"I've never stopped loving you, Daughter."

I am the type of person that when things get overwhelming I leave the area or disappear into writing and music. But since Sunday morning, I haven't had the chance to run away from the things challenging my heart, challenging my limits, the things breaking down my walls and barriers... because God is the one who is allowing it to happen.

Those who know me outside of church and Wednesday prayer know a different girl than what I show in front of my congregation. I am a girl who is nervous about letting people too close. I dislike large groups and always know where my escape routes are. I do not like being touched unless I make the move first. I do not like people to know the girl under the blood of Christ.

You can know the side of me that adores Abba, the girl who dances and loves to sing her own love songs to Him.

But you CANNOT know the girl I was and still am before God.

Abba decided to challenge that by letting me get so lost and down to rock bottom so that I would HAVE to let people see who I am so I could break the chains that kept me on the roller coaster of love and despair, life and death, freedom and bondage.

The details, circumstances and people involved are between them, me and Abba alone.

The results and lessons are for everyone...

My old self that I still kept inside, unknowingly, believed that I wasn't worth being loved and that every mistake I made was making God move away from me and not love me anymore. As a result, I felt shame and guilt and moved away from God, my source of strength and hope. 

Every time I would sin due to the shame, guilt and feeling that God didn't love me, I wasn't forgiving myself for doing those things, even though those who were involved were trying to tell me that He does love me and has forgiven me already. 

You see, as a new Christian, most of my walk has been experiences with God, not Biblical knowledge. So, to me, God and His love is like our love that we have for each other, dependent on emotions and what the other one does. 

THIS is why I believe every new Christian should have a mentor/teacher of sorts during their early walk. It is SO easy to view God as human love. 

God is love and love is God.

God forgives and forgets every sin... we have to learn to forgive ourselves (which I've thankfully done, both present and past ones).

I am like the adulteress. I was thrown down at the feet of Jesus, in my shame and guilt, looking up at Him, begging Him to forgive me, to not beat me... to love me again. 

When I think of that I can hear Him say to me, "I've never stopped loving you. Let Me hold you. Sin no more and live in Me."

Untitled Poem

They say you are an inspiration

They say you are so full of light

But they can't see your depression

That you are in a spiritual fight

All they see is your smile

As you lift your voice to sing

As you drift away for awhile

As, for a moment, you can breathe

They cannot see the fear

They cannot see the pain

You won't ever shed a tear

Won't let them see the chains

The shadows are still there

Their whispers in your mind

Strangers lay your soul bare

Even they are just as blind

Momentary freedom, just a taste

Your cry fades in the night

Sent back to this dark place

Back to bear this unending plight

You lie in bed, Bible against your chest

You wonder why this is your life

Called an inspiration, blessed

They don't see this strife

His screams are in your ears

As you pray the voices scream

Please, Lord, ease my fears

Tell me this is just a dream

Being Silent Isn't One of Them

I've having a lot of dreams since last Sunday, hence my many blogs since then. Last night's dream has influenced this blog:

I was in a dark room; I believe our church's sanctuary because I can recall the three stained glass pieces on our stage and the hole in the roof above. There were many people in our church, listening to a guy in black with red eyes, preaching on the stage. I was frantically trying to shout, warn them that he was a false shepherd, a great deceiver but I was mute. He looked at me and I heard his laughter in my mind. Then I woke up.

This dream confirms the emotions I have been feeling and also my great desire to teach people the truths we are not taught.

I know many look down upon me for being young, both in my years since birth and months in my salvation. What angers me is that the little children, knowing I am so young in my walk with God, come to me, asking me to teach them how to anoint rooms and themselves, how to rebuke demons, wind and storms. They ask me how I hear God, how I have visions and dreams. Yet it is the adults who look at me with disdain. It is so frustrating!

2 Timothy 4:12! I even have a shirt that has it written. Do not look down upon me for being young! See me as an example to all believers!

So many of us are not taught the truth of the Spirit. We are not taught of the spiritual gifts, of spiritual quickening, of demonic oppression and possession. We are only told that the enemy is there. We know this! We should be taught in recognizing the signs of oppression and how to rebuke it and then retain the freedom!

We are commanded to be many things. We are to love one another as He loves us. We are to lay up our treasures in Heaven, not on Earth. Pray for those who persecute you. Honor our parents. Be born again. Await His return. Beware of false teachings.

We were never told to be silent.

I love my God. I adore Him. Yes, I am young in Him and in my years since birth. But I love Him. I love my Christ siblings and my spiritual parents. I want to lead the children to Him.

I cannot be silent about God and I cannot be silent about the truths that are not taught openly. We are told to be free and be His children. How can we be free when we are fearful? How can we be free if we do not know we are to be free? 

This is what I teach and try to be an example of. And I will not be silent.

The Silent Poison

If you were to go back to my high school and ask the teachers what kind of student I was, most would tell you I was a quiet, shy yet advanced student. Some might even tell you I was to graduate at the age of 15, though few in the high school knew that.

If you asked them why I was so quiet, they wouldn't have an answer for you, unless they still had the work I did in English class. Behind the stanzas and lyrical paragraphs, the truth was revealed, to those who knew how to read metaphors, similes, and paradoxes. 

If you asked them what I was passionate about, their faces would light up. They would go on this  huge tirade of words, praising me for my passions: writing, attempting to form groups against bullying, attempting to form some kind of students counseling other students organization, attempting to form a way to work in the town. They would say how my passion was helping people and writing. 

See, I was this quiet girl in school. I've always been quiet, on the sidelines looking in. I remember one English teacher teasing me, calling me a stray animal who had lost its trust in humans. I wanted to run to them and be accepted yet I was fearful so I stayed on the outside and just looked in.

She couldn't have been more right.

When I was in school and even up to now I have always been able to look at someone and be able to read them. The eyes say a lot. Posture and patterns only confirm what the eyes betray, hence my always painting my eyes black in school and not making eye contact up til today. 

What I saw in the eyes of those kids and what I see in the eyes of people today breaks my heart.

There is a silent poison in people that no one can see or they choose not to see... abuse...

When people say the word abuse, they think of just physical abuse. They picture a husband beating their wife, a boyfriend controlling his girlfriend with the threat of beating her. If your boyfriend or father hits you in the midst of a fight, do you just take it and tell yourself that he didn't mean it? Or do you stop and think if he did it in the midst of anger, it can happen again?

Few people think of sexual abuse, whether it is molestation, forcing a girlfriend/wife to give a boyfriend/husband something they do not wish to.

How many people think of emotional, verbal or mental abuse? 

If your parents, friends or significant other call you fat, worthless, dumb, a disappointment, do you think it is abuse? If it is constant, if it causes you to hurt and you start to view yourself as that, it is abuse. Some people call it bullying... and that is a form of abuse. This is verbal abuse.

If those same people were to toy with your emotions, lift you up with words of praise and then take it back and say something negative, that is emotional abuse. Emotional abuse can be tied to verbal abuse as well. Both of these can lead to mental abuse.

Mental abuse can literally change the way an individual views them-self and the world and people around them. It can leave one in a state of depression and can lead to many mental disorders and anxiety. 

This is the silent poison...

All of the above are things that I have encountered first hand and have experienced for over a decade. Less then 10 people knew thing before I typed this blog. Less than 5 actually know the details and how bad it was/is. 

This is what I am passionate about. Abuse is everywhere! It is in the workplace, in families, in schools, in churches. 

When I went to South Dakota, it re-broke my heart. I had night-terrors reliving my past and some of the abuses I went through. That mission trip re-solidified in my mind that there needs to be a way to stop this or provide some form of counseling or safe-house for children and young adults to go to and escape. 

What am I passionate about?, you ask the teachers.

All I want to do is a make a difference.