my journaling the other day/perhaps a song to be worked on?

The world seems so meaningless sometimes.

Then, by extension, so does my life.

I feel so sad, and then think how it doesn’t really matter how I feel;

I get sadder.

All the drugs and all my vices

still don’t seem like enough to get me through sometimes.

I’ll be honest,

I’m not quite sure I’d care if I died.

You really think there’s something after?

I have my doubts; I get sadder.

And all this pain — a heart wrenching existence

makes me wonder how so many zombies

can just smile their lives away.

I wish I could smile honestly.

A mask is so exhausting.

When it comes off, I get sadder.

And I lay down to sleep more

meaningless hours away.

I think of all of this

and I get sadder.

I don’t know how to say all of this, without you judging me, so I’m just going to say it and know you will, but try not to care.

For those of you that know me at all, you know about my vicious cycle of “go God!” then “I don’t know if I believe in God (or rebellion of some sorts).” Well, I just thought I’d come out and clear things up that I suppose I’m on my “rebellion” side right now, but I just want to say that I think it’s probably for good. I mean, I know you’re probably going to read that and be like, “yeah, she’s always confident that however she is at the moment is how she’s going to stay”, but I really think it is. I’ve just tried and tried to live the Christian life, and I’ve truly believed it and relied on God completely or as much as I feel is humanly possible for the strength to be faithful, battle temptations, and so on, but I just can’t do it. My desires ALWAYS overpower at some point and I come back to my life of just really living life. I can’t help it. I enjoy drinking with friends on Saturday nights. I like herbal things on occasion; it keeps me surviving when I don’t want to. I want to have premarrital sex with my future husband someday. I don’t mean to be totally obscure, but I’m just trying to be totally honest about my feelings. I don’t think that these things make someone a bad person or anything, I just know that this lifestyle that I want and the Christian lifestyle that I also desire just cannot go together, so I have to choose. And so knowing that if I were to continue choosing the “Christian lifestyle,” I would continue falling back to this “worldly lifestyle” or whatever you want to call it, so there’s no use fighting it. I’m just trying to live my life and be as happy as I can be. It gets so rough sometimes or so just really sad sometimes, and I’m not trying to complain because I know it’s that way for everyone, and I know that it’s a lot worse for some; I’m just trying to be honest about how I feel. I love so many people in my “Christian bubble” or whatever, but I feel like I can’t be friends with them if I don’t choose to live the same way as them because I know they’re always judging me or finding my honesty taboo. I don’t know. I’m just doing my best, and trying to accept that this ridiculous cycle is just a part of my life. I’ll do my best to stop it, but if it stops right here (which it most likely will), I’m living for me, my happiness, and servicing others as best as I can. Sorry if this burdens anyone. My advice is don’t let it; it’s no use. I know how I used to feel as a Christian when I felt there was fleeting hope for someone. Don’t let this do that to you; I’ll be just fine. Goodnight.

Daily Pain for You.

You know, I’m always going to regret never attempting to  have a romantic relationship with him. There’s this guy I know who I met a couple of years ago. He’s the only guy that I’ve ever connected with that well and had such an awesome friendship with. I love him as a friend, no question, but I wish so so much that we could try to date. Partly because I really think we could be soul mates, but also because I know I’ll wonder for the rest of my life what could have been if I just had the chance with him. He lives relatively far away, or at least far away enough to where it would be a long distance relationship, and I really wouldn’t like that, but I’m so afraid that by the time I get back there, he’ll have found somebody else. But aside from the distance factor, I’m ready to date him. I’ve finally figured out who I am and want to be; I’m stable and not changing those silly beliefs back and forth like I used to that got on his nerves. I’m working on myself as a person, and my life is looking up. I’m fixing to have a job, I’m in school making awesome grades, we like a lot of the same music, we have personalities that mix well together, although due to a fault of mine, there were times when I’d bug him if we were around eachother too much. But I have feelings for him. I have since not long after we became friends. There have been times when I’ve denied it to myself or tried to make them go away, but I think all along I have desired to love him and be loved by him. I’ve talked with him so much about girls and I know what he wants in a girl, and I know that I can give that to him; I can be that girl. I just wish I had the chance. Sorry to ramble on like this, but I’ve just really been thinking about him a lot lately. It causes me pain every time I think about him and wish I had one chance. If only he would realize how good we could be together.

Gotta live in today…

So, I’ve had this goal for several months now to life for today as a general idea. I do pretty well most days. But today as my mind, left unattended, sank into the past, I failed my goal for a brief couple of hours. I found myself pining for the days of flaming dryer lent balls and sitting up talking until four in the morning about the silliest and the saddest things.  I miss some people so much. I don’t think many people could ever understand the hurt I have inside. I try not to have regrets too much, but I have to say if I had the last two years of my life to do over, I damn sure wouldn’t do them the same. I don’t mean to be vulgar, I just want to make a point. I have screwed up more times (when I should have learned) than there’s excuse for. And my life isn’t some pile of dog crap in the corner of an abandoned trailor that nobody remembers. It’s pretty good, really. I have family that loves me (although, I fearfuly believe they wouldn’t if they ever knew the true filth in my life); they support me, tell me when they’re proud of me and celebrate my achievements. I have friends, granted they will never be the group I fell in love with back home; they got my back and all that stuff that friends do, and I the same for them. I have a lot; much more than most, and I hope that no one ever believes that I don’t appreciate it. I may, from time to time, slip up and take something I have for granted, but the moment I realize, appoligies are given where they are due, and I work harder from then to not let anything go unappreciated. So my sadness doesn’t come from some selfish idea that I don’t have enough; it comes from the fact that I don’t have all that I could. I don’t have my fullest potential. My screw ups have stolen me from the life of what I CAN achieve, and dumped me in a “happy” life, but not what I’m capable of.  I don’t know if any of this makes since, and I’m probably going to read this tomorrow, and be like, “what the crap, Christi?!?!” But these were just some of my thoughts tonight. I really am happy, for the most part, here. I know I’ve screwed up, and I know what I have to do. I have to keep on living from here. This is where I’ve brought myself in life so far, and I just have to take it, go with it, and work my butt off to get to where I want to be from here. For me, that is wherever God leads me. I can’t wait to see! Goodnight.

Update…

So, I noticed that I haven’t posted anything in quite some time; I appologize.  Life has been rather uneventful in that it has been consumed with school and things of that nature for the past 10 weeks. Each day has been much too similar to the last, filled with rising early, off to classes, home to study, then going to bed to do it all over again. Of course there have been random bits of excitement, but nothing stands out as necessary to blog about. Yesterday was the last day of classes, so today begins my little 1 month summer break. I watched Gilmore Girls this morning; it was good. Oh, and I got straight A’s in my 3 summer classes (English, Spanish, & Psychology), so that is always good news.  As for things on the spiritual side, well, they have been good. I have been tested as we all are, and I have passed some and failed some, but I know who wins in the end, so I aim to do the very best I can until then. I’m sorry that I don’t really have anything of interest to post, but I promise that if my life suddenly gets exciting, you will be among the first to know. Until then, Christi

Yearn!

I had my first little drought since my bounce back recently.  I got pretty comfortable and confident, not in myself. I know to only boast in Christ. But comfortable in where I was at. And of course that was a mistake. I went about 4 days without having my quiet time or praying much before the devil attacked.  And he attacked fiercly and knew the exact area to attack me.  I got really scared and began to look at this issue very differently than I have in the past when it has come up. At first I felt helpless and had the mindset of, “I’ve never been able to defeat this temptation before. Why should this time be any different?” But last night someone played the song YEARN by Shane & Shane, and it hit me. Of course this time won’t be any different if I try to defeat this in my own strength and with the mindset of already giving up. I have to fight with the armour of Christ! And I made that chorus my prayer: Lord, I want to yearn for you! I want to burn with passion over you! And only you! Lord, I want to yearn!  And I know that if I allow God to equip me for battle, He WILL have victory!  I just wanted to share that. I haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve had plenty to blog about, but everytime I think about it, I’m just like, “I’m not in blogging mode right now.” So anyways, I wasn’t really in super blogging mode for this, but I wanted to share. So here ya go. Maybe I’ll be back in blogging mode soon. Love, Christi

people promote causes 24/7, and we have the greatest cause of all, yet we keep silent

My dad owns a pawn shop here in Dalton.  He got into the pawn business when we moved to Dalton about 11 or so years ago. He had worked in the nuclear industry when we lived in Knoxville. Got up early every morning, wearing a suit and tie, and was off to the office.  When we moved here, my parents both took some time off from work. They had no pressing need, and thoroughly enjoyed the break. My mom built a company with her brother from the ground up. Dalton is the carpet capital of the world, so they built a sample company. It has been very successful. My mom left the company about 4 years ago, but it is still doing well. My pa-paw was ready to retire about the time my dad got ready to start working again. He owned a pawn shop on the other side of town (about 20 minutes away from our house). He worked there with his son (my uncle). My dad talked with my pa-paw and my uncle, and decided to buy it and run it with my uncle. It was a big change from Mr. Suit and Tie who got up at 6 every morning. He now got to sleep in till 8am and dress casually. The job includes a lot of “shooting’ the bull” as they call it here. It was a change, but he enjoyed it. Later, one of cousins started working there, and my dad decided to sell it to my uncle and let him and my cousin run it. My dad then built a new pawn shop not far from our house.  He has done very well in this business. He’s changed his location once for a bigger space. It’s so clean and nice. Most definitely the nicest pawn shop I’ve ever been in, or could imagine ever going in. I love him working there. I’ve met some real … “characters” there and have good memories of working there during summer time.  That’s all some background to the real story here.

About a month ago, my dad received a memorandum informing him that as of a set date… I believe in July, it would be required that all pawn shops must take a sort of “mug shot” like picture of every person who sales or pawns an item or items, and an additional picture of that item to be submitted weekly to the sheriff’s office. Now, there are a little more details here to this new procedure, but that’s the gist of it. (Whether you think that’s reasonable or not is beside the point. I promise.) When my dad found this out, he was furious and took action immediately. He has been telling customers about this on a daily basis to raise awareness and get supporters. He’s found out who the “powers that be” are, or who he needs to confront about this issue and sent them a formal letter discussing his point of view on the matter. He’s got a petition. He put a huge add in the paper about it and providing numbers of the sheriff’s office and chairmen so others show their disapproval of this situation. Needless to say, he didn’t just sit around hoping it would get brought up in conversation so he could share his opinion. No! He jumped into action. He talked about it all the time, sharing everything he knew. He studied it so he would be more educated to discuss it. He did everything in his power to raise awareness for this cause he felt so strongly about. 

So, this has really got me thinking, if this thing that is, in the grand picture, not really that big of a deal, can drive someone to tell at least a couple hundred people within a community about it in a few weeks, why doesn’t this cause that we have…. the cause of the life-saving life-changing gospel move us to such a active place? Why are we afraid to tell people about it because they may not agree or they may not do anything about it? We are not called to save lives. We don’t have the power to do so, and the fact that we don’t lead someone in conversion should not stop us from spreading the glorious truth that we so undeservedly know. 

I know this isn’t really an update on my life or anything, but this is just something I’ve been thinking a lot about ever since I saw my dad get so fired up for his cause. Until next time ~ Christi

Update

Hey guys! No big news to share, but I wanted to say that I’ve gotten accepted to Dalton State. I have orientation on the 18th of May and classes start the 19th! Of course I don’t love living here and going to school here after going to MTSU for a year, but after being out of school for a year, I am really looking forward to starting back and being a college student again. I feel like my life has almost been on hold without being in school, so it kind of feels like I’m getting the ball rolling and getting back on track. God has still been clearly working, increasing my passion for Him daily. It’s crazy how quickly things can change. Looking at my life a month or so ago and now is so insane. It’s dramatically different, and I am so thankful that God brought me back to Him. Nothing major to report, but I’m sure life is going to get even more exciting very soon. Haha… if you can call school work exciting. Lol.  Anyways, I’d appreciate any prayers in making this change. They’ll be needed.

my STRONGEST weakness

Oh boy!

There are so many new things God has been teaching me and so many new lessons I have been learning. There are many things that I once would have said were my biggest areas of weakness, and would have said that if the temptation arose in that area, I would have fallen. But now, with God in my life, they are no longer issues at all. However, as we all know, there are always going to be those areas where we struggle more than with other things. Each is different for every Christian. What’s mine may not be a problem in the world for you, and what’s yours may not bother me at all, but all of us have one or more things like that. They change from time to time… when God helps us conquer those, but then there’s something else. While yes, we as Christians are certainly freed from the power and penalty of sin, we continue daily to fight it’s presence. 

So, what is mine right now? It’s not what I would have expected. It has to do with my relationship with my parents. It is so so difficult to honor them and show respect for them. I want to, oh I truly do, but every time we start talking, it turns in to an argument, I let my frustrated emotions get the best of me, and I leave feeling defeated once again by the temptation. My parents aren’t Christians and they don’t have the extra power of the Holy Spirit to control their emotions and forget about stubborn pride. Me and my dad struggle with it the most. But, I know that this is a common thing to have to deal with, I just don’t even know what to pray for. I certainly pray for my parents salvation, but for me? Patience? Humility? But what else? I just… wanted to put this out there. Me and my parents haven’t had a healthy relationship since I was a tot, and now that I am serving the Lord and am called by Him to serve others, I want so badly to show them respect and to serve them in humility, and to mend our broken relationship, but right now, I am far from that point. 

This blog is more of a prayer request than an update. I need prayer, I need to know what to pray for, and I need help from God, because it is apparent that after 20 years of trying to have a good relationship with my parents that I cannot do it in my own strength. Thanks.

Another long one, but full of great things the Lord has being doing in my life!

I am just so encouraged!

In my last post, I recaped what had gone on in my life for the past several months, and while that was most definitely the furthest I’ve ever strayed from God and the worse situations have ever been for me, it wasn’t my first experience with running and rebeling from Him. It’s been a cycle in my walk with the Lord. I know it’s because of my lack of discipline in spiritual practices. I’ve never stuck to a consistent prayer life and daily Bible study, which obviously means there was never a sturdy stable foundation in Christ built in my life, leaving me vulnerable to Satan’s temptations. And when I would give in to those temptations, I would get so down and depressed about it, instead of running to God for forgiveness and cleansing, I would run….100 miles an hour in the opposite direction. And you’d think that after returning to God after that happening once, I would learn from it, but usually, when I would return, it would mostly be for the sole reason of missing the “Christian lifestyle” or my “Christian bubble.” So since I “came back” for the wrong reasons, I was never fired up enough to stay consistent and disciplined in my spiritual practices to build that foundation I needed to have a firm faith. Sure, sometimes I would be jazzed for a week or two, but it quickly diminished because my “jazz” wasn’t in Christ, it was in me and the decision I had made. And so the cycle continued. 

Now, another thing to note is that I did not move back to Dalton by any choice of mine. Sure, it was a result of my actions, but I would have rather ate mud than move back here. I had a life of freedom, independence and my Christian bubble, and would be moving to a life under my parents’ roof, no friends, and no Christian bubble. Oh yes, I came, but I came kicking and screaming and have thus far treated being here as a temporary thing. I viewed it as, “I’ll be here until I can show my parents I’m willing to work hard and do what it takes to be a successful college student, then I’m back to MTSU.”  With this mindset, I have made it a point to keep Murfreesboro as “home” in my head and have made no initiative to become a part of the Dalton community. 

Now, having stated those things, on to why I’m writing this note.

When I walked away about a month ago; Cut off all my friends, stopped all the drinking and drugs cold turkey and just left it all… I’ll be brutaly honest in saying that I didn’t have a whole lot of faith that I would be able to stay away. I mean, I believed I’d make it maybe a month or so at most, but no longer than that before I’d be back in that cycle. I just knew better than anyone how I am. How I haven’t grown up, am not disciplined, am probably a little chemically unbalanced in the brain and just don’t stick to anything and work hard at it. And after the first time I had this cycle (before it was a cycle) I had loads of faith that “this time it’d be different.” And the second time, I still had a lot of faith, but just a little less than before, and so on and so forth each time until this time, my faith in myself doing what I wanted to do (be a servant and slave to my master, the one God Almighty) had nearly dimished. I just knew myself too well to be so nieve to believe it would change. 

And, as it turns out, I was right. I would fall short if I tried to do it again.

But luckily, I serve a gracious God who has shown me that while yes, I will fall short if I try. HE never falls short in His work. Amen? He has shown me that I have to stop trying to do this thing on my own. I don’t have to! I have the Holy Spirit of the living and risen Christ Jesus living inside of me and He’s here to help me and guide me on my way to sanctification! Ooh! I’m getting all worked up. *Deep Breath*

The point is, God; The creator of everything there is and ever will be; The all knowing, ever present, all powerful King of Kings, is MERCIFUL and GRACIOUS.  So gracious that He wants to help me, the worst sinner I know, to become more like Him. And He would give a wretch like me the honor to bring Glory to His perfect spotless name.

His work in my life through this past month has been so completely evident and I am so greatful.

He has placed me in this city, given me an environment without a “Christian bubble” so I can build my foundation solely on Him without relying on my surrounding friends and influences to keep me strong, and I am to become a member of this society until He is ready to bring me back to Murfreesboro. Or, maybe He is done with me in Murfreesboro. I hope not, because I love it there, but I have to view wherever He takes me as my mission field. If when God is done using me here, He decides to take me somewhere else besides Murfreesboro, I will gladly go ready to do His work.

 

Also, a prayer request I have:
Because of my heart for missions and God recently reminding me that I should treat wherever I am as my mission field, I’ve been thinking about ways to do that, and I really feel like God is leading me to start prayer walking around Dalton. In my neighborhood, downtown, the college campus, the schools, etc. Now, when He first laid this on my heart, I was thinking “no way!” I can’t do that. People will think I’m insane walking around by myself stopping ever so often to pray. And what if I meet someone that starts talking with me about Jesus? I won’t know what to say. And what if they want me to lead them in a prayer of salvation? I’m not qualified to do that! I’ve always went prayer walking with others who can do all that stuff, but not me. Not yet anyway.  You know? All those excuses again. But He reminded me that if He calls me to do something, He will equip me for the work. So, I am planning on doing that sometime in the near future. I’ll be honest. This about scares me to death. Sure, I’m a people person, I’ve just never been the front man on anything like this before.

Anyway, this note was pretty jumbled too. I guess my thoughts are pretty jumbled the majority of the time. Too many in there racing around to get them organized. But to kind of sum it up:

God took me and allowed me to get to a place where I nearly lost all faith in myself, so He could bring me to a place where I put all faith in Him.

And some scripture to dwell on: 

“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” -Psalm 107:1-9