Musings and The Radio in My Head

Today in church this song of all songs popped into my head, it was random but the lyrics to the chorus fit exactly how I was feeling and fit what the message was saying. This is who I see myself as at times in my life and walk; The song was Katy Perry's "Hot N Cold"; the chorus is as follows:

"Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down
You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white...
(you) You don't really want to stay, no
(but you) But you don't really want to go-o
You're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down"

I have come to realize, no come to accept and acknowledge that I am very much controlled by my emotions and the circumstances around me. I sometimes feel very emotional and those emotions, whether good or bad, control me; that is until I realize how ridiculous I am being.

This being said I have come to realize, accept, and/or acknowledge that this also effects my faith and daily walk with Him who created and saved me. I am very easily swayed or distracted from my personal walk. This actually causes a vicious cycle of life for me. I know my days are infinitely better if I am in communion with God and am fully relying on Him; If I am not in communion with Him, through prayer, scripture reading, and other spiritual disciplines, I end up becoming emotional, in a bad way. I become callused, hurt, depressed, angry, or some other emotion, which leads me not to my knees but away from that and towards some destructive activity, thoughts, or other and brings me back to the place I have left and hadn't wanted to return to which starts those emotions again. Then cycle starts over and over again but in a downward spiral pattern.

How sad it is. I will be on Fire for the Lord and slowly let it fade to almost nothing, then being kicked in the butt or smacked upside the head and change and to let the fire grow to a blaze again only to allow it to fade. It all starts with how much sleep and the quality of it, homework, friends, stress, and other stuff taking priority over what really matters; it's quite sad actually.

In Church the Pastor quoted someone in the congregation; they stated, "...We didn't invite Christ into our lives but He invited us into His life." We need to remember that if we think we invited Him into our lives like we do to our friends, jobs, and stuff, He become just becomes one of the many things we have invited into our lives. He becomes just another thing among a bunch of stuff. We become wishy washy and can be discouraged by life; we go back to where we came from. But if in spite of this we press on, and cling to Christ we will move forward.

So I guess I just rambled on about my thoughts and they probably don't make much sense but hey my mind doesn't always make sense... but I am going to try to press on and with my new view of who I am and in light of what I said I will leave you with this, "Pressing On" by Relient K.

The Day of Firsts

Today is the First of December, The First Snow Fall on Campus, and the First Night of Hanukkah; What a wonderful Joyous day.

I know I've been very "emo" in my posts, but today is a new day, a new post, and another start to trying to be more like Christ. today in Chapel we had a day of worship, and as I was singing, I starting to actually worship, break down, and call out to my Savior. This is the first time I've done this a while and doing so I realized something. I realized that I need a length of time to just be silent and be with God an extended bit of time. A time to just worship, confess, pray, and sit at his feet. The more I learn about myself the less I like who I am; I am needy, self-adsorbed, sinful, and some many other things; Yet God still loves me.

I  look around at other believers around me, both older and younger in the faith, and see their hearts on fire for God, how I long for that. I have been churched to the point of being a hypocrite, I am a modern day Pharisee; I am a part of the modern synagogue, saying come to me for God and I'll tell to do X, Y, and Z and not A, B, and C while I am doing A, B, and C. I want to want to live out what I believe, I want to be the hands and feet of Christ.

Which reminds me of a quote a friend posted on Facebook today:

"If the church gets overrun with homosexuals, that would be terrific. They can take their place in the pews right next to the liars, gossips, and materialists."- Ed Dobson

I know this is an over kill but it reminds us we are all sinners and cannot think ourselves better than those "tax collectors" and "Gentiles". We are just like them in the fact we are sinners; we just have been given God's Grace and we can impart share some with the tax collectors and gentiles in our life.

Dear God, 
Thank you so much for your love and mercy and how you love us even in our sin. May I be moving forward, moving towards you and not backtracking; moving from my old self and the Pharisee I was and am now. Please Lord fill me, use me, and allow me to be used to glorify you by doing your work. 
Love,
Me 

Hugs and Home Wanted...

"If home is where the heart is
Then my home is where you are (my home is where you are)
But it's getting oh so hard
To spend these days
Without my heart" -Relient K

As usual I have started with a quote, how cliche; o well. But this is how I feel; I am just so out of it,

So I have come to the realization that I have three or four "homes" but no home or a place to call a home. I feel like the man from the movie The Terminal, a man with country  recognized by anyone just living in a terminal of an airport waiting to go on with my life and have a home again. Let me explain, I went "home" for thanksgiving to be with family and returned "home" to school.  Over the Thanksgiving break I went up to camp my "home" away from "home" and had fun. Yet, I have no home to call home. If I am not making sense and just rattling on I apologize but this is what is going on. I find I only have one true Home, that is Heaven, and I wish I was there so badly away from this horrid place called earth, the shadow of what it should and could be. Yet I don't have the heart or the will power to do anything to speed up the trip to home; I am a wuss and care to much about those who I would hurt if I went Home. They do say that the home is where your heart is, and mine is in fifty different places and my mind in a million more, the only place my heart is and longs to be is Heaven and it is getting hard to live this heavy heart and yet living without it at the same time. I spent a night over a friends house where it seemed like their life was "perfect", now I know no one is perfect but I wanted that feeling of the family, that I kinda wished I always had when i was younger and I moped for a while.Ugh!

The best way I can express this frustration is by this:

I am a cesspool of emotions, contradictions, and hurt, 

Love, hate, hope, lies and worth;

Fighting for a way out, but no way is found.

Thus it just tosses and turns and causes distress,

Sleepless nights, self-pity, and stress.

Sleep come to me and let me dream this away,

Till this storm passes or forever and a day.

 I just wrote this; wow, I haven't written poetry in forever and I feel slightly better now. I want to love and be loved but want to be shallow and not open up. I want to be part of a group but separate myself. I am that guy who anyone can talk to about their problems but share my own, who tells himself he is a part of the group even though he feels like he is on the outside looking in whether or not he is, and the guy who wants the spotlight but wants to be left alone, who wants to stand and yell and curl up on the floor and cry.I am the guy who is what he is and accepts it, and wouldn't change a thing and yet wants a different life.

I want to express all I am feeling but everything can be put into words or I just won't let them out yet. I am taking it day by day, but I will say this " I want my mommy!" and I need a hug.

Thanksgiving...

Thanksgiving the official start to the holidays and the unofficial start of Christmas and all that goes with it. A time to spend with your family and friends. A time when in the company of love ones we are able to gorge ourselves and talk and have a good time; that is if the home life is like that. Unfortunately not everyone I know nor everyone in America has that opportunity. But we do all have the opportunity to be thankful. So this post is just a chance for me to say what I am thankful for...

1. My Faith/God: For all the time when I was down, depressed, or needed someone I always had God to turn to even after I would turn away from him
2. My Family: For always being there, supporting me through whatever means possible and pushing me to be the be the best that I could be
3. My Friends: For putting up with me, for loving me for who I am, for being there for me when i needed a friend and reminding me that I am loved when i forget
4. My Mentors: For showing me what it means to be a man, talking things through with me, allowing me to be part of their lives, and for just pushing me to be a better person. 
5. Camp: For being my home away from home, being a place where I could grow up physically and spiritually, as well as being my own never-land 
6. Cedarville: For the atmosphere, the people, the strive for growth  both spiritually and mentally.
7. Art: For being my outlet for my emotions, for giving me words that for my soul, and expression for who I am.
8. Books: For the infinite knowledge and stupidity that they hold and plan to share with us.
9. Deep Conversations: This allows ideas and opinion and truths be shared between 
10. Food: For the sustenance that is provided for me and I am able to eat and stay healthy from, also, i could not think of anything to be thankful, but still God provides for the basic needs, which I am Thankful for.

Lacrimosa, Lockerbie, Life, & Loneliness

Let me be my cliche self and post a couple quotes and a song:

It is some relief to weep; grief is satisfied and carried off by tears.  ~Ovid

Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.  ~Antoine Rivarol

Tearless grief bleeds inwardly.  ~Christian Nevell Bovee

Lacrimosa by Karl Jenkins 

As I have been alluding to but never really  saying is I am going through pain and grief for someone who is not yet dead but will be. I wanted to cry but couldn't, I wanted to deal with it but didn't know how. Until tonight (11/6), I let myself cry, a flow of rain to form a river to cleanse my heart. I went go see the STP, Senior Theatre Project (the Capstone Project),  of the week presented by two friends of mine. The show was the Women of Lockerbie. A story of grief, pain, death, faith, and healing. It spoke to me, it did and it just opened the flood gates and made me laugh, booth needed to cleanse my heart and let all the festering emotions out that i couldn't because i didn't have an outlet for them or a reason for them to be expressed. After the Show I wept bitterly and freely on the shoulder of a friend as she hugged me and played mother, she was good for that. I thanked the cast for the outlet and expressing through their art what I wanted to say and how I felt.

Life, like the show must go on as the weeks went, days bleed into each other, sleep came and went, not always there for me, so waited for it as I wondered the hall, after rehearsals and homework and the avoidance of homework. Caring more about those around me who are hurting than myself, for they needed someone and I could get some healing from the helping of others. For I am to Love God and Love Others, as my theme is going for the year and probably the rest of my life. Yet, I needed to heal again, waiting for death to come is a hard thing to prepare for towards the end of a semester, when the person who will die is loved and was supposed to spend the holidays with you. But I want pain and suffering to end for him, but it still doesn't change that it will hurt and does hurt now. My Friends are the greatest, rallying around me and caring for me, asking how I am doing, and praying for me. which Reminds me Prayer is amazing; it allows me time to be with God and talk with him and pray for others and myself. As my crazy life continues I need to be grounded and holding fast to the Rock. But even with all this comes Loneliness, and I am never actually alone. I am surrounded by people, but i feel cut off. I feel like I am just floating in a sea of faces, lost, confused and forgotten. It is just a feeling but it happens to come up just when it would hurt the most. So, I have to remind myself I need to reach out to people who care and want to help... so I did and got Kitty therapy from a 6 week kitten named Indy and it made my Sunday so much better because i just released a lot of stress which lightened my burdened heart. Yet there are other thing that hang heavy on heart which I need to deal with before thanksgiving.... but that is another post.

I feel Better, and I have to Run to class. But As I am in Production week for a Show and I try to deal with things as well as Invest in those around me, I will try to stay strong, and as i always tell people, " Just Keep Swimming".

In the Company of My Mind

May I just off by saying Happy Guy Fawxes Day Everyone...

"Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot..."

But now on to real topic of this post is really about and the the real cliche quote to begin this blog post:

“Thinking is the greatest torture in the world for most people.” -Author Unknown

 Its so true, whether or not the person hates to think, reason, and/or if they are are afraid of thinking, it is a very true statement of America and the Western culture. There is so much sensory input from all the technology and and the more ADD our culture is we "need" or rather want people to think for us. That way do not have to exercise our brain, or even grow up at times... but now i am rambling and ranting and not getting anywhere.

We as a people myself included cower at the thought of being alone with our thoughts especially when we need to think through something or something hard comes into our lives. I am guilty of this i will play music, write a paper, read a book, blog posts, anything to not be alone with my thoughts. Last night i roamed the halls of my dorm doing anything to avoid going to my dark room and lying there alone, besides my thoughts and my then sleeping roommate. I held conversations about anything, sang happy birthday to someone's mom and just went till i could just fall asleep in seconds of hitting the pillow. This pattern has continued through the day. I do not have an outlet or a reason yet for me to cry but every once and a while I well up but cannot cry, even though I want to desperately. I think this will all end when my grandpa has gone home to heaven and I can come to terms with reality and what has happened. It will be a bittersweet happening but it's part of life. I don't know what to do and I am so afraid of sitting in the dark with thoughts, thoughts that won't stop or leave me alone. Thoughts that eat away at the core and cause me to question everything. Thoughts which no one who is grieving or knows they will have to deal with. Yet here I am, alone in a dark room with my thoughts both in my head and on my computer screen.

The only things that are keeping me sane are as follows:

1. God
2. The Bible
3. Friends
4. Music
5. Blogging
6. Prayer

Without those in my life I DO NOT know what my life would be like, nor do I want to think about that, but it probably be worst and painful. I hate to end this post like this but this is all i got and all I can do today.

You are Not Alone in the Valley

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." -Psalm 23:4 

My last post was about both storms and "storms" we encounter in life and funny that at church on Sunday we talk about just that. The pain/depression in life and how we are to deal with it. And by the way I am and was talking to myself when I am writing about storms in life. We all are human. We all experience pain and depression as much as happiness and joy. We are not supposed to go through it alone, and we are not alone in our feelings. We have feelings and need to express them. Yet when we are depressed we wallow, cut ourselves off and build walls around us. We hide there; not wanting anyone around, but secretly  wanting to be found. Found by someone, anyone who cares and reaches out a hand to lift us from our valley fortress of solitude and loneliness.

We are never alone, we are sometimes to blind to see the others there in their own fortress in the same land as us. We may say no one does care, no one sees me, or no one can know whats going on. We all have a different view on our life and on those around us. But you are never alone, there are people who care and are reaching out,  including the Creator of the Heavens and Earth, God. We may not see this because we only see the storm in front of us, and the waves, the rain and wind in our face, and the thunder and lightening and thunder making sure we know the storm is there. The friends and family who try to help but only hinder us come around us and give us the typical cliche sayings, all of them we know in our mind and have probably have used ourselves, yet they are not what we need nor are the comforting. We know these things are true but they do not feel like they are true in our hearts in the time of grief, pain and depression.

I don't want to say I have all the answers or any answers at all, but i know what has work for me and they are as follows:

1. Read the Psalms, they are real prayers and crying out to God, like Psalm 42 and 43
2. Give yourself permission to ask "Why?", and ask God "Why?"
3. Tell yourself those cliche things you know that are true, no how stupid you feel
4. Find someway of expressing yourself, either by music, poetry, talking, visual art, let the feelings out and not fester inside of you.
5. Anything else that is not harmful or destructive that helps.
6. Finally let people in who care, and find someone(s) who will always be there for you

I can no honestly say that I am now talking to myself. My Grandpa is and has been in the hospital the past couple of weeks. He originally went in for dehydration and then went back later because he wasn't feeling well and they found a blood clot in his leg on Sunday they did a CAT Scan and found fluid around his lungs and in his stomach. Now he is on oxygen. We are as close as we could be and its kinda depressing that he is this sick but he is 92, and my grandma has been dead for almost three years. I am trying not to work my worries away by busing myself and I am trying not to be a hypocrite and wear the Christian Facade but be real. So I am taking my own advice, I am on my knees with God, I am being open with friends about the situation, I am Staying in the Bible, and I am Listening to helpful songs. I find these songs to be helpful:

•  Kathy Troccoli's Psalm 23
•  Amy Grant's Better Than A Hallelujah
• Superchic[k]'s Stand In The Rain
• Karl Jenkin's Adiemus
• Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - (song is Please don't go by Barcelona) (this is just a video i find relaxing)
• Castring Crowns' Praise You in This Storm 

Again I Do Not and Cannot Say I Have All The Answers or Any Answers Really At All. But I hope this helps.