A Cry for Prayer from a Stumbling, Lost Soul

This is my last resort. I didn't want to blog because I was so sick of everyone questioning my stability and sanity. I was severely depressed for most of my life. Nothing new about that. What I wish people would see is that I'm not that person anymore. Every broken nail doesn't leave me screaming. (Exaggeration, but you get it.) It sucks because I'm going through a really tough time and I'm afraid to talk about it because I don't want people to look at me like they used to. Look at me like they're wondering if I'm going to go home and slit my wrists. Dying is the last thing I want to do. I'm nowhere near ready to die. I keep praying for one more day to try to get it right. I'm not afraid to live anymore.

With that said. I am struggling a lot right now. In my faith and just in general. Last night was tough for me. I came to some harsh realizations and my past came back to bite me once again. This is what I wrote in my journal:

I hate my life. I hate who I’ve been and what I’ve become. Nothing feels right.
Nothing feels safe. Everything looks as hollow as I feel. Everything feels
as hollow as I look. The look in their eyes tells me that it shows. I know
it shows. My name is synonymous with train-wreck and this time there’s no
survivors. I know this isn’t the end, but I’m so burned out that I don’t how
to start moving again. The way he looked at me made me feel like a pitiful
creature that was falling apart. Only I'm allowed to know how much I'm
crumbling. So why do I let him see it? I hid it so well, so why did I let him in
on my pain today? I could've kept my mouth shut.I know he wonders why I sit here
at all hours talking to people that I'll never know, never meet, never feel. How
do you explain to someone who is so happy and thinks you're so content, that
really you feel empty? Like you've just been going through the motions. Like you
haven't really been alive.

Today at church I cried three times.

1. First in main service. All this talk about Failure To Thrive. That's exactly what it was. I was living, but I wasn't thriving. I'm still not. I was (am) afraid to love and afraid to trust. I'm afraid to let go of the past because it's the one thing I can always count on the be there, whether I want it to or not. So there I sat. Throwing the past in between me and Jesus. Letting myself fall into a rut. I am still so scared.
2. I cried again during Turnpike when I overheard Micah talking. He was saying something I've heard from him before. "I know this chair will support me. I know this chair will hold me. But I'm not going to sit in it." That's how I feel sometimes. I know God won't leave. He won't abandon me like the people of my past. He has showed me that time and time again with answered prayers. But what if the chair doesn't hold me? It's safer to just stand. I hate when I think like that, but I'm scared that's almost instinct.
3. The third time was at Catalyst while Greg was closing us in prayer. I had been holding back tears for quite some time. As soon as we bowed our heads and I was safe from harsh glances, I let go. I couldn't hold it in anymore. The truth? I'm jealous. I know exactly what Greg means about living double lives and how tiring it is. I know what it feels like when those lives suddenly crash into each other head on. What I don't know is what it's like to finally be free. It seems like everytime I start getting it right, I suddenly find myself back on square one, trying to juggle who I am and who I pretend to be. I want it to stop, but I don't know how. I don't think I'm strong enough to do it on my own.

I am so tired of falling. I'm so tired of disappointing everyone, especially God. I'm so tired of being me. I want to be free. I want to dance for joy knowing that I am fully and eternally loved. I do know it. I know it with every fiber of my being. But I am so scared. I'm scared just writing this. The last thing I want is for everyone to know how weak I truly am, but like I said I can't do this alone.

So there it is. Think of me how you will. This is just a desperate cry from deep within the depths of a stumbling, lost soul.

Hopeless

I'm sitting here with nothing to say, so why do I continue typing? I never had anything to say, so why did they even listen? Maybe I'm going insane. Maybe I've always been. I never deserved his attention. Maybe that's why I never got it. Maybe I am insane. I can't bring myself to believe that people care. Maybe that's why I feel alone. Maybe I've always been. I told you I had nothing to say, so why are you still reading? Maybe I am insane. Maybe.

Maybe God's actually listening. Maybe no one hears these cries. Maybe the phone disconnected. Maybe I disconnected myself. Maybe I did years ago.

I wish I could put into words the way I feel when he says he loves me. I wish I could do something other than cry. I wish I could feel less hopeless.

Maybe it's more than coincidence that the words of my daily email always seem to ft perfectly with last night's prayer. Maybe He is listening. Are You listening?

Important Question

As some of you know, I am working on a book entitled How to Survive High School: For Christian Girls. I am hoping to have a chapter dedicated to the advice and testimonies of guys and girls of all ages. If you would be willing to have your testimony included you can email that to me at emma_scandalous@hotmail.com. However, I do have a question I would like everyone to answer (you can post your answer in the comments).

What is the one thing you wish you had known when you started high school?

My answer: Things may seem like the end of the world, but life goes on.

Flames of a Burning Passion

I awoke this morning with an unusual feeling inside me; an aching, burning, fascinating feeling. I tried to continue about my morning like everything was perfectly normal. Lazing on the couch watching HGTV, I found it impossible to sit still. I couldn't figure it out. I soon decided to try to relax in a hot bath with my book--Messy Spirituality by Michael Yaconelli--but quickly found myself in tears. The words seemed to jump of the page and entwine themselves with deepest, darkest story of my heart.
It was about the Samaritan women at the well; you know, the one that had been divorced 5 times and was currently living with a man she wasn't married to, the one who went to the well alone in the afternoon because respectable women went together in the morning and she was definitely not a respectable woman, the one that Jesus spoke to and showed amazing grace to and offered Living Water so that she may never thirst again. I began to think about how much I was the Samaritan woman. Maybe we didn't share the same sins, but we both held tight to our past (and present) of mistakes. What made me cry was that it was in this mess of a life that Jesus literally reached out to her and spoke to her and offered her a new beginning. As we all know, I struggle with the thought of perfection. I always wanted to be perfect for God. Reading this today made me realize that being honest with myself and everyone about the mess that I am is exactly what makes me perfect for God. Wow. That is true grace.
Following this retelling of the John 4, Yaconelli gave some real life examples of people that were touched by amazing grace; a young woman who admitted to her new boyfriend that she was a prostitute--fully expecting condemnation--and heard him weep as he told her over and over that he loves her, and a little boy who was the last strike of his little league baseball game causing his team to lose whose family set up the exact scenario and pitched to him over and over until he got a home run and was carried off the field on his uncle's shoulders. More tears quickly followed.
I sifted through memories searching for moments that I was shown grace, or showed it to others. The only time that came to mind was not what I was looking for. It was a moment when I had the perfect opportunity to share God's grace, but instead took the role of the condemner. My best friend had taken a sharp turn off a cliff that seemed to have no end. I was losing her to everything I had worked myself to the bone trying to escape. I knew deep in my heart that I wanted to love her out of it. I prayed for her day and night. I tried to hold her close and make her feel how important she was to me and how much I wanted the real her back. Instead, we fought. We fought like we never had before. I was judgemental and mean. I pushed her waway when she wouldn't do what I wanted. I regret that more than ever now, because I don't even have the opportunity to share grace and compassion and love from God with her. We aren't friends anymore. I deserved that. I wish I could tell her that everything I did was out of love, but that would be a lie. I did it because I was selfish and didn't want to lose my best friend. If I could tell her one thing now it would be that I know things aren't as bad, but no matter how bad they are, God will gladly meet her in the middle of it and pick her up, dust her off, and bring onto the path that brings true happiness. If I could tell her one thing it would be that God can and will love her in that way that I never could.
(Keep in mind, this is all happening in the bathtub before noon.)
I couldn't handle anymore crying, so I started praying about LTI and what God wanted me to do. I wish I could say I heard this miraculous voice speak to me and tell me a bullet-point five-year plan, but why lie? I washed my hair and let my mind wander.
Okay, before I go on, I must confess something: I get really nervous talking to people, so I like to think through the conversation in my head. That way I have a basic idea of what I want to say.
I began to play through a possible conversation with someone regarding what I want to do with my life. I've kind of always known I want to work with children, but I didn't know in what capacity. I started my conversation with my double major at FPU speech. Then I moved on to the seminary I found in Oregon. I touched on how I'm planning to have an empasis on working with at-risk youth. Then came the dreaded question that always causes a stutter or two and definitely blushed cheeks: what are you planning to do after you get your degrees? In other words, how are you going to put all of this learning to use? Awkward pause. I was drawing a blank. What did I want to do with all of this? I wanted to help people. I wanted to keep people from going down my path, making my mistakes, feeling my pain. I wanted to take those people and draw them to God.
That's when that burning feeling came bubbling up into a passionate joy. Of course! It had been there all along! I wanted to say those words that I couldn't bring myself to say to my best friend. I wanted to tell all these hurting people that God doesn't care how messed up you are, He loves you anyways! He doesn't love you in spite of your mistakes. He forgives your mistakes and gives you a new begninning. Yes, the scars of the past still remain as vividly as the scars on my wrists, but God gives you the opportunity to start living a new way. A way that will bring you true joy!
"Well, okay but how are you going to do that?"
No pause this time. No stuttering. No flushed cheeks.
I have two options:
1) Find the worst neighborhood in where ever I end up--gangs, drugs, and pain, oh my!--and find a church that will allow me to start a program specifically for these people. Something that will be open to everyone, no matter their beliefs, but not intimidating. Just a place to talk about life and God. A place where those who have been saved and started their new lives in Christ can turn around and help those who haven't yet.
2) Come back to Fresno. Sounds like a step back, I know. But I also know how much pain and suffering there is right in my own neighborhood. I mean, a drug dealer in my graduating class lives a few houses down from me. Maybe, I won't come back to Fresno, but somewhere like it. A place where the walls of perfect suburbia harbor the scariest of secrets. A place where the plastic smiles painted on the never-ending parade of perfect faces makes it even more intimidating to admit how much of a mes you are. Yeah, we have churches and youth groups galore, but I personally know how scary it is to sit in a room of people that seem to have it all together and try to put together the words "I think I'm pregnant," looking for some much needed prayer. Micah said it perfectly on Sunday, "a holy huddle." That's what it feels like to all those hurting people that wander in the doors, no matter how welcoming the group is. Because they have it all together and my name is synonymous with train-wreck.
I want a program with group environments, but also one-on-one counseling, specifically for the youth that can't seem to wake up and stay sober, the youth that continue to blame themselves for the sexual abuse in their past, the youth that are determined that their too messed up for God to love. I want a program for the youth like my best friend and I who need to hear that it's in the mess that Jesus will meet us.
So now here I am. Nine hours later, seated in my new chair at my new desk typing on my new laptop looking calm and collected, like I have it all together. But inside I am crumbling with memories of a sin-filled past. I am trying to keep my mind focused on God. I am burning with a passion to get out there and start my dream.

Same Old Song and Dance

You know those moments when you realize that all those changes you were adamant to make have fallen between the cushions of the couch that you've called home for the past few days, and it hits you like a ton of bricks that you're exactly where you started? Welcome to my here and now. Every situation is exactly the same, yet everything is completely different. Something has changed deep inside of me. Something pulls at my heart every moment that my mind's not where it should be. I used to wish things would be simple again; back to a time with self-inflicted wounds shielded my body from the real world and stupid arrogance made me feel like Superman--I could get away with anything. Now, as I sit in my bed with my heart pounding, hoping my parents don't find out I'm on the computer when I'm supposed to be sleeping, I can honestly say that I'm glad things aren't simple anymore. I know that this pull deep inside me to back away and think about something else, comes from The One who loves me more than I've ever deserved. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that most of my relationships in the past were an attempt to find the love my father never gave. I didn't want to be alone. But, like I said, something has changed. Mine is the only breath I can hear, but I know I'm not alone. Yes, there are times when I feel like the world is crashing down and I'm nothing but a screw-up. It is in those moments that I feel God reaching out to me saying "Take my hand and let's try this again, MY way." I know I can't do this alone. I had to fight off a lot of pride to get to a place where I can say that and truly believe it. I guess some changes did happen. I wonder what else is under these cushions...