I can't explain the lack of anger I feel. I can't explain the lack of frustration. All I know is that I just don't feel it. All I really want is to have a party. I know something good is right around the corner, so why not celebrate? I can't feel angry, but I do feel elated. Don't ask me why, I don't know why. All I know is if I could do some thing right now it would be to focus only on the victory that is surely on its way and ignore all the little things that are trying to set me back and discourage me.

So, here's to diamond rings and champagne glasses, good friends and great times, love and trust, and as always, better days ahead; even if the days we've had have been good, even better ones are always welcomed. Knowing that its not important if I can make my dreams come true, but if I can trust God that He can make my dreams come true. That He has given me the desires in my heart, and that He is capable of giving me the desires of my heart. Knowing that God lives on the other side of time and He already knows the completion of my story. That He does know the plans He has for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me a hope and a future. God lives on the other side of time while I'm confined to time, He knows what lies ahead, all I have to do is wait..............................

Extreme Jesus

Everyday I wake up and go out into a hurt and dying world. One without Jesus, and one that may never get to know Him. Everyday I hear someone say that they can't trust in God because they have never seen His love. Everyday I see the world do more to help hurting people in their sadly small ways, but still try, and see the church of God continually retreat.

People!!!! Wake up! Where are you? We have a lost and dying world out there, because we let them be that way!!! These people don't want to hear your sales pitch on fire insurance. They don't care how scary the afterlife might be. Right now, these people are trying to live in today and have themselves in constant need of a Savior, and we the redeemed church of God, can't seem to find Him anywhere to share Him with our lost and dying world.

If we say we believe in God, why as a church are we not walking in the power and authority of Jesus Christ? Why are our young people dying of disease? Why are so many on drugs? Why are so many young people becoming parents before they've learned what it means to be a child? What are they searching for that we haven't given them?

If we have the power of the Holy Spirit in us, why aren't people getting delivered of their diseases? Why aren't we laying hands on the sick and expecting healing? Why do we criticize our nations leaders, but refuse to pray in Jesus name believing and expecting that He will guide and direct our leaders to make the right decisions? Why are we not showing love to our dying world? Why aren't we going into the bars and eating and drinking with the folks who need Jesus so bad? Why aren't we on the street next to the junkie, not handing him a track he'll use to roll a joint later, but to love him and be his friend? Where are we when the girls start to whore themselves out just looking for someone to hold them for five minutes and tell them they are loved? When was the last time we took a radical Jesus out to our extreme world? When will we decide that we need to have an extreme, personal, experience with God ourselves? When will we decide that our God bubble isn't good enough anymore?

I want to challenge you. Are you ready to meet Jesus for real? This same Jesus that we were told pretty little stories about our whole lives, came to our world once and sat with the whores, the pierced, tattooed, demon worshipers, adulterers, the folks with the STD's, the thieves, the societal outcasts, and He talked with them. He humanized them. They suddenly weren't the fleas of society, but they were people, real people. He loved them, because they deserved to be loved. He forgave them, because they needed forgiveness. He healed them, because Jesus came to make this sick and dying world whole. Not kinda whole, not sorta whole, not mostly whole, but whole whole. When as a church will we be willing to accept this kind of Jesus, and then turn around and be Jesus to our world?

Responisibility for life and actions begins for a person when? I'm 25 years old and folks are still telling me what to do, where to go, and how to do things. I won't lie. Right now I'm not perfect. I used to be though. I did it all right once. Every rule I followed because I thought it would make someone happy. God, parents, grandparents, siblings, church, friends. But you know, I have never quite made the cut with anybody. Except with a select few.

Been on this discovery to realize that I hate the fact that everyday of my life I let someone else make my decisions for me. That everyday I don't believe that God can speak to me Himself and that He needs to speak to me through someone else is the day I get further away from God. That everyday I have to listen to someone else scream at me because they don't like something in my life is another day that I have to fight for some reason to get up tomorrow.

I hate church most of the time because it has become such a chore to go. Someone always feels the need to harrass me and check up on me because I'm not there. I don't want to go because someone else wants me to go. I want to go because I want to go. The more they harrangue the less I want to attend.

I hate being condemned for the lack of perfection in my life and being told I'm going to hell if I don't immediately repent, blah, blah blah. I'm fine. Really. I know what the right choice is and if everyone would just leave me alone I'll make my choice on my own time. Who are they to judge? I know where they have been.

Arggh!!!!!!!!! I'm not stupid. I just am tired of the Bible being thrown at me. I'm sick of the junk I have to hear all the time. Spiritual abuse is not easy to come out of and I want to be allowed to recover in my own time.

I'm tired of being torn between all of it. God is real to me. But in a different way right now. Please if you love me, stop trying to save me and just pray quietly if it means so much to you.