I am sick..

Well, God is showing me a lot in my life right now. Let me start by this:
"Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect."
Romans 12:2

I read that verse, about being transformed by the renewing of your mind and realized I need to get rid of this disgusting selfishness in my heart before I can really love anyone the way they deserve. I need the Holy Spirit to overtake me.
I am sad on so many levels, but as a very nice (mystery) person left on my car window at work yesterday:

"Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
Matthew 11:28-3

The Lord has really pushed me to a place where I NEED Him. I absolutely have realized my need for Him. I need to just love him endlessly and let him put everything back together His way. I need my God to save me. I need my God to show me Himself.


Another thing I am realizing is how childish I am. I need to grow up, and I am having a very hard time doing so. I need to get OVER myself... How many times can i try and fail? every time. I need to run to God and ask him to take my selfishness and childishness away, and to fix them. I need to take every broken relationship to Him, take my grandmother to him, take my mom to him, take my absolutely broken heart to him, take my selfishness, pride and childishness to the Lord...
I need to love God more.

Finding joy in God

"Then Jesus went out to the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him. Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.)But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

I LOVE what Jesus says at the end.. I love when he says something and you think "oo..burn."
It's a very good point he has. We should make it a point to not only pay attention to "worthy" people. Sick people need doctors, not healthy people.

Yahweh

I wrote this poem in a very sad, very desperate time of my life.

Yahweh, in You my heart is safe.
I'm inconsolable because of where the water took me.
I cry at night and in the morning.
I cry because I'm sad.
I cry because I do not have.
I cry and only you can stop me, Yahweh.

Elohim, You control me.
Put my face close to the ground so I can taste it.
Let me taste the dirt, it will remind me who I am.
Let me see Your face.
Let me have the desires of my heart like You promise.
Let me laugh again, Elohim.

Jehovah, I love You first.
Make me happy.
My sorrow is more than I can handle.
My sorrow keeps me awake and starves me.
My sorrow is killing me and I feel numb.
My sorrow hurts. Hold me close, Jehovah.

You change the heart of kings.
You love me though I'm wrong.
You can walk on water.
You can calm a storm.
El, Jehovah, Yahweh, waves don't crash without Your permission.
This storm is too big for me, but not for the One who gave it.

I give you my tears, sickness, and disbelief.
Let me eat again, I am sick with sadness.
Give my friend peace.
Give my friend faith.
Give my friend love I can't provide right now.
Give my friend back to me.

Take this pain and throw it as far as Your arms can through
My heart is heavy.
My best friend is gone and a promise has been broken.
Praise You Yahweh.
Praise You Elohim.
Praise You Jehovah.

“At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship, and said: 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.' ”

Hiphopopotamus

Because this is necessary:

Psalm 6

O Lord, don’t rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your rage.
Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak.
Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
I am sick at heart.
How long, O Lord, until you restore me?

Return, O Lord, and rescue me.
Save me because of your unfailing love.
For the dead do not remember you.
Who can praise you from the grave?

I am worn out from sobbing.
All night I flood my bed with weeping,
drenching it with my tears.
My vision is blurred by grief;
my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies.

Go away, all you who do evil,
for the Lord has heard my weeping.
The Lord has heard my plea;
the Lord will answer my prayer.
May all my enemies be disgraced and terrified.
May they suddenly turn back in shame.


*I tend to be selfish when I'm going through a hard time. I feel like I'm the only one who has ever been sad and my problem is literally the worst problem that exists. Well, not true. These past few days, I have wrongfully been angry at God. I told Him so, too. I know He loves honesty, but let me tell you, he quietly humbled me, and reminded me that I do not need to be angry at Him. I need to open my eyes and be ready to face what He has for me. I was angry at Him and told him, and instead of coming at me with "the force" (Which He has every right to do.) He essentially hugged me and said "Get off your butt you fool. Take a hold of yourself. I love you more than anything." And I know that my God (more affectionately referred to as Yahweh) loves me more than I can even imagine. What an amazing thing to think about and dwell on, rather than dwelling on worry, doubt, fear, anger and disappointment. The Being who created literally everything you see, loves me. It can almost bring tears to my eyes. Granted, lately for some reason everything can. But you get the picture I hope. I am ALWAYS reminded of my favorite verse. Well I shouldn't say verse. More like my favorite chunk of scripture. It's Matthew 6:25-34.
Oh I have learned so many lessons.

God is a quiet teacher. For some weird reason, I'm forced to think of this example.. Just bear with me. I went to see "A Christmas Carol" in Manchester on time, and I thought of this one scene. Scrooge is just saying "WHY! Please tell me how to change! How can I prevent all of this from happening!" And the ghost of Christmas future(who is actually a giant statue in this play) just stands there, like any good statue would. But Scrooge is just yelling to him and asking him these things, but the ghost is silent. Scrooge knew. He just had to do it. The silence was painful.
So as I'm sitting there, literally yelling to God, I knew that He was just there, silent, telling me to just do something. He was not giving me a postcard or typed out letter on what to do. He said "I'm with you. Do something." So, needless to say I have learned a LOT.

....One more thing. I have a huge problem (maybe it's the poet in me, or maybe it's just a human issue in general.) I tend to take a verse and mold it to me. I try to apply every verse to my every situation, which is not what I should do. I need to take the word of God, look at the examples, and learn from them. Not look at a verse and say "Okay. What does this mean... How is it relevant. Why am I reading this.
I need to read things and take them for what they are. The Bible is God's word. And although you should look to it for advice, it is not an instruction manual and looking into the Bible with an agenda can be dangerous and insulting, I think.

So. Yeah.

This was assignment for poetry class. Our model poem was "Merengue" by ...augh the poets name slips my mind. Anyway, we had to list a bunch of subjects, verbs, and statements, make the subjects and verbs into questions, and then sandwich them between the statements. This is how mine came out on a very dark day, Enjoy.

Humans like everything set in stone.
Feelings. Plans. Life. Everything.
Clearly, I can’t handle anything in stone,
Which is weird because I live at Rock Bottom.
Isn’t that where we met?
How can I not remember what I’d said?
Isn’t fear some kind of weird substance, like milk?
Did you know I hate stones? They remind me of empty fingers now.
Do you know how much I hate them? They remind me of Plum Island on memorial day.
Did you know I can’t even look at stones? They scare me.
When you see a stone do you think of the ocean?
When you see a stone do you think of sand
And cold feet?
When you see a stone do you feel betrayed?
What is wrong with my brain?
Did I forget to reassure my circular pattern?
Isn’t it clear that I hate circles almost as much as I hate stones?
Can time be patient? Is that even possible?
Can everyone stop talking?
Can I stop thinking?
What on earth have I done? Better yet, what am I doing?
What kind of messed up, cold, and destructive creature
Has taken over the self I thought I had a grasp on?
What is a grasp, anyway?
Isn’t it a nasty kind of bug that tricks you into thinking you’ve caught it
But it just comes back and stings you in the end.
Isn’t that what I thought I knew?
What is that smell? It makes me happy.
Is this how it feels at a crossroad? Am I stuck?
Why can’t it be June?
Did you really think I could jump without looking?
When you were singing, wasn’t it obvious I could hear from down here?
What is this awful feeling in my gut?
Didn’t you know I’m lactose intolerant?
Didn’t you know that milk kills me inside?
No?
Neither did I.
If you ever think back to that day, just remember that
Milk is a venomous liquid, and I can’t bear the sight of stones.

You Can't Mess with My God.

I am currently reading the book of Jonah. Actually I just finished it. I have to say that that is truly one of my favorite books in the Bible. Here's Jonah, a guy who God specifically told "Go to Nineveh." And Jonah essentially laughed in the Lord's face and said "They'll never listen to me. The people of Nineveh are hopeless and will never hear my word or listen to me." So Jonah is on a ship, and the weather all of the sudden gets really bad and the ship "threatens to break up" and Jonah is suddenly convicted that it's his fault because he was running from God, and tells his ship mates to throw him it because that's the only way to calm it. They're like "yeah right, we aren't about to through a friend overboard." and they tried everything they could to secure themselves, but were only left with one option: throwing Jonah overboard. And so they did. And I LOVE how in Jonah 1:17 it says
"But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights." God PROVIDED a big fish to eat him. Not punished Jonah, he provided a great fish to protect him, and that taught Jonah a huge lesson. Jonah basically cried uncle, and God allowed the fish to puke him up. He was so desperate and sitting inside the stomach of a fish. I don't know what you think, but to me that the stomach of a fish sounds disgusting. And so does being puked up. I bet it was hard. God did it, and he did it because someone was not following His will. And He loved Jonah so much that He provided a way out of that mess.
So God told Jonah again: " Go to Nineveh." And any monkey, after that experience, would go. You don't mess with God. So he went, preached, they rejected like he predicted, and he said "See God! They're ridiculous." And Jonah was angry that this had happen. He was ticked off. He said he knows God is "gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity."(4:2) and he asked that God take his life.
And God said to him "Excuse me... Who told you you could be angry about this."
And this is my translation, but it seems like when Jonah went and made himself shelter, he was pouting and sulking because God didn't take his life like he wanted. Jonah didn't want this turmoil. But God had the right to send it. And instead of explaining the rest, I'm just going to copy and paste, because I believe the word of God is that powerful, that you will get the picture. And I believe the book ended like this for a reason.
God is all powerful, amazing, and knew us from before the world began. Who are we to be angry and frustrated at his will for things. Bottom line: Do what He says, and shut up.
Jonah 4 starting in verse 5:
"5.Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."
9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"
"I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."
10 But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that gre
at city?'"


PS. Notice how many times it says the word "provided" even when talking about things that seem unfortunate.

I love you God and you provide every circumstance in life.