Soap for Jesus

I came home thoroughly discouraged today. I really get that doctors want to work normal hours too. But when you leave work late after a very bad day, practically run to the train on a wrenched ankle, have to buy a ticket only to miss the darn thing by twenty seconds, run back upstairs to the tram, have to work out which one is fastest, head back down to the train which will get you to the station right at your appointment time, have to upset your mom’s evening plans to request a lift so you can get there as fast as possible, upset your husband, and call the doctors to tell them you’ll be five minutes late for them to tell you they’ll leave a note for the nurse but you might have to rebook, they could be a little more forgiving. Also. They could allow you to buy tickets at the gate instead of having to rush halfway up the station. Also. The train was late by ten minutes and my poor Mom, who had to be in Newcastle-under-Lyme for 7:30, was delayed by a good twenty minutes without a w...

I was thinking about some of the people I've bumped into over the years who struggle with depression, anxiety and/or suicidal tendencies. As I've been going through the counselling process with C., I've also come to realise that while it might trigger the "growing up" bit I missed, and is definitely help me link things together and providing coping techniques to override my body's now-natural patterns of worry, freak out, withdraw, not deal with issues, invert anger and stress until overload, it probably never will cure my depression spells completely. My man tries to reduce all stress levels for me wherever he can and says he thinks it can be healed, but I don't know. Whether it is a "mental illness", (which, while I am coming to accept the term, is one I dislike due to its connotations of limited capability and inferiority) or whether it's some switch tripped by the years on the rough path, as I subconsciously recognise the symptoms o...

Note: Trigger warning: If you're in a bad place, don't read this. If you think you can handle it...try. It may encourage you. I hope. :P Depression-exhaustion. It's one of the things I loathe most about a bout of suicidal depression. (If you need a definition of that, feel free to message me: fromselfharmtovictory@gmail.com) First there's a tiny grey cloud, a mood change...flashbacks...sometimes panic attacks...random crying spells...intense sadness over the lost things/people... Those can be triggered by, or exacerbated, by arguments, events (i.e., a person who dislikes/caused a lot of trouble for me married recently, and it triggered this bout because he was brought back into my life, albeit unintentionally, by mutual friends; aggravated by an argument this past weekend). Then it literally feels like my mind is being torn in two. There's the one part which seems to be out of control, and the other which is logical and takes the rationale. It knows I'...

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...

"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...

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...

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...

Plaits. Jumper. Jeans. Trainers. MP3 player. Yep, about to do something I haven't done in years, since I started to go for runs with Gemma as a prelude to training for the RAF. (I never did train.) Go for a quick jog around the block, down the lane, shortcut across the fields, down the road, right wheel down another road and then back to the house. Started playing Battle Scars and fast paced down the road. I have psychological problems with running in front of visible people (got teased about running when I was about 6/7) so waited til I'd got a bit down the country path past the people before I began to run. I had a few issues. :P Not the least of which was, of course, being a lot out of condition. The problem, ignoring the breathing and the body heat, was the muscle pain. A lot of muscle pain. Which would normally involve limping and favouring my game leg. Buuuut...what was the point in running for three minutes and then giving up? Maybe I couldn't run, (th...

The lovely Katie Comstock posted this on her blog recently and sent me a link. Now I share it with you, and pray that those who need to read it will read - and listen to - it. This is an anthem for the homesick, for the beaten, The lost and broke, the defeated - A song for the heartsick, for the standbys, Living life in the shadow of a goodbye. Do you remember when we learned how to fly? We'd play make-believe we were young and had time on our side. You're stuck on the ground; got lost, can't be found. Just remember that you're still alive. I'll carry you home; no, you're not alone. Keep marching on - this is worth fighting for. You know, we've all got battle scars. You've had enough. But just don't give up. Stick to your guns; you are worth fighting for. You know, we've all got battle scars. Keep marching on. This is a call to the soldiers, the fighters, The young, the innocent and righteous. We've got a little room...

“Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.” “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” “We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it.” “We want not so much a Father but a grandfather in heaven, a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter so long as they are contented?” “The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when ...

Demon eyes, demon child. What's inside that makes you wild? What's the thing that they all see? That evil twisted part of me. Freaky face with mouth of lies - Demon child with demon eyes. "Don't defile God's handiwork! Stop claiming that there's only mirk." Am I really? How can I be When that's all you claim to see in me? Forget the fight to try for good. Apparently that's only crud. All you see is Demon child, Perhaps it wakes all your 'defiled'. I hate this twisted poetry. It only comes out in agony. But what do they care? They laugh and scorn - Other hearts will bleed and mourn. It's near impossible to tell Who's from heaven with their echoes of hell. Gossip-grieve, they bury the corpse Of Demon child they killed with thoughts. When sin is birthed, then it is death. I was slain on their whispered breath. Their 'loving concern' behind my back - So like the Master, isn't that? Forget the goo...

This past weekend, I attended a Youth Conference (along with one of my UK besties, Stephanie, and my twin, Joseph) at Bethel Free Baptist Church in Birmingham. What I was expecting ran something along the lines of: 1) Listen to preaching and be fed 2) Sit awkwardly on the sidelines and fail miserably at interacting 3) Spend the weekend watching and listening What actually happened was totally different. God moved this weekend. I watched young people recommit their lives to the Lord. I recommitted my life to the Lord. I gave Him the burden of my broken heart and prayed for release. It's still broken, but He's got the burden of it now and the joy is...unspeakable. I watched my Stephie change from a girl who is shy and self-controlled, though happy, start singing in public - something she would never do even if I begged, though she'd do anything else. I watched as she stepped out on the streets to witness - which she was scared sick of. I watched her cry, and go to ...

There's a hole in my heart that cannot heal. Most of the time, I'm running. I'm learning to run with a smile, now. God is, slowly but surely, teaching me to find joy in every circumstance; to see His blessing Hand throughout the sadness. There's one problem I'm still having, though. It's learning to praise Him for the pain. I can thank Him for using the pain - and have, even to using the loss of the one I loved most, for I watched Him do it even as I lost him. I run from pain. Hate it. And now I'm running from him. From every single memory that he was ever in. I reconstruct my life and future without him, focusing on keeping busy, being productive, serving God. But the hole is there. And I run. It's harder than it should be to store everything away. When Taylor told me that to break free of the darkness and despair, I had to love, I randomly picked someone and tried to love them with God's love because I felt I had to. I didn't realise...