Fear to Fight

Tonight, I read my first blog post on here. It was actually reflective of my anonymous blog I wrote called “Crooked Self”. Now this was a short lived blog for about 6 months during my weight loss journey back in 2011. I kept it anonymous because I feared judgement and ridicule from my family and friends. So it allowed me to freely write without worry.

What’s great about it though is that I titled one my posts “Reality Check”. This post was about living in a “fantasy world”. Back then I was so untouched with reality and those around me, I lost touch with who I was and who God made me to be. I was secluded in this world because I was afraid of this world.

Fear ate me alive. I was afraid of failing, afraid of trying out for things, afraid of not making that part, afraid of judgement, afraid of dying, afraid someone or something was going to happen if I failed. I was even afraid to sleep when I was little because I was afraid of what might happen.

Being that fearful handicaps you. It drives you away from things and drives you away from reality. In 2001, I became majorly depressed and suicidal for the first time. I wanted to end my life because of some “boy” on the internet, mind you I had been a depressed state for a few years due to other reasons, but this “boy” set me over the edge. My life according to my definition was not worthy of living.

However, I wrote about it before I did it. I used to write poetry back in the day, so I wrote a poem called “My last Poem” or “My last Song”, I don’t remember exactly. Anyway, it was a poem about suicide and a poem about how life was not worth living. I was too fearful to talk to others so I let my words do the talking.

Fear strikes you down and holds you back. Fear is the reason, most of us don’t accomplish much. I let fear dictate who I was and my dreams. I ultimately let the enemy steal me away from God’s hope. He put blinders on me and pulled me away from where I could’ve been.

But my could’ve been wasn’t where God wanted me. My could’ve been was where God had me. You see I can sit back and wonder what might have been, but that’s not my story. My story is broken, full of fear, and darkness but my story also has forgiveness, grace, hope, and redemption. I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I wouldn’t be still peeling back the layers of my insecurities and knocking down the walls of my fears and doubts.

God created a beautiful story in me. A story I get to share to everyone around me. A story I get use to help some of the teenagers around me and help those who are fighting what I faced. And there are people out there who have stories that will help me get through the next challenge I’m up against.

We all face a past but your past can either dictate your future by constantly reliving it or you can move on from it and let God use it to help those around you.

Fear doesn’t define my everyday life anymore. The only fear I really have in my life is a healthy fear of God. I am still learning life little by little and I’m still learning a lot about myself even at my age. I might be different. I might be a little weird, but what’s most important is that I am me. I am striving to become the woman God called me to be. I have a calling on my life to live for God and to serve Jesus.

No matter where you are in life, I pray that you let down the fears that holds you back. I pray you walk the walk God has for you. I pray that you overcome whatever past you might have. I pray that life brings you joy, peace, and happiness. I pray blessings over you. God has amazing things in store for everyone of us if we just surrender to his will, we just have to give up trying to fight our past to give ourselves a future.

The Battle Within

There have been multiple attempts to write over the last couple of months. Unfortunately I sized everything, I judged myself, I didn’t find myself adequate to write. Mentally and spiritually  maybe I wasn’t.

I’ve been battling a lot lately. I have been going down a path of darkness. I started to see habits of my old ways that I got scared and hid. I started convincing myself that my new self was just  a facade. That  maybe I was never made new in Christ. Maybe this entire thing of who God says I am is not who I am.

It’s not that I didn’t try to stop my thinking. I listened to sermons. I read the Word of God. I still attended church. Still nothing stopped me from thinking I was a complete phony, that my old self was better than my new self. It was like the enemy  hitting me were the soft spot is the armor I have on repeatedly and I just couldn’t recover from the battle.

The crazy thing through all of this God never left my side. Even when I never got the connection, never felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, doubted the mere existence of Him, even when I battled through darkness and with the enemy; He was there. It was Psalm 139 where no matter where you try to hid, He is always with you. He created you.

Even if you have moments when you try to battle the negative thoughts, the depressed thoughts, the thought that you are not made new in Christ and you are not who God says you are, you still are. You are beautiful. You a princess. You are forgiven. You are a child of God. He will never leave you. Wherever you may go regardless if you don’t feel him, or don’t feel like anything, God is with you. 

Guilty Voices

I’m guilty of a lot, but one thing hit me tonight. 

I was the advocate who stood up to remove God from schools. I was an advocate for seperate church and state. I was an advocate for removing God from this new world we call America. 

I’m guilty. I’m guilty of convincing people not to believe in God with facts and so-called “wisdom”. I’m guilty of putting labels on Christians and marking them as weird and full-of-themselves. I am guilty of a lot. 

But God saved me. God sacrificed his Son, JESUS CHRIST. I was guilty of those things, but in Jesus I’m made new. God placed a burden in my heart to stand for what I believe in, I just never realized I was rooting for the wrong team the entire time because I all I wanted to was to be like every other person I knew. I never dug deep, I never truly knew what I believed. I never realized that “fitting in” was a tactic of the enemy. God knitted you together, if He wanted everyone the same, He would’ve made us all the same. 

So many people today are scarred of what others think. Nonbelievers, Believers it doesn’t matter. We look around to see who has their hand raised in worship, because we don’t want to be the only one. We don’t like to pray outloud or in public because we are afraid of what others might think of us. Do you know what they might think? They might envy you. They might want what you have. They might want that kind of faith. So what if you get some who don’t like to feel uncomfortable around those “Christian folk”.  It’s not your job to please everyone. Every though some think so. I am majorly guilty of that. 

It’s a hard battle, but God has shown me a lot recently. It’s okay to be different. It’s okay to have a voice in what I believe in. It’s okay to stand up for what’s right.

Listen, God gave of us a voice not to just talk about ourselves, our drama, and our cozy churches. He gave us a voice to stand up for Him to defend Him and to proclaim His Son, Jesus. 
Use your voice for the good and it can change people’s lives.