A Psalm For My Broken Heart

"He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds"

Psalm 147:3

A Psalm For My Broken Heart

How could You love me? How could You forgive me? I have hated You. I have shunned You. I have sinned against You. I have run as far as I could. I have created misery, a spiraling abyss, to get away from You. I have fallen; I am broken; I am beaten; I am bleeding; I am weeping; all from my well crafted plans. Why would You rescue me? Why would You tend to my self-mutilation? Because You are Him. Your love is unfailing. You answer prayers that are drenched in tears. You have waited patiently for my call and You have answered. You have halted the spinning black hole. You have lifted me up. With a touch, I am healed of the devastation I have created. How could I have forgotten who You are? You are The Healer, The Protector, The Savior, and My Love I will cling to You all the days I walk the earth. Until Your promise is fulfilled and there on after, I will never let go.

I wish I could explain how my heart felt when I wrote this poem so you could understand how great our God is. I have been and continue to be redeemed. I am so thankful for what God has done in my life since I wrote this. God is faithful. He loves you. Don't give up on Him. He will bring you out of the depths of the most broken of hearts. Call out to Him. He is waiting.

Broken

Today I was reminded again of how much alike we are than we are different.
Divinely intertwined, we have all suffered from the fall
and are in constant need of our Redeemer.
Whether it be a difficult financial situation, a broken heart, or just a rough day...
He is writing the story of your redemption if you let Him.
Put it in the hands of the Ultimate Storyteller.

Broken

The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight
Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time
I am here still waiting though I still have my doubts
I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain there is healing
In your name I find meaning

The broken locks were a warning you got inside my head
I tried my best to be guarded, I'm an open book instead
And I still see your reflection inside of my eyes
That are looking for purpose, they're still looking for life

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain is the healing
In your name I find meaning
So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on
I'm barely holdin' on to you

I'm hangin' on another day
Just to see what you will throw my way
And I'm hangin' on to the words you say
You said that I will, will be ok

The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone
I may have lost my way now, having forgot my way home

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain is there is healing
In your name I find meaning
So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on
I'm barely holdin' on to you
So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on

Almost Twenty Three

I just re-discovered my blog. This happens about once a year. I always enjoy it so that I can reflect on who I was and who I am today. The last time I wrote I was 21, still working on my undergrad, 3o pounds overweight, doing everything so my future would be set and not very content with my life. It is amazing to me the story of my life that God has written between that time and now.

Between then and now I...

Dated someone

Built a little family with amazing people

Backslid horribly

Have seen the wages of sin

Moved in with my best friend in an apartment where our boyfriends live in the one below us

Got a grown-up job

Realized how much I don't want to work at an office job for the rest of my life

Broke up with that someone

Graduated college

Went through the hardest time probably in my entire life

Have drawn closer to God than I ever have

Began to learn what it truly means to give it all to Him

Witnessed what faith and prayer can do

Rekindled some pretty amazing friendships

Been blessed with amazing new friendships

Ran a 6K

Lost 33 pounds

Got accepted into grad school at Reformed Theological Seminary for my Masters in Counseling

Been provided a live-in nanny job where I do not have to pay rent

Continue to be redeemed by my Savior

Continue to seek his face every day.

My life is no where near where I thought it would be today. Praise God for that. Everyday is a battle with ups and downs. Everyday it is essential that I cry out to Jesus and trust him to continue redeeming me.

Thank You God for where you have brought me and where you are going to take me.

"Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again." -Psalm 71:20-22

The Finals Week Blues

I always get this way around finals.  Completely bummed and not able to bring to the surface any desire to do ANYTHING.  I get completely overwhelmed by any and every thing.  It's not that I am sad that another semester is so to be past, it's that it can not be finished soon enough.  I want to go home so badly right now.  I don't want to study Spanish anymore.  I gave up on trying to get an "A" in Research Methods.  My Abnormal Psychology class is a joke.  I am a senior in college.  This blows.  Isn't college supposed to be the best time of your life?  I am constantly swamped with paving my way to the future while my present is spent in constant anxiety and irritation.  I have no tolerance for things that I think are a waste of my time.  Due to that, this semester has been horrible to barrel through.  I want to be a Mental Health Counselor and I chose a university that only offers ONE undergraduate class in that area.  Ugh.  I don't want to do research.  I have no interest and no talent what so ever in that area and yet I am forced to take two classes in which I have done well in both but could not tell you a thing I have learned.  What a waste of time and money.  I am twenty one years old.  I should be at my prime.  Instead,  I am thirty pounds over weight, constantly stressed out, and not having fun at all.  I am doing what I am suppose to be doing.  I'm not getting in trouble.  I am on a path to success.  Why does this suck so bad?  Will it get better once I graduate or will that then be even worse?  I always look down on those who choose not to go to college and are seemingly doing nothing with their lives but could they be right?  Living life to the fullest right now?  Or is that even life to the fullest?  Temporary highs and living at home with their parents?  Ugh.  I just want to be doing what I want to be doing with my life.  Taking classes about things that I care about with GOOD professors.  Not ones who tell you you don't need to buy the book and "lecture" off of a Word document.  This semester seems like a rip off.  One more stinkin' week.

This is such a negative post.

I am grateful to be in college.  I am grateful for the great friends that I have made here.  I am grateful for my amazing church and the awesome people in it.

I just feel like I am in a rut.  That is why I moved away from home, because I felt like I was in a rut.  Now I'm in another one.  

I really miss theatre.  I acted in a student film project these past couple of weeks.  It was really tiring and tedious but it was so much fun.  I really miss being around theatrically creative people.

Ugh.

Two semesters until graduation.  I can do this.

Bitter Sweet Sinphony

As my lonely, numbered days continue to slip by,

I think of you because you are the only thing that makes me feel alive.

My love for you reminds me that I have a soul.

It reminds me that there is a beating heart under this skin.

So alone, I stay with no place to feel at peace.

I am an outcast with nowhere to fit in.

Oh! But when I am near you,

I feel the warmth of home!

When you look into my eyes,

you set my soul on fire.

The soul that is alive because of the idea of you.

The irony of our friendship cuts the blood from my very skin.

Your addictions cloud your vision of the true reality that stares you in the face.

Your addictions kill us both but it is my own that is the true murderer.

For my addiction is you.

Will you love me?  Oh you could care less!

Our temporary highs hold our lives at bay.

When they are gone, conviction burns deep through layers of our sin.

Where is our savior?  When will this end?

Oh how I long for the day when the sound of your name

doesn’t make my heart race.

The day when your smile won’t turn my insides into

birds the flutter around my rib cage.

Until then I must repent of the sweetness of your sin.

I must bury myself in prayer

and wait for the promise to be fulfilled.

Only then will my soul truly be alive

and my heart truly at peace.

... and Justice for all.

Tonight Courtney and I went to see "Pineapple Express".  It was a hilarious movie and we had a ton of fun telling jokes through out it.  After the movie, we were walking back to my car when we saw a group of people yelling.  We stood and watched for a moment to see if there was about to be a fight.  Myself, being the Psychology major that I am, instantly thought of the Kitty Genovese case and the bystander effect.  While everyone else was waiting excitedly for a fight to break out, I was thinking of a way to safely break up the fight if it were to occur.  I automatically push open my phone, and say to Courtney that I think I should call 911.  I wasn't sure it was the best idea because no crime had yet occurred.  I just thought that if I did call and something did happen, the police when get there right in the nick of time.  By now, a good sized crowd had formed.  Courtney and I stood and watched for a moment.  Nothing seemed to be breaking out so we decide to continue walking back to the car.  As soon as we walk away, the yelling starts to grow loud again.  By now I was thinking, "Alright, time to call 911."  I dial the number and quickly hang up.  I was afraid that I was being over dramatic and I was not getting a lot of support for this idea.  As soon as I turn around to wait for Courtney, who was still watching what was going on, I see something fly through the air and hit a young man (who was not involved in the argument at all, in fact he just happened to be walking up at the very moment the object was thrown) in the face.  As he falls to the ground, the 911 operator calls me back and I proceed to tell her the events that just took place.  

 

My point in writing all of this is not to tell the story of an eventful evening or to toot my own horn for wanting to break up the situation.  My point is this: how do we expect to receive justice from this world if we do not give justice to this world?  As we all stand idly by and watch events such as this happen, we are doing an injustice to our fellow citizen.  We need to be the ones who must step up and stand out to serve one another.  Take the initiative.  If you see a situation such as this happening before you eyes, do something!

Further more, watching events such as this is called emotional pornography.  It feeds one of the most disgusting part of our sinful hearts.  We are desensitized to brutality.   Not only desensitized, but we crave it.  We would rather watch a person get hurt than stand up and try to prevent it from happening.

I hope that who ever reads this will take this information to heart.  We must stand up for one another.  We must stop injustice if we our selves want justice.  Please stand out of the crowd and stand up for what is right.

If you really knew me you would know...

That my mom died when I was 12.  She had serious addiction to prescription pills that finally caused her to go brain dead.  Growing up I constantly had to call 911 for her because she would collapse or be completely non-functional.  There were many times where my mom would be driving me home from school or to another location and she would be unable to drive.  By God's grace, we avoided many car accidents.

I have always been the type of person who didn't want any sympathy.  I just figured that it was something that happened in my life and that was that.  I never missed not having a mom.  I never really understood what was going on or that this wasn't normal.  I just dealt with it as if it was like getting up and brushing my teeth in the morning.

After my mom died, my dad was traumatized.  He dealt with this by finding and new girlfriend and getting engaged not even 6 months after my mom died.  With in the year they were married.  My step-mom was nice I guess, but she was one of the stupidest, uneducated, ignorant, tacky people that I have ever met in my life.  After 7 long years of my dad picking her over me, he finally came to his senses and divorced her.

Now, I am realizing all of the major effects this all has had on my life.  These events completely ripped me apart from my mom's side of the family.  I was so mad at them because they were so mean to my mom and I.  This also tore me apart from my dad's side of the family because my mom would be the one to contact them and organize events with them. There are no big family holidays.  Just me and my dad.  There is no one to decorate or clean my dad's house.  I hardly know how to clean or cook.  I don't know what a healthy relationship looks like between a man and a woman.  I have no one to call to receive empathy and understanding from when I am upset.  There is no one there to explain to my dad and back me up on why I am upset that he doesn't want me to have a room in his house for when I come home.  Although, when these things make themselves prevalent to me they tear me apart; I learn to deal with them.

I am a very strong person.  I always have been.  Just because I am strong, that doesn't mean that I don't need someone to lean on.  ---- This is something that REALLY pisses me off.  I feel like a lot of my friends don't understand this.  Many times I have gotten upset and tried to talk to my friends about it and they told me that I was a strong person and that I needed to stop crying and be strong. Another one of my friends pretty much told me that she couldn't deal with all of this baggage and now we don't really talk anymore.

Another thing that REALLY pisses me off, is that people that I have met here in Orlando don't even know about this.  They don't know because I don't want to tell them.  They don't know because they don't care to get to know me.  I have made many strides in trying to get to know people.  I have stepped out of my comfort zone like you wouldn't believe.  I have asked people about their lives, I have pursued people, I have really put myself out there with nothing but a superficial response.  People are more interested in who I am dating than how my life is.  

The last thing that really gets me is when people have pity for me.  Empathy and understanding are a completely different thing than pity.  I can not stand when the holidays come around and people say to me, "My family feels bad for you.  Do you want to come have dinner with us?"  I do appreciate the invitation, but it really isn't necessary to "feel bad" for me.  When you say you "feel bad" for me, it's like saying that you have something that I don't have; that you have something that is so much better than my situation. It's like saying,  "You don't have a family so here, wanna awkwardly pretend to be a part of mine for a few hours."  I know this sounds really harsh and I do really appreciate when people invite me.  I appreciate where they are coming from.  Just don't say you feel bad for me or act with pity toward me.  Although, it would be nice to have big family holidays, I am completely content with just me and my dad.  My dad is my family and that is how it has been for the past 8 years.  This is my life.  I'm no worse off from anyone; it's just a different situation.  I don't feel bad for me so there is no reason for anyone else to feel bad for me.