Beautiful in God's Eyes

I don't want to be a bitter person and I would say that I have try very hard not to be one. I have gone through counseling to deal with childhood traumas and when I hear myself speaking in a bitter way about something or someone, I try to give it to God. I have been bitter about things in the past and I realized after desperately hanging on to my anger, that no matter how "good" it felt to remain angry at people, letting go felt sooo much better. Welp, I find myself fighting bitterness about an issue/situation that happened more than a year ago at my former place of employment and ministry, A DOOR OF HOPE. Now, I know I mentioned the issue before but for those who just recently stared reading my blog, I will briefly recap. In a nutshell...I came back from a missions trip in '01 completely on fire and desiring to work in ministry for the rest of my life. I ended up at ADOH where my spirit and passion slowly got completely beaten out of me by the incredibly corrupt hierarchy that was the "upper management".(there were only a few of us working there.) Anyway, After nearly 4 years of seeing this place go from bad to worse and being treated in an appallingly non Christ like way, the camel's back was broken. I was told that if I didn't tell the girls that were coming in that they were going to hell, I was going to be fire for not telling the whole gospel. I did share the gospel. I shared the grace that God had given us by sending Jesus to die so that we didn't have to. But that wasn't good enough for my immediate supervisor (who was a nurse and had no training in counseling but was telling me how to counsel) and the Executive Director who was so far set apart from the work that we were doing that she couldn't even see how telling these hurting girls that they were going to hell would do more harm than good. Anyway, to make a long story short I was searing my conscience and grieving the holy spirit every time I tried to do what they wanted me to. So I quit. Eventually the Supervisor was let go for lying and for generally not doing her job and has been in and out of mental institutions ever since. The director left after her assistant who was really running the ministry left and she (and the board of directors) figured out that she was a sham. See....bitterness. I don't want to be happy that they have suffered. But I am. I feel guilty and hopefully I won't be glad at their suffering forever. Anyway, the reason I am thinking about it now is that I was given a book to read as punishment for not telling the girls about hell. It is called Beautiful in God;s Eyes by Elizabeth George and it is utter shit. I just found it the other day and tried to read a bit and Mike threw it away because it is so destructive to my thoughts. It tells you that in order to be beautiful in God;s eyes (because I am ugly right now) I must be a perfect house wife, call my husband whenever I go anywhere, never question my husband's decisions, do all the housework and never ask my husband for help, have dinner on the table and massage his feet every night. I kid you not. The list goes on and on and it is completely backwards and ridiculous. So. like I said, Mike threw it away. Thank God for my wonderful husband who I do nice things for because I love him. Thanks God for seeing me as beautiful because of what Jesus did not what I do.

You know what is sooo good?

Pumpkin scones from Starbucks
rold gold honey wheat pretzel twists
cold milk with hot chocolate powder floating on the top
frozen cool whip
annie Ann's original pretzels with sweet mustard
the sweet hot mustard from hickory farms
Williams-sonoma mulling spices
Darby's pumpkin roll
Fresh Gingerbread cookies w/ frosting
eggnog
Those soft old fashion candy canes that melt in your mouth
Brach's Christmas tree nougats
the pre-made cookie dough squares (not cooked)
iced chai w/ a 1/2 of gingerbread from brew
Panera's broccoli cheddar soup
Panera's cobblestone muffins
Panera's pumpkin muffies

My friends

I have some good friends that I haven't seen in awhile and I just want to talk about them.

First there is Laura. Laura is a wonderful friend who makes me feel normal and I love her. She is beautiful and she is smart and creative and I hate when she is not around for me to hang out with. My life is better when she is in it and I haven't seen her in so long that a piece of my heart is hurting.It would be perfection to see her again.

My friend Emily made my life at ADOH bearable and I had so much fun living with her because she rocks. When she left the laughter stopped and I began to feel smashed and suffocated and it ended in one big ball of badness. We laughed, we made ham, we did the coldplay dance, we watched the weather channel and drank coffee.We always laugh when we are together and it would be heavenly to see her again.

My friend Elizabeth and I go way back . We have been through so much together. We lived together for like 3 years and we understand each other. We were inseparable until we both found our soul mates. I haven't seen her in awhile and it is so sad because the thought of her not being my best friend makes me feel sick.

I need my friends. I love my friends. I have other close friends but I have been thinking about these three for quite some time. I miss them. I love them. The End.

My ordeal

The other night Mike and I were at our friend's house and on the way out of their apartment I slipped down a couple of stairs and sprained my ankle. OK, I was slightly intoxicated but it was my slippery shoes that caused the fall. When I fell I landed on all fours and I felt this rush of," Oh, no, I can't believe this is happening, I broke my ankle." When something traumatic happens one of two things inevitable follows. Either I throw up or I pass out or both. A couple of years ago I was in an apartment complex with my best friend since childhood and her mother and sister who have all been like family since I was three. We were laughing it up when all of the sudden the mother missed the last few stairs and broke her ankle in the most horrible way. Even now as the picture of her mangled foot appears in my mind I feel queasy and must not let myself continue to picture it. Anyway, as I was on the floor her broken foot flashed in my mind and I was sure mine must have looked the same. I felt the familiar dizziness that comes right before I pass out and therefore crawled out the door hoping the night air would help me to feel a little better. Then the familiar nausea hit and I crawled closer to the edge of the steps and puked over the side...several times. Mike, being the wonderful husband he is, held my hair back and tried to console me. He looked at my ankle and said that we should go to the hospital because he thought it might be broken. He helped me to the car and I was getting in when my ankle gave out again and I felt excruciating pain. I felt for sure that if it hadn't been broken before, it now was. Mike drove quickly, yet safely to the hospital. When we got to the emergency room he wheeled me in and I answered the questions at triage. This was all at about 1:00am. As I was wheeled to the back I had this weird rush of happiness. I don't know why I felt happy but the thought of , "yay, I am getting attention " past through my mind. I immediately felt ashamed that I was happy to be getting attention. I mean, how pathetic is that? Mike gives me a ton of attention and so do my family and friends. I mean, what am I , an attention whore? It was like I couldn't get enough. Anyway, that whole thought process happened in about 30 seconds and then I was right back into feeling like I was going to pass out and puke again. Just when I thought I had a handle on things we heard some guy screaming, "help! Help me. Somebody HELP!" there was a bit of a commotion and I heard some nurses say something that made me think either this guy was obviously on drugs or he was a regular loony who wasn't really in trouble. Either way it freaked me out and I puked again. Mike agreed that it was freaky. Anyway, everytime I puked mike held my hair and rubbed my back. I kept thinking how wonderful of a husband he is. I mean, there was a moment when he was helping me in the bathroom and let's just say if that the fact that he isn't still repulsed at the sight of me shows that he loves me a lot. I also had another realization of how gracious God is as well. My ankle wasn't broken and we were only in the emergency room for about 2 1/2 hours , which anyone who has been to christiana knows is a miracle. Even if it is life threatening they usually have you wait for three hours before you are seen. It truly was a miracle. so now, I have a huge, bruised and swollen ankle and the rest of my body hurts from the fall. I have sworn off alcohol and my shoes that are slippery. I thank God for his goodness and for Michael.
SO, that is my ordeal.

Time to suck it up

OK, I have made some progress. One thing I hate is being depressed about something and not doing anything to make it better. So, I have decided to give my problems to God and to stop acting like a spoiled brat. I more or less kicked God out of my life for the past couple of months. I stopped going to church and kinship, I stopped reading the Bible and I only prayed when I wanted something. Then when things weren't going my way I was like, "Where the hell are you, God". I started thinking the other day that I have had several friends in my life who I gave a whole lot of myself too and they really took me for granted. For instance, I had this one friend who was very needy and would call me at all hours of the day and night when she wanted to talk and she would talk for hours and hours about the same thing. I would listen and give her advice ( though she would never take the advice) and then when I needed to talk she was nowhere to be found. This continued on for a really long time and then she started complaining that she had no friends and that nobody cared about her and that she was going to kill herself because nobody cared about her. This really hurt my feelings because I had really invested a lot of time and a lot of my heart to make her feel like she had at least one person in the world that cared about her. One day I stopped calling. I kept taking her calls but that was more or less the end of our friendsip. I guess the point of all that is not that I am God like but that I was kind of using God like a friend who I complained to and used but didn't really consider him someone to value as a friend. I guess maybe he backed off so that I could realize that I really do need him. I don't think that it was mean of him, I think that he did what he needed to do in order for me to realize that he was missing in my life. SO anyway, I started going back to church and kinship. It makes me feel better and it gives me hope. Do I think that all the bad stuff in my life will magical disappear? Not really, I wish that was the case...but I doubt it will. I just know that now I am focused on the right thing and able to be thankful for the goodness that is in my life and the rest of the stuff I can just give over to God. Obviously he can do a much better job than I can.

I wish I had a happy post

I really wish that I had a happy post to write. I wish I felt well inside and that I wasn't depressed. Bad things keep happening to mike and me. One thing after another. I just want a break...can we get a break, GOD? Am I doing something wrong? Should I be doing something better? Why doesn't God deliver us? Why does everyone else seem like things come easily for them. I mean, it seems like a normal life would be overall pretty happy and then obviously the occasional bad thing happens. For us it is like bad, bad, bad, really bad, small good thing, bad, bad, really bad...you get the point. Do I have sin that needs to be confessed? What? I wish God would just show me how to make our lives better.

congratulations to me

I am finally done school. Today was officially my last day. Now I just have to take my boards and I will be licensed. I am proud of myself and I wish we had the money to throw a party. I have never had a graduation party. My parents didn't think I was going to graduate highschool so I didn't get a party. I guess I feel kind of sorry for myself.

snuggly

It is 6:45 pm and I had a rough day.Michael, my love, is going to a concert tonight and therefore I am home along with the figs. I want to go to bed super early. I think I will. I just took a long hot shower and now I am going to get into bed and either watch t.v. or read a some of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I have already read all of the H.P. books but I seriously LOVE them. They are really well written and for those of you who are like I am and like to indulge in some escapism; they are perfect for that too. I sometimes wish that I had magical powers. I know I would abuse them but it would be totally rad to live in the whole wizardy world that they live in. Yes, it is kind of creepy and doesn't jive with Christianity...but still...it would be fun. Welp, I'm off.

bleck

I am trying not to feel hopeless right now. I am trying not to feel like nothing ever goes right for me. I am trying not to have unfair expectations of God. It is really hard. I am TIRED. I am fucking tired of not having money and seeing Mike working himself into the ground in order to not even make ends meet. I am tired of not having a job. I feel like such a leech and I feel so sorry for him.I am tired of feeling sick and tired. I am tired of saying I am tired. I thought for once things were going to be easy.I recently had leads for two jobs and I thought things were going to fall in place for me and then my hopes were smashed. I don't want to be like, "figures, nothing good ever happens to me". I don't want to be jaded and not appreciated the goodness in my life. I know God blesses me. I know he loves me and I am sure he has something really good around the corner. I need fun in my life. I miss my friends.

a new look

I thought I would change the look of my blog...I might not like it. I might change it back to the minimalistic look. we'll see.

Naples

I was just chilling in bed flipping through a ton of nonsense on the telly when I landed on waves crashing on the shore at sunset. I felt this weird ball of heaviness in the middle of my chest moving up towards my throat like it was going to suffocate me, like I was going to have a panic attack. I burped and felt better. But then I realized that the ball of heaviness was still there and this time it was not gas, but emotion, and I started to get teary-eyed. I often have a hard time with feeling sad and not knowing why or feeling angry and not knowing the source. When I was little and I would act really bad, I would eventually just start crying and crying and my mom would have to ask me questions to try and help me figure out what was bothering me. It has gotten easier to find the source of emotion over the years. This time it was the beach scene. It reminded me of so many years down in Naples, Florida at my grandparents condo which was right on the gulf of mexico. It is no secret that my sisters and I had a tulmultuous childhood. We all experienced the same traumas in different ways but we all have the same memories . Anyway, every year we went down to florida to visit my grand parents. Now to give you a better view of what I am feeling I need to give you some more information. I was always in trouble as a child. ALWAYS. I was always getting yelled at and spanked and blamed for things and put on a diet when I wasn't fat and on and on. To make matters worse, I was popular at school, but not in the way I wanted. I was best friends with all of the popular boys and they all loved me, but not in THAT way. I was always the funny girl, the one the guys would talk to in order to figure out how to get the girl they wanted. Frustration, unrequited love, parents yelling, always in trouble, feeling no good, and completely wondering why God had me on this earth if he was just going to let me be tortured the entire time. So you get the point...I was in major pain and just wanted to feel loved. Naples is paradise. Palm trees, white sand, tropical flowers, rich people, hot tubs over looking the ocean kind of paradise. I didn't feel like I fit in there either except at night... At night when everyone else was asleep I would sneak onto the balcony which overlooked the beach and also had a clear view of the town of naples. I could hear the waves crash and look at the bright light of the town and just yearn for someone to love me. I just had this dream, this hope that someday I would experience what I was longing for, someday the vastnes of the ocean and the solitude and the beauty of those late nights on the balcony would no longer haunt me. My grandparents owned that condo my whole life and now, now that I am in love with the man of my dreams, now that I am experiencing that feeling of acceptance and rightness with the world, now that I can finally look out and understand that feeling of belonging, my grandparents sold the condo and I will never get to go there again. I was talking to Darby about this feeling and she understands how I feel. Naples was always welcoming, never changing, oasis. We still had our problems but the beauty of the place dressed them up for a while. I feel robbed. It is irrational and selfish but I feel like that place should always be readily available to me when I need to get some healing. Maybe I will someday have a million bucks and I can buy it. Until then it will be a beautiful memory...twinged with sadness, but beautiful nonetheless.

Since no one reads this I feel like I can be completely honest about how I am feeling. I can't be dark and poetic and mournful and clever right now. All I can do is sputter out broken thoughts and feelings and emotions and hope that I feel better inside. When I try to pinpoint the one big emotion in this whirling mess in my brain, I can only quiet my thoughts long enough to get out one word to sum up how I am feeling. struggling. I have been struggling my whole life and I feel so exhausted and tired of things being so difficult. Struggling to make ends meet monetarily, struggling to finish school, struggling to not gain more weight,struggling to lose the weight I have gained, struggling to not kill myself, to be a good wife ,to not say all the mean things that pop into my head to not do bizarre and irrational things that I feel prompted to do at regular intervals struggling to not be the bad sister the ungrateful child the embittered daughter the complainer the fat girl the unpretty one the loud one the mean one the unfriendly one the depressed one the hypochondriac the sick one the tired one the one who scares people the one who struggles her entire life. I realized that I am beyond fat. I am stuck in the most unfair cycle. I gain weight and get depressed, i go on lexapro so I don't kill myself, lexapro makes me gain weight and not able to lose it, I want to kill myself for being fat, I get off lexapro to lose weight , I want to kill myself again. uuuuuuuuuuug. I told mike to suffocate me with my pillow last night. He kept tickling me instead.

time of life

You know in the movies where they do the cool shot of a person walking in normal time and everything around them is sped up and zooming by. That is how I feel. I feel like I am still in my late teens and everyone around me is aging and maturing and doing normal adult things and I am just a kid who happens to be married. I still play video games. I still love fairys and love playing make believe with Lyric and Oliver. I don't look much older except for the silver hairs that sprout up every now and then. Just the other day I met a guy who looked really kind of old. He had grey hair and wrinkles and I found out that he was my age. Taylor hicks who has a full head of grey hair, albeit premature, is my age! 29...almost 30. Some of my friends are having babies. Some of them are buying houses. My baby sister and her husband bought a house with 2 acres. They are adults. Why don't I feel like an adult? Sheesh.

oh yeah!

One of my favorite ways to spend an evening is snuggled on the couch in the cool air conditioning eating chinese food and watching a scary movie with my husband. It always make me feel so safe and happy knowing that he is there with me and we have enough to eat and we have a nice place to live . Then I look over and see cute little Figgy Pudding curled up in a kitty ball and it makes me even happier. I am happy with my life right now.

yucky

sometimes I feel so insecure. I hate it. I wonder if Mike really loves me, I wonder if he loves me with as much intensity as I love him. I wonder if he thinks about other women and if wishes I looked like them. I wonder if he fell in love with me by default, like no one else was around or it didn't work out with the girl he really wanted, so he settled for me. I want to trust his love for me. This sucks.

You are mozart and I am Salieri.

You have always been beautiful...you have always been good. I covet the songs you write...I even covet the pain you have because of what it produces. Your music speaks to people. It blesses people. God speaks through you.

The spring makes me feel somewhat high. I mean, it could just be my allergies to all the newly budded Flora, or it could be the extra amount of sunlight that has been so long overdue. Whatever the reason, I am happy. In essence, it doesn't make sense for me to be happy right now because although I adore certain aspects of my life, it is in massive upheaval mode. This mode is when there are a ton of huge life changes and I generally get so worked up that I need a steady diet of zanax to maintain somewhat of a "Suicide is not a good idea" outlook on life. For instance, in October I got married, quit my job of three years, and moved twice. hello, I'm at a place called vertigo...or burnigo, as Ollie would say. a global case of vertigo.

more things I love

figgy pudding's kitty breath and his puffy tail
playing the gamecube after my homework is done
ice water
those little pea crisp things that taste so damn good
having the sun on my face
iced chai with a half shot of gingerbread
Lyric and Oliver trying to make me laugh
my annual birthday bunny cake
flowers that come up super early
some good sex

Merry married

I cannot believe that I am married. I literally just looked at Mike last night and realized that I promised to be with him until I die. We will be together forever and I will never kiss anyone else or have sex with anyone else or be married to anyone else, ever. When I have kids they will be half his. When we buy a house it will be half his. I now share everything with him. I do not know why it has taken me nearly 3 months of marriage to have the weight of our descision to marry hit me . I mean it is a really big deal. We were only dating for 3months when we decided that we wanted to marry each other and were only dating 7 months when we got engaged. We got engaged and two weeks later we were married. Damn. Sure, I am impulsive by nature, but that was a huge descision to make so fast. It was the right decision. I have never regretted marrying in such a hasty way. I have never regretted marrying Mike. He is perfect for me and I love him dearly.