Sticks and Stones

If you've been reading my blog from the beginning, or even just a few once in a while, you've probably heard me talk about a writer's conference called Re:Write and how things I learned there and the people I met changed me so much for the better. Well, what I haven't mentioned in my blog is the steps that came before that. The things that lead me to the huge weekend of self discovery that happened to me at this conference. Part of why I never mentioned these things is because until recently I wasn't even sure what started this chain reaction. It's hard sometimes, even once you've reached the end of a road, to look back and see the journey. The road snakes back on itself, sometimes parts of it are hidden. But sometimes it's good to revisit parts of your journey just so you can see how far you've come and learn new things from old situations.

Now, I'm not saying you should revisit everything, because there are certainly things that should remain only in the past, but there are still some things that you may appreciate more or learn more from now than you did when you first discovered them.

A few weeks before Re:Write, my sister shared a very impacting spoken word video on facebook.

I'm not sure if this began the domino effect of seeking myself and God in a deeper way, but I do .know it was an important domino somewhere in the chain. Emotional after watching the video and truly appreciating the idea that I recently realized would later evolve into the quote I shared in my last post about beauty, I decided to bare my soul to my large group of friends and acquaintances on facebook.

So, without further explanation, here is the video and the post that followed:

Growing up I was called obsessive, freak, crazy. Why? Because I was passionate and my mind moved a million miles a minute, causing me to have difficulty expressing myself and things that I loved in a "normal" way. Because of these names, I felt less than normal. At first that was okay. I retreated into my book, my fantasies, and my mind because I didn't even really understand myself.

Seventh and eight grade I saw people had friends, people shared what they were interested in and found people with common ground. I had been quiet and to myself for so long, I forgot. I forgot the labels they had given me. I spoke up. But still, I didn't understand me, not even to share who I was easily. So it came out in messy bursts of extreme emotions: excitement, anxiety, and passion. These things aren't normal. Or at least they aren't in middle school, where if you aren't painted in shades of the same boring gray as everyone else, you're abnormal.

Freak and crazy, some called me. But these didn't bother me as much as obsessed. I love words, I always have. And as a thirteen year old, I looked up the definition. "To think about something unceasingly or persistently; to dominate or preoccupy the thoughts or haunt persistently or abnormally"

There was that word again. Abnormal. So who was I then? I didn't belong to any bigger puzzle. I was not a masterpiece. I was abnormal. Broken. A discarded extra piece that didn't make sense.

Wanting to be loved and understood desperately, I put on a mask of shades of gray, hoping it would hide my crazy. But I found that I still couldn't relate to people, because I wasn't giving them me.I shut down emotionally to avoid the pain that came with the severe isolation I felt. I was lost in in a sea on shades of gray. I needed help. I was crying out for acceptance, but my mask had become so good at hiding who I was, that those around me couldn't even see I was in pain. Finally, through much pain, I threw the mask away, and exposed the deep emotional wound to the harsh air. Grace and love pored in. For the first time I had hope.

I was sixteen.

Since then, I've come to learn more about myself and how my mind works. It's a mess, and it doesn't make sense to even me sometimes, but I have found a way to harness that mess and turn it into something beautiful. I am writing a book. I do what some still call obsessive research and reading so I can improve my skills as much as possible. I'm still excessively loud, overly passionate, and into some things that aren't classified as "normal."

Although I'm not called these names that frequently any more, to this day, they still make me flinch. The way I thought no one understood me, or really saw who I was for so long affects how I think about my relationships. It still makes me second guess the genuineness of some of my friendships from time to time. I have to remind myself that those lies I once believed are not true.

What were your names?

I wrote this post six months ago. No longer do I flinch at these names. But watching this video and reading six months ago me's thoughts, I understand a little more about what I've been learning about myself, God, and beauty now.
After rewatching that video for the first time in six months, I was hit especially hard when the speaker said the line, "She's raising two kids whose definition of beauty begins with the word Mom."
And yet she still doesn't see her beauty because of the names she was called and the masks she wore to hide her pain. How many of us does this describe?
From the twenty years of life I've lived, it looks like too many. More than it should be, anyway.
I was one of these, I tried to cover myself up, because the names they called hurt too much and I couldn't bare to let the people see that my heart was nothing more than an unwanted flower trampled in the street.

And when I think about where I was, and where I still see people today, I can't help but identify with the last line of this poem, "Our lives will only ever always continue to be a balancing act that has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty," because if you think about it, that's what we were and are doing, isn't it?
We put on masks to draw attention away from the pain in our eyes at the cruel words spoken. We put make up on our scars and build walls around our hearts, because if someone saw our stories, lives, beauty, then maybe they would disapprove and call us names to make themselves feel less broken.

For isn't that all they are? The same as us. Broken souls in a never ending struggle with beauty.

So, just as I asked six months ago, what were the jabs made at your beauty?
What were your names?

Not So Hopeless Wanderer

How most people see the Octo

I recently had a very good conversation with my friend Denica McCall about perspective.
Well, that wasn't exactly what we were talking about, simply what I saw. You see, it started as a very pointless conversation over text, in which I decided the octopus emoji best fit my mood. If we both had the same type of phone, there'd have been no problem. But since I have a Windows phone, and I meet very few others who do, our emojis look different.

How I see the Octo

While I use the emoji in moments where I feel like I should use a face, but don't know what to use, most other people don't see the derpy, awkward expression from the octopus like I do.
Does this stop me from using them? No! And I was quick to explain this to her.

But that got me thinking...
Why don't I do the same thing with all of life?
Who cares if other people see what I see? Should that stop me from doing what I love or trying to make connections?
No. It shouldn't.



For example, I wrote a post recently for Holy Week. If you haven't read it, you should. (Click Me!)
In the post, I talked  about the cycle of remembering and forgetting. How it's something we can't really stop, but that doesn't mean we can't learn to work with it. It also doesn't mean we should beat ourselves up over it.
While that post was awesome in it's own rights, I didn't say all I had to say on it. It was partially because, like the post suggests, I let myself forget where my worth lies.
My worth does not lie in the opinions of other people.
But still, I let what other people might think, keep me from sharing one of the biggest inspirations for the post.

If you've spoken to me, you know a few things: I love music, I love words, I love God, and I don't learn things easily. God knows this too, obviously. He knows I need to see something a million different ways before I really get it. I may understand before, but until I see it a few times or hear it a few ways, I will doubt that I really understand it as fully as I could.
Because of this, I don't generally talk (or blog) in depth about things I'm learning from God until I feel like I've got it (unless you're in my inner, most trusted circle).
For a month, God's been teaching me about this cycle of remembering and forgetting, but it didn't seem to really click until last Sunday.

I had just bought the 2012 Mumford & Sons album, Babel, and was loving every minute of it.
Why did it take me three years to buy the second album of what is easily one of my top three favorite bands? I don't know. Maybe it was God saving the music for me, so I could discover it fresh while learning all of these things before I attached different meaning to the songs.
Either way, my brother and I were jamming out to the new tunes and I was looking up song lyrics while listening.
The song "Hopeless Wanderer" came up. This was exactly the song I needed to hear. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I had only just learned about the cycle and, in the weeks following, I was in a state of remembering. The weekend I bought this album, was my first period of slipping back into my old rut again. It was this song that helped me remember that this is just a cycle, that I must simply turn to Jesus again.

"How does Mumford & Sons help you make connections to God?" Some of you may be wondering.
God doesn't belong in a "Christian" box. God is everywhere and he can show us amazing things through even a random secular, English Alternative rock band. I see a lot of spiritual themes over Mumford's music, but maybe that's just me. I like looking for God anywhere and everywhere, and He frequently presents Himself in places I would never have expected.
Just listen. Really, here. Listen.

First off, I don't know about you, but the first thing I thought when I heard the line, "Don't hold a glass over the flame, don't let your heart grow cold. I will call you by name, I will share your road," was when Jesus tells his followers not to hide their lamps under a basket or a bed, but to let them shine brightly for all to see.
But that's not what struck me about the song. No, that was the verse where the song got it's title.

Source: Flickr

"But hold me fast,
Hold me fast,
For I'm a hopeless wanderer."

This is me.
This is me crying out to God, "I am a hopeless wanderer, forever doomed to the cycle of remember and forget! So, hold me fast, Lord. Keep Your hold on me, for without You, I am doomed to wander for nothing."

It's all over the rest of the song, too! Do you hear it?
No? Oh well. Maybe it is just me.
Jesus shows Himself to me in some weird and glorious places.

We are all hopeless wanderers, but Jesus stooped down and chose to walk alongside us on this wandering road.