Choosing a State of Mind

Lately I have been remembering that I choose my state of mind. I choose how I perceive things-within my ability to perceive otherwise. I was feeling angry at my brother for something, and I stopped for a moment and realized I didn't have to be angry. (Especially if I am going to follow what I believe in-which is that everything happens for a reason. :) ) It didn't really matter. I keep making things matter that aren't that serious. Of course, I know the reasons behind my mental exaggerations. They are more serious, but they really don't have anything to do with the situation at hand. I've found that my main fear is that I'll be a failure. I'm afraid to fail at life, so I don't try to live. I create relationships that are bound to fail, out of my need not to fail. I create fail/fail choices because I don't want to be responsible for anything, because I don't want to fail. I fail because I don't want to. I talked to God about this in my journal. He made it clear that the only way for me to escape my fail/fail options is to decide who I really want to be, and what I really want to do. If I want to do it, and I do it, I can't fail. It only becomes a fail when I'm not sure about my decisions. Here's what He said: "Decide who you want to be, really. Decide what you want to do, really. And once you have, don't let following your chosen path count as a failure. If you do it, you succeed, no matter what you fail to do. When you succeed at winning, you fail at losing! Just as you succeeded at saying no at the retreat, and failed at saying yes." Later She said: "Do not worry. You will not fail me. You cannot fail me." Oh, I needed to hear that so much! Thanks, God! :) God's love for us is higher than our deepest wishes of what love could be. We cannot fail God!

Suffering for Silence

I was ordered to speak

but remained silent

for fear of ridicule

for rebellion

But what use was it

to keep quiet

and destroy love?

To whom must I be

faithful?

Must I betray myself

to please him?

Or uphold my dignity?

This question burns me.

What choice do I have

when both paths

fail one of us?

Who's to suffer?

I took this question

to bed

and let my tears

wash me into myself

where I was no good

and death loomed

before me

my emotions tore at me

until in my pain

I smashed my head

into the bars

of my prison

until it split

and my blood

poured out into

my dreams

and drowned my purpose.

As I lay there

hopeless

I fell asleep

and when I awoke

it was no more.

Only a memory

of suffering

and a throbbing

in my head.

I want to be free.

Never Good Enough: The Lie of Perfection

I'm not really interested in doing Tuesday Topics anymore, I just don't really have any thoughts on the subjects they choose, so it's kind of pointless. Besides that, I don't like to write my thoughts when they are not interesting and thought provoking. It makes me feel ineffectual, less than who I want to be, and I judge my writing by strict standards. It sucks being a perfectionist. Actually, it's quite depressing. I drew a picture of my mother a couple of years ago, and I don't like it at all. I see it's flaws. I didn't feel it was good enough to show anyone, but I decided to anyway. Everyone I showed it to seemed to think it was a work of art. My fears and need to be perfect have deprived me of sharing my gifts with the world. Never good enough is my constant inner message to myself. No wonder I'm depressed. I do not know how to stop that recording. I have had it for so long. How can I believe anything but that? It makes itself sound so true. Especially when the messages around me are usually the same as the one in my head. When they are not the same, I don't believe them because I don't trust others-unless they agree with my misperception of myself! So defeating! I'm trapped in my own head! I do hope I have a key, or someone does. God's message to me is that She loves me-how do I even truly believe that when in my head it's "No one loves you. You are not worthy to be loved." Will continuing to affirm that God loves me break the chain of negative messages? I truly hope so, I have been using affirmations for a couple of weeks. I do not see much progress, but that does not mean it isn't working. Could just be that these positive messages I am using are pushing the negative ones out, and that's why I am running into them more often and with more ferocity. They do not want to leave their home. I feel insignificant and pointless. I feel like I have no purpose. God has said that my purpose is to live as the trees live. They give of themselves naturally. And they give what they can give, and not what people want them to give. You can't expect a tree to grow money, you will be sorely disappointed. I am tired of the expectations people place upon me. Trees live. I am to live. Just to live. In living, I love, I give, I grow. I do not have to give the perfect gift, nor give it perfectly. I do not have to love perfectly or grow perfectly. I do not have to be perfect! The image of perfection is a lie-the only perfect we can achieve is imperfect. My drawing of my mother is imperfect, and that's perfect! It must be imperfect! It is meant to be imperfect! My gifts are perfectly imperfect. We really need some new words, I think. Perfect and imperfect are so full of prejudisms and biases.

Tuesday Topic?

It's Tuesday...normally I would talk about the war in Iraq, but today's topic isn't something I wish to do-post a picture of the Iraq war. A picture of the war? Where am I going to find that? Why would I want that on my blog? I wouldn't.

Easter Love

Hey, I went to church today...I thought I would go after Easter, not on Easter, but I'm glad I went because there was a great sermon. It's a good thing my mind has had time to rest and contemplate and get stronger, because right now I can hear things I normally couldn't hear, without any problems. There are more important things than a difference in theology. Besides, the death and resurrection of Christ really is a beautiful story if one looks beyond the negatives of it. Usually I'd see God as wrath and God as hate, but I have to remember, the story of Christ's sacrifice is a metaphor created by man to understand God's amazing ability to forgive. God's forgiveness is like a wave washing over us, cleansing us of our sins-that is true! That can be experienced through Jesus.
For me, everything must be seen through the eyes of love, I can't look at it any other way or my depression sets in, God is good to me to allow me to find such a perspective. I can never be a Christian-holding the same beliefs that most Christians do, but I can be a Christian, someone who loves the message of Christ-not that we are sinners, but that God forgives. We need to hear that. I need to hear that. Humans are not good at forgiveness. We don't even forgive ourselves, but God forgives automatically. Love reaches out and touches us, and we are free.
Today's sermon was about power. How to have power to live and do good. I see that we can have this power through giving ourselves to Love. They say let Christ control us, but that doesn't make sense to me, I say let Love flow, and that is living as Christ would. To let Love flow, one must give up hate and anger and selfishness, one must let go of everything, and through love, gain everything. The Pastor said this when he said for us to die to ourselves. Yes, die to our negatives! Give everything to Love. Give your gifts to love, your happiness to love, your sadness to love. In love, all things are made right. Our power is LOVE. There is no power greater, there is no power that can overcome Love. We can overwhelm fear with love! Isn't that wonderful? Joy is in Love's arms.

Love Never Gives Up

It's Tuesday, time for a topic chosen by the people of One Million Blogs for Peace. I think I'll paste the question this time.
Try to imagine yourself as a lifelong Iraqi citizen.What do you think would motivate you?How do you think your life would change if foreign combatants left the country?How do you think you would feel about the United States and other occupying countries?

I would have to ask, motivate me to what? As I am right now, nothing much motivates me to do anything. I don't know what it is like to live in a world of foreign combatants, I have no base to form an opinion for how life would change. All I can imagine is that I would feel relieved. My life would pretty much stay the same since I don't have a life to begin with. I would probably feel like they were intruders.

In other news, I'm going to have a talk with my friend on Thursday. I am frightened, but I think I can at least say some of what I need to say. I'm going to have this talk because I know it is the only thing I can do to save this friendship. I have been letting my fear of her control me, it's about time I take a little control of myself. I also know that this talk is going to settle this, whether we will be close friends or not-really-friends. I'm going to try to talk about my trust issues and how she has acted against herself by teaching me not to trust her. Amazingly, there is a beneficial and wonderful reason for all of this pain I am going through, it is to grow in love. To learn how love acts. Love forgives all things! And I get to know this through experience. When I am loving my friend, the things she has done to me just pass away. That's the kind of forgiveness God has for us. He forgives through love, not punishment. Love needs nothing to forgive-it's a natural action of love to forgive. So, I forgive my friend. Especially when I'm loving her. Definitely not when I'm brooding with anger. It's hard not to sometimes, but my love for her surpasses my anger toward her. This is how I get to also experience that love is not and cannot be angry. One other thing I get to learn first hand is how to deal with anger. I have always run away from it, it scares me. It shoves me into my little shell and I won't come back out without love and gentleness. I don't know why I am so afraid of anger. I think it is because I am afraid the angry person will reject me. I have every reason to believe this is true since angry people do tend to reject those they are angry with. I don't want to be hurt. I don't want to be rejected. God wants to teach me how to deal with rejection and pain, see how they are related to learning how to love unconditionally. To love compassionately and earnetsly and wonderfully. Love is so grand. I thank God that He gives me such glorious gifts.
Today some people were doing the Stations of the Cross, and they came across a picture of Jesus with His back turned to people. They said "Look, His back is turned toward those people!" And it seemed they were shaken by that. They apparently don't know the perception of Jesus that I know. He doesn't turn His back toward people except as a sign of trust. Cats think nothing of having a back turned toward them. They actually think it is good. I asked Jesus why His back was turned, and He in His humor said "Because I don't have four heads.". Yeah, it'd be hard to draw a picture of Jesus looking in every direction at once. He has to, in a human body, turn His back on people. But, His back is just as great as His front. And those with His back can say "I've got His back!" See, He trusts those He turns His back on. He doesn't turn His back on the needy but the un-needy. As He said "I came not for the righteous but the sinners." If you don't need saving, you don't need the front of Jesus, He knows you will be fine. Of course, that's not the Jesus they were imagining. They were imagining the Jesus who forsakes people. The Jesus who ignores those who are too caught up in there sins to see Him. Well, He's never going to be able to save them if He turns His back on them, now is He? I don't think so. Love NEVER gives up. Love is always there for those that need love. Love hangs out with sinners, it doesn't ignore them. I'm glad God is Love.

Failing at Friendship?

This is interesting, my friend says she didn't say we weren't friends at all, so what does that mean? Are we still friends? Semi-friends? I don't know what to do. Silence for now. I've got to convince myself this is a good thing. God is using this event to strengthen me, to teach me understanding and empathy. I feel depressed. Nothing I'm not used to. I'll get through this, and so will she, and we'll at least be amicable with each other. I have experienced almost this same exact situation about 3 times with this woman. I always wanted to be a friend to her. I wish I could have managed. Am I a failure?