Off With the Old...
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 from work were going to be purposeful - books read some journeys, the Bible every morning, prayer and music fixedly alternated. But the roller-coaster of my much-hated emotions overrode those - despair hindered my prayers, thoughts drowned out the books.
I wanted to blog more, and have blogged least of all years til now - very surprisingly.
I was going to start learning the violin, find a singing coach, pick up my education and change career. Sadly, I only learned how much things cost in this world and sometimes, effort in one direction takes away effort in another.
This has also been a year for questioning everything; not just love verses idolatry, but my faith, my God, His purpose in my life, His hearing of my prayers, who I am, who He is, what I'm meant to be.
Even the steadfast things have not been that steadfast. I have come to accept that the world moves and change is a wind that blows all around me inside out and upside down. Fighting to accept the monotony of pattern in a world that turns upside down, a contradiction in itself, has been very hard to accept; when one has been forged in a whirlwind, living plainly is hard to grasp and sometimes, boring.
But it's been a blessing. A strange year, in its monotonous change, but a blessing.
From Self-Harm to Victory was started in June, something I thought up and started as a month long thing with some information and encouragement for both family/friends of self-harmers and they themselves, but which turned into a Facebook page, a Google+ page, an email address, a long-standing website with t-shirts soon going on sale - encouragement and people being encouraged.
I've been blessed with a permanent job, albeit in a tense atmosphere. And doing something I actually enjoy - God's reward for the two long and hard years in the call centre.
Friends have been made in places I wouldn't have dreamed. I've lost ones who were dear to me, but who I obviously wasn't dear to, and found friends in those who have drawn near to me.
The support group I have has been a crazy blessing to me this year. My friends are an immense blessing - and I am so, so blessed to have each and every one of you. Christian, atheist, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic, seeker: each of you are in my life for a purpose. You might not believe in the God I know, love and serve, but I do, and I know that He loves you unconditionally. In His Name I will seek to do that too.
I've found the darkest places in my soul: despair and hatred. I've reached depths I didn't think I ever would and found security in Jesus in a way I never thought possible.
Anna in January, Jennifer in March/April, Katie in July/August - my American friends blessed me so much by coming to visit me in a year that I was struggling so much with "no more America". Each of them are so unique and special in their own way; the sweet one, the fighting one, the determined one. Actually, those qualities apply to each of them in their own special way.
You. Are. Special.
I hope you're reading these words as meant for you, because they are - individually. Thank you for being you. For being in my life. <3
And what year could go past without thanking the Lord for my Stephanie, the best friend any girl could want. Vivacious and kind, sweet and self-effacing, thinking less of herself than she really is - Stephanie, you're a blessing from the Lord. Thank you for taking so much time out for me this year. I really appreciate it.
Stephen, my chum, fellow Whovian, Comic-Con-er and banker...thank you. We've been through a lot this year and it's very safe to say ours is the only friendship in my entire life to survive what ours has been through. And that is mostly due to you. Thank you for your courage. And I pray the best - no, more than that - for you in 2015.
My Irish family...the Lausers. My safe place to run to, to collapse and recooperate before trying to handle life on its hectic level again. What would I do without you? My Beit HaShalom. <3
My American family...and international families...Grandma Pat, Mother Denise, Mama Tressa, and Mother Gatley and Mother Garner, even though they don't really have that much input into my life anymore, I'm so thankful for when they did.
And my kids. My wonderful amazing kids. Elizabeth, Theodora, Robbie, Havilah, Kathryn, Emily, Janeen...and anyone else who still calls me Mom - or a variation of it.
So many others to thank and love and praise...my mentor group - Sarah of the tender heart, Stephanie, Arielle (you rock on so many levels, girl), Serena-Bena (oh my knees and toes), Mama, Hannah with the courage and pen, Adrienne (so much we've been through together <3)...
The groups that we/I've been able to start:
The Clean-Up Crew (and what fun we're having...!)
Shalom Hesed - the prayer group
Storybrooke, Maine - for our rants about our beloved Once Upon a Time
Comic Con Convergers - but more on that later
Of course, there's the events, like Design-a-Sign T-shirt, which will hopefully bring in money towards the home I want to run for suicidal and self-harming people, and Single's Valentine, which is where we single Christians spread the message of God's love around social media all day!
I've started martial arts and continued with my work with the RAFA.
I've not written much, but what I've written has proved to more people than just me that I still have the blessing of the power behind the pen.
I've not sung much, but what I've sung has been used to bless others.
In fact, I've not been doing much, but it's been a forging year. I'm tougher. Stronger. Stubborn. More sarcastic and sour, in some ways. Less giving and forgiving.
I'm entering 2015 struggling with almost everything I struggled with this year, but on a different level. Christ is my foothold. There is no place so low that I can fall, that He can't reach. I still hate or have major issues with those people who hurt me, but I know He can, and will, give me the grace to fight it. My ambition and pride could still stand in the way of Him fully using FSHTV; I pray that He will trample on them for His glory.
What are the new year goals, I hear you ask?
Nothing too ambitious.
I've bought a new jar to store the names of the books I read in, when I can find it. :P
I plan to:
Spend every Tuesday that I can writing after work in a coffee shop
Turn one walk into a music walk and one into a prayer walk - Lord willing I stay stable enough to do it
Trip to America, Ireland and possibly Auschwitz
Learn how to handle money *cough*
Work more on FSHTV (www.fromselfharmtovictory.com) - please pray for it
Write more to people. I really want to do that.
Change and grow closer to God
There's a prayer walk to take before I enter 2015, but two more things before I sign out.
I learned this year that people fear me as a monster, and they made me terrified of myself - made me believe I was a monster and almost drove me insane twice. It's caused me to make some life-altering decisions. Tonight I watched Merlin. It doesn't change my decisions, but that TV show has been a lifesaver for me.
Merlin: Do you know how it feels to be a monster? To be afraid of who you are?
Merlin: You really don't realise how special you are, do you?
Freya: ...you're not scared of me?
Merlin: Being different is nothing to be scared of.
The boy who was afraid of himself learned of the power when he controlled it and used it. That's what I am trying, and will do, with the pain - including the pain they cost me.
This year has been a past track in miracles. I wish I'd documented every one on here, not just some on here and on Facebook.
Not even things like the rainbows, but just watching the Lord's provision monetarily, when I'd given all of what I had and He steps in with a little more from somewhere I wasn't expecting it.
When I'm depressed and convinced He's finished with me and someone somewhere pops up with an encouraging parcel or message or letter.
When I wonder what I'm doing with my life and a random chance to witness comes in...
When I think He's finished with me and He uses an experience from my life to help someone or my life to show them Jesus...
It makes me tear up, watching Him. In what most people would ungratefully dismiss as a bunch of random chances or pure coincidence (funny how we like to give the blame to God and not the glory), He shines so brightly.
I hope you see Him this year. In your life. In His glory. And in my life too.
Happy New Year. It's a fresh page. Pick up your pen and start writing.
And hey, don't forget - if your tearstains blot the ink, there's a new page coming the next day. It's never completely ruined.
Love you guys,
In Him,
Siân
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 from work were going to be purposeful - books read some journeys, the Bible every morning, prayer and music fixedly alternated. But the roller-coaster of my much-hated emotions overrode those - despair hindered my prayers, thoughts drowned out the books.
I wanted to blog more, and have blogged least of all years til now - very surprisingly.
I was going to start learning the violin, find a singing coach, pick up my education and change career. Sadly, I only learned how much things cost in this world and sometimes, effort in one direction takes away effort in another.
This has also been a year for questioning everything; not just love verses idolatry, but my faith, my God, His purpose in my life, His hearing of my prayers, who I am, who He is, what I'm meant to be.
Even the steadfast things have not been that steadfast. I have come to accept that the world moves and change is a wind that blows all around me inside out and upside down. Fighting to accept the monotony of pattern in a world that turns upside down, a contradiction in itself, has been very hard to accept; when one has been forged in a whirlwind, living plainly is hard to grasp and sometimes, boring.
But it's been a blessing. A strange year, in its monotonous change, but a blessing.
From Self-Harm to Victory was started in June, something I thought up and started as a month long thing with some information and encouragement for both family/friends of self-harmers and they themselves, but which turned into a Facebook page, a Google+ page, an email address, a long-standing website with t-shirts soon going on sale - encouragement and people being encouraged.
I've been blessed with a permanent job, albeit in a tense atmosphere. And doing something I actually enjoy - God's reward for the two long and hard years in the call centre.
Friends have been made in places I wouldn't have dreamed. I've lost ones who were dear to me, but who I obviously wasn't dear to, and found friends in those who have drawn near to me.
The support group I have has been a crazy blessing to me this year. My friends are an immense blessing - and I am so, so blessed to have each and every one of you. Christian, atheist, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic, seeker: each of you are in my life for a purpose. You might not believe in the God I know, love and serve, but I do, and I know that He loves you unconditionally. In His Name I will seek to do that too.
I've found the darkest places in my soul: despair and hatred. I've reached depths I didn't think I ever would and found security in Jesus in a way I never thought possible.
Anna in January, Jennifer in March/April, Katie in July/August - my American friends blessed me so much by coming to visit me in a year that I was struggling so much with "no more America". Each of them are so unique and special in their own way; the sweet one, the fighting one, the determined one. Actually, those qualities apply to each of them in their own special way.
You. Are. Special.
I hope you're reading these words as meant for you, because they are - individually. Thank you for being you. For being in my life. <3
And what year could go past without thanking the Lord for my Stephanie, the best friend any girl could want. Vivacious and kind, sweet and self-effacing, thinking less of herself than she really is - Stephanie, you're a blessing from the Lord. Thank you for taking so much time out for me this year. I really appreciate it.
Stephen, my chum, fellow Whovian, Comic-Con-er and banker...thank you. We've been through a lot this year and it's very safe to say ours is the only friendship in my entire life to survive what ours has been through. And that is mostly due to you. Thank you for your courage. And I pray the best - no, more than that - for you in 2015.
My Irish family...the Lausers. My safe place to run to, to collapse and recooperate before trying to handle life on its hectic level again. What would I do without you? My Beit HaShalom. <3
My American family...and international families...Grandma Pat, Mother Denise, Mama Tressa, and Mother Gatley and Mother Garner, even though they don't really have that much input into my life anymore, I'm so thankful for when they did.
And my kids. My wonderful amazing kids. Elizabeth, Theodora, Robbie, Havilah, Kathryn, Emily, Janeen...and anyone else who still calls me Mom - or a variation of it.
So many others to thank and love and praise...my mentor group - Sarah of the tender heart, Stephanie, Arielle (you rock on so many levels, girl), Serena-Bena (oh my knees and toes), Mama, Hannah with the courage and pen, Adrienne (so much we've been through together <3)...
The groups that we/I've been able to start:
The Clean-Up Crew (and what fun we're having...!)
Shalom Hesed - the prayer group
Storybrooke, Maine - for our rants about our beloved Once Upon a Time
Comic Con Convergers - but more on that later
Of course, there's the events, like Design-a-Sign T-shirt, which will hopefully bring in money towards the home I want to run for suicidal and self-harming people, and Single's Valentine, which is where we single Christians spread the message of God's love around social media all day!
I've started martial arts and continued with my work with the RAFA.
I've not written much, but what I've written has proved to more people than just me that I still have the blessing of the power behind the pen.
I've not sung much, but what I've sung has been used to bless others.
In fact, I've not been doing much, but it's been a forging year. I'm tougher. Stronger. Stubborn. More sarcastic and sour, in some ways. Less giving and forgiving.
I'm entering 2015 struggling with almost everything I struggled with this year, but on a different level. Christ is my foothold. There is no place so low that I can fall, that He can't reach. I still hate or have major issues with those people who hurt me, but I know He can, and will, give me the grace to fight it. My ambition and pride could still stand in the way of Him fully using FSHTV; I pray that He will trample on them for His glory.
What are the new year goals, I hear you ask?
Nothing too ambitious.
I've bought a new jar to store the names of the books I read in, when I can find it. :P
I plan to:
Spend every Tuesday that I can writing after work in a coffee shop
Turn one walk into a music walk and one into a prayer walk - Lord willing I stay stable enough to do it
Trip to America, Ireland and possibly Auschwitz
Learn how to handle money *cough*
Work more on FSHTV (www.fromselfharmtovictory.com) - please pray for it
Write more to people. I really want to do that.
Change and grow closer to God
There's a prayer walk to take before I enter 2015, but two more things before I sign out.
I learned this year that people fear me as a monster, and they made me terrified of myself - made me believe I was a monster and almost drove me insane twice. It's caused me to make some life-altering decisions. Tonight I watched Merlin. It doesn't change my decisions, but that TV show has been a lifesaver for me.
Merlin: Do you know how it feels to be a monster? To be afraid of who you are?
Merlin: You really don't realise how special you are, do you?
Freya: ...you're not scared of me?
Merlin: Being different is nothing to be scared of.
The boy who was afraid of himself learned of the power when he controlled it and used it. That's what I am trying, and will do, with the pain - including the pain they cost me.
This year has been a past track in miracles. I wish I'd documented every one on here, not just some on here and on Facebook.
Not even things like the rainbows, but just watching the Lord's provision monetarily, when I'd given all of what I had and He steps in with a little more from somewhere I wasn't expecting it.
When I'm depressed and convinced He's finished with me and someone somewhere pops up with an encouraging parcel or message or letter.
When I wonder what I'm doing with my life and a random chance to witness comes in...
When I think He's finished with me and He uses an experience from my life to help someone or my life to show them Jesus...
It makes me tear up, watching Him. In what most people would ungratefully dismiss as a bunch of random chances or pure coincidence (funny how we like to give the blame to God and not the glory), He shines so brightly.
I hope you see Him this year. In your life. In His glory. And in my life too.
Happy New Year. It's a fresh page. Pick up your pen and start writing.
And hey, don't forget - if your tearstains blot the ink, there's a new page coming the next day. It's never completely ruined.
Love you guys,
In Him,
Siân
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :)