.....

I almost don't want to go back to Oswego. I have such selfish, conflicting emotions within me. Tears are almost overcoming me now. I do not understand myself sometimes. My heart is being so fickle. It is never this fickle, but its falling for things that are not real. Dan is receding, I feel him leaving me. Is that good? I suppose, it was a stupid thing anyways and I truly wish that I had not told a soul about his existance. Maybe I'll still have trouble with the anniversaries, maybe not. But I know that his time in my life is about over. I have no idea why. It kills me. I think. I don't know. I'm just weird. I am writing this sentence, but it will never be interpreted, for I am just an emotional blob right now. I think I like someone. For the first time in three years, seven months, and whatever I feel a prodding in my heart for another guy. I don't know why. It makes no sense and am sure that it is not true. Most likely the case is that i can't trust my emotions right now. The other night I almost kissed a friend of mine. He was looking so fine that night, it was dark, and we were so close....but thank God I resisted that temptation. I just really hope I can keep doing that until the end of summer.....he's bad news.
I really want to help people. It is an intense desire of mine. I am so hurt whenever I am unable to help someone, not for myself, but for them. Sometimes I want someone to just help me. I can be so selfish. I want to be held and told that i'm worth it, that i'm more than a confident or face. I feel selfish for even writing this, but I was told that we are supposed to express whatever we are feeling, so deal with it! :D I feel like such a contradiction and I feel like i'm forgotten. All I want is to just say exactly what is going on in my mind, how hurt I am, but alas, I fear I must remain in silence and just smile. How do you express such hurt that runs soooo deep without hurting the other person? I hate hurting people. I hate being selfish. I hate to hate.

But on a good note.....I have sooo much to be thankful for! My dunks is soooo close to accepting Christ and my jimmy is starting to join in and pray with me. I have been able to hang out with my neighbor and witness to her and her whole family and have visited my grandmother, allowing God to use me to reunite my father and his mother. It was quite the touching experience. So with all this pain, there is so much beauty; so much to be thankful for. I suppose I'll have to stand firm, remain strong, and move towards the light, towards that beauty radiating from my Rescuer......yay..

I do not want to appear to not have my own thoughts...but I read this and thought that it was very encouraging and wanted to share it! (Told you I am a contradiction.) I was reading in Deuteronomy, which is funny since I do not usually read the first half of the old testament, and came across this really cool devotional!
Hunger
Humans get hungry, and not just for food but for a whole range of desires and dreams. Hunger to have hopes fulfilled and longings answered seems to be built into us. (See, it does fit into this blog.)
Sometimes our hunger gets us into trouble, and we wish we could curb our appetites. But in Deuteronomy 8:3, you'll be surprised to learn who gives us these longings. The Lord is the one who causes us to hunger. He is the one who has put within us our desires and yearnings. At first, this seems odd. Doesn't God know that the "hungries" often get us into trouble?
God has good reasons for giving us such large appetites. He has placed within us desires and dreams in order to test us and humble us, to see what is in our heart, to see whether or not we would follow him. He causes us to hunger so that we might learn to feed on the bread of heaven, to live on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

I thought that this whole idea whas quite something. That God gives us the hungries?? That seems so weird but makes a lot of sense when thinking about it. God wants us to learn to live on Him alone. When faced with trials and temptations, do we choose to follow Him? What is in our hearts? Is it His love, His daily bread, or is it our own desires? I don't know about you, but this made me think. In this test of His, I want to come out as someone who is just eating Him up day to day and is only relying on Him. Haha. God is good. He loves us and has such great plans for us. Its that simple. We eat His bread, rely on His strength, choose His love, deny our own pointless desires, and we live. I love bread and know that His bread tastes better than any bread from this horrid world! I pray that we all will learn to fight the hungries and come through these tests trusting completely in Him and His promises. :D God, I love you hard core!

I love Jeremiah...

Last night I was hurting. I hate hurting. haha. I crawled into bed and took out my Bible, which is my usual ritual, and started reading. I read some psalms and then a little bit of Isaiah, but nothing was giving me the comfort that I sought. Then I realized where in the Bible I was and that I was only one book away from Jeremiah. Jeremiah's my man. I love that book so much and God has comforted me so often while reading it. As soon as this realization dawned I flipped right to the first chapter and started reading, taking comfort in how God chose me and that though I may be young, I know God has such great plans for me. This thought took me to Jeremiah 29:11, my life verse. God has such plans for me and I cannot wait to see them come into focus as I continually seek God more and more with all of my heart. Through this perusal of Jeremiah, I came across a really touching devotional that I wanted to share. God has just layed this on my heart so I'm going to type it all out. I really hope that it touches you too or reveals something to you. :D
An Honest Heart- Jeremiah 20
Facing disappointment with God often means sorting through a tangled knot of emotions-anger, grief, rebellion, bewilderment. Such messy scenes may be permissible with a friend or spouse or even one of our children. But God? For him, we tend to make ourselves more presentable. It's easier to paste a smile on our face and pretend. To be honest with God at the level of disappointement seems a gutsy proposition.
There is at least one example in the Bible of someone whose spiritual struggle centered around feelings of betrayal. Jeremiah, who was drafted by God into a post as a prophet in Judah, knew that the task of being God's spokesman to a rebellious nation was no dream job. He knew he would encounter the wrath of kings and the dearf ear of his countrymen. But when a fellow priest named Pashhur had Jeremiah beaten and put into stocks, Jeremiah sank to an all-time low. He did not seem to be prepared for opposition from another "servant of God."
At that point, Jeremiah's story stops and we are given audience to a profoundly personal prayer, revealing a man struggling with the unexpected circumstances God had allowed in his life. "O Lord," Jeremiah says, "you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed." Jeremiah began to pray abou this confusion. He admitted the worst of it. "I feel betrayed, let down, angry and overcome," he said. On one level, he felt deceived by God, and on another he knew he had deceived himself. He made no attemp to sort it all out-he simply brought the whole tangled mess to the Lord. He counted on the strength of one whou could bear the weight of such honesty.
Gathering the courage to be honest, to stop running and hiding and pretending brings tremendous feedom. We come emptyhanded to the Lord, carrying nothing but an open heart, and God takes that honesty and transforms it into a kind of saving grace.

Jeremiah was beaten and thrown into prison for saying what God told him to say. Pashhur and Jeremiah were part of the same body and yet Pashhur had him thrown into the stocks and had him beaten. Sometimes it is the body that hurts us the most. That is why it is so important for us to listen to one another and ultimately to God. Things are not always easy for us, but we need to be honest with God about every feeling we are experiencing. Though He knows what is going on in our heads, it helps for Him to HEAR IT FROM US. We need to unload all of our feelings to Him, even if they are negatively about Him. God is truly our only saving grace. So lets be honest to Him and give it all up to "the healer of all the hurt we hold inside.".... :D

p.s. Lets not be Pashhurs.............

p.s.s I love God!

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Life is life. I am accepting this simple statement. Everything around us happens for a reason. Every breath breathed is a chance to change something; to allow God to form us into who we are to be. The thought that every breath I take and breathe back out can be used to change this horrid world excites me! I want to change the world. I want to help those around me. I want to be a light in the darkness; a small candle burning at the end of a long tunnel, showing the way out. I want more than anything to be used by God and if this passion is not shared by many, then more people should examine their hearts. We are God's instruments. I don't know about you, but God has changed me completely and has saved me from a horrid ending. With Him I will have my happily ever after. I was reading in the Psalms the other day and was brought into a wowsers moment. I love the Psalms. Whenever I feel down I just read them until I get something out of it and start to feel better. This particular Psalm made me feel incredibly guilty about how I was living my life. Lately I have been living my life for myself. Going throughout each day simply existing and focusing entirely on myself. Whenever I hung out with friends I just focused on having fun. I want them saved so bad but I can't get over myself enough to do anything about it. This realization stopped me in my tracks and I cried out to God. If I want things to change I need to start breathing in truth and do something. I've wasted so much time, but thankfully God created time and can redeem it! I am going to try my hardest to start doing what I feel I ought to do! Its time to breathe to live and not to just exist comfortably!

Argh

Argh. I like that sound/word/expression/whatever. It describes my life right now. Argh. Just becuase you are mad at me does not give you a right to think you can hit me. It doesn't. If I make you mad, suck it up and be a man! I pray that I may go through the rest of my life without someone raising their hand to strike me. Do people even realize what it does to a person? Yes this post seems confusing, but i'm just going to keep talking like this because I am venting. I feel like secluding myself because the stories about my summer are not really happy. I don't like saying unhappy things so maybe I should just stop talking to people. Someone rescue me! I need a knight in shining armor again. I'm sick of having to fear. Of being reduced to a crying pathetic piece of human flesh. I can't go through a second abuse. Not again. I know that I could not make it through again. But I suppose i'm finding out that I can. I am a strong person. I have to be. That strength is being tested again and by the grace of God am I going to make it through. I trust Him. Maybe there is a reason i'm going through this again. I am just so afraid of reverting back. Of being that scared little girl who withdraws from people. I don't want to be in that dark whole again. This may sound incredibly whiny, but whatever. Deal with it. God is my refuge. An everpresent help in times of trouble. He is all I have. I am so thankful for having Him as my Father. I guess i'm just going to close my eyes, take a deep breath, and just fall into His embrace....