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.

“Newness of Life”

Inspired by Carrie Underwood “Something in the Water”

I grew up in a church that was not about the baptism or at least not publicized . I honestly, do not know what they believed, I was 11 the last time I stepped foot in that church.  I did not step foot into another church till I was in my late teens or early 20s. I was searching for something, but I didn’t know what. When someone told me to join them for church, I would say “sure” but I never filled out anything and typically would only return a few months later with the same person.

Why church? I do not know. I could’ve tried something else. I liked singing the traditional songs, I knew them, but I didn’t get anything out of it. I was lost. I had no idea what was going on right in front of me.

I started the church I am at now by going to a baptism, because even though I knew nothing about the faith, even though I knew nothing about Jesus. I knew baptism of a person was a huge deal. I went to support her and watch her get baptized.  I was saved two weeks after that. However, I did not get baptized until 10 months after starting the church.

I did not get baptized because I was scared. I thought I was ready months before. But I wasn’t. I was still trying to figure out this whole follower of Christ thing, I did not share on Social Media about my faith, I didn’t share to anyone about my faith. I was scared of what people thought of me. But then I began to journal, I began writing about my faith, I began reading the bible more. I began trusting God with my life. I started just giving everything up to Him.

As I began that, the “Baptism Sign-ups” just kept glaring at me. I kept thinking, I can do this, but I did not want anyone to see me sign-up, I didn’t want a million and one questions. I didn’t want the attention. So one Sunday, for an odd reason no one was around yet. I wrote my name on that list. A month later I was baptized.

My faith went from being just a thing “I do” to becoming my life. I was consumed by the faith. There are many aspects of my life that changed from that day on. When Carrie Underwood states “There’s something in the water” it’s true. Completely true. There are many parts of the bible that talks about Baptism. Here’s what it says in Romans:

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:3-4 ESV

I changed. My family looks at me differently now, my “friends” became my old friends, and new friends, a new family started. You are not meant to walk the earth by yourself. You are not meant to be a follower of Jesus Christ by yourself.

I was singing Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) at a Phil Wickham concert the other day and I was amazed. My church sang this when I was lost. My church sang this and I did but just as a “sing-a-long” and only to the “Amazing Grace” part of the song. But just the other week, I was singing it from the heart and I realized that my chains are gone. There’s only a few left but those will take many years to break but the ones that I thought were anchored to bottom the sea, that I could never break from. They are no longer there. It was a freeing moment.

How I walk my walk with God

Why do I write?

I have no answer to that question. I can tell you that I am a quiet human being and sometimes with a lack of social skills and my mind going 100 times a minute, everything just gets boggled up and it comes out so fast and unclear, I just mute myself and observe and take things in. But writing, writing I can do, I can freely express myself and edit it if it doesn’t seem to fit and it also allows me not to be just a human being. It allows me to access my soul and my heart and get down to where everyone needs to be before Jesus. I am freely me, the person becoming who God wants me to be.

I love doing work for God but I tell you if I don’t write, my walk with God would not be here. My poetry has been published before but that means nothing to me. My blabber on here is more important, because I hid behind a computer before, writing meaningless poetry but here it’s my heart, it’s me with Jesus in my life walking beside me.

I used to be so dark and so lonely. I used to hate me. At times I wonder why God made me this way, why he made me so quiet and untrustworthy of every person in this world. I know it probably stems back to friends that I trusted because I didn’t have many and they turned around and stabbed me in my back, or the man I grew up with that I saw sinning right in front of me, or the man I looked up to who suffered and suffered and after seeing someone just slowly die in front of you while you were at every hospital stay and just hung on to that slight hope that would he would live. Either way it all relates back to sin. So I can either run from it, accept it or I can go before God and ask for forgiveness and guidance. God does not want me mopping around feeling sorry for myself for the lack of love and support I didn’t have. He wants me to go out there and spread his name and his glory. Because his love is everlasting and nothing can come between the Fathers love for me. We are all screwed up, we are all sinners, we all have a story. But Jesus died and sacrificed it all on the cross for us, for us to covered by his blood for our sins and our wrong doings. It is his blood who saves us.

I started asking myself “What if I never started at my church? Where would I be in life?” Then I stopped myself. I realized that it was part of God’s path for me so there are no what ifs in the past before I started my journey with God.

God made me who I am. He gave me the ability to put words together and that kind of make sense.