Soap for Jesus

As we near the end of 2014, I once more pick up my pen...or more literally, tap at my keyboard, and attempt to search out a pattern of meaning in the old and mark a set number of steps in the new. And after such a long beginning sentence, I don't blame you if you've hit X. ;) It's 22:38, 10:38pm, on December 21st, 2014. Not sure about you, but I'm still having trouble typing 2014 instead of 2013. Maybe I left my brain as well as my heart in what is still, right now, last year. This year has been a year of new beginnings. Of false starts and many stops. Of broken hearts and despair. Of fresh hope and failed hope. Of a lost family and a new purpose. It's been, in short, a year. I started 2014 with the determination to keep an A4 sized diary, filled with the markings of how I spent every day, determined to use time wisely. That lasted til May. I was going to keep a jar full of the books I'd read. I lost the jar before I started. My journeys to and fr...

Writers. A forum. Testing waters, not yet knowing who we'd be. Fighting. Backsliding. Growing closer. Fought for me against them. Against the darkness. "Give them my email." He who was so cautious about letting other people have his details, gave them to fight for me. Arguing. Constantly. Respect. Never realising. I gave stuff up to talk. Constantly demanding to talk. Freaked out if he couldn't talk. He always made time. Even got grounded a few times because he went over the limit. Mentioned a girl he would like if he'd let himself. Realised. Ran. Two guys apart, I accepted it. Compliments from him, kind words, meant the world to me. I began to save them. A friend found out about it after the time that he said with me in the RAF and him at college/working, our friendship would probably disappear and I freaked. Then the friend let it loose to him. We talked. Agreed a time to separate and pray. I offered to kill it, told him I was being stupid. He asked ...

Recently, it was the birthday of The Dude. It was kinda a hard day, despite this place of constant peace and resting the Lord has provided. It took a bit of pondering, over the past few weeks, whether or not to send a birthday greeting. After all, he totally blanked (probably forgot, you know what men are like :P ) my birthday this year, in spite of our past friendship of seven years. The one part was going, "Well, I want to ignore him. He ignored me. Maybe I should just leave it to public holiday greetings from now." The catty, angry, self-righteous part wanted to send him a greeting, just to say to myself that at least I did the right thing. And both of them were holding back because, well, I don't want to give in to the self-righteous part. I want to love him right and purely. In the end, I sent it. Because holding back isn't an option. When you love, you give all, whether or not it's returned. It's a rejoicing day because someone is alive, someo...

*grins* That's a Black Country term, so most of y'all probably won't know that. ;) So here's me, in sweatshirt, fancy necklace and Mediæval bodice fresh from work, earbuds dangling and still distantly playing Mandisa's "What If We Were Real" album, pj trousers on and perched on a chair, typing this while gobbling up some pumpkin soup - WITH CHEESE. Scrummicking round the house, getting fed and watered before settling down to work at home for the evening. Y'know, it's impossible to explain the joy and peace that's been here the last few days. The period I've just gone through has been the blackest, spiritually, I remember walking through in the past four years, since my backslide when I was 17. I don't remember what jolted me to actually fighting again. I was convinced God wasn't going to fight for me anymore, and on being told that He was waiting for me to say no to doing wrong in the weakest area of my life and wasn't go...

I hate typing up stuff like this, because it feels crazy and I feel shy about being crazy. On occasion. :P For the first time in two months, I have inexplicable hope in my heart. I'm starting to weakly seek after God again in action, instead of stumbling blindly, hanging off maxims and knowledge and repeating words that ring dusty in my mouth, groping for a truth that I'm too tired to seek. Satan sure knows the places to shoot the Lord's servants down. Without the shadow of a doubt. Two months of being shaken and too tired to care. Giving up. The motions were those of moving forwards, when everything in me wanted to sit down in the road, cross my arms and refuse to do. Spiritually, emotionally, I had, and was wondering exactly how long it would be before it became visible to everyone. Spiritual decline is very quickly visible. The last weekend away at the Lauser family's home in Ireland really...helped. To stop. To look. To listen...to be forcibly embedded in God...

I've tried to follow God and seek Him and put Him first in my life, even when it seemed against impossible odds. I have tried to be meek and mild Siân, to the point of getting hurt a lot by avoiding the arguments online. I wanted to help people, even when the rest of the world told me it wasn't my business and I should leave it to older people with more maturity and responsibility. Two huge betrayals this year - and one last year - left me floundering. 1) The entire incident with Mr C. (Nov 2013) 2) The betrayal of OYAN (Feb/March 2014) 3) The near loss of my job (July 2014) I don't trust people any more. I can't. I can't even do what I was doing before and trust them to some level. I still talk to people about stuff - at all levels, but when they walk on me, it just doesn't bother me any more. I accept - even expect - everyone who walks into my life and wants to talk about the deep things is going to walk on me. That's just what people do. Doesn...

Dear World, It's me. Well. Not really. You don't know me. To some I'm a clump of cells, or to others I'm a living being from conception. You've yet to meet me, but I'm a baby growing inside my mommy. I'm supposed to be born in a few months, but there's a word she's using. Abortion. She says it with a pained voice, but at the same time, it's disgust. Disgust towards me or the abortion? Doesn't she want me? I'm a girl! I want to wear dresses, run through the yard and tackle my daddy when he comes home from work, and pick wild flowers for you, mommy. I keep growing, and I'm moving too. I feel mommy's hand next to me and she sings to me. I can hear her and daddy's laugh. They sound happy for me to arrive. But why does this abortion keep coming up? Don't they want me? I just want to see their faces... Won't you keep me? Adella ~ Dear World, My name is Adella. I'm sixteen years old and am a survivor. O...

I figured a lot of you could probably do with a touch of lightheartedness (with a pinch of truth) to end this week, after the hurt caused by a whole stinkin' mess of conversative Christians. So, here is the way to start a guy-girl friendship. Joel Parisi adopted me as his new big sister, though we're kinda more contemporaries. A little further on into the conversation (which is part serious, part fun): Joel: You really should get back to him. Even if you... don't feel comfortable? Skyping, just keeping up a correspondence would (I think) mean a lot to both of you. Me: *nods* Poke me until I do? Please? Joel: Sure. Me: Not. Literally. Joel: LOL yeah, I was totally going to fly over there and follow you around, poking you. :rofl: Me: *facepalm* Joel. Srsly. Joel: I's teasing!! Look, I'm not your usual oblivious guy. Me: NO! Really?!?! I'm shocked. Joel: If you say something that's a bit unclear, rest assured, I've usually got it....

Okay, I've had enough. For months I've taken what would be frankly considered abusive comments directed at me, deliberately belittling me (that's fair enough) and the God I serve - which hurts far worse. Because you don't think He's real, because you deny His existence because you don't want to, because He doesn't fit in your little code of right and wrong, because He doesn't do what you want Him to, because you simply "can't see Him", doesn't make it acceptable in the slightest to go mocking Him in public to those who DO believe in Him. If you had a relationship with Jesus Christ, you would have some idea exactly how much these comments hurt and upset me. But you don't. And I'm sorry - so sorry - for that. But I'm not forcing God on you. I answer questions when I see a genuine heart for questions, someone who is really searching for answers - not someone who simply wants to deride, mock or leave a trail of hurt in their...

"A Twist in Time" "You want me to be evil? Fine, I'll be evil." I raised my hands towards them, the pink sepphalite now flickering visibly between my fingers, revelling in the release of the power I had chained back for so long. "No, we don't want you to be evil! We just want you to be good, to give you a second chance. Why lie to us?" Snow asked me, tears rimming her lids. "You know what your problem is?" I watched the light grow stronger. "It's not that you want me to heal. It's that you want me to follow your kind of healing. No matter how hard I try to be good, it will never be good enough for you, because there is a certain route you won't be happy unless I take. You want me to kowtow and bend, to grovel and you want to see your final victory - good vanquishing evil. The knight slaying the dragon. You want me to be completely destroyed, humbled on the ground, because that's the way every good fairytale e...

As 2014 approaches its final season, I realise that I have been blogging for almost five years. I originally started this blog to talk about my adventures in the Air Cadets. Quickly, it became a place to share my thoughts and glimpses of my life, fun and laughter and occasionally tears. As my world turned upside down, it expanded to embrace a new mission - what I'd learned, how I'd grown, to reach out and try to help others to see that they are not alone. I started OYAN around the same time that I started the Air Cadets; later on, during my backsliding period of 2010, I was convinced to join the Rebelution - as well as make friends with a guy called Jay Lauser - and I made a bunch of new friends. Blogger was popular, and I added many of my friends as bloggers. Then Wordpress kicked in, and Blogger was past top-dog. One or two moved to Tumblr. Some moved to a different blogspot. Some created their own websites. I kept them on the little list to the side of my blog, for p...

I'd love to travel around the world. To see unusual sights. To walk where history happened, see it with my own eyes, dream of what happened. I'd love to go on an adventure, have my own pilot's licence. To learn languages, to reach out to others. And I would love to climb mountains. In my dreams, I do. Sheer drops, clear sharp air, stunning views...sunset, sunrise, physical tiredness instead of mental weariness, good times with friends... But my body struggles with a twenty minute climb up a hill. It requires fitness, energy, resilience to be able to climb a mountain. A lot of training. Preparation. To be able to make it from that struggling, panting walk of twenty minutes' steep slope to scaling peaks. We face mountains in life. Rugged, stony, crooked mountains. And we get a lot of painful training beforehand. Never regret the pain you're going through now. You don't know what mountain it will enable you to climb in the future. Climb the hills with ...

Note: The way I live out my faith is...somewhat radical, because I believe in an intimate relationship with Jesus. So be prepared. :P I felt sticky, and ugghy, and grotty and bleh as I stepped outside of the office building where I work. It was another dragging high pressure day, and as much as I love my job, the atmosphere (and the worry) sometimes gets to me. Pulling my phone out of my jacket pocket as I began the twenty(ish) minute walk to the train station, I tried to catch up on a few people's posts, shielding the phone from the glare of the sun. A dear friend and sister posted about how some cruel people had laughed and called her fat before running off, and how broken she was feeling. Couldn't do much, but posted a quick note and walked off praying for her. It's been a beautiful day, in the between. And the between is what counts, isn't it? For right now, I'm in the brightness, the sun shining bright and the world glowing with colour and hope and beau...

Sometimes I think the world has a clearer grasp of right and wrong than we as Christians do, although they try to explain it wrongly. Christians tend to blur up the Bible in an attempt to accept everything they see around them. "Oh, God can't have said. God didn't mean." Well, maybe He did and you just don't want to accept it because you're putting your little code of what you think is right and wrong before His. While our faith is based on historical facts and logical processes, most of the day to day living is a sheer walk of faith. After all, isn't that why it's called our "faith"? Faith like a child. Trusting. Simple. Daddy loves me enough to catch me when I jump. Mommy loves me enough to keep me away from the hot iron and the cars on the road. Faith that while we don't understand and maybe never will understand God's ways or reasoning, He is right and just. Faith means grasping the simplicity of life and leaving the conf...

You hear it all the time. Don't look for a man, look for God. God can fulfill all your deepest needs and meet every desire. The best man you can marry is a man that's looking for God more than you. And you believe it. You innocently set off to try and follow God to the best of your ability, to pursue and look for and love and serve God. You want a good marriage. You hope and pray God brings you a good man. You watch other people start out - couples of faith with faith in God that falter...and fall...because a unique trial tests them at their weakest point, their most vulnerable point...and. they. fall. They stop. Give up. Parents intervene. Oh, he wasn't for you. She wasn't Godly enough. Look at this flaw, look at that flaw, your friends say. Generational curses! Developmental faults! Oh my gosh, why get married at all!? The fact that some people even are is a miracle. Look at what you believe and look at the human race. Seven thousand years or so ago, God...