Vintage Photo Stickers

Vintage Photo Stickers, originally uploaded by girl_with_the_glasses.

Frustrations

Ahhh, I cannot believe the ignorance of "Christian" people. Youth, elderly, leaders, followers, it infects them all. Refusal to see and understand the other side is a form of hatred and we are called to love. To love not just those like us but those not like us, our enemies, who are probably more akin to us then we are comfortable with or want to admit.
Some Christians I know enjoy seeing themselves as right wing extremist, Why in the world would a follower of Christ justify the hatred and ignorance of such a thing by claiming it. An Extremist is a person who values only their worldview and opinions, someone who does not care to see/ understand others'. Jesus called us to be at peace with everyone, that those who pick up the sword shall perish by it. Extremists leave paths of destruction and pain through history, i.e. Jihad, Black Panthers, KKK, Nazis, Skin Heads, Zealots of Jesus' time, and many more.
As Christians our allegiance does not belong to a political group or a nation (America), or even to the world but to God and His Kingdom, the one we are called to live out here, now, on this earth. That is where my allegiance lies. When will we stop blindly claiming the title of Christian, and start becoming Christian( Christ Like)?

Learning to Love through Facing Fears

The things I fear are vast and many but seeing as it is the obstacle in my way, the thing that most holds me back from loving(love of people, of God, of myself) and being loved, I am going to begin to list my fears, actualizing them into words,out of the confusing mist of internal feeling. Hopefully making them tangible and visible I can begin to deal with them with God's grace, finally putting some of the pain behind me.
*I fear not being good enough, for God, for friends, for family.
*I fear that in trying so hard to hide my failures I have/will ultimately repeat them.
*I fear not being liked, I know I am loved, but I have been taught that loving someone does not entail liking them.
*I fear being alone when it is dark, even when I am inside, and especially when I am outside.
*I fear my difficulty in opening up and strong sense of justice will turn everyone against me.
*I fear dying, not death, but the process of getting there.
*I fear dying before I can truly live.
*I fear abandonment.
*I fear women.
*I fear being completely vulnerable and open with my feelings and thoughts.
*I fear the woods, although I intensely long to walk alone in them, reveling in communion with God.
*I fear I sabotage the relationships I am in with the people I love so as not to be hurt due to the vulnerability that intimacy demands.
*I fear that it really is all my fault.
*I fear I will never find an outlet for the artistic desires burning inside of me.
*I fear I am barren.
*I fear having children on the grounds that I will be a discontented mother who takes out their misery on their children.
*I fear flies, and sharks, and flesh devouring bacteria.
*I fear that I am nothing but a dissapointment to all who get to know me.
*I fear in the end, I will be alone, unloved, unknown, and unheld.
*I fear physical touch, because a part of me thinks that it is a signing of a contract that limits me to be only good, to wear a mask of perfectness, but I do crave physical touch so much that my heart aches.
*I fear I will never do the things I was meant to do.
*I fear I will fade into nothingness in the hearts and minds of the people I love and those that say they love me.
*I fear my relationship with my husband will suffer the same fate as my parents'.
*I fear that I will be the woman that turns my husband into the man he never wanted to be.
*I fear I am already that which I despise becoming, that all these things are already true or quickly becoming a reality.

A Note of Honesty

I need people, everyday alone I am convinced more and more that people keep me thriving in all seasons of life. They are the fire that keeps my soul from freezing. A gift from my creator not yet known for the beauty it encompasses. Every person, every human contains a piece of my father, a piece of his image made vulnerable, made human, made real in a world of madness and discontent.
I want to see these tiny masterpieces of frailty revealing an ever loving, everliving God. I desire to hold people, to know them in intimate degrees, to crave their souls and the father evident in them.
But how to overcome the fear, bitterness, the hate in me? I feel overwhelmingly entwined with insecurities, rationalized fears, about myself and about others.
I want to love uncontrollably, uninhibited, with the heart of a lover at the height of euphoria. Pain holds me back, unknown tears of past and present hurts cloud my soul, my heart.
I can't see the beauty of people past the storms of pain.

Jesus, let the rains subside, let spring come to my barren soul and heart. Let relationships of every kind grow in my life. Let the pain melt like snow in the heat of fire. Sooth my troubled soul and let me love.

Let Me Love.

I truly and unabashedly love my husband who has been a constant friend to me when there seems to be none. He has never judged nor abandoned me when "ugliness" tried to consume me. Ryan I love you.