Rest

Tonight I had a nightmare that woke me up. Once I was awake I couldn't fall back asleep because I was scared. Typically when this happens I say a prayer and my fears alleviate and I fall back asleep. Such was not the case tonight. I fervently prayed for God to help me overcome my fear, but my fear remained. I finally reached a point that I realized I was just asking for God to do something for me because I needed it, and in the morning I'd say "Hey, thanks." and move along with my life until the next nightmare. So I began to pray that I would actively change this aspect of myself. That I would begin to actively seek him and have a two way relationship with him, us talking to each other rather than me just talking to Him. My fear remained. So I turned on the light, and found my Bible (sadly, after a little searching). As I opened it I turned to the Concordance and looked up "fear." I was expecting things along the line of "Perfect love drives out fear" - feel good fuzzy junk. What I found was that most passages on fear refer to fear of the Lord. Not so strong on the fuzzy warm feelings. So I get to thinking, 'hey - I'll just get started on reading John since I'm starting a Bible study on that.' I open my bible and my book marker is in Lamentations so it automatically falls open there. 'All right. Not my first choice but we'll give it a shot.' As I'm reading about how Judah has divorced herself from God, I hear this small voice. It said, 

"THIS is how I communicate with you."

That's the moment it all ended for me. In that moment I knew that in my past I had chosen to divorce myself from Christ and it was time to remember, as the author does in chapter three, 

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; 

his mercies never come to an end;

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness."

Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV

It is in these truths, that God is a force to be Feared and a God that does not give up on me, that I will choose to find my rest in.

fathers day

it's been a year and some odd months. the worst feeling in the world is having a dream about the loved one who passed away. it's even worse when you remember in your dream that they're no longer there and they become a ghost before you even wake up. then you do wake up and it's fathers day, and it's all you can do to roll out of bed.

still blessed

courtesy of weheartit

the past couple weeks i have started doing something i haven't put that much effort into throughout the course of my samford career. and that's putting time into being the sorority girl i dreamed of growing up to be. my first two and a half years i had mostly focused on developing friendships with the people it was easiest to do so with, the ones that would be stuck with me for the rest of my life because the majority of them live in orlando. but now i've been investing my time with a group of girls i call my sisters, and i could not be any happier about it. i had never made a conscious effort to reach out to them and let them see who i am as a person, or let them see my pain. this past week i finally decided to write down one of my prayer requests on the sheet of paper we pass around chapter. just a simple little phrase. the one year anniversary of my dad passing away is coming up. as soon as the email went out i received letters, emails, and text messages of people letting me know i, as well as my family, were in their prayers. wait a minute. the same girls i hadn't invested nearly as much time in as i should have? the ones i would abandon in order to spend time with my other group of friends? they all know i've considered dropping on more than one occasion, and i may not be the best Alpha Delt, but they are choosing to love me anyway and lift me up in a time of need all because i wrote one sentence on a sheet of paper. that's sisterhood. that's why i'm an alpha delt. that's why i love my sisters.

lit nerd

via Tattered Cover

The other day I had to annotate a monologue from Shakespeare's The Tempest, and it was quite possibly the angriest I had ever been. Why on earth am I supposed to care what word Shakespeare used at this particular time and why he did it? He didn't write it so that half a century later college students would curse his name. He wrote it to make our hearts feel something. I don't care what the authors of anything actually meant, how it applied to society in their specific time of living. Isn't it the dream of a true artist to have their audience relate to what they did? I shouldn't have to focus in on one word in one passage and focus on what that means. I should be focusing on the beauty of the entire work, and how it's still applicable in my own time.

comfort

i miss my dad. all the time. every day. and it still makes me cry thinking about the fact that i can't just write him a letter to say hey i love and miss you, or call him on the phone, or skype him, leave a funny video on his wall and laugh about it later. and it hurts so bad. i curl up in my bed and think about how much i miss him. but tonight i'm trying something new, rather than curling up in my desolation, i'm seeking comfort from the One whose care i'm in on earth, just as my sweet dad is in heaven.

Psalm 34:18

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit

Psalm 71:20-21
Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.

Lamentations 3:31-33
For men are not cast off by the Lord forever.Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

Matthew 5:4
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

blessed beyond measure

these are the faces of the people that have blessed me more than i could ever imagine. when my dad got sick, i had people in my life that i considered my "best friends" abandon me when i needed them the most. i had gone through times where i didn't try to invest in the guys in the picture at all, and they were the ones who came up beside me and lifted me up in prayer. some of the people who first knew when i was going home for potentially the rest of the semester are in that photo with mr beeson. (and yes, they're the same guys that i've written about before. i'm clearly obsessed with the boys of Smith 2E i've come to know as my family.) as for the girls on the right, they rock my world. we were all roommates at one point, and i have a photo with the exact same girls from the day of my dads funeral. on a day when sadness could have overcome me, they brought me laughter and joy. i may or may not get tears in my eyes when i think about the fact that these are my lifelong friends; and i know that if i should ever need anything at all, i can call up any single one of these fabulous people and they would drop anything and everything to come help me out. 2E and the sweethearts have blessed me beyond measure.

tribute

I wasn't born and bred loving college football, but my family has always cheered for Auburn. When I was a sophomore in high school I went to my first Auburn game... and honestly didn't have that much fun. I didn't understand all the hype about it, but the hype was still there. I remember the sweltering heat, the fans all cheering the same things at the same time, the shakers all moving, and afterwards the rolling of Toomer's corner with an ice cold lemonade in hand. Fast forward four years, I make my way down to Auburn as a college student to experience a game. It was against West Virginia and it was pouring down rain, and that's when I knew that I was in love. I stood through rain delays outside along with the rest of the student section to support the team that I had finally grown to love. The next year, the 2010 season, was a great year for auburn and luckily I got to make it down for a few games. I cheered with all my heart and soul from wherever I was watching, sitting on pins and needles as I cheered on MY team. I cried with pride as auburn took the national championship, and now cried again as somebody took away one of the many great traditions of Auburn. They may be just trees to some, but to the Auburn family, they're the same trees that have been rolled for generations, connecting all of us together. And because of one bitter fan, that tradition is going to be stripped away from us. However, this wonderful family will rise above, plant new trees, and a new tradition. War Damn Eagle.

when a heart breaks - ben rector

after struggling through a complete emotional breakdown tonight, i realized why i had neglected writing for such a long period of time. i write what i think and what i feel with almost no restraint, having been taught that honesty is the best policy. plus, maybe there's someone out there who feels exactly the way that i do and is afraid to admit it because they feel alone. if they come here they will find that there is somebody equally as messed up in the head as they are. so after my dad passed away, i couldn't write honestly about how i was feeling without actually dealing with what was going on in my life. so i ignored it, suppressed it, did everything i could to ignore the fact that i had to go through a mourning process where i would feel sad a lot of the time. i sat down to write the other day and almost wrote about how i felt like a shell of what i used to be, there was nothing for me to write about because i couldn't feel anything. the only other topic i could think about was my sadness, and who wants to read about that? but this isn't for other people. this is for me. getting my thoughts and feelings out there into the abyss and off of my chest. so here's to a change of feeling. or perhaps not. i have no idea what direction this is going to take. perhaps a very dark and depressing one, and more likely than not one that is written from first person (much to the dismay of my professors). so here's to grieving, whatever that may entail.

postscript: this is what i blogged exactly one year ago today [http://blarsong.blogspot.com/2010/02/road-to-self-discovery.html] february 9th seems to be the day i choose to figure myself out

the crowd

i sat down at my computer, and opened up postsecret.com as i haven't done so yet for the week. i came across a postcard stating that they had finally deleted an individuals number. underneath that was what reminded me of what i had gotten on facebook to do. the post read:

"my secret is that i still send pictures of my good grades and photography to my dads cell phone. He diedOctober 23rd 2010."

my dad had a facebook, and one day i looked through our wall to wall till i found the video he had left on my page before we knew he was sick. it wasn't anything important, merely him saying he was proud of me and that he was excited for me to come home for the summer, and that he didn't appreciate the camera making him look more bald than he was, however he was counting on me to love him anyways. i watch that video so often just to hear his voice and see his face. and it hurts. but the beauty in that pain is that i did love him no matter how bald he got or how sick he was. and it's nice to know that there are other people doing the same thing. that there are people out there that aren't sure when the pain and depression are really ever going to end.

the beginning

it's what everyone tells you when shit happens. you go through something absolutely awful and what's everyones response? "everything is going to be okay" "you're going to be alright" "things will get better" ...says who? i have yet to feel as though my life is ever going to really feel back to normal. i still have emotional breakdowns that i have absolutely no control over, and i tell everyone i'm going to be okay. that's the absolute last thing i believe i'm going to be. i feel like my life is going to be a continual battle against the sadness over the death of my dad. i just want to yell that no i'm not okay and i don't feel as though i ever will be my life feels like absolute shit and that's that so back up and don't you dare tell me everything is going to be okay. and maybe finally getting this out is the first step to recovery but all i know is that i'm sick and tired of not being okay. but i'm even more worn out by everyone telling me things will get better when they can't really guarantee their words.