God's Given Up On Me
Believe it or not, this was actually a planned post over the last couple of days. Because I tend to preach things when I'm struggling with them; post encouragement when I'm in desperate need of it; write words that I know are true to make myself believe them, as well as you.
I can't remember the original substance of this post, as hard as I'm trying to recall it and wind it in with what I'm writing now.
I write a lot on Twitter; in fact, I'm more open on Twitter than on Facebook because I feel safer. My tweets get lost in millions of others, and only two specific people watch my tweets to see how I am. So I thought.
I've received rebukes off people before for being too open, being too depressing. Watching my kids recently turn away from God and to despair added into the fact that I'm getting left behind by many of my friends as they enter college/leave college and-or get married was just part of the unconscious building up of "hard evidence" in my head that God was done with me.
In fact, I walked into my silent room in the silent house tonight and said aloud,
"So that's it, then. God's done with me. I love my job, love coming home and going online for a bit and then going to bed. I am doing everything with my life that I didn't want to do; I'm not a hero. I don't even want to change the world any more - I just want to curl up in the house and stay here. I don't help my kids; I don't help anybody. About the best I can do is write up my autobiography and that'll be it." And that is pretty much exactly what I said.
I walked out of my room, outside, got the washing in and sang (The Hills Are Alive, When I Survey and Amazing Grace :P) while grounding and then came to my laptop. Clear Facebook, watch Poirot, maybe chat, write a section of autobiography, then go to bed early (I'll explain that in a minute!). That was pretty much the substance of it.
(Aha, that was what the substance of this post was going to be. *lightbulb*)
"Siân, do you want me to wake you in the morning?" George asked.
Knowing that the parents were leaving at 5am, I refused. "My alarm clock'll wake me; it'll be fine."
I shut my laptop down at 00:46 (approx) and fell asleep.
Turning over, I glanced at the curtains of my single window and the cracks around my door. Broad daylight. _Ohmygosh_. I rolled out of bed and down the ladder (yes, I did roll down the ladder) and picked up my phone.
9 missed calls. 5 messages. 0945. For one fleeting second, I desperately hoped it was Saturday, but it wasn't. Oh. My. Gosh.
I have never thrown clothes on so fast, brushed my teeth and hair so fast or pasted on mascara so fast. I rang my manager as soon as I got into the living room and my Mom straight after to get her to pray, but she was in the petrol station. I mean, a couple of days after my contract is briefly extended and I sleep in like this.
Made it down to the station for 10:18...and the 10:24 was delayed. Ash text me, asking if I was okay and coming in today (as yesterday I'd had really bad dizzy spells and couldn't look down at all for half the day). I said I'd explain when I got in and that I was really sorry and furious at myself. He said not to worry, just breathe and relax and it would be okay.
There are definitely days when I'm very thankful for Ash. :)
Ach, trying to combat the self-abuse with Scripture and music...tis hard. :P
I rode into work on the train curiously peaceful (and by that I mean, I wasn't attacking myself mentally as much as usual; somehow, God gave me unexplainable peace). Even if I lose/lost my job, I know that "what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger," and He was with me.
Into work at 11:05, bags down and straight to my manager's desk. He was so nice about it...just said it was fine, they were worried about me after the email yesterday and that it happened to everyone. I was nearly in tears and he was almost chuckling at me. *smiles a bit*
All of the guys I work with were really nice about it...I could see God's kindness in the day.
Worked through lunch...Angela's presentation (she was leaving today :( )...then upstairs to training. The guys complimented me on training them well, which was very good. Their eagerness to do the work thoroughly and well also made me pretty happy. I enjoy working a lot with the guys, and my manager's complimented me on taking ownership of the team (what else do you expect from an ex-corporal? :P )
I was thoroughly intending to work through to last man standing, but my manager said I could make the two hours up next week. So with Mother Krissy waiting impatiently, I logged off and headed down the pub for Angela's leaving do. Krissy bought me a Coke (she mothers/looks after me so much XD) and I sat and watched the guys before Steve came and chatted to me until I left at half six.
As usual walking back, the way I was raised and the people I love caused questions to raise in my mind about the clothes I'm wearing and being at the pub. I don't have any problem with those, but how much am I standing out for Christ by doing them?
It's not like I make going down the pub a habit, though, and with my alcohol tolerance level steadily dropping, I no longer drink at all.
Then again, I love my colleagues, get along with them fairly well and know where I stand with them (aka, some don't like me, a lot tolerate/like me and a few genuinely like me).
I had the opportunity of going to Youth Group tonight, but turned it down due to the trekking around on public transport, plus late at night, plus I had to get home to the dogs, plus I feel...on edge. Christians are far more apt to judge other Christians, and for the wrong reasons, than even the world is, and there are only two people in the group that I feel certain of being comfortable around.
As I walked back to the train station, trying to fill the empty part inside with the music and reminding myself to keep marching on, I again tried to trust to God my fears that He had done with me, stopped using me.
The guy I love is gone. My USA family was taken. America is no longer a new beginning, no longer the land of second chances - I am fixed in a place where I'd hoped to get away from to start again, stop being the person I am watching myself become.
He's here. I'm trying to delight myself in the strange rest that is actually happening - enforcedly. For nearly five years, it's been constant struggle, trouble. And now, to the eyes of everyone, I have a pretty good life. Mom married and settled, living at home in a cottage in the country, good job - VERY good job for 21... It's never the material things, though, is it? :)
But physically, yes, it is restful. I'm kind of helping enforce the rest, for the first time.
Please note, I don't enjoy pain and there's been so much of it. When you constantly have one blow after another, though, and it suddenly stops - yes, you kind of panic.
Why am I being allowed to rest? Is some huge blow coming? Has God given up on me? Did He take Mr. C. away because He thought I was a failure and had no more chances at changing too?
Apparently not...
I mean, I'm still breathing. If God had finished with my life and was ready to take me home, then I wouldn't be breathing any more. :P
Moses.
Like what? Yes, Moses.
He had. The. Most traumatic childhood you could imagine.
From the day of his birth, he had people trying to kill him.
At three months, his mom puts him in a basket on a wild river regarded as a god and sends him to Heaven-knows-where.
Then he ends up floating to the feet of the daughter of the guy who issued an edict to kill him and the rest of his people. She likes him.
Taken back home, nursed by his own mother, then brought back to the palace and adopted as the grandson of his would-be-murderer.
Duh, yeah.
He lives a life of two identities - (he's fully aware of his Israelite heritage, remember) until he's forty, at which point he kills a man who's beating one of his slave-brothers and flees out of Egypt into THE DESERT with his adopted grandpa's hired murderers at his heels. Again.
For the second time in forty years, Moses is on active death threat from the guy with possibly the highest power in the known world.
Then he finds these random girls in the wilderness and stands up for them against a bunch of abusive male shepherds. Moses, probably sick of trying to do right by now, helps them out and gets their flock fed.
Then look. He's adopted by Reuel, their father, and given a daughter out of his seven. He's married, living with a family, in the humblest life imaginable - a shepherd.
Now, a shepherd isn't an easy life - don't get me wrong. Constantly on the look out for marauders, thieves, wild animals; constantly trying to find water in the wilderness to feed the flock; finding constantly wandering sheep. But after everything else, it had got to be like a new life. A restful life. Family. A wife. Sons. Steady job. Duh.
For another forty years. He had a lonnnnng rest.
That was before he unwillingly got dragged out of it to lead over a million people out of the land of Egypt with more death threats and complaints and trouble than he ever anticipated. His first forty years had to be peanuts compared to that.
But. My point was that God hadn't left him. Even when he thought he was alone and lost in the wilderness, God was still watching over him, preparing him for the time to come - the rougher time, but the better. Not in a king's palace with wealth and education, but on the King's mountain with tablets of stone, seeing God face to face.
But even constantly reminding yourself of Moses can get weary. For it's all one thing to watch God looking after you and remembering that He used someone in the past after a long period of rest, but now is now.
I got home and realised that I hadn't posted on Facebook a photo of what arrived yesterday - the tickets to the Julie Andrews concert next Saturday and an unexpected parcel (I just love those!) which was a book by Katie Lynn Daniels - Superhero of the Day.
I tried to read the signature but couldn't, and as I hadn't read any of the series before, I didn't get the label on the envelope. Due to it coming from Kentucky, I suspected Adrienne, but she quickly denied it. I thought it could be Katie herself, but I couldn't remember giving her my address.
So posting it on FB was the best way to unmask my mysterious sender. (Didn't that line sound good? ;) )
The caption was, "So these came in the post yesterday.
You can count me as one very excited young woman!
Still not sure who I'm blaming for the book. :P <3 <3 <3" and I tagged Katie in it, both as author and suspect. I'm actually going to post the entire comments section up for you, so if you want to skip, feel free. (Inserting a break here, because the text keeps turning into block text for no reason and bold sentences seem to cure it. :P )
Andrew Abraham: I wish I could put my hand up and say guilty but I can't. I've not even read this yet
16 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Adrienne Niceley: That. Book. Is. Awesome. Me and Lex LOVE it! Oh wait... that's one we haven't read yet but want to.... well the first book of that series is awesome and we love it!
16 hours ago · Edited · Unlike · 1
Siân Garner-Jones: Adrienne. It said Kentucky. Am I blaming you?
15 hours ago · Like
Adrienne Niceley: Nope, I am not to blame this time.
15 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Siân Garner-Jones: Katie, is it you?
15 hours ago · Like
Patricia Gallie: Thanks for straightening the picture!
15 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Andrew Abraham Adrienne Niceley of course it's awesome I've read all the other Supervillain of the Day books and Katie Lynn Daniels is one talented author.
15 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Siân Garner-Jones You're welcome. I was hoping I could get it straightened before you saw it, Grandma Pat.
15 hours ago · Like · 1
Katie Lynn Daniels Considering I'm the one who signed it...I should certainly hope it's me. I wrote a note to you in it and everything.
15 hours ago · Unlike · 2
Siân Garner-Jones HOW DID I MISS THOSE!?!? *flies back to the book and tacklehugs*
(At this point, I got up and went to fetch the book.)
Katie Lynn Daniels: Considering I'm the one who signed it...I should certainly hope it's me. I wrote a note to you in it and everything.
And the number of people admitting to not having read this one are making me feel considerably less guilty about taking so long to get the next one out. * eyeroll *
14 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Katie Lynn Daniels: Well, they're on the dedication, not the title page, for....reasons.
14 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Siân Garner-Jones: *sits down with stuffsies*
14 hours ago · Like
(Literally sat down and looked through all the bookmarks and papery things. And then opened it to the page where there was a knife to her throat. *end spoiler*)
Andrew Abraham: Sorry Katie monies are not co-operating. But I will get it for sure and give you a review
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones: OHMYGOSH.
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones: Okay. Forget this. Forget Doctor Who. *curls up with the book*
KATIE NEVER GIVE A BOOK TO AN ADDICT OKAY DEAR. V_V
14 hours ago · Edited · Like · 2
(At this point, I flipped back to the beginning of the book and it opened to the dedication page.
"For Sian
For being the bravest person I know")
Siân Garner-Jones: ....
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones you did what.
14 hours ago · Like
(Then I read her message.
"Dear Sian, Your Twitter and FB updates break my heart. I don't know the details and I never know what to say - and so I am silent. And I worry sometimes that you think I don't care. But what can I _possibly_ say in response to everything you go through every day?
And so I wrote you a book. I hope you enjoy it and don't find me too presumptious.
With all my love,
Katie Lynn Daniels 4/16/2014"
...and started crying.
Katie and I are friends, and have chatted a couple of times, but not very frequently - so this had even more impact on me.)
Siân Garner-Jones: Can I talk to you?
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones: Like, please.
14 hours ago · Like
Katie Lynn Daniels: Yes, absolutely.
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones: Oh Katie.
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones: I'm crying but it's good tears, I promise.
14 hours ago · Like · 1
Siân Garner-Jones: I think Imma blog about this.
***
It's hard to write in text what that actually meant to me.
The amount of times I feel alone and forgotten are so, so often. The amount of times and consistency with which I forget how many people remember me daily in their prayers and thoughts is shameful.
I'm sorry.
I get so disheartened by the fact that few people seem to even follow what I'm doing/saying, and I know that it's not ME that it's about, and then I get scared that I want people to focus on me and not on Him, but I want to point to Him and feel like I'm failing...
To find that in my narrowing world of cyclic routine that someone breaks the "chain of evidence that God isn't using me"...someone from the other side of the world follows what I'm going through, silently cares and uses her talent to reach out to tell me that she loves and cares in such a strong way...such a hard way...that my life has made an impact on her...
That God is still using me. Even though I can't see it.
Watching God use her to bless me.
To touch me.
To signpost that He's not done yet.
As Mama says,
"More are seeing than you will ever know. Keep doing what you know is right and leave the results up the Lord."
Thank you, Katie, for making far more of an impact than I think you were expecting. Thank you for being surrendered to the Lord and letting Him use you. Thank you for blessing me and I pray it is returned to you over and over again. <3 <3 <3
Oh, and. Congratulations on managing to hear even a word of what I said...never mind my accent. :P
This post is getting long and if you've read this far, congratulations!
I'll sign off now, but - I pray this will bless you too.
God's not done with you as long as you've got breath in your body, no matter if you can see results or not. Keep following where He's leading, no matter how plain the path or how long the road.
He is worth your life.
I promise.
In His Name I stand,
~Siân
I can't remember the original substance of this post, as hard as I'm trying to recall it and wind it in with what I'm writing now.
I write a lot on Twitter; in fact, I'm more open on Twitter than on Facebook because I feel safer. My tweets get lost in millions of others, and only two specific people watch my tweets to see how I am. So I thought.
I've received rebukes off people before for being too open, being too depressing. Watching my kids recently turn away from God and to despair added into the fact that I'm getting left behind by many of my friends as they enter college/leave college and-or get married was just part of the unconscious building up of "hard evidence" in my head that God was done with me.
In fact, I walked into my silent room in the silent house tonight and said aloud,
"So that's it, then. God's done with me. I love my job, love coming home and going online for a bit and then going to bed. I am doing everything with my life that I didn't want to do; I'm not a hero. I don't even want to change the world any more - I just want to curl up in the house and stay here. I don't help my kids; I don't help anybody. About the best I can do is write up my autobiography and that'll be it." And that is pretty much exactly what I said.
I walked out of my room, outside, got the washing in and sang (The Hills Are Alive, When I Survey and Amazing Grace :P) while grounding and then came to my laptop. Clear Facebook, watch Poirot, maybe chat, write a section of autobiography, then go to bed early (I'll explain that in a minute!). That was pretty much the substance of it.
(Aha, that was what the substance of this post was going to be. *lightbulb*)
"Siân, do you want me to wake you in the morning?" George asked.
Knowing that the parents were leaving at 5am, I refused. "My alarm clock'll wake me; it'll be fine."
I shut my laptop down at 00:46 (approx) and fell asleep.
Turning over, I glanced at the curtains of my single window and the cracks around my door. Broad daylight. _Ohmygosh_. I rolled out of bed and down the ladder (yes, I did roll down the ladder) and picked up my phone.
9 missed calls. 5 messages. 0945. For one fleeting second, I desperately hoped it was Saturday, but it wasn't. Oh. My. Gosh.
I have never thrown clothes on so fast, brushed my teeth and hair so fast or pasted on mascara so fast. I rang my manager as soon as I got into the living room and my Mom straight after to get her to pray, but she was in the petrol station. I mean, a couple of days after my contract is briefly extended and I sleep in like this.
Made it down to the station for 10:18...and the 10:24 was delayed. Ash text me, asking if I was okay and coming in today (as yesterday I'd had really bad dizzy spells and couldn't look down at all for half the day). I said I'd explain when I got in and that I was really sorry and furious at myself. He said not to worry, just breathe and relax and it would be okay.
There are definitely days when I'm very thankful for Ash. :)
Ach, trying to combat the self-abuse with Scripture and music...tis hard. :P
I rode into work on the train curiously peaceful (and by that I mean, I wasn't attacking myself mentally as much as usual; somehow, God gave me unexplainable peace). Even if I lose/lost my job, I know that "what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger," and He was with me.
Into work at 11:05, bags down and straight to my manager's desk. He was so nice about it...just said it was fine, they were worried about me after the email yesterday and that it happened to everyone. I was nearly in tears and he was almost chuckling at me. *smiles a bit*
All of the guys I work with were really nice about it...I could see God's kindness in the day.
Worked through lunch...Angela's presentation (she was leaving today :( )...then upstairs to training. The guys complimented me on training them well, which was very good. Their eagerness to do the work thoroughly and well also made me pretty happy. I enjoy working a lot with the guys, and my manager's complimented me on taking ownership of the team (what else do you expect from an ex-corporal? :P )
I was thoroughly intending to work through to last man standing, but my manager said I could make the two hours up next week. So with Mother Krissy waiting impatiently, I logged off and headed down the pub for Angela's leaving do. Krissy bought me a Coke (she mothers/looks after me so much XD) and I sat and watched the guys before Steve came and chatted to me until I left at half six.
As usual walking back, the way I was raised and the people I love caused questions to raise in my mind about the clothes I'm wearing and being at the pub. I don't have any problem with those, but how much am I standing out for Christ by doing them?
It's not like I make going down the pub a habit, though, and with my alcohol tolerance level steadily dropping, I no longer drink at all.
Then again, I love my colleagues, get along with them fairly well and know where I stand with them (aka, some don't like me, a lot tolerate/like me and a few genuinely like me).
I had the opportunity of going to Youth Group tonight, but turned it down due to the trekking around on public transport, plus late at night, plus I had to get home to the dogs, plus I feel...on edge. Christians are far more apt to judge other Christians, and for the wrong reasons, than even the world is, and there are only two people in the group that I feel certain of being comfortable around.
As I walked back to the train station, trying to fill the empty part inside with the music and reminding myself to keep marching on, I again tried to trust to God my fears that He had done with me, stopped using me.
The guy I love is gone. My USA family was taken. America is no longer a new beginning, no longer the land of second chances - I am fixed in a place where I'd hoped to get away from to start again, stop being the person I am watching myself become.
He's here. I'm trying to delight myself in the strange rest that is actually happening - enforcedly. For nearly five years, it's been constant struggle, trouble. And now, to the eyes of everyone, I have a pretty good life. Mom married and settled, living at home in a cottage in the country, good job - VERY good job for 21... It's never the material things, though, is it? :)
But physically, yes, it is restful. I'm kind of helping enforce the rest, for the first time.
Please note, I don't enjoy pain and there's been so much of it. When you constantly have one blow after another, though, and it suddenly stops - yes, you kind of panic.
Why am I being allowed to rest? Is some huge blow coming? Has God given up on me? Did He take Mr. C. away because He thought I was a failure and had no more chances at changing too?
Apparently not...
I mean, I'm still breathing. If God had finished with my life and was ready to take me home, then I wouldn't be breathing any more. :P
Moses.
Like what? Yes, Moses.
He had. The. Most traumatic childhood you could imagine.
From the day of his birth, he had people trying to kill him.
At three months, his mom puts him in a basket on a wild river regarded as a god and sends him to Heaven-knows-where.
Then he ends up floating to the feet of the daughter of the guy who issued an edict to kill him and the rest of his people. She likes him.
Taken back home, nursed by his own mother, then brought back to the palace and adopted as the grandson of his would-be-murderer.
Duh, yeah.
He lives a life of two identities - (he's fully aware of his Israelite heritage, remember) until he's forty, at which point he kills a man who's beating one of his slave-brothers and flees out of Egypt into THE DESERT with his adopted grandpa's hired murderers at his heels. Again.
For the second time in forty years, Moses is on active death threat from the guy with possibly the highest power in the known world.
Then he finds these random girls in the wilderness and stands up for them against a bunch of abusive male shepherds. Moses, probably sick of trying to do right by now, helps them out and gets their flock fed.
Then look. He's adopted by Reuel, their father, and given a daughter out of his seven. He's married, living with a family, in the humblest life imaginable - a shepherd.
Now, a shepherd isn't an easy life - don't get me wrong. Constantly on the look out for marauders, thieves, wild animals; constantly trying to find water in the wilderness to feed the flock; finding constantly wandering sheep. But after everything else, it had got to be like a new life. A restful life. Family. A wife. Sons. Steady job. Duh.
For another forty years. He had a lonnnnng rest.
That was before he unwillingly got dragged out of it to lead over a million people out of the land of Egypt with more death threats and complaints and trouble than he ever anticipated. His first forty years had to be peanuts compared to that.
But. My point was that God hadn't left him. Even when he thought he was alone and lost in the wilderness, God was still watching over him, preparing him for the time to come - the rougher time, but the better. Not in a king's palace with wealth and education, but on the King's mountain with tablets of stone, seeing God face to face.
But even constantly reminding yourself of Moses can get weary. For it's all one thing to watch God looking after you and remembering that He used someone in the past after a long period of rest, but now is now.
I got home and realised that I hadn't posted on Facebook a photo of what arrived yesterday - the tickets to the Julie Andrews concert next Saturday and an unexpected parcel (I just love those!) which was a book by Katie Lynn Daniels - Superhero of the Day.
I tried to read the signature but couldn't, and as I hadn't read any of the series before, I didn't get the label on the envelope. Due to it coming from Kentucky, I suspected Adrienne, but she quickly denied it. I thought it could be Katie herself, but I couldn't remember giving her my address.
So posting it on FB was the best way to unmask my mysterious sender. (Didn't that line sound good? ;) )
The caption was, "So these came in the post yesterday.
You can count me as one very excited young woman!
Still not sure who I'm blaming for the book. :P <3 <3 <3" and I tagged Katie in it, both as author and suspect. I'm actually going to post the entire comments section up for you, so if you want to skip, feel free. (Inserting a break here, because the text keeps turning into block text for no reason and bold sentences seem to cure it. :P )
Andrew Abraham: I wish I could put my hand up and say guilty but I can't. I've not even read this yet
16 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Adrienne Niceley: That. Book. Is. Awesome. Me and Lex LOVE it! Oh wait... that's one we haven't read yet but want to.... well the first book of that series is awesome and we love it!
16 hours ago · Edited · Unlike · 1
Siân Garner-Jones: Adrienne. It said Kentucky. Am I blaming you?
15 hours ago · Like
Adrienne Niceley: Nope, I am not to blame this time.
15 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Siân Garner-Jones: Katie, is it you?
15 hours ago · Like
Patricia Gallie: Thanks for straightening the picture!
15 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Andrew Abraham Adrienne Niceley of course it's awesome I've read all the other Supervillain of the Day books and Katie Lynn Daniels is one talented author.
15 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Siân Garner-Jones You're welcome. I was hoping I could get it straightened before you saw it, Grandma Pat.
15 hours ago · Like · 1
Katie Lynn Daniels Considering I'm the one who signed it...I should certainly hope it's me. I wrote a note to you in it and everything.
15 hours ago · Unlike · 2
Siân Garner-Jones HOW DID I MISS THOSE!?!? *flies back to the book and tacklehugs*
(At this point, I got up and went to fetch the book.)
Katie Lynn Daniels: Considering I'm the one who signed it...I should certainly hope it's me. I wrote a note to you in it and everything.
And the number of people admitting to not having read this one are making me feel considerably less guilty about taking so long to get the next one out. * eyeroll *
14 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Katie Lynn Daniels: Well, they're on the dedication, not the title page, for....reasons.
14 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Siân Garner-Jones: *sits down with stuffsies*
14 hours ago · Like
(Literally sat down and looked through all the bookmarks and papery things. And then opened it to the page where there was a knife to her throat. *end spoiler*)
Andrew Abraham: Sorry Katie monies are not co-operating. But I will get it for sure and give you a review
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones: OHMYGOSH.
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones: Okay. Forget this. Forget Doctor Who. *curls up with the book*
KATIE NEVER GIVE A BOOK TO AN ADDICT OKAY DEAR. V_V
14 hours ago · Edited · Like · 2
(At this point, I flipped back to the beginning of the book and it opened to the dedication page.
"For Sian
For being the bravest person I know")
Siân Garner-Jones: ....
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones you did what.
14 hours ago · Like
(Then I read her message.
"Dear Sian, Your Twitter and FB updates break my heart. I don't know the details and I never know what to say - and so I am silent. And I worry sometimes that you think I don't care. But what can I _possibly_ say in response to everything you go through every day?
And so I wrote you a book. I hope you enjoy it and don't find me too presumptious.
With all my love,
Katie Lynn Daniels 4/16/2014"
...and started crying.
Katie and I are friends, and have chatted a couple of times, but not very frequently - so this had even more impact on me.)
Siân Garner-Jones: Can I talk to you?
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones: Like, please.
14 hours ago · Like
Katie Lynn Daniels: Yes, absolutely.
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones: Oh Katie.
14 hours ago · Like
Siân Garner-Jones: I'm crying but it's good tears, I promise.
14 hours ago · Like · 1
Siân Garner-Jones: I think Imma blog about this.
***
It's hard to write in text what that actually meant to me.
The amount of times I feel alone and forgotten are so, so often. The amount of times and consistency with which I forget how many people remember me daily in their prayers and thoughts is shameful.
I'm sorry.
I get so disheartened by the fact that few people seem to even follow what I'm doing/saying, and I know that it's not ME that it's about, and then I get scared that I want people to focus on me and not on Him, but I want to point to Him and feel like I'm failing...
To find that in my narrowing world of cyclic routine that someone breaks the "chain of evidence that God isn't using me"...someone from the other side of the world follows what I'm going through, silently cares and uses her talent to reach out to tell me that she loves and cares in such a strong way...such a hard way...that my life has made an impact on her...
That God is still using me. Even though I can't see it.
Watching God use her to bless me.
To touch me.
To signpost that He's not done yet.
As Mama says,
"More are seeing than you will ever know. Keep doing what you know is right and leave the results up the Lord."
Thank you, Katie, for making far more of an impact than I think you were expecting. Thank you for being surrendered to the Lord and letting Him use you. Thank you for blessing me and I pray it is returned to you over and over again. <3 <3 <3
Oh, and. Congratulations on managing to hear even a word of what I said...never mind my accent. :P
This post is getting long and if you've read this far, congratulations!
I'll sign off now, but - I pray this will bless you too.
God's not done with you as long as you've got breath in your body, no matter if you can see results or not. Keep following where He's leading, no matter how plain the path or how long the road.
He is worth your life.
I promise.
In His Name I stand,
~Siân
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :)