unorthodox

This is kind of strange. I suppose I just want to come forward and do something a little unorthodox; something possibly a little odd, but I think it's something I have to do.
If I tagged you in this note it is because I trust you, I think you deserve to know truth and deserve to know what is going on in my life and heart. So here goes.

I am struggling. I am not doing good. You may have noticed or you may not have. Regardless this is the truth. I have been trying my best to hide it; I have been trying my best to put on a mask, to put on a brave face and pretend like everything is going good. It's not as if my life is a wreck or like I am struggling with day to day living; but more on the spiritual end of things. I have a various assortment of masks that I have been wearing these past weeks, and months. Regardless of how strong I may see or how "together" might look; trust me.. I am not. I am not writing this to discourage you, but I feel I need to be truthful.
My heart feels as if it is being torn to pieces. I am pretty sure that I am not where I am supposed to be, yet I am terrified of where I am supposed to go. I am terrified of trusting God. So terrified that I can barely pray and worship has become so painful. It just seems that the more I realize what I need to do, the more I run in the wrong direction. These days, nothing feels right. Places where I used to feel so at home, like church or prayer, now seem like foreign places.
I want to say that I am not writing this for pity or for sympathy or empathy. I am writing this because I feel I have been fake with many of you. Spoken words that I am finding trouble believing, acting as if everything is ok when it most definitely has not been ok. I need to come clean with you all. Come clean to the fact that I have been lying in my actions and in my heart; that I have put on so many masks to hide the fact that I am not where I want to be, hide the fact that I can't seem to get back on track with God and with myself. I know this is rather out of the ordinary but if I can say this without seeming like I am contradicting myself, I think this is what we need right now. I think we need honesty. Honesty about where we are, honesty about what we're feeling, and honesty about struggles we may be having. We cannot be in community, I don't believe, if we are not completely and utterly honest with each other.

So I guess I'm just saying that I need to be truthful. I feel completely broken because I know exactly what I am supposed to do but I cannot do it. God is just asking me to trust him; but I am so scared to. I am terrified that if I trust him that everything will hit the fan again. I know all the great things about God: all knowing, all merciful, all loving, etc etc, and it's not as if I don't believe these things about him but I am just so scared that if I trust him that I will end up in the same place as I did last time I trusted God; fake and alone. When my mom died, I "knew" that it was God's plan; I "knew" that it was going to be ok.. But I was so busy being sure that it was God's plan that I did not grieve. I will always regret that. I regret not telling God that it wasn't fair. I regret every tear that I didn't cry. And now that I'm being ask to trust I am so scared of that same thing happening again.
I hate to say that I am scared to trust because I did it so "well" the first time around. Everyone would tell me how much I encouraged them with my faith despite of my mom's death. They were awestruck by how I trusted God even when everything was falling apart and now to tell them, you, that I am finding it so hard to trust just breaks my heart. I would wish that I could trust now as I did then but it's just so hard. I know that it is supposed to be hard, but right now I can't fight my own weakness, and I can barely stand on my own two spiritual feet. I am almost feeling now that I shouldn't be writing this; it seems like a "pity party", I want to assure you that it was not and is not meant to be that. I simply wanted to be honest with you. I wanted you to know that no matter how brave a face I put on right now; I am not perfect, I am not even imperfect, but I am broken.
I hope this wasn't discouraging. I don't expect that it was encouraging. But I hope that it.. I don't even know what I hope. Thanks for reading this and thank you for being my friend.

awake.

lying awake.
thoughts hurtling through my mind.
too scared to pray, not enough strength to cry.

change doesn't come. isn't coming.
will come? hopefully

can't sleep.
thoughts of misdeeds and wrong decisions.
situations replayed, choices second guessed.
too late to change the past.
too early to change the future?

drifting to sleep; wait.
got to run through the emotions first.
guilt.
pity.
sadness.
anger.
disbelief.
frustration.
peace?

no. not peace;
exhaustion overwhelms -
sleep comes.

Questions

I want to feel your presence again.
I don't want to be this person I'm becoming.
I don't know where you are, but maybe the question is: where am I?
Where is the person who I want to be?
Why have I fallen so far from where I need to be?
Why can't I get back to where I once was?
Why can't I just scream your name and find you once again?
Why? I don't know.
Can I get back to you? Always
Will you take me back? Of course.
Do I want to go back? If I can get there.
Do I miss what I used to have? Yes.
Why don't I just go back already? Because I am too weak.
Why don't I ask for help? Because I'm stubborn.
Why don't I just realize that I need you? Because I know I do, but I'm scared to screw up again.
When will I be whole again? ...... sometime?
Will I find you, will I cry out to you? I hope so.
Will you hear me? Yes.
Will I listen to your answer? I hope so.

I don't want to be where I am, but I'm not going anywhere.
Help get me out of this place.

Random, random - from my facebook account...

t's funny how instead of doing homework I'd rather write a note here on the horrendously addicting and time wasting facebook. I mean, I'm not even sure what I want to write about. A couple of days ago I meant to write a note, about what I could not tell you. Not because it's scandalous or anything of that sort but because I simply cannot remember. Isn't it strange how thoughts come and go so quickly. One will float into our minds one minute and flit out the next. I find that most days my mind has so many thoughts that they cannot be counted or measured by anything but other days my mind has only a few thoughts that play in my mind as if they are on "repeat" and "shuffle", always the same thoughts but always in seemingly different orders. The mind is a beautiful but scary thing. Many great inventions, games, music, speeches, and the like were first created in some great mind but on the flip side of that, so to were many horrible ideas, plots, schemes and other such things dreamt up in the terrible minds of history. The mind is where battles of will take place; where one fights addiction and bad habits. Spiritual battles also seem to enjoy the squishy, gray mass inside our craniums as a field for their fighting. Countless times people encounter voices arguing in their heads over what they should or should not do in certain situations. Our minds are the source of great power. We can choose to use them for good or bad. Every day we are faced with making that witty but hurtful comment at someones expense or not. It will make us look smart, but should we want to look smart for causing another persons embarrassment? Many times, in my mind at least, minds can cause depression or sadness. As I mull over issues of the day, I find times where I could have done something better, or where I said something I shouldn't. My mind won't allow me to forgive myself, it makes me see every part of me that is bad. It ponders every conversation I had throughout the day. It tears apart every interaction, every thought, every word. Minds can cause people to feel unloved even if they most definitely are. Again this is where the spiritual comes in. Lies from the Evil creep into our minds and plant seeds. Seeds that if left to their own devices can tear apart a persons psyche. Every look becomes a "glare", every word becomes an insult. If we don't solidify ourselves in what we believe and what we know to be true then we can easily fall into the trap of believing these lies. We must protect ourselves and know that we are created in the image of a perfect God. And know that even when we think that no one else loves us that there is the One that matters, the One who loves us no matter what. The One who loves us unconditionally. The mind is a dangerous place. We must stand firm in the arms of God and know that we are loved and that every thought we have is known by God.
Alright, well that turned out different that I would have expected when I started to write it. Interesting, interesting. The mind. Indeed.
(January 18th, 2008)

Faded Friendships

Why do friendships fade?
How is it that for so long you can be so tight with a person and then the next thing you know you hardly talk to that person and nothing feels right anymore?
Why? Why does it have to hurt so much and feel so weird?
I guess friends grow apart and friends grow together. Either way, you've had a good time I guess?

Bathing.... in the dark?

So last semester I was “trying” to study for my Astronomy final by reading my textbook. As I was reading I kept getting distracted by every little thing so I thought, I’ll take a bath, nothing to distract me in there -- I’ll read my textbook in the bath, yup brilliant. So I get my bath all ready and I take my textbook in there and start reading. I guess before I go on I should explain how our bathroom lights are set up: the sink is separate from the bathroom (so the toilet and shower are in one little room and the sink is next to it.. picking up what I’m laying down? -- I hope so) and they each have their own lights, but there is one switch for both of the lights. Now that that is clear, back to my story. So I’m sitting in the bathtub reading away... or rather, almost falling asleep when I hear my roommate get up and come over to the “bathroom area”. I guess she decided to wash her hands or something. Anyways, she does whatever she was doing at the sink and she turns the lights off (remember the one switch that controls both lights?). I think to myself, oh, well she probably just forgot momentarily that I’m in here and will flick the lights back on after she remembers, especially because when she’s in the shower and I brush my teeth I always almost turn the lights out on her but I catch myself. So I’m sitting there in the dark waiting for the lights to come back on... but they don’t. I hear her leave the “bathroom area” and go back to the other part of our room. At this point I’m thinking, CRAP! So I start yelling her name, “KYLA!!! KYLA!!!”, then I hear her get up from her bed again and I’m thinking, yeah, she’s going to come turn the lights on!!!, but then I hear her walk past the “bathroom area” and walk into the hallway. I’m like, what the heck is she doing??, I guess she thought someone was calling her from down the hall. So then as she’s coming back into our room I time my cry for help for when she’s right by the “bathroom area” and again, I hear her turn around and go back into the hall. But this time she goes down the hall into my friend Arielle’s room. Turns out she went to ask Arielle if she was calling her, of course Arielle is so confused. Meanwhile, I’m sitting buck-naked in the bathtub, in the dark. Next, the phone rings, so Kyla answers it and its her family. So I’m like, frick, I’m never getting the lights turned back on am I?, so I just decide to get out and get dressed because I’m obviously not getting any reading done now that I’m sitting in a pool of my own filth in the dark. So I climb out of the tub, get dressed and wander my way out into our room. My roommate, Kyla, is sitting on her bed talking to her Dad on the phone, so I hand signal her that she turned off the lights on me, and she gasps SO loud into the phone. It was so funny. She like covers the mouthpiece and looks at me with big eyes and says, “Oh my gosh Katie, I’m so sorry!!!” And I just burst out laughing. I was probably sitting in the dark for like 10(ish) minutes.

thoughts for missions

Looking at what "missionaries" have done in the name of Christ in the past frighten me. These missionaries thought that what they were doing, civilizing and assimilating native peoples, was right. It is one thing to share the Good News of Christ, it is another to push and force Christianity and "civilization" on people. God does not tell us to "Go and civilize the world", he tells us to "Go and make disciples of all people". When we decide that our "Western", culture, technologies, and politics are the only way to live in this world, we cross a line. This is arrogance and immaturity in the biggest form. God tells us to be a light to the nations, he doesn't tell us to "take our lights" to the nations. It is important to remember this in the mission field. We must remember that God has a plan. Remember that whatever we do in the mission field must come from God. We cannot lean on our own understanding. Dependence on our own understanding has and will lead to wrongs being done in the name of Christ. I believe the basis of missions must be in love. When love is not present in the missions field, the focus shifts from serving God's people and spreading the Good News to "how can we bring our culture to these people and make their lives better?" It cannot be this way. God is not culture, he is not wealth. God is love, mercy, salvation. He loves diversity, he did not create just one society for a reason. We cannot say that God wants the world to be streamlined when it was his hands that created it to be unique.

"hard"

Life is hard.





Or is it?
Maybe life is just what we make it to be. Maybe we are too preoccupied with what we want or with what other people want from us to realize how easy life is. Or maybe how much easier life could be. This is not about saying that life is a breeze, but it is about saying that maybe life is not as difficult as we make it out to be.
Life might be a whole lot simpler if we just listened. If we listened not only with our ears, but also with our eyes, hearts, and feelings. I'm going to disregard the fact that many of you will have stopped reading the moment I mentioned listening with parts other than our ears. I know that it sounds all spacey, but it is so important. There is so much said without words. People can guard their words and pretend that they are okay, but body language will betray even the best actors. Maybe there would be less broken hearts and less hurt feelings if we listened, and I mean really listened, to the people and the world around us.
Life also may be simpler if we could let go of our notion of what is best. Do we really know what is best? Do we, who only see tomorrow, know what is best for the rest of our lives? Or should we trust the One who knows all, who saw us before we were born and the one who knows the plans he has for us. Life would be so much easier if we just trusted him. If we just allowed our plans to be his plans. If we let go of what we want, of what we think is right for us. There are decisions in life. And usually they are what makes life hard. These decisions do not need to cause us so much grief. No. We just need to remember that whatever decision we make, God will use it. He will use it to his glory. God delights in us. He even delights in our mistakes because he can use those mistakes to bring glory to his name. However, if we seek him out, if we seek God's will, he is faithful to guide us. And in his guidance, he guides our decisions.

If we learn to listen to those around us and we learn to listen and trust in our faithful God, life would be a whole lot less "hard".

The only One.

Why can one have so many friends, yet feel like a complete outcast? Does that mean that those said friendships are not real friendships? Why is it that relationships cost so must? Why, for real relationship, does one have to bear it all? Is it the opening of one's most innermost feelings that allows for love to take place? It can be said that healing is found in the bearing of those wounds, but does relationship actually flow from that openness? Or does actually saying what one means get a person in trouble?
Do real friends care about what is going on in your life? Or do real friends care enough not to ask? In Christian circles we are called to community, yet when we reveal what is on our hearts we are suddenly in the middle of a, for lack of a better word, "shit-storm". When our emotions are brought to the surface people do not deal well with it. People are broken. And that inherent brokenness is what keeps us from loving; it is what keeps us from forgiving. And what intrinsically keeps us from freedom. There is no freedom in being broken people if we do not acknowledge our Savior. There is freedom in being broken, bruised, and wounded if one is at the feet of Jesus but it seems, at least in our world, that to be broken in the face of friends and family is NOT freeing. To admit brokenness is to admit defeat.
Brokenness should not be shunned. Emotions cannot be downplayed as frivolous parts of life. They are the opposite of frivolous, they are essential. Without emotions how does one love, how does one live?
As I write this I realize my own hypocrisy. There have been so many times where I have looked at someone's emotions and thought, "How useless". And there have been times where I have hidden my own emotions deep within my heart so as not to look weak. As I type these words I am hiding my emotions, and baggage. I feel like I always seem to be the one wearing her "emotions on her sleeve" and I am tired of being the only one. I am tired of being scared that the people I share my emotions with do not actually care. If we all shared what was on our hearts, being vulnerable would not be so difficult. We could be free to weep without fear of judgement. But living in the world we do, I cannot see how is this possible. Where strength and toughness get people ahead in life, there is not much room for the hurting, for the broken.
There is one place we can find rest. There is one person who TRULY does care. He never changes and he himself was broken so we could live. Jesus wants to hear what is hurting. He wants to heal and he wants to love. We just need to be willing, willing to lay broken and humbled at his feet.

If only.

Emptiness.
Where does it come from?
Why does it come? Why does it come when we are filled with so much?
My heart should be content, yet its not.
It yearns and longs for something more. I know exactly what that "more" is but yet I can't bring myself to seek it out, to search for it.
Why do emptiness and loneliness come together? Why do they come when one is surrounded by so many people? Why do they often appear when standing in a room full of people?
Why is it that we are known by so many people but no one really knows "us"?
Why does that question completely contradict itself?
Does it mean that we can never be known or loved?
Why is it that we know that there is the One who loves us and yet we turn away? Are we afraid? Are we scared to admit that someone actually knows us? Does it terrify us to know that someone loves us in spite of everything we hide from everyone else? Why is it so hard to see and accept the love that He has for us? Why do we run so hard in the wrong direction?
His arms are spread wide. He is waiting. He is waiting to be embraced. Yet we're so scared that we can't accept it. It's like that hug from the Auntie you don't really know. You know that she loves you but you don't know her well enough to accept that love.
Why?
If I could answer this life would be different. Life wouldn't feel so empty at times. Rooms full of people wouldn't feel so lonely. If only we, if only we could embrace the love that is waiting for us.
If only.

Do you ever find it funny that you don't realize how much you miss someone?
I mean, you know in your heart that you miss them, but until you actually sit and think about it, you don't actually realize the emptiness in your heart made by their absence.
I'm not just talking about people who have passed on, but friends, family, friends that are so close that they are like family, who you haven't seen in a while. It's not even like you never see them at all, it's just that you don't see them very often and when you do, nothing substantial is talked about. It's generally just the common, and often superficial, conversation "How are you? Good and you?". When do we get to go past that? When and how can friends bare their hearts if all they have time for is a 15 minute conversation? Look at your life. Look at who you love the most, then ask yourself if you really "know" them. Look past the fact that you talk to them every day and look at what kind of substance those conversations hold. Does it go more in depth than the regular, run of the mill conversation?
Now look at those people who you haven't seen in a while. Think about conversations you've had with them. I can think of numerous people who have had drastic impacts on my life. And among these people are those who I don't talk to as much any more. I miss their input. I miss the fact that they are willing to listen to the cries of one lowly girl who feels less and than worth it. For example, I haven't had a substantial conversation with my one good friend since before the start of fall semester. Now this person has had a tremendous impact on my life. When I was missing my mom, the warmth and love of an older woman in my life, this friend stepped in. She loved me and helped me to turn to God when no one else could fill that burden in my heart. Recently I received an email from this friend and as I was emailing her back, I could feel my eyes filling with tears. It's not as if we have stopped talking on purpose or that we hate each other or anything like that. However, her love and impact on my life are greatly missed. Distance has caused communication barriers but I know that she will always have a special place in my heart. It's like that old sweater that you might not wear very often anymore but when you do, everything feels right. You can't seem to throw it out because there would be a hole in your closet that cannot be filled by any new sweater that you buy.
I think it is the same with good friends. When someone comes into your life and changes you, changes you for the better, you will never forget them. You will never be satisfied by another friendship in the same way. Friends are so important. They help pick you up when you can't do it yourself. They help defend your heart when you're too blind to see the arrows flying at it. Friends have the power to make every day a better day. They have the power to change even the darkest day to light. Without friends, how can we experience the community that God has created people for?
I know that this blog is all over the place, but I guess that's what happens when I write what's on my mind. (haha) So enjoy it, or don't. Take it or leave it.

This is it.

This is it.
My first, well, okay, technically second "first" blog post on blogger... I deleted my first one after noticing that I had a spelling mistake in the title of my blog. (yes, I was ashamed and I couldn't change it...)
So, in this blog you'll find random, funny, sad, influential, angry, emotional, and silly posts...
Most likely the entries you find will range from random middle of the night ramblings to mid-afternoon jaunts with numerous verbs, nouns, and adjectives....
Some days I'll try to lighten your mood and others I'll be trying to get those tear ducts a-flowing (not on purpose, it just tends to happen sometimes). So prepare yourselves for the emotional rollercoaster called: "The Random Thoughts of One Wallbaum".

So hope to be radically annoying/influencing ya'll sometime soon.