Healing and Thankfulness

Three years ago I went to the Honor Academy after high school and it was only for five days but it was clear to me that things that were going on there were not right. Even though my dad already paid for two months of the internship, I made the hard decision with fervent prayer and the Lord showed me this verse when I was making that difficult decision.

Galatians 1:6-10

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

 10 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

I thank the Lord that He showed me that I was making the right decision. 

I thank the Lord that I got out safely and got home safely on that thirty hour bus ride.

And I thank Dawn and Kevin Engel for supporting me while I was there and when I decided to go home. 

And I thank all that did support my decision in leaving. 

And I thank MSNBC and the woman that started recoveringalumni.com for giving me confirmation that I made the right decision. And for helping thousands of hurting people that left Honor Academy. 

And this is probably hardest to say, I thank God for my short five day expirience at Honor Academy. It pushed me to seek the Lord more than I ever had and even though there was a lot of confusion and pain afterwards I grew so much closer to God through the expirience. I also realized through my bus ride home one of my passions in life is to help minister to homeless people. I thank God for Travis in that little bus station in Tyler, Texas. He felt blessed by me but in so many ways I was blessed by him. 

Thank you Lord, for pain & for recovery. 

Amen. 

the ending of a cycle

we praise him. we love him. we reject him. 
we serve him. we turn to him. we run from him. 
we get off track. and we get back on. 
we worship and then we feel numb. 
I am tired of the cycle. tired of living life on emotions. 
i want to live my life around the Lord. 
and I want to surrender all. 
Im not perfect, trials are expected but the king has resurrected and hes coming again for us soon! 
this life will be a distant faded memory and soon He will be all that I see. 
amen. 

Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs

Something I wanna share. 

This morning I woke up to a dream where I was holding a book of records of all the times I've been hurt. 

I thought about the dream as I got up and headed for the shower when I remembered part of the verse from 1 Corinthians 13:5  ...Love keeps no record of wrongs

And it kind of gently slapped me in the face. 

If I keep hanging on to the things that have been said or done to me that hurt me, I will not be able to truly love.

If I hold things against my friends and my family and other people around me, I am putting a wedge between myself and them. And ultimately I am putting a wedge between myself and God. (Forgive..as your heavenly father has forgiven you.) 

And I realized that even if I play it out as "its all just fine" attitude and the other person thinks I'm ok..but I keep hanging on to the hurt and keep thinking of what they did to hurt me, they may think we're perfectly fine...and they're fine. But I am sipping on a cup of poison that eats at my heart, taking aways so much of the relationship I could have with God and people. Taking away so much of my ability to truly love. 

If you know me well, you know that I am an extremely sensitive person. 

And you also know that I have an overactive brain and overanalyze to the point where I can't sleep.

I get caught up on the past often. 

And I realized through this dream. 

That even though I have been made this way, I need to change something..or bitterness and pain from the past wrongs will eat me alive. 

And yes, people make bad choices that make it seem like God wasn't telling the truth when He said He has a plan to prosper me and not to harm me. But that's the amazing thing about free will. We make choices. And they're not always the right ones. And once they've been made there is no turning back. And sometimes our choices hurt people. But God works with it. He works in the hurt and in the pain. He always makes somehing beautiful come from it.

And He is ALWAYS there. He's there with me when I'm crumpled and wondering why. He's there when everythings right. And He is even there when I am angry, accusing, and questioning Him. And even when I want to give Him up...He is still there. 

He is always there. Through all the times I reject Him and his commands. And He never bitterly keeps records of all those times I've betrayed him. He forgives. He gave his son so I can live. ....So why aren't I living? Why am I letting the past keep me down. Why have I stopped fighting the fight? 

And if I want to be like Jesus...I need to do the same thing He does for me. 

I need to aim for perfect love. The kind of love 1 Corinthians 13 talks about. 

I need to throw away that book of wrongs that I have hidden in my heart....and for the last time, let it go. 

And start living life. 

And re-learn what it's like to really, really love. 

Colossians 3:12-14 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

1 Corinthians 13 4-8 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, itkeeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 Italways protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

All I Need

I see you 
I breathe your name 
I feel you 
I'm not the same 


In the sunrise 
In the evening sky 
In the kitchen 
In the birds that fly 


In the moonlight 
In the setting sun 
In the rushing wind 
You are the one 


Who makes the stars 
Dance in the sky 
Makes the rain fall 




Youre all I need 
Every blessing and more 

A Little Poem

Listen here, little one

I'm sad to see what you have done

You've taken love 

And mushed it up to gray

Distorted views 

Your minds askew

By the world full of satan's tools

To make us stray

Be careful heart of mine 

Of what you see and what you do

Love was never meant to be this way

Theres danger here 

But God is near 

Seek first the Lord

The rest will fall to place

Life Is Short

Life it too short for grudges.

Life is too short to keep our eyes on anything or anyone but Jesus.

Life is good. Live your life full. Be quick to forgive. Be patient. Be loving.

Even when it's hard.

Even when you were wronged.

Let it go.

Life is too short.

Timber-lee Garbage Cans/Thoughts

Note: This is my assignment I was supposed to do for Lindsay like 6 months ago. Haha.  A story about an object or creature. It had to take place at Timber-lee and needed to be a fable. I don’t really know if this is exactly a fable. (And really...its not good. hahah) But its based off of what I was thinking about today.

----

After being dumped in all morning by a mob of sticky fingered, snot nosed, children the crowd finally died down. The girls that stood behind me took a break to eat breakfast and soon after I knew what would happen. They would come by, dragging Bertha, and then the cups, and then the silverware away. I didn’t bother saying goodbye; I’d see them in three hours.

Sometimes I was taken straight back to the dumpster. Today it wasn’t just me that needed to be dumped, Charlie needed to go out too. The girl that normally takes me out back got distracted by other things and we were forgotten, yet again, the bags of wasted apples, biscuits, sausage patties, and other cumbersome breakfast items were heavy and I was ready for them to be out.

After quite some time, Charlie and I were dragged out the double doors. To my dismay, Charlie was taken first and in the process I was spun around and faced my reflection for the first time. I gazed at myself and was dismayed at my appearance. My lid was dark and slightly ajar, there were stains from this breakfast and previous meals smeared on my front, and my name was scrawled crooked. Roscoe was fading.

Suddenly I felt an overwhelming feeling of self-pity and uselessness wash over me. I watched the tables get washed each day, when I wasn’t facing the wall that is. The cups, the cup wracks, the silverware cart, and the tray cart came back after each meal, clean and rejuvenated. I was given evidence of how I was always the forgotten one.  Bitterness crept into my heart as I thought of those that had it better off than I did, getting washed five times a day and how my sole purpose was to contain people’s rejected meals. Why couldn’t I have a better purpose?

I stewed in my pool of negativity as the empty Charlie was returned, and I was emptied and brought back only for the endless cycle to contain. We were both taken back in and she put new white bags. Then she darted off and Roscoe and I were left alone to talk about the morning. (Salvador was there too, but he is mute.) Before I had the chance to pour my bitter thoughts out on him he said something.

“I want to share something with you Roscoe. This morning while you were being taken to the dumpster, I saw my reflection for the first time.”

I wanted to interrupt with my own thoughts but something inside me stopped to listen.

“I was thinking about how we don’t have the tidiest and most fun job out of all the things in the dining rooms.” Charlie sighed, “But if we didn’t exist; if we were, say, a table instead of a trashcan, there would be no place for the kids to throw their trash away and the whole place would be a mess. Everybody has a purpose, Roscoe.” (The End)

Random possibly unrelated thoughts:

I don’t like what Im doing right now. I am exhausted with both of my jobs. I have never felt more distant with everyone that’s in my life, no matter how close I am to them geographically. I haven’t been writing. I feel stuck. And it’s tiring…I want to quit so bad.

But I know there’s a reason I am where I am. And there is a reason I am going through what I am going through. It sucks. But I am going to use it to give God glory. Or try my hardest to do that. I am not giving up.

That is all.