimes living without it.  We find ourselves suddenly alone, and having to reorganize our life perhaps, or else we will stay sunken without the idol just because we have gone down so far we need help to get back on the main drag.  We may even still look for it, even though we know it’s not coming back to us, or at least not anytime soon, we say with the slightest hope.  We have been free, but then what do we do with our time that we had spent with this thing?   We find ourselves with time and care that we need to spend but we don’t know on what or who or where. 

    And to God, we cannot be mad at Him, since we knew He was going to do it, sooner or later, we may be a little upset about the way the break off came about of course.  But somehow we know He knew what He was doing, even if we don’t like it.  But it’s beautiful in an ironic way—that God saves us from stuff when we can’t get out of them voluntarily, that He is perpetually saving us from ourselves and our sin, but the beautiful thing about idols is not that idols are beautiful, the beautiful thing about them is that when we are immersed in them, our spirits are not at rest.  We feel conflicted, we feel mixed about continuing our idolatry, and as loyal as we are to keeping up our idolatry we are not totally loyal to our idols—we cannot love them wholeheartedly(it’s impossible to wholeheartedly love and enjoy doing something wrong or the  false object of our affections) so that perhaps we could even replace our present idol(s) with new ones.  But that is the natural course of idolatry, you think you are loyal to your idols, but that only lasts for a season, it is likely that if you are into it long enough, you have idol-burnout, wherein you discard your present idols and adopt new ones.  One idol leads to another, or to more intensity with that one idol, and then onto a bigger one.  Idolatry is never a neutral, stagnant, passive, or positive thing—it only gets worse and worse until it entirely masters your life.  Idolatry is like a fire, if you feed it with enough and greater amounts of fuel(love and affection) it just grows more and more until it consumes everything around it(your life). 

     But although idolatry is a sad topic, there is something happy too about the opposite of it, which is love.   Love if you let it, and fight for it, is not a passive or neutral thing either.  It grows and grows with the time and attention and devotion you imbue it with until it radiates all through you and in you and has an effect around you.  it gives you a great big happiness deep down inside.  But in this fallen world, it is so easy to have our sin and darkness grow, we cannot even imagine or think it possible for love and kindness to grow this tremendously.  It is easy to think of sin consuming us, but love?  How unearthly is that!  But isn’t that what makes it beautiful too, that it is so unearthly that we have not comprehend it, or believed in it, or thought it possible?  We know of so much darkness and defeat, that love can seem unknowable and not as existent and/or as much in our lives as all the pain and sadness.  But it exists!!!! As much as those tears exist on your face, as much as that horrible feeling deep down of sadness, regret, and dissatisfaction with your life and/or self, there are opposites to these things as well!  There is hope!  There are wipes for your eyes, not only that, but great joys, so much deeper and sweeter than those pains, that your eyes will not be able to even happily cry enough over them.   And there is love, such deep, rich and great love to conquer all those negative and hopeless feelings to show these thoughts to be the grave they are and to plant in its place the resurrection of the spirit, of the mind, of a life. 

    When clouds of darkness surround us we like to think that’s all there is, or maybe there is a light but its small and distant but should show up eventually.   But much more than that, there’s not just  a small light that is coming, there is a great light, and it’s already here, and it’s so much realer and greater and more beautiful and hopeful than that choking darkness.  What is this light?  How can I be so sure of it?  God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, they are the light!!!!!!!  They live in us, and our everywhere.   Indeed, the new heavens and earth will not need a sun for light because Christ will be the light there.  Jesus has conquered the darkness, He is conquering the darkness, He will conquer darkness, and we cannot think or imagine that all the darkness around us in our lives is greater than Him.  If we really believe He is all-powerful then we know He is greater than the darkness, we know He can, has, and does defeat it.  Darkness has a limit, but the light of God, which is like God, actually Jesus is the light of the world, and His light is illimitable, it goes on forever and forever in God.   There is so much hope, and healing, and forgiveness, and love in the universe, that it can only be the Devil and our sin nature that blinds us from it, and makes us think the world, or most of it, is dark.

     There is reality, and then there is an awareness of what underlies reality.  And immediately beneath reality there is sin and darkness which explains a lot of the pain and sadness that we know as humans.  But beneath that, yes beneath that, there is light and love and peace and healing, this reality is sweeter and deeper than them all, it limits the dark reality, it reminds us that there is always hope, but more importantly, when all that is above this layer slips away, it will still be there, because love and peace and healing, that’s the heartbeat of God.  If God would grant us eyes to see not just all the darkness and pain around us but the greater hope, life and healing that also exists.  

     But back to being radical in your clothing if God calls you do that, since this whole conversation about idols and light originates there, in the end, it doesn’t matter as much what you look, what you say, how you said it, how much money you have,  as it does making sure the people you are with know you love them, love them like Christ loves them—unconditionally, without deserving it, just because they are them.  Yes, clothes are important, God wants to provide them for us, but God has also given us the gift of love, and He wants to provide that for us to, so that we can spread it on to others, cause by love, they’ll be able to see God and His love for them.  Clothed in love.   We wear clothes because we are loving our fellow man by having the decency to cover ourselves up, but we can’t love what people think about our clothes or what kind of clothes we have more than the people who see us in these clothes.  We are clothed for the sake of love, but we need to love others by our clothing too---by not being overly or underly concerned about our clothes.  We love others by being modest too—by setting an example to the girls, and helping the guys with their lust problems. 

    There are so many ways to love people, anytime, anywhere, through anything and anyone.  And you, yes you!, can love, regardless of all the pain and hurt you have had to deal with in life.  And you can have love from a pure heart too.  God is so beautiful, and He’s the best Lover ever.  People are dying to be loved, aching to be loved, longing to be loved, you can hear their hearts break over it, if you listen long enough, and quiet your own heart.  As humans we need and fervently chase after being loved.   There are limitless ways and opportunities to love those around you, and if you don’t know, just pray.  God wants you to love.  He is loving,  you can trust Him and His love for you.  You can trust that He will treat you lovingly, that He will protect you, that He will be there for you. Can people trust that we will love them like this?