Dream Paint Splattered

No more fantasies, dramas, romance, sci-fi, fiction… No more unintentional attraction. No more. I have enough stories.

I’m always the one everyone is unsure of. I’m always the one who gives a good time and show, but at the end of the day, I’m alone and unsure. You sweetly kiss me, but your embrace leaves me in questioning. “Hold on, I’ll be right back…” you never show. It was nice to have you over. It was nice to hold you over. It was nice. When will my “was” turn into an “is”? When will someone be sure of me? Because I am sure of one thing: I am sure of “ them” and their inability to be sure of me. I’m tired of crying—Of meshing and ripping and meshing and ripping and meshing until I don’t have anything to keep myself together.

Well… until next time.

I never had an innocent childhood. Tainted by images and phrases, and being touched and being told to touch… Cover your mouth because sex is taboo.

So I did.

I covered my mouth while covering the truth. I built forts out of sofa cushions so Mommy wouldn’t see me. Mommy didn’t see me. Mommy didn’t see me. Mommy didn’t see me walking out of her house cleaning out my mouth because “it tasted funny”.

She showed me how. Her fingers would leave an ever lasting impression on my mind. Fingertips on my brain.   A feeling I couldn’t get by myself… and years later, then in my bed I can’t sleep and my fingers are tingling. “This is how you do it,” she says to me guiding my fingers… I never wanted to feel this way. Playing out in the Sun was so much more free and now I’m all messed and tangled up. The Sun proves to be too harsh, exposing my imperfections all too clearly.

I turn over, disgusted with myself. I have to wash these filthy, unclean hands that bind me— at second glance, they are not my hands. They are her hands and the hands of my cousins…whose name I can’t remember…whose name I care not to remember. Years later and I need this to go to sleep. It aches in my spine and the Spirit cries out, “Why?! Again?!”

I never wanted to do this. I never wanted to feel this.

Years later and she still controls me. Opening myself up to  world of hot and sticky and I never even want it. Drowning my child self in a sea of silence, forcing my hand over my mouth… forcing my hand.

Sitting watching this father hold his young daughter. She clung to him with all the might she had in her little fingers. Her mind and heart is pure. For a moment, I am envious of her life, unmarred. Envious of her father’s loving shoulder offering her rest. He wrapped his arms around her letting her know that she was the most important little girl in his world… My arm itches.

God Spoke. “As a father holds his daughter, I hold you. You are still that innocent little girl that I created. I see you as clean— whole… You have NOT lost your innocence. You are as clean as a child in father’s arms. You aren’t defiled or defined by the things that have happened to you. You are not contaminated by the things you’ve done.

“You are whole. You are beautiful. You are a masterpiece. You are created to live in this truth. 

“I am sitting with my arms wide open. Never judging. Always loving. Always.”

Tears fill my eyes.

I avoid.

I have an avoidance problem and it affects everything I do and…well..don’t. 

If I fall behind in my devotionals, I become so ashamed that I can’t bring myself to see how many days I have missed… so, I just won’t read.

If I skip a class, I continue skipping because I’m too afraid that I won’t be able to catch up with the material I missed… then I fail.

If I don’t speak to someone for a while, it becomes horrifying to reach out once more… So, we don’t speak.

If I become stressed with a problem, I begin to act as though the issue doesn’t exist. In my mind, if I ignore it long enough, it will cease to exist… THEN, I become so overwhelmed that I feel like my skin needs to breaks— to bruise, that my fingertips need to be pricked and pinched to relieve the stress boiling under my skin… 

This may sound crazy, and honestly…it is. I tend not to deal with an issue head on. I let it go for a while. I let it go until I feel as though I am about to explode… This is how I’ve lived my life… avoiding. I have left so many books unfinished and so many commitments in limbo. I run from new forming relationships out of fear that I will not “finish” and become saddened by those I have lost…on account of my avoidance.

Now, I’m exploding. I’m being forced to face my issues… I’m writing my story…

I already know this experience is going to be a rough one, especially facing and writing about issues that I haven’t even spoken of. This is necessary not only for me to be able to deal with things left festering under wraps for years upon years, or to recount how far God has carried me, but to be able to begin to share my testimony… my story.

V1. “How long will you continue to feel sorry for Saul? I have rejected him as king of Israel. Fill your container with olive oil and go…”

What has God rejected from my life that I continue to hold onto to? Why do I continue to feel sorry for the things that God has removed from my life? How much longer will I mourn what I have lost? I know that things, especially people, that God has removed from my life, I tend to mourn more than I look forward to the next big and better thing that God has for me.

 I continue to ask God why, and he comes to me so clearly, “I have rejected _____.” This could be a “habit”, friends, romantic interests, employment opportunities, schooling options…things that God has given me that I have mishandled and He is sorry He gave to me for the time being, things that were never supposed to be there in the first place, or things He wants to replace with what He has for me.

V2: “If I go, Saul will hear the news and will try to kill me…”

Excuse me, God. I hear You, but I’m too afraid of what other people will think of me when I leave this behind. Yes, you’ve given me clarity and direction, but if I still want to have my hand in this pot, just in case your plan fails… Wow. Convicted. How many times have I told God that I still want to have my hand in every other option just in case His plan doesn’t work out?

HE’S GOD. How dare I become so arrogant that I think that my plans are so much more logical than His? But that’s the thing. My tiny mind is logical in thinking (sometimes…ha) and God’s ways and reasons and plans defy logic. In His understanding of my fear, He provides me with explanation over and over again, even though it isn’t required of Him. At His directions in my life, I should jump up and follow willingly. Why would God lead me somewhere to fail? Is He a God that fails? If I am doing something in His name, why wouldn’t “VICTORY” be written all over it? Would He put His name on something that sinks? No. God would not set me up to fail!

(HALLELUJAH!!!)

V2: “…Invite Jesse to the sacrifice. Then I will tell you what to do…”

God is known for showing part of the picture. The thing is that I clearly cannot handle to see the whole picture. He puts me in places to “wait” on Him. In waiting, I’m learning to trust that He is God over everything, including this situation. He puts me in a situation where I can’t call on ANYONE else for an answer, but GOD. If I were to listen to other people, I would have to abort my mission altogether, because it wouldn’t make sense to anyone else.

God is hilarious. He will tell me something that makes perfect sense to me, but when I try to share with other people to get clarification, it doesn’t make any sense to them… Again, thank You, God for your awesome Word, but I’m going to check with my friends to make sure that it makes sense… Whoa. I do that so much, it’s ridiculous. I hear God clear as day, but I look at my physical situation and it’s not adding up! So, I take God’s Word that is TRUE and needs no “double-check” and run to my neighbor. When they can’t verify His word, I become discouraged and begin to DOUBT God.

I am brought to tears to think of how God must feel every time I step out on Him, because He is not enough. He is MORE than enough. What He says stands FOREVER true. Help me to be faithful…

V6: “…Surely the Lord has appointed this person standing here before him…”

I get so antsy waiting on God, most times. I’m tapping my foot, looking at my watch, sighing and becoming desperate. Soon, every person, opportunity, past-time, and escape presents itself as what God had “intended”, when in reality it is a quick fix.

My heart is broken. The first nice guy that comes around, “Surely this is appointed by God…”

I’m broke. The first money making scheme, “Surely this is appointed by God…”

I’m bored. The first person who calls my phone with plans, “Surely this is appointed by God…”

I’m sad. There is alcohol in my pantry, “Surely this is appointed by God…”

I’m lonely. The first person that calls my phone, “Surely this is appointed by God…”

V7: “…But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Don’t look at how handsome…how tall… I have not chosen him, either.”

Clearly God is teaching about how He sees man (not by outward appearances, but by the heart), but I feel that this speak volumes to quick fixes. As a human, I tend to see things as one dimensional things. This “it is what it is” mentality that I have adopted sets me up for failure EVERY TIME. When I  judge a situation by what it looks like (1D), I step in and realize that it’s so much more than what I expected it to be. I begin to drown in drunkenness, loneliness, depression, confusion, desolation, and desperation and I wonder how I even got here.

Don’t be deceived at the shiny, smiling surface that beckons you to enter its warmth. It’s deceptive and will have you right back where you started, if not further away from God.

This is the cycle for me, and I am beginning to become sick at the repetitive, rocky nature of this ride called “doubt”. I will wait on God. I will believe what He told me and not try to figure things out by my own pitiful strength.

At the “end” of it all, He will blow your mind. His plan is far greater than one you can even imagine for yourself. You have not lost, but you have won.

My struggle in life has always been drawing the line between loving someone and behaving like a masochist. I have never had an issue when it comes to displaying love to other people, but enough love to myself. People always say that you can’t love others until you, first, love yourself. I’m not too sure where I stand on that claim. It’s always been easier to love other people, more than myself. This is true to the fact that I continue to allow people to run all over me and mistreat me. I am forever trying to understand what it means to love like Christ loves. Christ constantly put people before himself. He gave all of himself for the sake of others. I want to love like Christ. I want to be a representation of love which is ultimately a representation of God. I love to love and when people feel loved, I feel great…but where is the line between a self-sacrificial love and just a waste of love?… Can you waste love?

I look over my life and wonder why there is so much pain. I wonder why for that pain there is no bitterness, there is no anger, there are no hard feelings, there are these feelings that I take and put on myself. There is a growing concern for those who continue to hurt me. While one’s reaction may be to be angry, bitter, and to shut down, I find myself loving more and opening up even more; constantly laying myself down at their feet to be open and to love… I don’t apologize for how I react to things; I only question why there is so much pain. Why does loving people tend to leave me hurt and cut open over and over again? Why is it that when I love hard—what is me trying to wrap others in love, am I tangled up, myself in bondage?

I mean, Christ let people abuse Him and use Him for everything that He has—we do it on a daily basis, so who am I not to let people do the same to me? Don’t get me wrong, I count it as an honor to be mistreated as Christ was mistreated. Because I am a follower of Christ, I am to suffer and face the same pain and heartache as He did, right? The sad part is that I experience so many Judas situations where it is the people closest to me that harm me and turn me over to pain, misery, and heartache.

My heart is heavy and it’s tired. My heart is worn out and beaten out of my chest into the hands that continue to crush it. It seems as if people feed off of my heartache and pain…I feed off of it. It becomes my way of life. If my heart isn’t in pain, then I do not love as Christ loves. I have been conditioned to think that I am here for others’ fulfillment…

Whatever you need, I’ve got it. You need a place to rest your swollen, veiny, angry fist? I am here. If you need words to cut consider me your chopping block. If you need a place to release your sick and twisted sexual fantasies feel free. I am the relief.

“You need to learn that protecting yourself doesn’t make you any less Christ like”.  This is the freeing—the release. 

Why do I insist on doing this to myself? This pain I continue to put myself through over and over again, knowing that you have no desire to change and that I am merely just another notch in your belt. Another bead to dangle from you waste pocket. I wish to experience life my way, and whether you be apart of it or not is entirely up to you. Your body was molded underneath the grip of his locked embrace. Purging separated you; flung you crawling into my bed unannounced. Retreating in the corner where I am just to get in where I fit in. You disturbed MY space and I need you to know that. But you are asleep; exhausted from your being honest and temporarily kind and humorous. Thanks a lot. Thanks again. For your leftovers