Feeling strange

I've just been killing boredom (and procrastinating) by fluffing around through Facebook and looking up people I knew from a long time ago.

It was really strange. Looking at people now, they all, well mostly, look so different. People I knew really well back in my mid-late teens, are now just adult strangers to me. Honestly, I'd walk straight past some of them.

Then there are some that have their face permanently imprinted in your brain. No matter how hard you try. You remember them vividly. There's one in particular. Long time readers of the blog would guess who it is. The "one". The guy who took my innocence, in more ways than one. I saw a photo of him today. Happy. With his child. He didn't have any look in his eyes that would say "hey I'm sorry about what I did to you". Nothing. Just like someone who has no idea.

But I know he knows. I told him so a couple of months back. He acknowledged my email and even went as far as to say he was truly sorry. I have no idea if that was an admission or just a "sorry you feel that way" comment. But any case...

How can he just live his life and be happy? Why am I the one who is left with such deep scars that I dream of him (goodness, not wanting him back, that's for sure, it's all just part of the subconscious healing process), that I don't trust men even to this day, that I continued the abuse he started myself in my early to mid twenties, that my husband now is the one who bears the brunt of his actions through my fears and problems?

Does he know? How do I stop wanting him to "pay"? I have forgiven him... I think. I certainly try, God has helped me on that journey. But why do I have such an urge to hear the words from him? Admission? Guilt? Repentance?

That's all God's domain. I know it in my head. But wow, it would really feel good to hear it for myself..

I wish I could just drop this. Easier said than done. People talk about victims having to pull themselves up and make changes - have they ever been a victim of a horrible crime or injustice? It's hard. Damn hard. I just don't know how. I wish I could just drop this crap back in the years when it happened. Take a time machine back and say "right, it happened, I don't need to carry this for years to come". But I did. I brought it with me. 20 years later, I act, feel and think differently because of what he did to me. He had no right, I let him, and now, he looks happy in a photo and I am scarred for life.

Thanks for listening. I had no idea where I was headed when I started typing. I just let the fingers go.

My prayer is still to just let it go. A prayer I have to constantly pray. I guess it will eventually happen. In the meantime, I'm giving thanks that God led me to a man that is walking every step of the way with me no matter how messed up I am. xx

God's chisel

From The Skit Guys - check them out, they're fantastic!

An awesome story

http://hubpages.com/hub/A-Hitch-Hikers-Angel

A borrowed post

This entry, by Kevin over at Shooting the Breeze, resonated in me to such a degree that I want to shout it out loud. PLEASE read this one, dwell on it, pray on it and ACT ON IT!!!

Rudyard Kipling was a great writer and poet whose writings many have enjoyed. Unlike many old writers, Kipling was one of the few who had opportunity to enjoy his success while he lived. He also made a great deal of money at his trade. One time a newspaper reporter came up to him and said, "Mr. Kipling, I just read that somebody calculated that the money you make from your writings amounts to over a hundred dollars a word; Mr. Kipling raised his eyebrows and said, "Really, I certainly wasn’t aware of that." The reporter cynically reached down into his pocket and pulled out a one hundred dollar bill and gave it to Kipling and said, "Here’s a hundred dollar bill, Mr. Kipling. Now, you give me one of your hundred dollar words." Mr. Kipling looked at that hundred dollar bill for a moment, took it and folded it up and put it in his pocket and said, "Thanks." :)

He’s right! The word "thanks" is certainly a hundred dollar word. In fact, I would say it is more like a million dollar word! It’s one word that is too seldom heard and too rarely spoken and too often forgotten. If we would all adopt an attitude of thanksgiving into our lives - our lives would be changed. We would savour each day. We need to be thankful every day. We need to take the time each day to remember all the blessings in our lives. I love what Max Lucado has to say about this. He says:

“I wake up in a world of miracles every morning. Every time I breathe and use the oxygen and incorporate it into my body it is a miracle. Every time I open my eyes and see the beauty that surrounds me, that’s a miracle. Every time I touch the hand of a baby, that’s a miracle. Every time I take a morsel of food and put it into my mouth and chew it, and my body digests it and uses the energy from it, that’s a miracle. Just as surely as it was a miracle when God opened the waters of the Red Sea, just as surely as it was a miracle when Jesus fed the multitudes, just as surely as it was a miracle when Jesus healed the blind man, we wake up in a world of miracles every day. And some of us have the audacity to want more.”

Ouch! That last phrase hurts a lot: "some of us have the audacity to want more.” I know that I fall into this category WAY too often. It is so easy for me at times to live with a sense of entitlement - like I "deserve" all that I have. But as Lucado so wisely states, EVERYTHING we experience and have in life is a blessing from God! I don't deserve ANY of it yet God still blesses me. I know that I must pause and remember (OFTEN) that I am truly a blessed man!

What are you thankful for today?

Thank you Kevin. That paragraph by Max Lucado is so SO truthful. And powerful.

Create in me a clean heart

I was off photocopying the newsletter I do (monthly) for our church this afternoon, and the photocopier (I'm sure) was possessed by the Devil. Heaps of stupid annoying stuff was going on, and I was getting cranky. Because I was cranky I was thinking of some other things that make me cranky and I was just generally being cranky (to myself, as I was the only one there LOL!).

But I decided to try not to be. I wanted to change my thoughts, not focus on the negatives and better reflect God's glory.

And He gave me a song to sing (mostly in my mind, even by myself I was still embarrassed to sing out loud).

Create in me a Clean Heart
(Keith Green)

Create in me a clean heart oh God
And renew a right spirit within me
Create in me a clean heart oh God
And renew a right spirit within me

Cast me not away
From thy presence oh Lord
Take not thy Holy Spirit from me
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation
And renew a right spirit within me

You know I haven't heard it in quite a while, but I've now made it my anthem. For those times when my humanity is taking over and I want my thoughts and actions to reflect Jesus.

So I'll sing that. Lots, probably, as my mind has a mind of it's own (so it seems) and loses track of what is truly important, frequently. But through repetition and faith I know God & I can do this. A clean heart, and a mind to reflect it.

No real title

I haven't had much to say, so I haven't been saying anything. I guess I'm in one of those places where the journey is slow (hopefully stable), without any epiphanies (sp?)worth sharing!

I was talking via email to one of my bloggy friends (I love how you can make friends this way, what an amazing way to see how we're all a part of God's family) all the way over in Canada (I'm in Australia if you didn't know). I was asking her how she thinks she managed such an intimate relationship with God (I hope she doesn't mind me talking about this), and she told me her story of how she really found God.

She was at rock bottom. And God spoke to her, and she listened, and He lifted her up. So she had crystal clear signs that God was there, and there for HER.

It made me think. Do some of us just have it too comfortable? Do we have too many things or possessions or comforts that make us subconsciously think that we don't need God? I wonder. You hear of a lot of stories of people in desperate situations who found God "dramatically". Is it because they were so desperate and they didn't have anything to lose that they were able to give themselves totally to God? Or is it just that we hear these stories more than the boring, mundane, slow journeys like so many of us?

These aren't necessarily rhetorical questions, by the way. Please share what you think on this. It's just something I've been pondering since my chat with Sarah.

It's real. And it's time.

A friend of mine has just read a book called "23 minutes in Hell" by Bill Wiese. You can hear his story here. The basic gist of it is that God took him down to Hell. To see what it was like. To come back and tell us.

Why would God do this??

To force us to realise that THIS IS REAL!!!! There IS Heaven and there IS Hell. Which one are YOU going to? And which one are your friends/family going to??

Watch this clip too:



So next time you start being the sweet, politically correct "everyone loves me" Christian, think to yourself - have you actually prevented anyone going to Hell???? Have you shown them the way to Heaven or have you just made friends???