Someone to Talk To

Who writes when they are upset?? I do!!!! And while it is not grammar etiquette to put lots of exclamation and question marks on the end of sentences, we do it all the time. Most people say, "You shouldn't write or text or whatever when you are upset because you will say things you regret." Well I am here to say that whatever I say when I am upset I don't regret, because I know what I am saying, although it may not be the best time to say it. This past weekend was rough for me, causing me to withdraw inside myself, and hurt from the inside. One of my bosses confronted me on my working ability, saying that it was less than satisfactory and I am left by myself at home watching the dog while my parents are out in California enjoying a week long vacation. Yay for being depressed.... (oh and you can also add the long line of periods at the end of sentences too). I used to have people I could talk to, accountability partners. You should know what those are. The people that are there for you when you need the most, even at times when you don't want them to be around you. Yes, I am also talking about your best friend. :) For many, it is someone they work with or go to school with, or maybe a spouse, a loved one, or just a life-long friend. We need those kind of people who are willing to just stick their foot in the door when they need to and pull us out of the miry slop that we are sinking into. And then we have the "self-help section" which is the group of people who look for the answers to it all in the "dummy's guide" books to get us through the times when we just need a friend. To be honest I do not believe that life can be summed up in one book, other than the Bible of course. That is our ultimate "self-help" guide that isn't really a "self-help". The less you think about it the better. Haha. In that whole book, there is the guide to life, itself and everything. And no the answer is not 42. There are a lot of people in the Bible that just needed someone to talk to in order to get them out of the mess they were in. And now all we have to do is talk to God, or Jesus. Whoever you like. God is always listening, and even though He knows everything, He still wants to hear us talk to Him. He likes having conversations too.

~Samwise the Brave~

The Five Senses

I have realized within the past few days that I have become less and less happy with who I am, and the things I do. I was talking to my boyfriend and he enlightened me on something that I had not discovered yet before. I told him that I didn't know what to do about all of this unhappiness that I was feeling. He held up his hand and asked me, "What is this?" Duh, it's your hand. Then he told me that it was the five senses. We so often take those things for granted that we don't recognize what they are as we are going through all the stuff that life is. He told me to take those five senses, and do something different with each one of them. Taste something different, smell something different, etc. For some reason though I feel as though I do that every day. As a Photo Major in college, I have to look for that stuff all the time. I do look for that all the time. I try to find something different on purpose. I still wonder why I am like this though, what it will take for me to be truly happy. I know that God is the top thing in my life, or supposed to be, but things have just been "eh" recently. I don't know what it is. I have thought about self-injury again but I know in the back of my head that it is totally not worth it. So instead of writing about my issues, I'll try blogging.. who knows if this will help..

Is It the End of The World?

Well, I seem to have a bit of a problem with this guy and the whole world-ending commotion that he has stirred up since January 1. There is a movie coming out on the 20th and if I don't get to see it before the world supposedly ends, I will be definitely be coming to see Harold Camping and tell him that he should have changed the date. I absolutely love Pirates of the Caribbean and I fell in love with it and the dashing Captain Jack Sparrow the first time I went to go see The Curse of the Black Pearl in the summer of 2003. Wow... I cannot believe it has been that long.. Man, I am dedicated. But here is something else I am wondering- what if Jesus does not return on May 21st? I know we will all still be here at that point, but what will happen to all those who predicted said day of destruction and have been warning us all to no avail? What happens to their mindset? They are so set on something that they are willing to travel around in RV's with their groups of followers and warn people about said coming juedgement. So where do we stand? I think 90% of the United States is shrugging them off. I know I am, becuase I believe that no one knows the day or the hour in which Jesus will return. Jesus doesn't even know! It says in the Bible that only the Father knows and He will reveal it to the Son at the proper time. Why do you think we have the book of Revelation? These people that believe that Jesus will return on the 21st of May will be in for a huge heartbreak when it doesn't happen. They will feel so embarrassed and afraid of everything that they have put their hopes in. The lightest way I can describe it is that they will feel like a young child who just got thier giant red balloon popped right in front of their faces. But the cool thing is, everyone is stupid. We are all stupid enough to believe in what we think is true. And thus we are called sheep by Jesus. If Jesus does not come back on May 21st, I think the best thing we can do is say nothing to the people who believed it, just for their sake. Being embarrassed is one thing, being shamed is another. Pray for them. Their lives depend on it. All of ours do.

~Frankie

One Year Later

This past Saturday May 15, 2010, marked one year since the last time I cut myself. If you haven't been reading the blog from before, just a little synopsis...I had been involved in self-injury and anorexia for about three years up until last year when God really got a hold of my life. He has been changing me ever since. With it being one year already I definitely wanted to journal about it and tell anyone who wanted to know about it. My day as a person who stopped cutting one year ago was a normal day from an outsiders point of view. But for me, the one who actually completed an insane goal-one of the biggest for me ever, it was so much more. There were people that encouraged me without realizing it. Lunch was good. I ate with my friends, Brian and Terry and I had an amazing talk with them. I worked in the Lounge after lunch but I didn't hate it one bit. Terry came in after he was done working in the kitchen and brought his french press coffee maker with him. So we got to enjoy some great coffee and study for tests and just enjoy talking with each other. I just feel really comfy being around Terry, I feel confident around him. I think it's cause he's older spiritually and physically and he's been through life and knows what it's like. After work I went to dinner and had a lot of crazy fun with my friends at the dinner table. We were laughing and goofing off and putting that memory into the banks of my head. My friends here, even though they may not know what has happened in my life, they make a difference for the better and I will miss that. Next year, no one will know me like my friends here, they won't know or realize what I have been through, so it will be different allowing new people to see me for who I am and who God has made me to be. Last night (Friday) I was practically yelling at my brother Joe, through texting, and when I apologized saturday morning, all he basically told me was that he wanted to hug me and told me that he loved me. My relationship with Joe is unique. He's my brother, but he's not at the same time. He's my surrogate brother who has helped me through so much the last two years. I am going to miss him the most out of everyone I have gotten to know in the last two years. Looking back again at the year I have gone through, all I can say is Praise God because none of that glory belongs to me. God's grace brought me through all of the hard times and the struggles. Sure I had friends to help me, and I thank God for them, but they don't measure up to who Jesus is to me now. I have changed so much for the better, I can't think of ever going back to the way I was. I thank God for who He has made me to be, and how I have been able to use my life as a testimony to the power of God's healing hand in someone's life. I told God that I wanted to influence people and He is granting me this wish as I continue in my walk with Him. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!

~Samwise the Brave~

a story about our bodies and the story they tell

"Dear Body,

I’ve always let some imperfection or another stand in the way of me seeing what you truly are, that you are beautiful. You are a divine creation housing the most valuable thing known to the universe, my soul. I’m beginning to realize that a person’s soul has the capacity to radiate light that transcends all the characteristics that I have been conditioned to believe are flaws.

You naturally tell a story. Your blue-green veins are like a map to where your heart has been and where it is going. The curve of your waist and the shape of your cheekbones tell a tale of heritage and ethnicity. There are crayon markings on the wall somewhere that has measured your height throughout the years. Always returning to the same spot to see how you’ve changed.

Your eyes bare resemblance to nature. They are a deep forest green with golden yellow sunflower flecks. Your faded birthmark, once beet red, brought me shame because all I wanted was to conform. It now reminds me of how unique you are and all I want is to be different.

Your body begins as a story but continues with new chapters throughout your life. Some are chapters of sadness and pain, others of joy, and all of growth. Each chapter a blank canvas meant to be painted by our experiences. Photos are memories but so are our bodies in a way that’s more real, no posing and no fakeness.

I’m realizing these things now, but I’m so sorry that I didn’t realize them before. I’ve done everything I could to destroy the canvas and deface and burn the pages of different chapters.

I’ve waged war on you before; used razor blades to feel and drugs to numb. I’ve used caffeine to stay awake and alcohol to sleep. Abusing the side effects of my prescription drugs like loss of appetite, to deliberately starve myself into making you skinnier. I’ve spent far too much time on a scale that merely weighs your effect on gravity, not the depth of your beauty. I wanted you to look like one of those girls in the magazines.

But in the ruins there is still a canvas. There is still beauty in your brokenness. The faded scars show healing reminding me that even though I’ve been in dark places, I’ve survived and learned and become stronger.

Although the war is over, the world still takes its toll. You have calluses on your hands from me writing too much and concentrating too hard. Yet the words are beautiful and the studying is worth it. You have the ache when it rains from broken bones, and stretch marks from growing too fast. You have burns from jobs and scars from falls. But those experiences were worth it.

Dear body, as I grow older I worry about how you will age. Together we gain wisdom and wrinkles, after being young and beautiful and naïve. The wisdom tells us that the beauty doesn’t subside, it only changes, and more of it comes from within. So I won’t worry when my hair doesn’t look just right, or when I do something stupidly funny and emerge with another scar because you are telling a story. And what would I be without my story and my past?"

This is a reminder to all of us that we are to look back but only with knowing that we can move forward because we have gotten over the hurts and the trials and use the strength we have now to move forward. For me, I know I have the strength and power of the Holy Spirit that comes from God in me. God gives me this strength to get through the weeks and days that I can't stand on my own. I rely on Christ and the power of His name.

~Samwise the Brave~

the trials of life

What are the things that bother you in life? Could it be your landlord, the annoying neighbors, your in-laws, or the fact that the internet isn't working yet again? Everything is different for everyone. What really makes us tick on the inside? Self-motivation for some, for others like me, we need something to keep us motivated to stay alive. But do you even know what is motivating you? I know what is keeping me going. Jesus, and the fact that He died for my sins so that I can spend eternity in heaven with God. Thats my goal in the long run. I think it should be everyone's goal, and I think it is everyone's intended goal. And yet there are some out there that think they can get there by just being good. The mental estate of each person is what decides what they really want out of life. If they are happy now, they will most likely be happy for the next 30 years or so. And if they are not happy? Well, they might as well get some help if they want to be happy in the next 30 years. Life isn't always full of joy and happyness as most of us already know by now. My life has been hard, and there will still be struggles along the way, struggles that I am slowly realizing that I will never get over. God's grace, something that He gives that we don't deserve to every one of us is what is gets us up in the morning. It almost doesn't make sense, but in the end it really does. I just hope that we all will not wait til the end to find this out.

~Samwise the Brave~

Should Your Town Use Social Media?

It's been a while since I last posted a blog on here and thought it would do justice to actually post things while I was home on break. I've been home two days already and I just now thought about this. Well, the topic for this one is "Should my town use social media" and there is plenty to think about when it comes to this subject.
I come from two towns actually. I was born and raised (until the age of 12) in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. If you have no idea where that is, you can google it. And I can tell you that it is a town of no importance. I don't remember anything important ever happening there, with the exception of my childhood. It's basically a really small suburban town in southern New Jersey. It is near where my whole family grew up around there. Both sides of the family. Mom's family grew up in Medford, and my Dad's family grew up in a town on the opposite side of the county (Burlington) and then later moved to Medford about a mile from my mom's house. But anyway, my mom got remarried and then we moved down south to Delaware when I was near 12, which was November of 1999. We moved to Dover, Delaware, and if you know anything about Delaware it is probably one thing, the races. Ladies and gentlemen, I live about two miles, yes that would be walking distance, from the race track. During the weekends of the NASCAR races, we have 200,000 extra people in that tiny pathetic city. I quickly lost interest in that city during those weekends...So I think its safe to say that Dover, Delaware already uses a lot of social media. Also the Dover Air Force Base is there too. So we have a lot of military personnel with and without families that come through and stay for only two years, because they are stationed there. There are a few good things about Dover that I like, but they are sometimes a let down when you go to other states, and that would be the tax-free shopping in all of Delaware. It definitely brings in a lot of tourist shopping and also out-of-state shoppers from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. And that is always used in social media. I mean, everyone in the tri-state area knows about it. But Mt. Laurel, while it is a somewhat meaningless little town in the lower armpit of the United States, still gets its money out of it. A lot of the media Mt. Laurel gets is by word of mouth. There are a lot of big houses there, with a lot of families. With New Jersey's taxes on just about anything almost as high as New York, there are still people that want to move to that town. I honestly don't think that that town needs social media, because if it did, then it would wind up becoming a busier place than you may think from the outside. You could blow through that town and not really know where it starts or ends because everything blends together New Jersey, but if you really want to know, Mt. Laurel is as busy as just about any other major city in New Jersey. If you find one Wawa, you won't have to go too far before you stumble across another one. I swear, southern New Jersey has the most Wawa's in the tri-state area. So in conclusion of this neither of the two towns that I have lived in in my life really don't need to use social media. But I must warn you about New Jersey. If you ever get lost in New Jersey, DO NOT ASK FOR DIRECTIONS!!! I missed my great-grandmother's funeral because me and my mom got lost in New Jersey and everyone we asked pointed us in a different direction. So, get a GPS. That is my ultimate advice to you. Oh, and beware, New Jersey has a nickname-the land of no left turns. If you don't know what it means, just think about the name and then google "jug-handles". No they don't refer love handles, either. Or to be safe, just google New Jersey, and someone will wind up complaining that there are no left turns on the main highways in New Jersey.
~Samwise the Brave~