I've been struggling with my faith for what seems like years. I'm not sure how long it has been in actuality, but my greatest fear is that when I die, I won't go to heaven. I am a very bad Christian, I know that. But for some reason, faith that I am truly an heir to the promise escapes me. It comes and goes in waves. Some days, only praise is on my lips, and I can feel Christ surrounding me with love. Other days I feel like Hagar in the desert, hungry and thirsty for belief, but waiting to die. I feel like I'm going insane. Oh God, please stop this, I cannot weather this trial.

The spirit is here within me, and praise the Lord. For His presence is sweeter than any earthly kiss, more stimulating than any drug, more blindingly wonderful than any drunken stupor, and more exhilarating than any riches I could possess. All Glory Be to Christ.

I read this book. I keep trying to think of words to say about it, but I guess I don't really know what to say. And I don't know why every time I think of the color blue, or the name kyle, or heartbreak, I can't get this picture out of my head that I've never even seen but that I've read over and over. You spend the entire book watching two people who you can so obviously tell are going to fall in love, and then at the end there's a twist so cruel that it felt like I was the person who is being destroyed. I can't get it out of my head. I don't know why. I guess it just doesn't seem fair that two people who are so perfectly matched two people who are so obviously in love, and who would have a romance as bright as the brightest sunrise, would end so bitterly. But they both knew that she needed to die in order for the rest of the world to live. I just had an epiphany of sorts. Jesus did that. He spent His 30 something years being kind, and healing, teaching. Then you find out that in order for everyone else to live, he needs to die. I guess the difference is that in the end you don't know that everything turns out okay. In the Bible you know that he rose again, that His death meant something. I don't think that hers did. I think that for a love that shone so bright as theirs did, it would have been worth the world in order for them to just be together and love each other. Maybe I'm just lonely, and it felt good to know that someone else is lonely too. Or maybe there's some deeper reason why I can't seem to get the picture out of my head of two people who would have loved each other endlessly deciding who has to **** one of them in order to save the rest of the world. Maybe I just wish that I had something that beautiful even if it had to be ruined so quickly after it started. Or, maybe there's no reason at all. Maybe I'm just tired and emotional, and I cry about silly things. I just don't know why it strikes me so much that even after these months I still think of it and it haunts my eyes and my mind. I don't know why. I've been trying to figure it out ever since I heard the last words of that book. And I tried to figure it out again this morning when I turn to the very last page and reread the scene again. Why is it that the things that make us feel or hurt most deeply are the things that we crave to relive? Perhaps it's because we've spent so long not feeling anything, or feeling the wrong things, even if the feeling that we have is horrible, it's worth the purity of feeling it all.

Something I wrote from my heart and mind. Dealing with a lot right now, I didn't have the energy to think of anything to go before this, hence the elipses start. Lonely...tired...dejected...tired...

Sometimes when I'm barely awake, I will write stuff in the notes on my phone and go back to sleep and forget about it until I find it the next day or a couple days later. This is what I found this morning. Soft fall vibes here, and I'm warm under the covers. 🥰

I miss my baby sister. 2 years ago she was a completely different person. She was happy and always laughing, she was perfectly happy to help in any way, now she doesn't even thank me when I do things for ger in hopes of winning her back. She's become closer with some friends who are influencing her in a bad way, and now she's just angry, especially at me,  she turns everything into an argument, she doesn't eat hardly anything, it's like she's wasting away right in front of me. I prayed for a baby sister for 5 years when I was a kid. We've had our rough patches, but we've always made up. I still remember the day she was born, going to see her and my mom in the hospital with my grandma. I'm clinging desperately to hope that the same sweet baby sister I prayed for is in there somewhere, and that when she's ready, she will come out, and we can go back. I've always wanted a sister to be best friends with. Now I wonder if she even loves me anymore.

Trying hard to move past things that were said. It was not very long ago, I have yet to see you for the first time since you told me. I know once I see you, it will get easier to go back to normal. It's just taking that first step of seeing you again is going to be the hardest. It will get easier, and maybe we will never go back to how we were before, but we can return to a semblance of normalcy if only I can take that first step.

I have good days and bad days. Days where I can hardly leave my bed, when I don't want to eat or drink, just sleep. It's been a hard year. Some days the only thankfulness I can find is praying "Thank you that it won't always be like this"

I'm not going to lie and say I no longer have bad days, or that I have constant trust in the one who is ordering my life, it's a battle I fight every day, and sometimes I lose. But the thing that pains my heart-this loneliness- though sometimes I still cry over what I do not have, I am learning that the waiting I do and the faith I hold through it is going to produce a peculiar glory when I reach the other side.

One of my close friends told me he loved me. He spoke of my laugh, my smile, how when I touch him, he doesn't want to flinch away like he does with everyone else. Nothing will come if it; nothing can. It's a bitter tragedy. No one has ever spoken to me like that, but why did it have to be you? The one with whom it would never work? My heart wants to embrace you, my mind wants to run away now all I can do is pray.

A collection of Haikus and the end of them is a bit of mad rambling because I couldn't hold the words in anymore.

If the me I was 9 years ago-hell, even 4 years ago- could see me, see the things I've done and the promises I've tossed away for cheap things, would she want the future more, or less?

"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God."

It's not over, I will praise again. But I'm in the valley.

Going through some rough stuff right now-things I never thought I would have to worry about, and I'm having to make some very hard decisions about my church. I just feel weak, and tired, and I know that nothing is meaningless, but what could be so important about what my family is dealing with right now?

Counseling a friend of mine, and he is struggling with this right now. But I think we all at some point wonder if we are meant to be alone forever.

I miss my pawpaw today. It's been 9 months, and I have so many regrets about his passing. I should have seen him more, tell him I loved him, etc. One day I will tell him I love him. I will talk to him, spend time with him, kiss his cheek, embrace him, see both my grandpa's together in a golden city. We won't cry, we won't have any regrets, just an eternal sunrise of bursting glory worshiping the one who gave us life. I love him so much, I can't wait to tell him that.

"I have learned to kiss the waves that slams me into the rock of ages."

"But mine is peace that flows from heaven and the strength in time of need I know my pain will not be wasted, Christ completes His work in me"

There's a picture in my head of a mother with her child. Bombs light up against the dark, starless, rainy sky. She clutches her baby to her, attempting to soothe the child with this song and stave off both their fear as everything falls around them.

*credit to whoever wrote the original "Hush little baby".  This is only my revised version. :)

I've been having some horrible nightmares lately. I don't know why. A few days ago, I had to sit up and remind myself where I was, that my neighbor was downstairs and no one has my key. I turned the lights on before going back to bed. My brother says I should get help and find a counselor who is able to help me. For some reason, typing up my nightmare when I wake makes me feel better. I have a whole file full of them.

Two weeks ago I got the news that my grandpa is dying. The next day I got into a car crash, later that week someone broke up with me, and I just got the news that two of my pastors have resigned their Commission. I just feel sad and broken and I want to die and it feels like no one nowhere on any planet or existence can help me.  Please,  God make me a stone.

Written for an old friend, an almost lover.

To Tyler Thatcher. I hope you're happy now.