My Friend Sharlene

She is a psychologist and she is very smart. NO college degree but she is better than that. She is a blessing to my life. I mean who spends a whole conversation listening and not speaking? She does. She tells me I'm growing up. AAAHHHHHH! I don't wanna grow up! I'm a Toys'r'us kid! ggggrrrrrrrrr! She tells me it's good to be more self aware and to know who you are. gggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr!  She tells me that I got to be more proactive!! ggggggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Responsibility Priorities and grown up stuff. Everyone will take me seriously and really consider my point of view. You Suck world for making me grow up and lose my innocent child like ways. I really would like to be a child again. I thought about things too much and I didn't really have fun. I wasn't free as children should be. I was burdened, happy yes but burdened. Back to Sharlene. She's into Jesus and she is motivating. She said I was speaking in circles. I think I do that so I never say what I really feel. I think I've built up these walls around feelings, these taboos about things. It is very hard for me to plainly express myself. Why do I feel a certain way? Or what ideas do you have for this? Or what do you think about...? My mind literally comes up with a blank. Empty and I do not know  and when I finally have an answer I say many things and eventually downplay my own thoughts. I doubt myself and what others may or may not think of me. That's sadder than I thought. Because my brain is wired to work this way. My mind goes blank and then I take too many words to express my idea and then when it finally comes out I down play it. Or is that just how I am? Am I a ditz? LOL!! No I'm not. I'm not claiming that but Sharlene is right or maybe I'm too lazy to think...NAH! I probably think too much. Because how do you do that? How does one make their brain work this way? You have to think too much in order for that to happen. Dr. Sharlene John when is our next therapy session?

Natural Hair and the Christian Walk

I am that girl that has always had natural hair. I never had a perm. I press my hair on average once every two years and people have always guessed that I was younger than my actual age. For a person who has always had natural hair, my hair is not the length I think it should be. It usually grows to shoulderlength and maybe a little lower and then it stops. Now, I know that we all have different hair types. My hair grows in a different way than others but when I see people who have had natural hair for a shorter time than me having mass amounts of growth I get a little...jealous? Not exactly. I like my hair so I do not wish for other people's hair. I'm too attached to mine. Maybe I get frustrated. Now, I just watched a video from  TrueStorydotLife and she was doing a length check. Now the reason I don't like doing length checks is because I have the "watched pot never boils" mentality. But the reason truestorydotlife doesn't usually do length checks on video because they usually make her compare herself with others. But this is what I do all the time with my hair even though I'm not measuring. I compare myself with others and ask myself why is my hair shorter than hers and what can I do to make it longer. But like truestory says, "My hair is not like Jane's..."

Now, I have practically grown up in the church. I have always claimed Christ. My big sins are usually laughable in the eyes of hardened gangsters and players who have come to God. I have always been admired by others for the christian things I do. But then I look at people who have just come into the faith and how zealous and on fire they are for God. And I'm always the same, always struggling. The same things that I have always struggled with since I was a child, I struggle with now. I feel like there is no growth. Like, I always fall short. For a while, I have been a little frustrated with that fact, thinking that maybe if I could just go out into the world for a little while and come back to God, I could have a great testimony and be super zealous for God. My friends usually say that I do not want to go out in the world because I may not come back to God and the world is a lot worst than I think. Funny thing is that I do not think I could go into the world if I wanted to. I do not enjoy drinking clubbing or partying or dancing. I actually have no appetite for those things. So I like Christian things but I do not like my state in the christian walk. Soon after I watched the length check video, I watched a video by David Assherick ( who reminds me of Conan O'Brien in this vid by the way) and he says the christian walk is a process as we move from glory to glory, our inward man is being renewed day by day. He mentions that it is better to be struggling than to be dead in our sins. I must admit I was dead for awhile, pretty hopeless in fact. I thought that if my heart still adored the sin, then I must still be in sin and maybe I have never been a real christian. So what's the point in denying myself if I'm not saved? But this is FALSE! The Christian walk takes time because it is a process. Struggling is a sign of life. "A Just man falls seven times..."

TrueStorydotlife's

Length Check 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybWGYlvMDfM&feature=feedu

David Assherick

The Single Secret to Succeeding in the Christian Walk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXPKgA65Yy8

Sinner

It's all over me. Touching me, injecting me, inhaled by me. Filling me everywhere.  I'm swimming in the vile disease that is abominable to God and it's all over me.
Can you make yourself like or dislike something that you inherently like? Is that really love, teaching yourself to obey God? How can you teach yourself to love someone you are not subject to? I'm carnal, not spiritual and the Spirit is striving to save me but I cannot spiritually discern in fact I don't even like the law of God. Yay grace!!! But grace says sin more? God forbid!!!!  Because we are not saved to sin we are saved from sin. So because of an abundance of sin and an overwhelming abundance of Grace, I am carnal not saved but salvation is accessible to me but is it? There's only so much that He can take, only so much rejection that a being can withstand. And then there is the unpardonable sin: blasphemy. A carnal and reprobate mind that will never be subject to the law of God. To stand unjustified and filthy forever is truly a hopeless state. Oh wretch that I am ! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?  God have mercy on me a sinner.

Dark Flower

Don't let anyone pluck your petals
Don't let anyone smell your perfume
Even the good ones take a mile from an inch
so don't let anyone near it
Don't even let it see the sun
Dark Flower
So powerful So emotional
So fragile so gentle
So ancient and mystical
Eve scepter Adam's achilles
Take you to the heights for only a short time
Let's you down down down
Take you up up up so high
That no matter how far down you go
you want to go up again
It's burning fire and no matter how much Mommy says don't touch the stove, you've got feel the heat, the brilliance, the ecstasy
And there you are again, embarrassed ashamed tricked once, twice, thrice and more
No one but you to blame for falling for it, Shame on you and shame on you again.

Hello Hello

You know what song that is. Vertigo by U2. And I just stopped by to say hello. I'm going to work tomorrow (yay!?) And I have to write a schedule for tomorrow. I really suck at schedules. But I will try to stick to it. Can you believe the craziness? I just had to tell my aunt stop eating. She's grown!! I'm so not used to this. Telling someone that is older than me to stop doing something that they know they should not be doing is foreign to me. I can barely tell children that are younger than me to stop doing things that annoy me.  God give me strength. Really.

Secular Music Part 1

I want to listen to music that does not glorify God. Very secular music. I remember a friend telling me there is no reason to listen to secular music because there are so many different types of Christian music. No offense to Christian rap and other Christian genres but to me it just is not as hot as secular genres. 

I love gospel music though and even though I listen to secular music I still listen to Christian music. So while I agree that there is so many types of Christian music and I like Jesus, I also do believe that real entertainment is in secular music.

On Thursday, I was listening to my MP3 player and my other friend wanted to listen, too. So, I gave him an ear bud. My music is sorted alphabetically not by genre. So as my friend listens, he comments that  I had a secular song playing right after a Christian song. the unsaid question was how you mixing the world with the Godly? 

This made me think to a time earlier that week when I went to prayer meeting with another friend. He was playing secular music in the car and then he said turn it down as he pulled into the parking lot of the church. His reasoning behind why the music must be turned down was because he has respect for God. I was so shocked he made this statement. What makes the parking lot of CCC so holy that you can't play secular music loudly? What happens outside of the parking lot that makes it's okay to play secular music? Garbage!!! 

This was similar to a situation I had with my roommate in Korea. She would start singing a secular song on the Sabbath and then remind her self that it was Sabbath so that she would stop singing. What makes the Sabbath so holy that you can't sing secular music and what happens on the other days that it becomes okay for you to sing and listen to secular songs? Garbage!!!

You are the temple of God. You are Holy, because you are God's temple. Therefore if you listen to Secular music, no matter where you are or what time it is, it must be a holy thing to do. Now I'm being facetious because we all know that some secular music is just not holy. And we cannot declare anything to be holy. So the problem is not whether it is holy or not but are you holy or not.

Please don't misunderstand me but how can it be good for you to listen to secular music some places and times but not others when you are the same person? It's more than what is appropriate because we know that a job interview is not the place to blast Kanye West. It's about what we see as Godly and frankly, secular music is not of God. So it's either you listen to it and be real with yourself and stop trying to pretend you're something you're not or you do not listen to it and still be real with yourself and try really hard to be what God wants you to be. In the end, I just want people to be real. Not just with one or two persons but with everyone. Why aren't we real?  Are we a afraid of people's judgments? If you don't find anything wrong with listening to it, just be real! If you do, just be real. 

So, I'm being real. I like listening to secular music, but because it may offend others, I'm going to stop.

The Shadow Universe Me.

I've taken a role in life in which I do not actively pursue any direct path but I leave myself very open for many different options. If God presents it to me, I should say yes and if it is not presented to me I should not fight for it because it isn't mine. This has left me in an ambiguous state. I'm a go with the flow type of person and I'll try things if directed towards me. But I tend to be very indecisive when many options come my way. My final decision usually doesn't go too much against the grain. I was just thinking about writing a character that would live my life in a complete opposite direction than I. She would be impulsive and initiating and unafraid of hurting others. She would be super intelligent and make decisions logically and wisely, always considering God first. She would stand strong for what she believed to be true and she would not be easily swayed by others, no matter how much she cared for them. She would be strong, confident and optimistic. She be would ambitious and disciplined.  Super sucky that this person is not me. Is it too late to change?