So, being the raging insomniac I am (you remember me mentioning that about thirty thousand times, right?), I spent a while tonight going through some old emails. Ostensibly it was to refresh my memory about a long past relationship but, as is my custom, I took a few side roads along the journey. And it seems to me that some people are impossible to get rid of, some are more searing than they know, and some don’t want to be found.

I’ve tried to be honest in the past year or so, to move to a place where what I say is what I mean. I’ve tried to say what is, with all its backbending weight, with all its airy weighlessness. I’ve tried to say what I mean even when a question hasn’t been asked. I’ve tried to be transparent.

And so it becomes even more dismaying when I come face to font with the way  that I used to be. I tried to keep my hands clean. I was purposely vague in the hopes of not having a confrontation. I was vague and wanted to be misconstrued in a way that would undermine my virtue while letting me retain my innocence in the whole matter. I’m really very embarrassed about the whole thing.

But God creates value in the valueless, and so He can use these things that never should have been to create something wonderful.

I’m not sure when this post will show up or if it even will. Part of me thinks that it would be improved if it were a video post and I could simply talk it out. But, that’s not a choice on the menu at present. So fasten up your eyeglasses, folks, this might take a minute.

Strange as it may seem, I’ve been thinking a lot about sexual assault of late. There’s a couple of blogs that I read where it’s been addressed a few times and one particular post discussed the possibility of healing, whether it actually was possible. And I think it is.  Let me be clear: I think it is. But I suppose it all comes down to what one considers healing. I have to agree with Cara at the Curvature if her definition of healing is going back to the way you were beforehand. But, getting to the point where you understand the consequences of what’s happened to you? Allowing God to move you out from a place of pain? If that’s healing, then I think I’m doing it.

(more…)

I’m supposed to meet Sarah and her parents and Natalie and Sean for dinner tonight, and I’m afraid. I don’t know what my problem is. I should be happy to see her-it’s been a while. And I am, I really am. But I’m also scared, nervous, anxious. This is all new ground for me. I don’t know how to do this. And she’s at that age where she’s getting very attached and it’s difficult for me to even think about being around her when she doesn’t even know me.

(more…)

If you really wanna know, you’re going to have to know it all.

So I’ve been working over at Writers’ Grope on Livejournal on the prompts from the JulNoWriMo website. So far I’ve done . . . two of them. But! I’m getting there. The reason I bring it up is that in this last exercise I was writing a letter to someone from highschool and I realized that there was a lot of my experience that this person didn’t know, and couldn’t have known. It was suddenly apparent to me that a lot of my life has been an exercise in duplicity.

Is this the common experience? What are those things that we’ve never told anyone? And is now the time to let them breathe?

I’m thinking about it. I’m mulling it over. Should I embark on recovering the past and recreating it to be what it really was? In some ways, I was probably doomed to be, well, something of a hypocrite. This won’t make sense now, but I believe it will become clear. Regardless, I’m not going to be that anymore. God is truth, and I love him. And so I will love truth as well.

I have a confession of my own: I heart St. Augustine.

We’re like soulmates seperated by hundreds of years, and by class, gender, education, and age. We’ve both been foolish, we’ve both been degenerate. And yet God in his infinite wisdom and grace was kind enough to show us fully what kind of jerks we really were and grow us into something better, more in keeping with who he is. And it is encouragement to me now to read the words of someone who has sought, as I myself need to continually seek, the absolute truth.

<—–see the resemblence?—–>

” Entrust to truth whatever truth has given you, and you will lose nothing. What is withered in you will flower again, and your illness will be made well, and all that was flowing and wasting from you will regain shape and substance and will form part of you again, and they will not lay you down in the place where they themselves descend, but will stand fast with you and abide with you forever before God who stands and abides forever.”

May I say it? HOT.

(more…)

I think I need to go on a European tour. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to use this guy as my travel agent.

There’s really no need to go. The only reason that I’m even contemplating it is because I’m disappointed. How, you may ask? And I answer, In myself.

(more…)

One night at Panera, while my sister was eating a fruit cup and my brother was researching the Endian Problem, I sat down at my delightful laptop to write. Type furiously,  I did, while my sister complained of being bored.

The sound of other patrons smacking their lips and sucking the very last droplet of an infinitely refillable soda made up the horn section. The sound of bagels being slid to their deaths down the slicer machine added the percussion. And finally, the tinkling of spoon to ceramic and soft taps of the keyboard, like the keyboard of a black and white instrument, were the trilling strings while a couple of loud voiced (and loud shoed) women discussed the guests at a dinner party by the trash can. Ahh, the symphony of a Tuesday night coffeeshop.

I’ve been thinking today perhaps I’m a little too self obsessed . . .

(more…)

If you happen to be unfamiliar with the term “to winge”, let me please explain. To winge is to whine excessively, to become so frustrated with one’s circumstances that one is paralysed from the top lip up and the bottom lip down. To winge is to make a thorough annoyance of oneself based on consistent and usually ridiculous complaints issuing forth from one’s mouth, preferably with an alternating, but always very high, pitch. To winge is to take a long hard look at the cruel world you live in, stick out your tongue, and call it a meanie face. To plant your feet firmly on the ground, cross your arms, and pout like a three year old.

It is this practice that I would like to demonstrate for you now.

(more…)

I confess.

Confessions are so intimidating. As was said in a Charade (a totally class movie with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn), “People usually lie because they want something, and they’re afraid the truth won’t get it for them.” How apt. And, quite frankly, how surprising that Hollywood at one time came up with something true. And it really does seem to be the case. In confession, we are (or should I say “I am”?) afraid that we will be seen differently than we want to be, that no one will give us the benefit of the doubt, that no one else will understand the things that we were dealing with that caused us to make such a blunder. And usually, they don’t. But I’ve got a secret weapon.

When it comes right down to it, it doesn’t matter what other people’s perceptions are of me. As a Christian, I am not so much even myself, but rather a conglomeration of the work that God is doing in me. And so I confess, not to show how great I am in overcoming the person that I once was, but to give a record of all that Christ’s blood has bought and saturated and made his. I confess to bring to light all that God can redeem and has redeemed and continues to.

And here are my confessions:

(more…)

So, how am I to be in the world, being a Christian young woman? Understanding that the reason I live is only by the pleasure of God in allowing me to breathe this day? Understanding that the purpose of that breath is to bring Him glory? How do I be a woman of God without becoming a Jesus-bot?

Not that there’s anything wrong with being obsessed with Jesus. I mean, as the bride waiting for her groom, it makes sense to be overwhelmed with thoughts of the Beloved. But the Jesus-bot is different. It’s a robotic version of love, or so it seems to me. Who knows? Maybe I’m wrong.

But . . .

(more…)