Scared.

  How does one person know if they, themselves, feel burdened? I must admit that ever since camp ended, life has been extremely challenging and hard. I can't seem to focus anymore. My heart, I am finding, is heavy with conviction, shame, remorse, anger, sadness, and everything else in between. I mean, don't get me wrong-I have my moments and sometimes even days, where happiness and joy realm within my heart. I am a person who has those things that "shine" when I am around other people, but deep down, when I find myself to be alone, those amazing feelings seem to disappear. Vanish into thin air.

 Well, let me just say that...I am tired.

 Over the course of the past month and a half, I have been fighting a sickness. The doctors don't really know what is wrong, and yet I am still finding myself to be sick. Throwing up, nausea, dizziness, fainting, fast heart beat, temporary numbness in my legs, chest pain, headaches, and sometimes (this has only happened twice) my vision becomes blurry. As a previous nursing student who has taken some courses regarding the medical field, I thought these symptoms were just plain anxiety. I mean, I have a TON of stuff on my plate. More than what I feel I can handle..but God never gives us anything that we can't handle, right? With all of these symptoms, I find myself being agitated, irritable, angry, impatient. Today, I was placed on a heart monitor for twenty-four hours. The doctors will be able to see my rhythm of my heart beat and depending on what the results are, I may have to wear it longer. Its hard for me to face this reality. I mean its obvious that its plain to see that I don't have it together, but yet this just constantly keeps going. I just want it to stop, but every time I get impatient or ask God what is wrong with me, its as if He is saying "wait, my child. Be patient." Well, fleshly, and quite frankly, I find myself telling Him that I don't want to be patient. I can't be patient. I want to know what is happening to my body.

I want to know because truth is...I'm scared.

Freedom in a Hurricane of Love

"Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me" were the lyrics that danced through my mind as I woke up this morning. When I awoke, my heart was completely focused on the love that Christ has for me. The reality and truth hit me hard..the truth that I was "once lost, but now am found" seemed to overwhelm my heart. My heart that was once hardened and chained to the sins of the world, anger, manipulations and addictions have finally been set free.

 My whole life, I have always wanted to know what it felt like to be free. I never understood the meaning, or the depths of that ONE word. The word freedom would dance and roll off my tongue so strongly, that it gave me chills to just think about something so incredible and powerful. To think of something that I thought I would never gain access too all because of my so called "problems". I have always wanted to be free. 

 Being a twenty-one year old woman, I can now say that I have found hope, joy, and peace in the midst of my trials and circumstances...the good, the bad, and the ugly ones. I have found the root of pure love from the depths of Christ's heart. His compassion for me is strong. "He loves like a hurricane, and I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy. When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory.'' And it in these moments of complete awe and stillness, that I have realized just how beautiful God is and "how great His reflection", His jealousy, is for me. For me! I am a sinner, and God has found me and "fearfully and wonderfully He has made me according to His image! The love and compassion that my Jesus has for me can not compare to anything else in this world. And regardless of where I have once lived, lost and corrupted .by the sins of this world,  never once did He leave me on my own. Never once did I ever walk alone.  Because as the song says "You are faithful, God. You are faithful."

I have come to realize and accept the fact that God is faithful. That His promises and His plans for me, are for my own good. I find that promise scripted in the book of Jeremiah 29:11, as it says "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Sometimes, our plans that we make for our lives are different from the plan that Christ has for us. I have realized that I can not control my life or what happens to me. My life is not my life to live. Its God's life that He has planned for me and He has chosen me to live it. And the plans that Christ has planned for me, may be things that I don't want to do. He may call me to another country (or state) that is 4,000 some miles away from my "comfort zone". He may have planned for me to marry some amazing guy who loves Christ just as much as I do, or He may not have me get married at all in life. His plans for me may entitle me giving up everything I possibly have in order to serve Him;whatever that may look like. We don't know the plans that He has for us, nor do I know the plans He has for me, but I can cling to the promise that those plans are not meant to harm me but they are meant to give me hope and a future. And with that promise, I have found freedom.

Sometimes I care too much about people. People tell me that I need to "be selfish" for myself. Care about me more than other people. Focus on my life and not anyone else's. Well I can't seem to do that. I don't want to do those things that people tell me. I don't want to be known as the "selfish one". I want to leave this world with an impact so huge for God that people will question why I was so different from them. Here's a little truth about myself...

  I am different than you.

 There are times where I wish that I could take the pain, the hurt, the anger and the frustrations away.  I want to take the battles that seem to never find themselves being won away and throw them away. I wish I could just take care and adopt every single orphan in this world. I wish I could come to peaceful terms with those over in Israel who are a part of ISIS. I wish I could save those in the very moments of taking their lives by the wrenching reality of a rope or bullet. I wish I could protect every mother from the grief of infertility and miscarriage. Or from them finding out that their child has cancer or a life threatening disease. I wish I could find a cure for cancer so more kids and people in general, could have more birthdays...more Christmas'. I wish I could be the one to bring soldiers home from Afghanistan with no bruises, no scars, no lost limbs or night terrors. I wish I could take every reason away for a drug addict to use. I wish I could tell and convince every prostitute who spend their nights walking the street corner, that they are looking for things in all the wrong places and that there is hope. Or tell those that are starving themselves that they truly are beautiful-inside and out. Honestly, I wish I could change a lot of things in this world, but truth and reality is, I can't. I'm not God.

As much as what I want to change the things in this world, I know that I can't. I know that I have no control over anything-even my own life. I can't stop things from happening. I can't stop the acts of death and suicide from occurring...no matter how much I want them too. This is the difference in myself that I have noticed and have been convicted of over this past week. I try too hard to change the things that I can't. I try too hard to just simply be my own God, and that is not okay. I have found myself asking Christ to renew my heart and for forgiveness; every single day.

 And another thing that I am asking myself is

Is this how Jesus felt when He took on the weight and sin of the world?

Laying it All Out

I have been through a lot of, so called "crap" in my life. At twenty-one, I think I have the right to say that I have seen things that I wish I would have never seen, said things that I wish I never said. I have gone here and there to look for things that I, myself, at the time, didn't even know what I was searching for. I have lived behind the curtain and with the label of "homeless" and "will work for food" attached to my forehead. I have witnessed and have been a victim to scenes of violence, abuse, and manipulation. I have gone through the trials of a pregnancy that had a result of numbing loss in the grief of miscarriage. I have from the life of where  I lived in the secrets of truth of being a victim to countless touchings and vulnerability that I had no sense of control over.  I have lived behind a masquerade of trying to be the "wild one", while in all reality, I was making myself more vulnerable to be attacked by humans like a lion and its prey.

 I have traveled as far as the east is to the west, and have come in contact with many different people with many horrific stories and testimonies. I have lost loved ones along the way. I know what it is like to live a life of addiction, mental and physical addiction to figurative garbage. I have seen the infamous dirty work and rebellion on the sidelines of "one night stand", not once, but more times than can be counted with my fingers. I have been the girl who searched for love and acceptance in the eyes of men, men who were complete strangers and who tore me in a million pieces like paper going through a shredder.

I have been the one who would be called fat and ugly all because I wasn't what society wanted me to be. I have been the woman who has suffered with the disgusting addiction of sex, party scenes, hatred, and anger. I was the girl who got caught up in myself that I went off the "band wagon" and jumped on the train of depression and suicide thoughts that raged through my vulnerable mind. Day in and day out. The acts of binging and purging were a part of me. Gripping my life in its hand and holding me hostage with absolutely no escape or sense of freedom, that I would be able to gain with my own power. I considered myself to be nothing. I was just like the next criminal to run away from the police, except it wasn't cops and the law that I was running from. I was running at high speed from those that wanted to help me.  I ran until there was nothing left of me or in my nature to continue going. I ran until that person simply...

DIED.

Today...one year later, I am ALIVE. I am alive in Christ, and my old self has died and a new spirit in me has been born. I am no longer that girl who struggled with addiction, but I am now a woman who is free. I am a woman who is loved and who has been rejuvenated to being a different person with a different heart. I have found what I have been searching for my whole life. I have found a reason to live. I have found that I am a woman of God. Loved, pursued, chosen, and equipped with words of life. I am blessed because I believe! I have found exactly who I am and what I am here for...and His name is

JESUS.

Something to Say

I have been single pretty much my whole life. I have never had a relationship with any man. I have never held hands, hugged, genuinely kissed, or loved a man ever in my twenty-one years of breathing. That's right...NEVER! Frankly, this truth of mine is a secret that once is told, everyone stares at me and says "are you serious?!" almost like I just told them I was dying or something. 

   Sadly, in this world and based on the society that us so called "single" people live in, we are treated as if being single is a disease. I know there are days where I feel like it is, I mean I'm human, but then more recently there are days where I have realized that I have wasted so much time, energy and value in trying to find the one. Sometimes, my selfishness takes hold of me and I tell myself that he isn't out there. That my so called "prince charming" is non-existent. That I will live my life talking to my millions of cats, while sitting in a rocking chair on my porch in the middle of nowhere, knitting a scarf. Not the type of life that I want to live, but I have come to the conclusion that I would rather have that kind of a life, then have nothing at all. But more importantly, my value and my love are found in Jesus. 

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*I feel as if I am losing my train of thought of all that I want to say, because let me tell you-I have something to say...so moving onward* 

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A lot of people who I hang around, even those that I consider disciples and mentors have asked me about my "love life". Its usually the first thing they ask me when we begin a relationship. Its like people actually want to know me! *shocking!* When I tell them that I have never had a relationship with anyone, they do one of two things, almost always! They will either A) tell me that I am young and I have plenty of time -or- B) insist that they play Match Maker and help me "find" someone. People, as much as I find that...flattering...(I don't really) I just want to say this one thing. Ready for it? STOP TRYING! I do want a relationship, but then again, I don't. *gasps* But there are things that a lot of people don't know about. Things I have been trying to let go of or in all reality-forget even happen. 

 

  I will not deny that I have lost my virginity already even though I have never dated. There was a time in my life where I was looking for things in all the wrong places. Looking for; love, acceptance, wanting, care, romance, a choice of my own, in all the wrong places. I places my value in men-in people. I allowed myself to get lost in a whirlwind of selfishness and allowed vulnerability to set in it's course. I have been pregnant but resulted in a miscarriage at four months. I have been used as "one night stands" and as a "piece of meat" by men. But I allowed them to use me that way. All of which made me feel disgusted about myself. How could God still love me after what I have done? After destroying His temple? I made a promise to Him that I would remain pure until the day I got married way before I even knew what sex was and then all of a sudden, that promise was broken-over and over again. 

 But I have learned something through the midst of it all. I have learned that I have something to say. I have a lot to say-I have a story to tell. And this story of mine doesn't have a terrible ending. As a matter of fact, it's still being written. Not by me; oh no! But by Christ my Savior and my redeemer. The ONE who saved me and has forgiven me for all that I have done wrong. This is what I have to say-I am free! I am free in Jesus and no human or man can take that freedom from me. And same goes for you. Are you free? Or are you living in a world where you are searching for the wrong things in all the wrong places? Turn to God-it is never too late for Him to change you and for Him to make your mess into something beautiful. 

That is all I have to say.