My Leaking Soul: Current Struggles

You haven't spoken a word to me in a month. Besides the time you grew a pair (sort of) and explained to me your reasoning.

I've done my best to be patient, but now all my memories of you have been drowned in a forgotten past. Sometimes they bubble to the surface when I see a picture of you and a bitter, icy shiver stabs my heart and swiftly melts away with the next distraction.

It's a difficult feeling to describe. I no longer love you in any way. I want to know how you're doing; I still care. But love of any kind is very very far from anything I feel for you. You have ruined every chance we ever could have had at being friends in the future simply by pretending I don't exist.

You have a deceiving aura of destruction that parades itself around as a caring and loving person.

I am completely 100% over you as a person, but it is going to take a long time to recover from what you did to me.

All I know is that I have grown into the confident woman I was born to be because of you and for that, I thank you.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

It is difficult for me to not listen to the lies the devil is whispering to me throughout the day. He's saying I should be afraid of the unknown future and saying I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. That God has not made a man on this earth for me. And I should worry about money because money is what this world revolves around....

I know that these things are bold-faced lies. I know God has created a strong, God-fearing man for me and he will be revealed to me in only God's timing. The people of the earth are worried about these things, but if only the world revolved around its Creator, the devil and all of his lies will be crushed like an ant beneath our feet. 

This war is internal and my God will win. 

I should have known...

I should have known you'd do the same thing to me that you did to her...

If you don't love me anymore you should have told me...


And now everyone refuses to help me...and it's all up to you now. I was told to initiate talking, but you won't pick up your phone. And now I'm worried that I'm annoying you.

This whole situation is one huge mess of misunderstanding and miscommunication and all I want to do is talk it over with you and try to mend it but you won't give me that chance...why won't you give me that chance? After everything we've been through...

I'm doing my best to not retreat into my little protective bubble because the very last thing you told me was to not be afraid to ask for help...I've asked for it and nothing is happening so what am I supposed to do?

I'm going to throw up.

Have no fear! Our God is here!

A while ago, I discovered this band who calls themselves Gungor. I only listened to one of their songs, Beautiful Things, for quite some time and only recently discovered the rest of their phenomenal body of work. 

Let me just say that God is surely and clearly using them for truly great things. 

I've had a serious struggle with my faith for the past few years, only seeing God in little blips here and there before falling back into my selfish negativity. 

Tonight, however, is a completely different story. In the middle of my fears about literally everything and other problems: general senior-in-college things, student loans, money, my relationship with Paul, my own self worth, body dysmorphic disorder,  anxiety, and a few other things, God has overwhelmingly blanketed me with His comfort, love, truth, beauty, peace, and understanding tonight through this epic duo of a band. 

One of the songs is called Let There Be. The lyrics read:

Darkness hovering

Grasping everything it sees

void empty

Absent life and absent dream

Let there be

Angels toil and crack open scrolls of ancient dreams

Countless worlds of His

Brilliant stars and breath and stream

Let there be (light)

Where there is darkness

Let there be light

Where there is nothing

Let there be light. 

A-MAZING, RIGHT?! The first time I heard it I tried not to cry because I wasn't alone, but it's a nearly impossible task to not cry when God is practically yelling at you. But you should go listen to it yourself, and you can if you click right here.

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The other "song" I listened to isn't exactly song as much as it is spoken word. God is speaking through her like I have never experienced. So much so that I cannot fathom what words I would choose to describe it and how it spoke and continues to speak to me. Truly breathtaking and tear inducing. I completely transform into a child of God as I feel so small, yet also like an impossibly gigantic miracle created perfectly in the image of God. Perfectly. 

This has been on repeat for about thirty times in a row and I am not ashamed. And you (if there is anyone reading...) can listen to it with me by clicking here. 

And here are the words so you can read along and truly comprehend everything:

He is here.
He’s right here.
In this room; in your heart.

He is near.
Nearer than breath; heartbeat.
Nearer than you are to you, closer than second chance, or next opportunity.
Closer than tonight, or yesterday.

He is real.
More real than touch; see, hear, smell, or taste.
More real than reality; he is our reality!
More real than joy, pain, sorrow, or the love of being in love.

He is present.
Like space, wind, time, silence, night.

He is waiting.
Like; creation.
Like words on the tip of tongue.
Like; songs that have yet to be sung.

He is beauty.
And oranges, blues, every hue, every shade.
Sunset and sunrise whisper his name.

He is holy.
Cannot be touched, explained, like; sweet seconds of prayer.
Like; grandmother on knees.
Wood floor, bare.

He is old hymns.
The extending of limbs, stretched across trees;
strives to heal disease.

He is son.
Distinctly three; distinctly one.
The only one.
The only wise.
The only resurrector of lives.

He is king.
And no earthly throne can house him.
No amount of elegant words can espouse him.

He is moment, and voice.
Power of choice.
And word.
And deed.
And fruit.
And seed.

Nailed hands; nailed feet.
Innocent wounds, that bleed.

He is believe.
He is all
He is call, and purpose.

Everything we can sacrifice he’s worth it, and more.
Much more.

Our good deeds are mere pities; we’re never even to score.

He is behold.
And wow, he is who, what, when, why, how.

He is the one who puts on the show.
He is the one that we turn to see.
He is souls’ cry, and sinners’ bleed.

He is the epitome that no one can light a candle to or, come within a million-foot pole of.

He is above.
He is a father’s love.
Maker of waves, of earth and wind.
Ancient of days.

Has no fear.
Have no fear!
Have no fear! Our God is here!

(Sorry about the change in font, I copied it from a website and I don't feel like re-writing it seeing as it's already 1am.)

Anyway, I hope these two pieces affected you as much as they have me. 

Eating Disorder Awareness Week

This week has been deemed "National Eating Disorder Awareness" week. That being said, it kind of hits close to home in more than one way.

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I feel as though it is about time to make my story more public. Only a very minute amount of close friends know, as it is a very difficult thing for me to talk about. But it is much easier for me to write about it because I usually write about everything...it is nice to be able to bleed myself onto paper through a pen without having the repercussions of actually opening myself up to another human being only to get hurt..

Well, here's my story:


Back when I was young, I was really into being outdoors all of the time. Hiking, soccer with my cousins, basketball with my siblings, cross country, basically anything that allowed me to expend my energy outside. This type of behavior allowed me to be physically fit (sometimes TOO physically active) and within a healthy weight range.

Then along came high school. No more running, except on days when I had time and wasn't too lazy. I had to quit cross country because it was simply too much to balance with the nerdy marching band season. Eventually, my muscular, athletic build melted away into a jello-y sludge of fat hanging on to my bones. Whenever I walked I could feel it softly bouncing; something incredibly foreign to me. Then my thighs started to grow even more to the point of touching and my hips began to fill out into a more 'womanly' figure. As my metabolism disappeared, so did my self-esteem.

I was only five pounds heavier than I had been, but science has proven muscle weighs more than fat.

With the fat gain, all of the negativity that surrounded me at home, and my crippling anxiety disorder, the only thing I wanted to do was hide. So hide, I did. I became even more of a recluse hiding in my room for 9+ hours at a time (excluding time to sleep) and creating a place of refuge inside my tiny closet. There, I journaled and read until my eyelids became too heavy to hold open. There, I slept. Hidden away from everyone so no one could see my hurt and the shame I felt for letting my body become what it was.

Slowly, I began to limit the amount of food I ate. The only thing on my mind was the irrefutable desire to disappear. Maybe, just maybe, if I ate less and less my body would become less and less...and I would eventually disappear.

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I have a strong desire to keep certain major details concealed, so I'll just skip them.

Anyway, after many hours spent uncontrollably sobbing in my little refuge of a closet I saw the tiny Bible I kept hidden in my "emergency kit." What I told myself was, "whatever page this opens on, I'll read. It can't hurt and it's probably better than crying for the rest of the night." The book opened up somewhere near the middle of Psalms.

I read. I read and I read and I read.

An overwhelming peace like no other came upon me and I began to cry even more. This was a good type of crying. I realized my behavior was not healthy and a few other things besides that, that have become a part of my testimony.

God loves me. He sees me as perfect and beautiful because I have been created in His image. My body was made to endure the natural ebb and flow of minor weight gain, weight loss, muscle gain, and muscle loss. My stomach is made to expand after I eat and that is okay. The "extra fat" around my waist was put there specifically to protect my womanly organs, and will provide protection in the future while my future children are just beginning to grow. My hips have been made to support the weight of growing a child, and what a blessing that is!

I still battle these thoughts. It is a huuuuuge mental struggle for me and sometimes the voice in my head is too loud and I can't hear God constantly telling me that I'm perfect the way I am. The struggle has become more prominent recently and I'm desperately trying not to go back to my old ways of restricting calories.

I have confidence that I will win this battle. Eventually.

Snowed In

Here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Boone, to be more specific, the weather is calling for 10+ inches of snow tomorrow through Thursday afternoon.

I. AM. SO. EXCITED. HOLY. COW!!!!!!!

I am also incredibly anxious.

Paul is supposed to be coming up Thursday night and would be arriving around midnight-1am. This makes me anxious because the people hired to clear the roads wouldn't have had much time to work on clearing the roads by the time he's up here and I'm not sure if he has much experience driving in snow like this before.

I just pray that God will watch over him, keep him awake and alert, and help him to get here safely. If we need food, thank goodness Ingles is only a 10 minute walk away.

We may have to have a Valentines Day date indoors with snow softly falling outside :)

How cute :)

Time

Over the years I have recognized that time is a stagnant thing. It is always the same amount of measurement, not caring if you're spending a leisurely afternoon having a picnic with your significant other or anxiously drumming your fingers, waiting to hear back from the doctor to see if your grandfather is going to make it out of surgery.

Even though this is true, it always feels like time starts spinning faster and faster and faster and faster the longer you are alive.

When I was about six years old, a couple hours spent in the humid heat of an Illinois summer racing my stroller and doll down the driveway against my sister's felt like half a lifetime. Now that I'm older, a whole day spent enjoying myself on the Blue Ridge Parkway feels like the whimsical blink of an eye.

I don't understand this phenomenon and I don't think I ever will.

My application for graduation was just sent in to be reviewed. College graduation. In what feels like a short second I will be a college graduate. My mind can barely wrap itself around that terrifying realization.

...in one short second I will have no idea where life will take me.

Namaste

In yoga class this morning, I learned quite a bit. I learned that if I overwork my body outside of class, it will fail me when I'm trying to go from downward dog into a forward lunge and then into warrior 1.

I also learned while we were meditating on our velvety purple yoga blocks that all human emotion lasts on average one to two minutes long. Any longer than that, we are feeding information to ourselves, further harboring that emotion. It is completely in your power to change your outlook on life after you experience something negative.

It has been scientifically proven that a putting a genuine smile on your face even if you're a Mr. Grumpy Gills, you can force it, reacts chemically with your brain to actually boost your mood and get you out of that slump you've been feeding yourself into.

A little meditation, methodical breathing, and smiling stupidly to yourself can go quite a long way.

Namaste.