Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Is it raining? Or am I just thinking that?

I love the rain. I always have. It makes me feel like something bigger than me is out there. I know that there is but the rain makes me feel it. Thunderstorms make me feel it. Lightning makes me see it. I love to see and hear and feel. The rain that you see. The thunder that you hear. The drops that you feel on your skin. The light that you see flying from the sky. The drops that you hear hitting the landscape. The vibrations that you feel in your deep in your heart. Knowing that it could kill you doesn't even enter my mind when I sit outside in the rain and watch this vehement titan. The wind blows violently, tossing things up and down, from left to right. It howls. The lightning that falls from the sky, maybe starting a fire somewhere or maybe knocking over a tree. It crashes down and lights up the sky. The thunder is my favorite part. When I was little it frightened me. My grandpa told me that it was the angels in heaven bowling or moving furniture. That would make me feel better knowing that it was nothing that would harm me making the noise. Now that I am older and I know the scientific explanation for thunder, I have no reason to be afraid of it. I love it. I love the loud cracking, booming thunder that shakes the entire house or the ground that you are standing on and you feel it deep in your chest, in your heart place. I think that is why I like drums. I can feel it deep in my chest. I love everything about a storm. When people see the damage it can cause, I see the beauty and the cleaning power or such a storm. Then why is it when I go through a "storm" in my life that thunder that is so enticing, becomes scary again. Or why does the lightning become a hazard that can only send trees falling though your roof? Why do I lose that sense of wonder that I had for storms such as this? And why do I forget that there is something bigger than me that is letting this storm happen and the I forget that through the thunder I can feel that there is something bigger than me out there, holding onto me...

Restless

Not sleeping. Not knowing. Not seeing. Not hearing. Wanting. Needing.

I haven't been sleeping well lately. I can't sleep. Its not insomnia because I am tired, I just can't sleep. Sounds kinda like insomnia I suppose, maybe not, I don't know. I get into to bed and lay there. I think. Sometimes I think of important things. Most of the time it is one thought, that most wouldn't give a second thought, that snowballs into a avalanche. I normally write down my thoughts and then move on. Lately I am not sure if these thoughts warrant being written down. They have been written before and writing them again would just seem to be overkill. So I have just let them roll around in my head and they have begun to keep me awake again. So now I have begun to fall asleep when my body is so tired, I pass out. Which causes me to be tired and just gives me a headache. I am not sure what to do but breathe. Which is all I really know how to do anymore.

I watched a video a day or two ago and it hit me. That maybe all I need to do is just to breathe. Maybe that is all I need to do. Watch the videos and decide for yourself. See what you think. Is it just enough to breathe and know that He is there right next to me?



Wednesday, June 24, 2009

God is bigger than the boogie man?

Leave it to Veggie Tales to drive the point home.

Lately I have been having issues trusting in God. Things, from my point of view, seem to have been getting out of control. I have been looking for a steady job since school got out back in May. There has been nothing. I have applied to so many places, some more than once, and placed so many phone calls or sent so many e-mails, that I have lost all count. I have had some babysitting jobs but only being paid $20 a week is not cutting it. With my car being broken which cost $650 to be fixed (and thanks to God and my parents and my grandparents and myself that I have been able to get it fixed but that took all the money that was supposed to last me for awhile.), $20 a week is not cutting it...but I am grateful for it. I also have to pay off some of my school bill that loans and such didn't cover. So money is short and I have many bills right now.

Now, I am normally a pretty positive person and have no problem trusting that God will take care of me and all that entails. But as of late, its been very hard for me to do that. The control freak in me has been coming out for a visit. I tried so hard to beat down this control freak for a long time, now it is coming back with a vengeance and I am having a hard time just letting go and beating it and not being that way. But tonight as I am baby sitting, I popped in Veggie Tales for the kids to watch. It just so happened to be "Where's God When I'm Scared?" and if you grew up watching Veggie Tales, you know it has the song "God is Bigger Than the Boogie Man" in it. Well, of course that goofy little kid song would drive the point, that God has been trying to make to me for months, home. Of course...

Well I have noticed that things are getting better. I had a job interview today, I think that I have one Friday and depending on what happens Friday, I will have one on Wednesday. So you know what...

As I'm lying in my bed...
And the furniture starts creaking...
I'll just laugh and say "Hey! Cut that out!" and get back to my sleeping
For I know that God is biggest and He's watching all the while
So when I get scared I'll think of Him and close my eyes and smile

Cause God is bigger than the boogie man
He's bigger than Godzilla and the monsters on TV
OH God is bigger than the boogie man and He's watching out for you and me

ONE MORE TIME!! (repeat as many times as you deem necessary...)

((The sad part about all of this is that I wrote that from memory...yeah...I can quote Veggie Tales from memory...I also know "His Cheeseburger" "Where is My Hairbrush?" "Barbra Matinee" "and "The Water Buffalo Song" by heart....yeah I know...don't judge me....))

Monday, June 22, 2009

Jon & Kate +8 -Jon? -Kate? Wait. What?

So what prompted this blog? Well, if you must know...Jon & Kate +8. Now I have not been the biggest fan of this show and really just started watching it this past December. I really liked it. I like Kate, I thought that she was just shy of super mom for raising all of those kids. She was a little controlling and a tad OCD but I thought well you kinda have to be with that many kids. You have to want everything to be clean and you have to want to see things get done around the house if you want to have a house and not a pig sty...so I could even get past that. Jon was like the exact opposite of Kate cool, calm and collected. He was her other half...the half she was missing but none the less her other half and they seemed to go great together, they seemed happy. Jon had rumors come out that he was cheating and that was all that really came out and I thought ok, wrong place wrong time, not really what it seems, he wouldn't do that. Then it came out that Kate mas money hungary and crazy and I was like ok maybe she is a little crazy but I am not sure that she is money hungary. Then came this seasons premire and all hell had broken loose while the cameras weren't rolling. If you keep up with the show and all of the gossip crap like I do then you knok all or the stuff that has been said and all the stuff that has come out. And then you found out that all of it is probably true.

So now I have some things that I want to say becasue I need to vent...so if you don't want to read my venting and rantings about this show then go no further...I have no problem with all of the cosmetic stuff and the tanning and the teeth whitening and all that crap. John can pierce his ears at 32, I don't care. If they want to do it whatever. Its their lives and if they want to screw up all I can do is pray for them and move on. But here are my ventings....

#1. You can say that you do the show for your kids, so that you can provide for them and make sure that they will never have to go without anything ever. But do not say that you are going to get a divorce for your kids. Do not. That is a no. A divorce is never for the kids, it is for yourself because you can't stand the other person that you are with. In my eyes divorce is a selfish act. You are not doing it for anyone but you. The kids do not benefit from it. If anything it hurts them. I think that you should know that this is the person that you are going to marry. You need to know. I know that there is no way to know but you need to say at some point before you get married that this is it. I need to love this person no matter what and it is my choice to love this person daily. But if you have to get a divorce don't tell anyone that it is for your kids. Because it is not. And you know Kate sometimes you have to stop saying that this is for your kids and that this is for me. I think that if you keep saying that this is for your kids over and over and over you sound like you are trying to convince yourself and that you are trying to convince yourself. This is going to be the last thing that I say I think...I saw this coming at the end of last season. The problems were starting then and they were denounced as rumors. I thought that they should have taken a season off. The fans would have been there when they came back if they ever did come back on television. Sometimes you have to take time to make everything about you and your husband and not "for your kids". When you look at a picture close up, all you can see is that small piece of the picture. You can't see the big picture. I really think that they should have taken time off and stepped back from the picture and taken a good look.

Now I have said my peace and you can disagree but that is how I look at it.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Birthing Gideon Part 2

Before all of this changing stuff started I had become really sarcastic. Not that I am not sarcastic by nature but I had become mean sarcastic. Maybe just flat out mean. Not mean to everyone but I had my moments where I was not who I wanted to be and didn't know that to do. I just fell back into my default and you know I can fake it with the best of them. I can hide it all and act like I am ok and I can fool all the people around me. No one ever knows what it really just below the surface. I have met maybe three people that can see below the surface and one of them is my mom...she grew up with me and she knows me very well. Anyway, I had become this person that I did not want to be and I was unaware how I got there. I didn't want to be there. Then I began to have insane dreams and it was all pulled out from under me and I began to realize things about me and why I was where I was.

So this idea of a broken little girl has been here for a long time. I am not really sure when I realized that all I really am is a broken little girl. But I have been for a long time now. I put on a great front, even to myself. I am not all that I thought I was...well I am all that I thought I was just didn't have it all together like I thought I did and probably a lot of people thought I did. I am weak. I am frail. I am angry. I thought that the anger made me strong and held me up. I was wrong. It made me weaker and drug me down. Like I have said before that anger shattered me and harmed me more than it helped me. My life has not been hard by any means. But when you have daddy issues that gives you a whole new gambit of issues that you discover through the years. Its kinda like getting that sweater at Christmas that you want to return but you can't because it will hurt someone's feelings. I think that is exactly like that actually. You want to work the issues out but that involves hurting someone's feelings. Not to mention yours. You step on their feelings and they step on yours and you do it until the issues are worked out. Only right now I am stepping, no, stomping on my own toes. And it hurts like hell. But you know these issues have to be worked out if I want to heal and not be this broken little girl that I have been for a long time.

(Not sure that it makes sense but I needed to get this out of my brain...)

Family






Birthing a Gideon out of a Broken Little Girl

I think that I am beginning to get this whole Gideon thing, I think. I could be be way out in left field somewhere but I have a good feeling about this. I have read and re-read Judges chapters six through eight. I have come to the conclusion that something is going on with me. I almost completely (probably completely) identify with Gideon.

In chapter six verse thirteen it says "Gideon says to Him 'O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying 'Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?' But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.'" I am constantly asking God where he is and maybe he would like to fill me in on some of the things that he is doing at some point. I constantly think well Lord, if aall of this happened why can't you do this one little thing for me? HELLO?? Needless to say He doesn't answer me when we talk like that. Our conversations seem to be a little one sided some times. I do a lot of the talking. I think that He is just waiting for me to get it all out and then we'll come back to it. Just go ahead and vent and get it all out Alyssa and then we can talk. Maybe He was doing the same thing with Gideon when he didn't answer him when he asked the Lord where he had been. He just kinda looks at him.

It contiunes in verse 25 saying that the Lord tells Gideon to take his fathers second best bull and to pull down the altar to Baal then to rebuild an altar to God in its place. But then use the remains of the altar to Baal to feed the fire for the offering to God. "Ummm...excuse me God but ummm...about that...I can do all that uh but let me go and get about ten people or so to help me with that and the I think that I might take a nap and when I get up and make sure that it is dark outside and then we'll get on that..." Well I more or less think that is how it went. And that is what would have been said if God had appeared to me and asked me to do that. I am not to big on doing things on my own. I like to do things with other people. I like them to help me. But God didn't tell Gideon to go get ten people to help him. God told him to go and tear down the idol on his own. Not gonna lie but, I like my life and I would have done the same exact thing as Gideon did. There is no way I would have gone by myself and torn down an idol that maybe a couple hundred people worship at. There would have been Alyssa for dinner. But if you have ten other people, there are people to back you up in that you did and you can keep on living. God has called me to a country that not many people are called to. No one and I mean no one want s to live in Haiti. You might think that you do but once you get there and are there for a little while, you might not think that this was such a good idea anymore. The electricity only works...well not even half the time more like a forth or the time...maybe not even that. No one really wants to live there. But if you know me you know that I really truly want to. And that is totally a God thing. But if that is where I am supposed to be, I have to be willing to do things on my own and go alone. I have to learn how to lead and to rely on God always. I can not always rely on others to be there with me. Not everyone is cut out to live in Haiti or to even go to Haiti (I am not saying don't go if you want to I am just saying pary...A LOT). I realize now that might be the only one that is called to what I am supposed to do. You think that I sould get that already...I am the obly one that can do what God has called me to do, not the ten people that I want to come with me. I have just now really come to the realization. I have been called to do all of these things that I talk and think about not my friends.

Gideon went on to be a great leader. He defeated the Midianites and there was peace under his forty yeah reign. Maybe I can do that but I think that I'll just stick to Haiti...

Friday, June 12, 2009

A rambling that you really don't need to read

Well I seem to ramble a lot and I am not sure if I make sense...I don't really get a lot of feedback from people (if any) that read my blog. But if you get into a long conversation with me and I start to think and talk at the same time I begin to ramble. When I say think and talk at the same time (I think that this statement needs clarifying, because all people think and talk at the same time...well mostly...), I mean that I begin to think very in depth about what is being said and I begin to voice my thoughts and I begin to ramble. If my thought process could be heard I am not sure that many people would never talk to me. I think how I write and I ramble when I think and I am really not sure how to separate the two...I don't really care either. But if you read my blog and think that I am rambling and not really seeming to resolve anything and I just seem to be confused, fear not! When I ramble that means I am thinking and if I am thinking I resolve things for myself even if the blog does not seem to resolve to any conclusion but just seems to end like more needs to be said. Thats what I feel happens sometimes. I just stop typing and I think about it and have no more to say so I just stop typing . So again I find myself rambling and I am thinking and I am going to stop.

(If you read this and thought you should read it and you feel like you have lost a few iq points...I believe that I told you in the title that you didn't need to read it...just sayin...)

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Blip

So the family is here! Yay me!...anyway they are here safe for all of you that care to know. Oh happy day!! I am really excited, if you can't tell. They are going to be here for like a week or so and it is going to be so much fun!!

I'm so happy!

Monday, June 8, 2009

Marketing Mistake?


So I was thinking of a blog to write or just something to write about. I am not sure why I felt the need to write. Normally if I don't have a topic I just wait till I do or wait until I feel like I do and just ramble. But anyway I got to thinking about a odd topic. I am not sure if it is only odd to me but maybe you find it odd as well. It is something that I have thought about before but never given any serious thought. Well by now you are probably wondering what this topic is. Well here it is: with all the things that pull away children from their fathers in this world, why would God tell us or call himself a father? It just seems funny to me.

I first started thinking about this when I was reading Blue Like Jazz (great book. read it now!) and Donald Miller said it. This is what he says: "My father left home when I was young, so when I was introduced to the concept of God as a father I imagined him as a stiff, oily man who wanted to move into our house and share a bed with my mother. I can only remember this as a frightful and threatening idea. We were a poor family who attended a wealthy church, so I imagined God as a man who had a lot f money and drove a big car. At church they told us we were children of God, but I knew God's family was better than mine, the He had a daughter that was a cheerleader and a son who played football. I was born with a small bladder so I wet the bed till I was ten and later developed a crush on the homecoming queen who was kind to me in a political sort of way, which is something she probably learned from her father, who was the president of a bank. And so from the beginning, the chasm that separated me from God was a deep as wealth and as wide as fashion. ...Today I wonder why it is God refers to himself as 'Father' at all. This, to me, in the light of earthly representation or the role seems a marketing mistake."

I think that it is a marketing mistake. I have...well...not the best relationship with my father. We talk and hang out but it is not really a relationship that goes beyond surface level. My parents divorced when I was three and my dad has been in my life more at some times and less at others. But he has never left completely. Now that I am getting older it is hard to have a relationship with him because he still thinks that I am five. He knows that I am not but he still treats me like it. I find it annoying. I can't stand it really. So thinking of God as my dad has been hard to say the least. I find it hard to do it sometimes because I do, now, think of Him as my father and the one who will always be there for me no matter what, just like a father should. But I still seem to find a hesitation in my heart to give in to that completely. I think that is one of the things that I am supposed to be working on this summer. Maybe that is why I have been pulled away from everything so that I can realize that God is right there. Always will be. No matter what. But getting away from my daddy issues, there are so many other people that go through not being able to be truly close to God because they have bad relationships with their fathers.

I am really not sure where I am going with this. I really think that I am just asking the question.

Why do you think that God calls Himself a father in a fatherless world? Is it a marketing mistake?

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Becoming Gideon


Ok so this whole changing thing is something that I really don't get and I feel like I am falling back into what I used to be. All I really can "sense or feel" of this change is that I am emotionally, mentally and physically drained. I have begun to feel like the cat from Pinocchio. Not the original story but the one from the movie who so happens to be named Gideon. This cat is a moron. He is a mute and he is crafty but most of the time he just does stupid things that the fox "Honest" John tells him to do and he does not do it well. Like when he is supposed to get Pinocchio to play hooky from school...he tries to beat him with a mallet to make him go the right way...really? He falls all over himself and has the hiccups all the time. Moron. Now I am not a moron and I am obviously not a mute. But when you don't know what to say to anyone for a week straight you begin to feel like a moron. When you don't know how to explain how you are feeling at that moment and it is clear that something is wrong but you can't voice it, you begin to feel like a mute. When someone asks you why you are crying and all you can says is i don't know you begin to feel like a moron because you know perfectly well why you are crying you just become a mute. Changing into something new or finally realizing and becoming what you are supposed to be is hard. You have no idea what is happening to you and you begin to feel like a moron and a mute. You can't comprehend anything and you can't voice anything either. Things just don't seem to make sense and the fact that you have no one close by that you feel comfortable talking to makes things even more difficult. Maybe God is making me rely on Him for once instead of my support system that I keep around me. So I am going to rely on God and trust that this change is for the best but I do not like feeling like a moronic, mute cat.

Raising a Gideon

So I am pretty sure that raising me was no simple task. Shoot my mom an e-mail and ask her if you like. I have been a headstrong and stubborn all of my life. If you know me now you can attest to the fact that I still am and I don't deny it. I have always also been very independent. I have always wanted to do things for myself and know that I can do it by myself, ask my step-dad, he knows all to well.

Lately I have been reevaluating my headstrong, independent, stubborn ways. I believe that I was born that way or maybe I can blame my mother cause she is the same way. I think that I have been reevaluating the independent part more than the other two. I have know that I can do things myself my entire life and don't tell me that I can't do something. I will either prove you wrong or hurt myself trying. Telling me I can't do something is like challenging me. I automatically go "uh-huh...watch me." Good attitude towards some things but not towards others. I think that I have taken it to the point of thinking I can do things without God. If you know me you know that I love God with all my heart and you can see that in my life. I try to do things with God but then just end up doing it on my own.

As of late I have been dreaming a lot again. Most people dream about simple things and they don't wake up from their dreams going "What the @$%& was that all about?" And then you try to figure it out and you have to ask someone because God won't let you go Lone Ranger and figure it out on your own. Anyway my dreams are certifiably insane. If people knew half of my dreams they might begin to question my sanity. The other night I had a crazy ass dream and I don't want to go into details but the name Gideon came up. I like that name, I want to name one of my kids that one day. The dream involves me having a baby and his name is Gideon. Well I have asked a couple people about it and the general consensus is that I am Gideon but I am also myself in the dream (If you want to know about the dream feel free to ask...). Curiosity peeked by this consensus I have been researching about Gideon. Well he was the guy with the fleece...right? He was really much more than that.

Gideon was called a mighty man of valor by God. It seems like God is mocking him because Gideon is a poor farmer and his family was the least in the Manasseh. I mean dead last. And he was the youngest and the weakest. God told him that he would deliver Israel from Midian. Well needless to say he was a little ummm how shall I put this...unbelieving. He didn't exactly think that God was with his people anymore and thought that God had forsaken them. I have been reading this study that I printed out and it says that God know that He can and will deliver them, but He is firstly interested that they see what the root cause of their bondage is so that they don't have to keep the cycle of sin and repentance going. And Baal was the problem and so were the Midianites. And to make a long stroy short (if you want the long version, Judges chapters 6-8) he delivers the Israelites from Baal and the Midianites.

Reading this study, I realize that the consensus about my dream is probably true. I can identify with Gideon. He is weak, humble and sometimes fearful of the things that God has called him to do. Aren't we all? But I have ben that way for a long time. I am humble in the fact that I know God is doing things threw me and not the other way around. But the weakness part is hard for me. I know that I am weak but that is one thing I will never admit or never used to. I have found myself in a place that I am not sure how I got here. Just like Gideon I have been asking "God if you are with me then where the hell are you exactly??" And you know my world has kinda been rocke the last couple of weeks not just with things that hurt but all of the aspects of my life. All of the ways I have been doing things and how I am are being rocked. God hasn't exactly answered my questions, just like he didn't exactly answer Gideon's. I am more or less hearing shut up and wait. And or fear of this getting to long I am going to have to just say that it was not an easy task to raise me and now God is changing me. He is re-raising me to be a Gideon. He is raising me up to do the things that he has called me to do. He had to take all the things that distract me away from me to show me that. God has to sometimes has to do things in a painful way to get you to listen to him. So now I unnderstand this summer a little more I guess and am just going to try to listen and wait....

(Again forgive me if I rambled but its my blog...)

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Falling Apart fo Forgiveness

Forgiveness. You here about it all the time. Seemingly from everyone all around you. They say that it is something that needs to be done all the time. God forgives us daily of all the things that we do and we should forgive others of there trespasses against us or something like that. I have been told that if people would forgive each other, that could solve a lot of problems. Now I am not saying that it couldn't but it is easier said than done and I am not going to get into some debate on my blog about it either.

Forgiveness is easier said then done. I have heard all the talk, you know that since I listed it above...haha...anyway, for me it has always been easier said than done. I am not one that is quick to forgive. Never have been and never thought that I would be. I say that I forgive people but then I tend to hold onto it and hide the fact that I do. Not just for a little while but for a long ass time. I hold onto things until it is too hard to forgive and by that time it is to late because it has become a part of me and to let go of it would hurt me in some way more than the original act, that caused the anger, did. Its not the act that I hold onto but the anger that has been given to me by the act. That anger has made me strong and to let go of it is going to make me weak. I have had issuse with being weak. I don't like to feel that way, helpless. That is why I tend to hold onto anger about little, stupid, pointless things. For me unforgiveness has made me selfish. I hold onto the anger to "help" me and to make myself stronger and I don't care who I hurt in the process. I am not sure why I thought that anger made me strong. I said that letting go of the anger would hurt me more than it would help me, which means that it has really been hurting me all along. All the people over my life that have hurt me are nothing compared to the hurt that I have done myself by hanging onto all the anger that I have. It has taken me seventeen years to figure that out. I believe that seventeen years ago is when all my anger issues started. How can that be Alyssa, you were three?? If you know me you would know that my parents got divorced when I was three. Even though I was little and didn't understand what was going on around me, anger crept in and was waiting for me. I have been angry at my dad for leaving all my life and I have been angry at my mom to some degree and I was mad at my step-dad for coming in and closing the door for my dad to ever come back, I was just mad at the world. But to what end is that going to fix anything? It only stresses realationships and makes things difficult and hurts all the parties involved. I have had anger issuses all of my life and have learned how to keep them under control but, I don't just want them to be under control anymore, I want them to go away. Far away. I said that unforgiveness is what has lead me to be angry. Holding onto that anger has made me strong. The truth is that anger has made me weak and crippled me to the point of thinking that I can't let it go without falling apart. It has given me a hard heart that now has beome to heavy to carry anymore. I have to forgive my dad for leaving, I have to forgive my mom for whatever it was that she did in the first place to make me angry, and I have to forgive my step-dad for not doing really anything. I have to forgive all the hurt in my life if I want to move on with my life. And maybe I need to fall apart since I seem like I have everything together. Maybe making a new foundation is better than filling in the cracks with something that is only going to sent them deeper and make them wider.

Things that have recently happened to me have taught me this. I thought that it was stupid to forgive things quickly, only becasue I never have. I am trying to understand how I am able to be quick to forgive but have to say that I really don't becasue I never have really forgiven many things in my life. I mean I have but only after many years and through lots of prayer.

Don't harden your heart.
I won't because a hard heart is to heavy.

(Forgive me if I rambled, I write how I think and I tend to ramble to myself a lot...)

Monday, June 1, 2009

Use Somebody - Kings of Leon (you should check them out...just sayin)

i've been roaming around
always looking down at all i see
painted faces fill the places i can't reach

you know that i could use somebody
you know that i could use somebody
someone like you

and all you know
and how you speak
countless lovers undercover of the street

you know that i could use somebody
you know that i could use somebody
someone like you

off in the night,
while you live it up, i'm off to sleep
waging war to shake the poet and the beat

i hope it's gonna make you notice
i hope it's gonna make you notice
someone like me
someone like me
someone like me

go and let it out
someone like you
somebody
someone like you
somebody
someone like you
somebody

i've been roaming around
always looking down at all i see