Some days I just feel like crying. My life is out of control. I have no plan. I feel like people are looking to me for answers and approval of things I can not give because I do not have the confidence to give them since I do not have the time to logically sit down and come up with a viable solution for the problems in life. Life just keeps getting more expensive. Even with living with a family helping us save money, money is still flying out of our hands... trying to stop that is like watching my husband tell me or even give me the look that I'm to much of a tightwad and I should just let it go and live. Then my daughter wanting every free second I have and watching everyone encourage her to walk to which will make my life even more difficult. I feel myself slipping into a depression and I don't know how to handle it. Counseling costs more money and feels just like I'm paying someone to be my friend and wasting that time that I would be with them... where I could be trying to catch up on laundry, trying to manage a budget, explaining to my family that we need to stop spending money(we really don't have the reserve of cash that everyone thinks we do), trying to figure out how to plan to replace a car we cant afford to replace and question a second job and wonder who would watch my daughter while I'm working. Yes, I know God can work it out. Please all your "Christian" Responses leave me alone. I know that God is there somewhere. Fine thats really fine. Yes youve told me that I dont trust God with things in my life. If you want to say thats true about me go ahead. I dont flippin care. Im to exhausted to care. Lord just please come and organize my life. Give me the life and hope I used to have. Right now all im looking forward to is being in the kingdom were I can finally just get some rest with no one to look upon me telling me what im doing is not good enough. I have nothing left to give. Im so tired, my brain no longer works.

Trivial

Not sure how to feel. Lord where are you I need your help.

I suppose I'll sleep tonight wondering if I've hurt my best friend. 

Questions in my mind

After being engulfed with the Hunger Games I take a break to question how the lives of the victims and those yet alive coincide with my own. What charecterists revealed throughout bring light in to who I portray myself to be. What nasty habits of my own are reviled and what seems to be the sources of my decisions to operate with such tones. Does this sense of being lied to penetrate throughout my being causing the same utter confusing chaos that dwells within the thought life of Katness? Does she really have a realization of what is even happening throughout her life? Do I know throughout mine? Such a loss of control. Such a sense of undeveloped boundaries of a person who does not know where she begins and ends. Who am I? What is me? What are my values? Do those things attach to other objects, things, beings? Again a out of control feeling. Do I have the ability to detach from those things that I value.. Am I supposed to? What is the point? I value things, people and objects.. but how do I know where I start and end? Do I even start and end, or are we all tied together in some mystic unbeknownst way...

Truth

The is, in fact, great freedom in not having to be first-- not in being late or in being left-- but in being free, in waiting and trusting. There is freedom when you are not afraid to be wronged, not afraid to be misunderstood, not afraid to be forgotten for the moment. When you can trust that being last doesn't mean you are bad or unloved. When your heart can trust that there is One defender of your reputation when you are maligned, One champion of your heart when you're misunderstood, One kinsman redeemer when you are wronged. Thant is true liberty and peace. Then you don't have to prove your point, be first off the plane, constantly defend your actions, or demand your rights. You are free to quietly trust.

"Keeping a Princess Heart" ~Nicole Johnson pg. 104

Letting go of people pleasing and letting God fill in the blanks of understanding. I dont have to allow people to understand me or put me into a convenient box.

Strife

Okay.. so Ive been encouraged to write again.. I may as well write about the things my heart is considering and struggling with.

How to even start..

So my brother is getting married this weekend and I am going to be a part of his wedding. I am excited for the marriage but fighting my the reality of them living together before marriage, fully knowing that as a follower of Christ this is frowned upon.

My frustration goes further than this.. my parents allowed them to live under their roof together... Before marriage... My father is a Pastor!!!

I understand that my parents don't want to "push" Matthew away but having to attest to their actions before the throne of God will be much more a cause for concern..

This leads me back to the frustration that my parents did not confront me and dish out consequences when I was living a selfish life of sin.. I should have been kicked out of the house.. seriously.. My behavior was not acceptable..

Anyway this whole thing is bring up feelings of disappointment and cause me to wonder if my parents care more about maintain a "status quo friendly relationship" with my brother and I or do they actually care about the condition of our hearts making steps closer to Christ. Personally it feels like the former.. and that angers me. My relationship with them is crap compared to the questions form God I will attest to. Was there no warning??? Is that not the role of a parent...

I guess I really don't know.. Considering I have not been blessed to have that role..
Lord help me find contentment on this issue.. However please guard my heart from people who continue to tell me "Oh be happy where you are.." I don't want nor need that crap.. Lord you know my heart desires you, you know my heart desires to encourage a man and grow with him and raise a family. Lord you know many of my dreams have been wrapped around the desire for marriage.. You put them there!!

However Lord give me vision during this time that I feel lonely.. mend my heart of its pains and bitterness and help me to believe that you actually love me.. I've been dealt enough rejection, neglect and shafts. I know those are things you have not desired that I endure.. but Im struggling to see you for the loving, protecting, encouraging God that you are.. Wipe away the pain caused by men and show me your love.

Joy

Ok, so Jim asked me to write about how the Royal Oak Vineyard Church has impacted my life.

Im not much for writing and for some reason I can write more clearly when I write on a post of some type, so here we go.

When I moved to Michigan I was simply longing for God to give me some direction.. I recall taking a walk with Dad and him sharing the wisdom that God sometimes let us choose the next step and meet us down what ever path we choose.

An opportunity opened up to move here with a place to live and a job to get me going. Next my prayer was that God provide me with a Church that I could feel at home and apart of. I had done my College Internship with a Vineyard so I searched for one here.

I first visited on the day of the Aids Walk and one of the Members practically introduced me to the entire Church, then asked me to pray for her with some other people. So I did. Then she invited me to come to an event that was going on the next weekend and offered to pay for my ticket.. So I went.

When I came to the Vineyard Church I was broken hearted, searching for healing and someone to understand me. God sent people to grab me and show me his love.
God handed me a home to live in, then provided for me when my circumstances changed.

I have lived in Michigan now for 2 1/2 years and since being here God has given me 4 homes to live in, 5 jobs, a ton of friends, a restored hope and confidence in myself that was lost and shattered, A deeper understanding of my value along with the ability to change my opinions about myself, but the best steps that God has made with me have been those that have been closer to him.

Before God formed me in my mothers womb, he knew me and He consecrated me.
Jeremiah 1:5.

I can stand secure in who I am, because I am loved.

I now feel like I can actually be the random, singing down the streets, playing football, walking with Jesus, dancing for no reason Michelle that has been hidden beneath my skin.

Lord I want more of your Joy in my life.
It is what I have been missing.

Thanks for the gift.
Hugs

The new day

Lord I don't really know what you are working in my life right now.
I am having a difficult time understanding what it means to to be loved.
I have been experiencing a kindness that I have never known and it is difficult to not be critical about those showing this kindness.
I find it ironic that I will give kindness until I can no longer stand but I have a hard time accepting it.

God I dont feel as if I deserve your love and I know I dont. I want love but I don't know what healthy love looks like. I have attachment issues. If I feel cared about by someone I will attach myself to them and value their opinions and warp my life around those opinions. God I have a hard time with the abstract view of you as a husband. I dont do well with abstract ideas. I need help to see you this way.

How do I stop attaching myself to things? How to I communicate with you letting go of the raw feeings that I need to decipher?

I dont know what to write and often times giving up simply sounds nice.
I dont want to do that Lord, I need some help. I know you have been giving it to me I just feel like I need to see our relationship in a different light. "O ye of little faith... I know I know I guess I dont have much to be asking for a sign...

Then again I am broken and crying.