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~