Fearful, Wonderful, -Breathtaking..

A verse came to my mind a few moments ago, and unfortunately I didn't know the reference, so what did i do? What we all do when we don't know something that we want to know - GOOGLE IT.(i hope you donate to charities, Google Man)

(Biblegateway is a marvelous site, btw.)

Anywho, I typed in the words "fearfully and wonderfully" and this is what came up, that stopped me in my tracks, and literally drove me to tears..


13-16 "Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God—You're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I'd even lived one day."






....Wow... I just read it again and started crying. Yes... I'm a cryer..


Have you ever had one of those days when you just mess up? Or one of those days when you continually mess up? Or one of those days when you just ARE a mess up?
Well, I've had probably the world's share of those days, and I hate to say I have a terribly inkling that they won't stop here.

This is about to get very personal.



Over the past few years, I've realized so much about myself... things I wanted to know, and many...MANY things I did NOT.

One thing that has been a major, MAJOR issue in my life since...i dunno - about a year and a half old - has been acceptance, and abandonment.

That's right.... i have never felt good enough. But seriously - there's not a whole lot of people who do. and the one's that do feel good enough, usually aren't and will come off their high horse soon enough.

But the things that I've struggled with for so long are so unreasonable, very illogical, and just.... wrong. But inside my brain, and inside my heart.... they're so real, and so right... which is wrong.. (sry if that's confusing)

I was born an extremely, painfully introverted person. God made me introverted. (My own boyfriend doesn't even believe me, cause I've had 21 years of practice to trick the world into thinking I'm not) According to my mother, for the first few years of my life, I never cried, I never laughed, I never did anything more than grunt or gurgle a little, maybe a little whimper here and there. I was extremely observant, and not very responsive.. She actually took me to a doc to see if I was mentally retarted.... that's how introverted I am, naturally.

As I got older, I stayed pretty much the same, only talking and interacting with anyone who was very VERY close to me, even crying if I had to ask for a straw at a restaurant.

All of the observing of my older brother saved my hind quarters from alot of spankings, because he got 99% of them. He was the loud-mouthed, hyper-active, trouble-maker, and I saw this did NOT please mom, so of course, I chose to avoid those things.

In school, I imitated just the same as with my brother - watching the kids around me to see what teachers responded positively too, and avoiding the negative responses at ALL costs. I learned quickly, and excelled quickly, too. I stayed quiet, and never initiated friendships, but a very few amount of them from the ones who did.

It wasn't until middle school that I felt that I could actually start to try and imitate what I thought got the positive responses out of people. I started liking boys, so I tried to copy the girls that the boys liked. I started seeing who was "popular" so I was nice to them, to be in the "in crowd." I did all my work and only visited the principals office when I was called to go home early for some reason or another..

I started pursuing music at about that age too....
I was drawn to a pentecostal church that one of my best friends went too, and somehow, they found out i could sing....
(I actually remember being in the back seat of a sweet lady's car that was giving me rides to church, and a song came on the radio. i started singing softly, and she turned around in shock saying that I sounded JUST like the radio and that I needed to sing at their church.)
Of course, I liked the positive response from her, but had NO idea what would come of that. I obliged to singing at the church, and sang very softly, resentfully, bashfully, almost ashamedly infront of the youth group, and everyone went bonkers.

My mom started asking me if I wanted to pursue music, and I guess I shrugged and agreed, hesitantly. So my mom, being the 'doer' that she is, set up a trip to my aunt and uncle's music studio down in florida, and i recorded a 5 song demo of popular early 2000's contemporary Christian music.. We did a photo shoot for pictures, and mass produced cd's that she started giving to everyone she knew, from friends and family to radio stations and record labels.. got me into voice lessons which i was only in for about 2 sessons (hated music theory) and started booking me to sing at churches/events.
I liked the fact that people liked SOMETHING about me. I almost thrived off of it, because it meant that they were accepting me...

Deep down, I hated it and resented singing all the time infront of people, because I felt like that was the ONLY way that they would like me, if I did something that I really really DIDNT want to do ------ be EXTROVERTED and make myself vulnerable infront of groups of people to either be pleased or disappointed.

I became my own worst critic.... I learned QUICKLY what flat and sharp notes were and that they weren't good at ALL, and got REALLY bad reactions out of people, and would beat myself up terribly if i hit even a hair of a flat or sharp note during ANY performance.

My mom kept asking me if this was what I wanted to do, and if I was sure that I wanted this, and I kept saying yes, because I liked that people liked something that I was doing..... But every single time I would get ready to get up somewhere and sing, I would be in TEARS and practically vomitting from stage fright, shaking, nervous, angry, irritated that I had to do it, but still doing it... Then afterwards, people would tell me "great job" and I would NOT believe them..
All that went through my head was how stupid i looked up there and how much i messed up and everything else.

Recording was no different. I had SOOOOOO many opportunities to record with SO many wonderful producers and studios and musicians and artists, but when writing or recording a song, I never ever ever was pleased and would be in the studio for HOURS upon HOURS upon HOURS just because it was never good enough. (I know there's a thing called "auto-tune" and what not to make people that DONT sound good, TRY to sound good, but it wasn't enough... i had to be perfect.)

Until I was about 16, this went on and on and on... all the same...
I wanted to sing, I wanted to be a singer - yadda yadda - but I was either too young, or I put myself under too much pressure or whatever the case may be..

When I was 15 or 16, I was under a management contract that was definitely NOT contemporary Christian by any stretch of the imagination, and the songs/dances/clothes/places they were wanting me to sing/dance/wear/go were extremely uncomfortable for me. And of course, for me to say ANYTHING that displeased ANYONE was out of the question for me, but my mom started sensing that I was uncomfortable, and it even got to the point where I broke down and cried in the studio (told you i was a cryer) during the middle of recording a song, and my manager said I was a waste. A waste of everyone's time and money and they I needed her, she didn't need me, that she could go out and anyone would love to be in my shoes, and I was ungrateful... All those things...

In the back of my mind, I'd always thought those things about myself, but no one had every actually come out and told me, until this point.... and as soon as those words hit my ears.... it stuck. Didn't have to tell me twice.. I was done..

I told my mom no more, no more singing, no more recording, no more. I was done.
And of course, I felt even more like a failure because of all my mom had put into investing into me and my "talent" that it all just went down the drain, and I was afraid God was NEVER going to give me anything again, because I just slammed a door of blessing in his face.... Oh the turmoil my soul was in. It was bad.

It was about that time that alot of drama was happening at my little private christian school, too, that went haywire, and i asked my mom to pull me out of the school so i could finish early and graduate early and be done. I told you... i was DONE. with everything. My relationship with my boyfriend, pretty much all my friends, my music, everything. I had no motivation, I was just... done, because I felt like a failure and a waste of space and breath and time and energy and everything else. I was a waste, and had proved it, time and time and time again.

I feel like I lived two lives as a teenager, because that's only one side of the story.... that's only the music side.... the other side is just about as long, but has alot more to do with the relational side of my life as a teenager - going through trying to find who i was- being good enough - STAYING good enough... eating disorders, obsessiveness, addictions, confusion, experimenting, just a mess... I was a mess up. I tried to go to counseling, I tried talking to friends, who just stabbed me in the back, I tried going to my boyfriend, who ultimately ended up saying he just couldn't handle me and more- thus proving even more that i was a failure at LIFE.


I was so.... so lost.

Anyways--
that's a little bit of my story just to tell you this..



My number one struggle is feeling worthy or deserving of anything good, anything special, anything gentle and loving....
I feel like everyone sees exactly what they want to see in me - because it's what I show... I show everything that anyone wants me to be -
happy ALL the time, giddy, smart, charming, poised, beautiful, graceful, responsible, funny, creative, sexy.... anything that someone would consider just AWESOME qualities in someone else... that's what I have become. Or that's what I show that I have become.Not to say that my character is not some of those things, but I have just learned and adapted so much to what everyone else wants, that I don't know what I want, and i don't know who I am.

there have been a few times when I have shown my true colors to a select few people,
and needless to say - they aren't here.
I feel like I have put such high standards on myself, that when I fall short of even one thing or another, I have failed miserably as a human being, and deserve nothing short of abandonment and rejection.

What a sucky life to live.

But I am learning. Slowly, but surely I am learning..

I am learning that the real me is not always happy all of the time, and that's okay.
I am learning that the real me is not always beautiful, not always so sly and charming, not always sexy or appealing, not always clean and neat and tidy in a stepford-wife kind of way.
I am learning that I forget things.
I am learning that I lose things.
I am learning that I don't think before I do some things.
I am learning that I can get disorganized if I dont stay focused.
I am learning that I dont have to like everything that people think I like.
I am learning that I do have an addictive personality.
I am learning that I can be co-dependent.
I am learning that I love, and I love hard.
I am learning that I am unique.
I am learning that I am beautiful.
I am learning that it's okay to admit things- like my pleasures, and my hurts, my past and my dreams.

I am learning to be loved. I honestly didn't have the slightest clue what that meant before, and still am having a hard time truly understanding it... But I am learning.

I am learning that every child, every infant deserves to be coddled and loved and cherished and taken care of and told sweet, endearing, loving, nurturing things from all around them... even if they don't get those things.

I am learning that I'm now crossing over the line from girl to young lady to woman, and as a woman, I'm learning the things I SHOULD be, and the things I NEED to be, and the things I really am.. and learning to accept those things.

But what I am learning most of all is that deep inside, I'm still that little, precious baby girl, that was fearfully, wonderfully, marveously hand-crafted, inch by inch, piece by piece, carefully and intricately, just the way that I am supposed to be. There were no mess up's when the Creator was sculpting me, there were no mistakes... There were no blemishes, and He spent more time creating the perfection that He calls me than I can ever truly understand.




.... and I cry, yet again..

I've grown up hearing the somewhat cliche of "If you feel like you're being attacked, you probably are, because you're a threat to the enemy."

Basically - In the Christian walk, when you KNOW you're doing the right thing, following the will of God, being Christ-like in obeying, and bearing fruits of the Spirit, then you will probably experience things that feel like "why is this happening to me? i haven't done anything wrong, as a matter of fact, I'M DOING THINGS RIGHT FOR ONCE!" Usually, for me, when this happens, it means that I've become more than a blip on the enemy's radar, and he's taking note of the changes I'm executing in my life. I've become a threat. I'm no longer sitting on my rear, waiting for something to change, but I'm BEING the change, and he doesn't appreciate it, so he feels he has to throw things at me to complicate the situation, and trip me all up. He thinks, "maybe she'll get mad a God and throw the towel in and become complacent again....Maybe she'll turn her back on God because she thinks she's being punished for no reason."

Well, what the enemy should know by now, is that when he does those dumb little games, it always draws me closer to my Defender. Think about this for a second -

When a child is small, and for the first few years of life, has been completely dependent on their parent(s) for everything, and starts venturing out... they find something that scares them a bit, or they fall and scrape a knee, or a playmate steals toys, beats up on them a bit... whatever the case may be... what does the child revert back to? Normally, the child - no matter how independent - will always run back to and search for and cry for and reach for what they know has taken care of them and who they know will protect and defend and care for them....

It's the same instance here --

I'm just a baby, still... learning that since before I was even thought of, that I was protected, nurtured, cared for, fought for, cherished, loved, adored... So, naturally, where all of that stems from - God - would be innate inside of me to revert back to. A great mentor told me recently that humans will resort back to whatever is natural to them.... that can be a bit scary, or a bit of a relief.

So... going back to the attacking thing -
When the big bad bully tries to come and beat up on me a bit, then I know instead of trying to fend for myself, i have a Warrior for my cause! So I run as fast as I can back to Him and tattle on the devil, then let Daddy take care of the rest.

The last blog I posted was about how I felt a change brewing, and things started to roll on those changes...

Now, as things are progressively changing and things are becoming more clear and more evident, I don't think that the devil is too pleased, and has decided to try and throw me off...


The coolest thing that I've noticed, is that I RECOGNIZE these obstacles as attacks from the devil, and not as punishment from a God who is just trying to catch me at something I do wrong. I've been very human over the past few months, and my Father has seriously worked on my heart a lot about those things. He's made all my shortcomings very clear to me, but not in a harsh, abrasive manner, and with all the love in the world has told me how to correct them. Yes, I have faced consequences, but now, since I'm making the changes and cutting that garbage out of my life, I no longer am facing consequences, but I'm facing the pissed off enemy who doesn't like when I obey the King...

[wait... whoops... can i say pissed off? well... i just did. :)]

It's a very, very interesting time for me, because I am learning that each circumstance I go through has shown me more and more that it DOES NOT DEFINE ME.
Each circumstance may test me - my character - but scripture tells me that through trials come perseverance, and through perseverance comes strength and through strength, character is molded and birthed into something beautiful...

hmm... now that i think about it... a while back, i was praying that my true character would come to fruition..... Guess i know now better than to pray for that or patience. HA!


Anyways - it just goes to show that change happens, change brings A LOT of traveling companions, and does NOT pack lightly..... But what have I been saying for the past year??

MAKE.A.DIFFERENCE.

Difference is change.

Change is good.

Good is God.

God is Love.

:)

I guess that's really all there is to it.