The Wanderer

God is just so patient with me.
All the time.
It's a good thing, too, because I am notorious for wandering in search of affirmation.

He lets me go as I please.
He endures my wretched screaming and two-year-old temper tantrums when I can't find the satisfaction I seek in the earthly things around me.
Then, when I turn back to Him for the thousandth time and say, "Oh, you have what I'm looking for, huh? I'm sorry I wandered again..." He scoops me into His arms and holds me and kisses me and reminds me, for the thousandth time, "You are my precious Child, the Beloved, and I delight in you."

Then, the next day when I've wandered again and I scream up at Him in frustration, "Remind me who I am!" He screams back, "You are MY CHILD, and I LOVE YOU!"

And the day after that when I've gone and run away again searching for something I can hold in my hands that will tell me that I am valuable, something that can wrap its arms around me and tell me that I'm worth something, and I lash out at the things around me for not having what I want, God watches quietly,  and gently places some little reminder in my life that says, "Hey. You're my baby girl, and I'm proud of you."
And I stop in my tracks, let out a breath and smile, shaking my head. "I ran away again, didn't I?"
"It's all right, my Child. You're back now, and I love you."
"I love you, too."

And every time I turn back to God and find that He's still standing right there, very patiently waiting for me to return and allow Him to love me again, I'm struck by just how patient the Lord must be to endure the constant abuse of my continual abandonment. I mean, obviously He's powerful enough that He could keep me to Himself if He wanted to. But He doesn't. He simply allows me to wander off on the repetitive and fruitless attempts to find something in the material world that will affirm my worth. He never gets frustrated with me and yells at me, "Don't you get it?!" He never rolls his eyes or thinks I'm stupid. He just sighs and waits patiently, receiving me back into His arms with love and affirmation the same on the tenth time as on the millionth time.

My God has so much patience with me.

Maybe eventually I'll learn how not to let my eyes wander.
That'll be the day, won't it?

Sometimes

Sometimes I want to scream obscenities at the top of my lungs at every single person who walks past me.
Sometimes I want to rip my face off and throw it through a paper shredder,

AND SEE HOW MANY OF YOU LIKE ME THEN.
See how many of my 'friends' really are lying.
How many are just waiting around for me to fall for them.

Do you REALIZE how DEGRADING that is?
I'm not worth just being friends with; I'm only worth the possibility of getting me in BED.

Do you KNOW how many friends I've lost by refusing to bed them?
At least three in two weeks.
In two weeks, THREE friends not friends anymore. Two of them not speaking to me. Those same two had been my friends for about a year, maybe a little less.
I counted them among my good friends.

NOPE.
Just after a relationship.
Both of them just waiting around for me to date them.

I really valued their friendship.

The third was just a potential friend, so I'm less upset about that, but still.

Why am I unfriendable?

Why is it so hard to conceive that all I want is some companionship, without having to put out all the time? Why do I have to BUY my friends with SEX?!

THAT IS WRONG.

The Runaway Bunny

I had never really thought about the parable of the Prodigal Son in the way I did last night.
I had always assumed I was the elder brother. You know, the one who stays at home and does everything right and is rewarded at the end with a reassuring speech from the Father (who is God, in case anyone was unsure about that part).

But I'm afraid I've been baby brother.

I've squandered the gifts God gave me on trying to get attention (usually male attention, admittedly), trying to seek affirmation in all the wrong places. Because I knew I needed something, I still need something, so I went out in search of it.
But when the famine struck and I found no one who would smile at me and tell me how beautiful I was with a pat and a kiss every day, I floundered. I didn't know what to do. I grew "hungry," and desperate, and began taking compliments from anyone, devouring them ravenously as though a casual "You look cute today" from someone I didn't even like would be enough to keep me alive.
I knew it wouldn't.

And I thought in my selfish little brain, "How come my Christian friends always seem so satisfied? Why doesn't God sustain me like that?"

Little by little I realized, it was because I had refused to accept it. I hadn't been looking for God's loving embrace, His constant, genuine affirmations, of "You are my Child, the Beloved."
Well, there they were, the second I thought to look. God came running out to greet me on my shameful limp up the driveway (I always imagine the house in this story as having a really long driveway), and scooped me up in His arms, kissed my tears and whispered, "My Child, my baby girl, my sweet adored angel, how I've missed you!"

No one's love is more genuine.
Humans had failed me, time and again, but my Father, my perfect Savior, He never fails me.

If I hide among the crocuses in a secret garden, He is the Gardener and He finds me.
If I become a bird and flutter away in the distance, He is the Tree in which I rest my wings.
If I become a fish and swim away, He is the Fisherman, the Fisher of Men, who catches me.
When I am a little girl and I run away into a house, He is my Daddy, and he listens to me cry, and pets my hair, and tells me it's all alright.

The Lord will never fail me.
And there is nothing I can ever do, nowhere I can ever go, that will separate me from His love.
I have only to open my eyes and look for it, and there He is, running to meet me and say to me, "Sweetheart, how I missed you!"

So the next time you feel hungry, that you're missing the sustaining love that motivates you, just turn around, invite God back into your life and your heart, look for His blessings, and He will come running to you to hold you and tell you, "My dear, beloved Child, I missed you so."

Amen.

Update

Alrighty guys.
I've been on my lithium for about six days now, and I wanted to update you guys on how that's going.

All two of you.

I have found that if I want people to read my posts, I share them on Facebook. Otherwise, it's just the two of you who are following this.

So for those concerned two of you, here's an update for my lithium stuff.

It's too early to tell if it's legitimately working, but I haven't had any violent emotional altercations since Tuesday. But I frequently go that long (four days) being relatively level and that doesn't mean anything. I could just as quickly go totally manic tomorrow.

But I hope not.

Things I HAVE noticed about the lithium:

It makes my hands shake. Sometimes worse than others, and not having food in my body definitely makes it worse, but the lithium definitely makes my hands shake. It makes it difficult to put on my make up in the morning. And today I could barely drink out of a glass because the glass kept knocking against my teeth. It's never been as bad as it was this morning. Hopefully that'll go away as my body adjusts to the new lithium levels in my body.

I've been hungry a lot. I don't know if that's due to the lithium or just because I'm a poor college student eating lots of insubstantial junk all day long and my body says, "Um, where's the food? This is cardboard..."


My mom says my lithium will react with grapefruit juice.
Good thing I hate grapefruit juice.

So yeah. Just wanted to give y'all a report on how the drugs are going so far.

My hands are shaking.
That is all.

Love y'all.
~Katy

God and Suffering

I need to talk about this. This has been really heavy on my heart lately (in lieu of recent events with my mental health), and I feel like this is something that needs to be said and re-said for the sake of all of us.

When I suffer (especially when it's related to my mental disease), I have a tendency to go, "Well, why doesn't God fix it? Is He punishing me or teaching me or purifying me? What is He doing that He is allowing me to suffer so badly?" And then I listen to songs on the radio that go, "Yeah, I'm suffering, but my faith in God will make it better." Or something to that extent. That God could fix me.

And I know God could fix me if He wanted to.
So my selfish little mind of course goes, "Why am I not better by now? I have the faith that God could do it, why am I not fixed now?" Like it's a formula. Problem+faith in God=problem fixed, right?

NO.

That's not how God operates. If He gave us everything we asked for right when we asked for it, what kind of a world would this be, huh? Sometimes we will ask for stuff, and we can have the strongest faith in the world, but it doesn't fit into God's plan to let us have that right when we ask for it.

My favorite radio DJ of all time is Brant Hansen from Air1, and he is undoubtably one of the biggest role models in my life (I'm sure he has no idea, but he has tweeted at me before when I tweeted him questions! Brant, if you're reading this, I'm JesusFreek317. You said I ask good questions.). He answered one of my tweets once that asked (in fewer words), "If God has forgiven us all of our flaws, why do the flaws persist? Especially the bad ones, like mental disease? If I am forgiven and made whole in God's presence, why does God still allow me to suffer?" And Brant answered me, "He uses our weaknesses to glorify Him. If I do something because I am awesome, I get credit."

That stuck a chord with me. That answer resonated with me, hard.

It isn't the comfort I had hoped for.
But then, how often are the answers to the tough questions really comforting?

This answer meant that God would allow me to continue to suffer, maybe indefinitely, to demonstrate to those around me that even when their suffering is great, is massive, is more than they know they could POSSIBLY handle on their own, there is a God who will give them just enough strength to get through it, and through that, through the fact that I have somehow managed to endure far more than should ever be humanly possible, God is glorified, because He has not only gotten me through it, He made His light shine through me in the process.

It reminds me of the story of the widow of Sarepta in First Kings 17. When Elijah first approaches her and asks for an offering, she tells him she has nothing to give. She has just enough flour and oil to make some bread for herself and her son, and after that, it was over. There would be nothing left, and they would both die. But Elijah tells her, "No, it's okay. Make a little something for me first, then for yourself and your son. The Lord won't let you run out." And God didn't. For months Elijah lived with that little family--a widow and her son--on the flour and oil that was supposed to have run out that first night. Because every time she took some out of the jar, there was still a little left at the bottom. God never fills the jar all the way back up, but there's still a little left at the bottom.
But the miracle doesn't stop there. Later on, as this woman is still watching the bottom of that jar very carefully for the day there's no more, her son--the only thing she has in the entire world--sickens and dies. And she lashes out at Elijah for taking him away from her. She curses and screams at him, accuses him, asking why he would do this to her, why, when he had sustained her on next to nothing, left her hanging by a thread for months on this stupid jar, would he take her entire world away? And Elijah goes upstairs to where the little boy is lying dead, and cries out to God. And God brings her son back, and Elijah hands him back to her.

Notice something about this story.
The status quo never changes.
The jar never fills back up. Even after her son is brought back nothing else happens. And when the rains come and the fields start producing again, the jar stops leaving just a little at the bottom, because they can take care of themselves now, and the world will go back to just how it had been before Elijah got there.
Except for one thing.

For the rest of her life, that widow will know that she witnessed a miracle, and that the Lord looks favorably on her. She will know, forever, that no matter how close to empty the jar gets, no matter if she thinks she's spent everything she has, every ounce of strength, determination, even faith is about to run out, the Lord will sustain her. By a thread. And in her suffering, her daily struggle with starvation, God will be glorified. All who see her will say, "That is the one whose son was raised, whom the Lord sustains from death." And they will know that the Lord is good, and He is merciful.


May it be so with me.
That when people see me, and they know my suffering, that they can look at me and say, "You know, I'm pretty sure if she didn't have God in her life she wouldn't keep getting up every morning." And they will see God working in me, healing me just enough each day to keep me going, and they will know that the Lord is good and merciful in me.

"I hope that they see You in me." ~Thousand Foot Krutch


May it be so with me.
Amen.

Well

So far, the pills do not work.

I had a horrible manic attack today, and I did something I have never done before in my entire life, and I hope I will never do again.
I skipped a class.
For no other reason than that I was so angry at the moment that I knew I would not be able to get through that class without standing up and screaming my throat out at the person next to me. But that person doesn't read this blog. He doesn't care about me in the slightest. I might annoy him. I'm not sure. I can't figure him out, but I know he doesn't give a s*** about me. That I know for sure, and I wish he would quit toying with me and just go away.
You know how sometimes you wish you could just erase a person from your memory? My life would be so much better if he had never been in it. Or if everything had ended over the summer and he'd gone away after that. He's twisting my brain around in directions I thought I had decided not to go.

Yes, my codependency is getting worse.
I don't like it.
I'm supposed to be better.
So why does he have to go and make me feel like dirt all the time?!

I'M NOT DIRT, I'M NOT DIRT, I'M NOT DIRT.

And I don't belong to him. He doesn't even want me. He probably hates me. I don't know why I CAN'T STAND the fact that he doesn't like me. Why doesn't he like me? What's wrong with me? Am I not attractive? Why?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? There must be something wrong with me.

Mk.

Just...not sure about crap right now.

THANKFULLY tomorrow I go to the doctor and maybe get some meds to help my apparently much-more-broken-than-I-thought little head. I love being broken. That means I can be fixed. Apparently the universe doesn't actually suck this much for normal people and I'm NOT just being a weak, whiny, oversensitive little attention-freak.

As a very wise person once told me, "If someone is begging for attention, we should probably pay attention. They might need something." Guess I need something. And hopefully it's just a little serotonin that we can just throw right back into my bloodstream and get me working normally.

Honestly, I'm a little freaked out, because I've been broken for as long as I can remember...I don't know how things will look when I function properly. Will I just no longer care about what people are saying about me behind my back, or will they just instantaneously stop hating me and no longer talk about me behind my back? Will I suddenly have friends or will I just stop being so ungrateful and appreciate the friends I already have? Will I all of a sudden stop being such a crappy, miserable, irresponsible, whiny, selfish, hateful, antisocial freak? There are some things I'm not sure even pills can fix. I mean, I'm inherently a bad person. It's a fact. Pills can't change facts. So will I just suddenly be fine with being a terrible excuse for a human being, or will I miraculously be changed into a decent creature with some form of redeeming values?

See, this is a problem. This is how my mind works. Half the time I'm bitter and blame the rest of the world for hurting me so much all the time, and half the time I blame myself for being such a sick heartless piece of filth and I believe I deserve much worse than what the world gives me. I guess that's what being manic-depressive is? Manic is hating other people and depressive is hating myself? Maybe? Maybe they are both just miseries, but one is misery on too much caffeine and the other is misery on not enough sleep. Oh hey. I'm in college. Those things happen a lot.

Should I even publish this? I mean, nobody cares about my feelings and it's just whining anyway. It's just making other people feel bad who haven't done anything wrong and annoying and pissing off everyone else who don't give a flying monkey if I fall off a building into a bathtub of quicklime. But it makes me feel better, for some reason, for people to understand what I'm going through. It makes me less inclined to snap like a rubber band and fly off the deep end and throw myself in front of a bus.

Or something.

I'm so lonely.
Maybe that's what it is.

Love you guys.
I promise I won't actually jump in front of a bus.
Hopefully I'll get fixed tomorrow.
<3
Katy

I'm not sure

I'm not sure about things.

I'm not sure why I'm telling you this.

Maybe it's because you stopped answering my letters when you saw my face again.

I'm not sure if this is poetry or prose.

Maybe it's just what's coming out of my fingertips, unbidden and unfettered.

I'm not sure if I'm up or down.

Maybe it doesn't matter, they both hurt.

I'm not sure if he's not answering me because he's dead on the highway or he just doesn't notice.

Maybe I should try one of the other men who have been clamoring for my attention.

BUT NOBODY SEES ME LIKE HE DOES.

Yes, the ups and downs matter!

I miss your letters!

And I'm only half-forcing these words onto the page. The rest comes from a leaky soul, whose ink leaks through my perfect fingernails, clacking unprofessionally against the wrong letters.

Awake, oh my soul, arise!

He formed you in HIS image to LOVE and BE LOVED!





Awake, O my soul, and bless the Lord.

Don't know why I never posted this on here

This is my rendition of a little story that came in one of my devotionals. It's my own wording, but the plot/moral is an old folk tale, I think.
~

A king took a stroll in his garden one day and noticed that something was amiss. Everything in his garden, from the spreading oak to the climbing trumpet-vines to the proud rose bushes to the sweet willow tree, had faded and fallen and looked to be on the point of death. The king was shocked, and deeply concerned. He dashed to the spreading oak and asked it, "Oh, spreading oak, what ails you, my friend?"

The sad tree looked down at his king and sighed miserably, "Oh king, I can no longer live. I have determined to die for I am not at all like the climbing trumpet-vines in their supple sweetness and many blooms. The children of the court love to run to the trumpet-vine and watch the hummingbirds as they drink. I am nothing like the trumpet-vine, so I wish to be no more."

The king, greatly disturbed by this, turned to the dying trumpet-vine and asked it, "Dear trumpet-vine, what has brought you to this sorry state?"

The withering vine looked up at the king and wailed, "Oh king, I refuse to live. I hate my weak, unprotected stems and my delicate flowers. I wish to be like the proud rose, with its stems of thorns and many rows of petals in its flowers. The children love to run to the rose and smell it, but none dare touch it for the rose's powerful armor! I shall die because I cannot be a rose."

Even more distraught, the king asked the rose why it had brought itself to the point of death. The rose replied, "It is lonely being so proud. I am envious of the willow's long branches and the shade it produces within its curtain of vines. The children run to it and sit beneath it and whisper sweet things to each other, but they will not come near me, and I cannot hear their sweet whisperings. I have decided that the life of a rose is not worth living, and I wish to die."

The king stood, dumbfounded. As he looked around his garden, everything else had likewise decided to bring itself to destruction because it was not some other agent of the garden. Everywhere he looked, envy was murdering his beloved plants. Finally, as he reeled in horror, he noticed a fresh, cheerful face looking up at him. It was a single violet, standing as tall as its diminutive stem would allow it, looking up at the king with a smile on its face.

"Dear little violet, have you not decided like the rest of the garden that you wish to be something you are not?" the king asked, bending over it tenderly.

The little violet smiled sweetly. "No, my king. I have decided that if you, in your great wisdom, had wanted a trumpet-vine or a spreading oak or a rosebush in this spot, you would have planted one. But instead you chose to plant me, a shy little single-stemmed violet. If I am what your heart desires in your garden, why should I wish to be anything else? I shall simply try my very hardest to be the best little violet I can be, to please Your Majesty."

The king smiled down at the little violet and nodded. "That is exactly right, my little violet. And you alone of all of my garden flowers have done as I wished for you to do."

BECAUSE THIS POEM ROCKS

Hashtag #you
Hashtag #me
#us

We tweet our love, since we cannot scream from rooftops
for fear that people would hear us
and tattle.

But they can't take away your fingers
or the lines of experience on your shoulders
the engine revs
that I hate so much.

Blink at me
Because one eye sees better in the dark.
Set me on your left side
So you can see the folds of my skirt
and the way my fingers
scribble foreign blessings across your knees.

Sometimes wings don't have to fly
When the tree branch is steady and comfortable
Not clipped, just folded
I've never heard a more beautiful plea
than "stay with me."

Guys

I AM SO STRESSED OUT RIGHT NOW.

I am POSITIVE I'm forgetting some kind of homework and honestly I'm not sure I care enough to actually look up what it is.

I'm driving myself crazy.

I'm going to fail the semester.

I need pills.