My Destiny

I've thought a lot about "destiny."  I used to think I was destined to kill myself one day.  I've told other people I thought I was destined to eventually kill myself because of my suicidal tendencies.  But what if I can change my destiny?  What if I choose to live instead?



Those of us who are suicidal, we don't have to give into our tendencies.  We can LIVE!  You may ask, "What if I don't want to live anymore?  I'm tired of living this way and it seems like this is the only way of escape for me."  I thought that way too, and sometimes I still think that way.  But there's always a way of escape, whether we see it or not.  There's always another option.  We may not want that option, but it's always there.



Sometimes life just gets so exhausting.  We're so sick of how our lives are we just want rest.  That rest will eventually come, though it may not be in our timing.  We can't play God and choose when we die.  We are not the authors of our story.  It is the author's choice when the story ends.  It's the author's choice when to put in and take out other characters of the story.  We just have to go along with it.  Besides, you never know, some of those characters may one day come back in the story!



Sometimes it feels like the author wants us to suffer and we get so sick of it.  But we've got to hang on.  It's not that the author wants us to suffer.  God is there with us through our suffering.  We've got to grasp onto His feet and allow Him to help us get through it.  Our suffering doesn't always end when we want it too.  Sometimes it lasts a lifetime, and you may say, "I can't handle a lifetime of suffering!"  But suffering also makes us into stronger people.  We may feel weak, but it CAN make us stronger even if we don't feel like it.  We can do this!  We can change our destinies and live instead of destroy ourselves, as well as others.

What Does it Mean to be Saved?

Since Easter is coming up I thought this would be a good topic to talk about.  What does it mean when someone says "I'm saved"?  Saved from what?  Do we really need to be saved from something?

I don't like the whole "Jesus comes into your heart" thing.  Maybe that's just me, but when someone says "If you ask Jesus into your heart you're saved" sounds confusing and childish.  Let's take this step-by-step though.

What do we need to be saved from?

When God created the world, he created angels as well.  The most beautiful angel, Lucifer, was vain and wanted God's throne to himself.  So he rebelled against God as well as a third of the angels.  God sent them all to earth as punishment and Lucifer's new name is Satan, which means "the adversary."  Satan is the devil, and the angels who fell from heaven with him are demons, which serve him.  God created man and woman (Adam and Eve) and they were to take care of a garden they were placed in and the animals there.  But they were not supposed to eat from a certain tree, all the other trees they could eat from, but not this one: the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or they would surely die.  Suddenly, a serpent appeared to the woman and tempted her to eat from the tree.  Eventually she gave in and ate from it.  She even convinced the man to eat from the tree as well!  The serpent wasn't just any serpent though, it was Satan in disguise.  After the man and woman ate from the tree, their eyes were opened to things they didn't know of before.  They knew they did something wrong, they disobeyed God, and they were naked!  They tried to hide themselves when God called out to the man, "Adam, where are you?"  Adam responded, "I heard you in the garden, so I hid because I was naked."  God replied, "Who told you that you were naked?  Did you eat from the tree I told you not to eat from?"  At this point you'd think Adam would be wise enough to just admit his wrong-doing, but no, he turns to the woman and says, "It's the woman YOU gave me!  She gave me the fruit!"  Then the woman says, "It was the serpent!  It deceived me!"  Neither of them would admit their wrong-doing.  So God turned the serpent and cursed it.

"Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!  You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.  And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel."

To the woman he said, "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.  Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

To the man he said, "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it for the rest of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and dust you will return."

Because of this, they were driven out of the garden.  After this first action of rebellion against God, we all rebel against God now.

As it is written: "There is not one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God."
- Romans 3:10-11

We are cursed beings for the things we've done.  We are slaves of Satan.  There is no escape.  We may think we're free, but we are in prisons that we have made for ourselves.  This is what we needed to be saved from.  Could anyone actually save us?  Yes.

God wants to be close to us, but because we rebelled against Him, we turned our backs towards Him.  How could He save us?  He sent His Son, Jesus (Yeshua) in the form of a baby.  Jesus was God, but also human.  He was not half-God half-human, he was fully God and fully human.  I know it's a bit confusing, I don't really know how to explain it.  But Jesus performed many miracles.  He healed people, he cast demons out of people, he fed thousands of people, he walked on water, he brought people back from the dead, and so much more!  He was also tempted just like us.  For forty days he was in the desert being tempted by Satan: not once did he give in!  He hung out with the people the religious people thought were disgusting and despicable.  He loved people.  The religious people didn't like him, they hated him and plotted to kill him.  This was God's plan all along.  His Son would be the scapegoat for us.  He would be punished with what we deserved.  That's exactly what happened.  Jesus' friend Judas Iscariot betrayed him and turned him over to the religious leaders.  The religious leaders condemned him to death.  They brought him to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.  He washed his hands and said, "Do with him what you want.  But I am innocent of this man's blood."  So Jesus was mocked, spat on, beaten, flogged (severely), forced to carry his own cross up a hill, and crucified.  They put a crown of thorns on his head.  They nailed his hands and feet to a cross.  They stripped him of his clothes.  He was humiliated.  He was given a criminals punishment when he did nothing wrong.  People hurled insults at him.  "He saved others, why can't he save himself?"  There were two thieves crucified next to him.  One of them said, "If you are the Messiah, save yourself and us!"  The other thief backfired, "Don't you fear God?  He was sentenced to the same punishment we got!  But he didn't deserve this, we did!"  He turned to Jesus and said, "Remember me when you go into your kingdom."  Jesus answered, "I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."  Jesus then cried out, "Tetelestai - It is finished."  The thieves legs were broken so they would die quicker, but when the guards reached Jesus, he was already dead.

These things happened in fulfillment of the Scriptures that say, "Not one of his bones will be broken."
-John 19:36

They stuck a spear in his side to make sure he really was dead.  They buried his body in a tomb one of the religious leaders who followed him bought.  Three days later, his body was no longer there!  The guards panicked.  The women who were going to anoint Jesus' body were frightened as well.  An angel appeared to them saying, "He is not here, He has risen!"  The women told Jesus' best friends - his disciples, that Jesus was back.  Peter and John ran to the tomb and saw it was empty.  Jesus appeared to them!  Thomas didn't believe them until Jesus also appeared to him.  He said, "Put your finger in my hands or on my side.  Don't doubt anymore."

With Jesus taking our punishment, he broke the hold Satan has over us!  The bondage we were under, the chains that could not come off were broken!  We are free in Jesus!  We can now be close to God again!  Through Jesus, God extends His hand out to us and says, "Follow me."  But we have a choice.  Are we going to follow Him?  Or are we going to keep our backs turned?  We are saved if we take His hand and follow Him.  But if we refuse and continue to choose to rebel against Him, we are still cursed.  I choose to follow Him.

Psalm 41

Psalm 41

For the leader. A psalm of David:
How blessed are those who care for the poor!
When calamity comes, ADONAI will save them.
ADONAI will preserve them, keep them alive,
and make them happy in the land.
You will not hand them over
to the whims of their enemies.
ADONAI sustains them on their sickbed;
when they lie ill, you make them recover.
I said, "ADONAI, have pity on me!
Heal me, for I have sinned against you!"
My enemies say the worst about me:
"When will he die and his name disappear?"
When they come to see me they speak insincerely,
their hearts meanwhile gather falsehoods;
then they go our and spread bad reports.
All who hate me whisper together against me,
imagining the worst about me.
"A fatal disease has attached itself to him;
now that he lies ill, he will never get up."
Even my close friend, on whom I relied,
who shared my table, has turned against me.
But you, ADONAI, have pity on me,
put me on my feet, so I can pay them back.
I will know you are pleased with me
if my enemy doesn't defeat me.
You uphold me because of my innocence
you establish me in your presence forever.
Blessed be ADONAI the God of Isra'el
from eternity past to eternity future.
Amen.  Amen.



I read this last night and it made me think of what's been going on with me for the past year.  Some of my closest friends turned against me.  People I trusted a lot.  I've been very sick and when they turned on me I got sicker.  I'm not innocent in the matter, I have part to blame in the matter I will admit.  But I've asked for forgiveness already.  Whether they actually forgave me I don't know but I've done all I could do.  I've asked God to forgive me as well.  I know He at least forgives me.  I've asked God to have pity on me so many times.  I've told Him, "I can't handle much more of this!  You've gotta help me before it's too late!"  I even wonder at times those who have left me, would they even care if I took my own life.  Would they feel bad for causing my sickness to get worse?  Or would they be like, "Good riddance!"

God will heal me some day though, whether that day is in this life or in the next.  Some day I won't be sick anymore.  God sees the things people have done to me and will avenge me for it.  I have to focus on the things God has blessed me with instead of the things I no longer have anymore.  He has the power to give and take away.  So I need to be happy with what I have now, not focus on what's gone.

It Is Finished

I found this video and song to be very powerful and thought I'd write on the topic since Easter is just around the corner.



The world is a very sad and scary place to be in.  Even now, I just got out of the hospital on Sunday and a few days later I'm feeling depressed again.  There is so much despair in the world.  Sometimes it's hard to find any good in this world.  When we do find good in the world, we try so hard to hold onto it, but it eventually slips right through our fingers.  Is there really any hope for our deprived world?



Enter Jesus.  There was no hope for us until God decided to act.  He gave us chance after chance to change and warned us what would happen if we didn't change.  We still didn't listen though.  We were rebellious towards God.  So in order to save us, He acted.  He sent His son Jesus in the vulnerable form of an infant.  Jesus grew up and was tempted just like us, but he didn't give in.  He was innocent and perfect.  But he was a man who knew sorrow.  He knew pain.  He had compassion for people.  He healed the sick and the broken hearted.  He raised people from the dead!  But one of his friends betrayed him and he was mocked, beaten, tortured, spat on, and ultimately killed.  He died for our transgressions.  But on the third day he rose back to life!  Now there is hope for us!



I know this can be difficult to understand.  I often wonder "Would he want me?  Why would he die for someone as despicable as me?"  I've got physical scars all over my arms from cutting (five weeks clean now).  I'm full of emotional scars.  If I had been there, would Jesus have healed me?  Would he have wanted me to be with him?  Or would I be even too sick for him to care?  I've been rejected so many times, would he have rejected me too?



Maybe I'm the only person who wonders about these things.  But here's the thing, Jesus does want us.  If he didn't, why would he have died for all of us, even me?  Yes, I have scars, but so does he!  He understands our scars because he has them too!  How do I know this?  When Thomas saw Jesus after he came back to life, Jesus told him to touch where he had holes in his hands (and feet), and his side where he had been pierced by a spear.  These did not heal after he came back to life.  Jesus understands scars.  Jesus, a man of sorrow, knows what pain feels like, physical and emotional.  When his best friend Lazarus died, he wept.  When he was in the garden before being arrested, he sweat blood.  This is a real condition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hematidrosis)!  He was in so much distress he sweat blood!  How many of us can say we've experienced that great of distress?



On the cross, the final words of Jesus were, "It is finished."  What did this mean?  The hold sin had on his followers was no longer there.  We were slaves of Satan but he no longer owned us, we were free in Christ!   When Satan tries to get ownership over us again, Jesus says, "No, they're mine!"  This does not mean we no longer sin.  God gave us free will and sometimes with that free will, we act out against God.  But He forgives us because of what Jesus did.  That is what Easter is all about.  Jesus not cleaning our slate, but breaking the slate all together so we can have a relationship with the all powerful God!  We were separated from God, but Jesus became the bridge that brings us back to God.



Our pain and suffering comes to an end when we are finally united with God.  But until then, sin is still in the world which means we're still going to experience pain, we're still going to experience suffering.  But we do not go through it alone.  Jesus understands and is with us through it all.  We are never alone.  That is what gets me through my depression.  Knowing Jesus is there with me and understands what I'm going through.

Model Jesus

So this post is a sort of rant.  It seems like so many movies portraying Jesus has someone who looks like a model playing as Jesus.  When the movie "Son of God" came out, there was even a hashtag hottjesus!  Now maybe it just bothers me and no one else, but I really don't like it when movies do this.  I mean look at the guy who played Jesus in Son of God!



No wonder the hashtag was "hottjesus"!

When I think of how Jesus may have looked, I think about the passage in Isaiah 52:13-15:

"See how my servant will succeed!
He will be raised up, exalted, highly honored!
Just as many were appalled at him,
because he was so disfigured
that he didn't even seem human
and simply no longer looked like a man,
so now he will startle many nations;
because of him, kings will be speechless.
For they will see what they had not been told,
they will ponder things they had never heard."


Now, this could be talking about when Jesus was flogged and crucified.  He was so disfigured that he no longer looked like a man.  But when you come across verse two in the next chapter, it says:

For before him he grew up like a young plant,
like a root out of dry ground.
He was not well-formed or especially handsome;
we saw him, but his appearance did not attract us.


So what do we do with this?  I think Isaiah 53 is all about Jesus, check it out yourself and see how many similarities it talks about Jesus!  Anyway, he wasn't especially handsome, his appearance did not attract people.

The best portrayal of Jesus in movies I've seen is when he isn't looking like he could be some sort of model.  He looks like an average guy!  I hope this helps put some things in perspective for people.

Shalom.

Fear

I am one of the most fearful people I know.  I have really bad paranoia and I have to take medication for it.  I remember as a child being afraid of everything.  I watched "Mars Attack" once and I couldn't sleep for several nights because of seeing aliens heads explode!  If there were any scenes of a head dismembered from a body I freaked out!  So I decided that to conquer my fears I would watch horror movies.  It was hard and took a while but eventually I was able to conquer some of my fears through that for a while.  The only kinds of movies I would stay away from generally were demonic/ghost type ones (especially if they were based on true stories) based on my experience with the demonic since I was four years old.  Unfortunately, I also had Night Terrors so this didn't help that.  My Night Terrors got so bad that my husband and family told me not to watch any more horror movies.  I stopped watching horror movies (for the most part, I'll watch some slasher films from time to time but not often) and my Night Terrors seemed to have calmed down in some ways, though I do get demonic dreams but that's another story.  Unfortunately, I'm back to being afraid of everything again!  One of my favorite horror movies my dad and I used to watch I can't even watch anymore (The Thing) because it freaks me out now!

At night in bed, my mind always goes to scenes I've seen in horror movies on its own and it's hard to think about other things.  I get so scared going to sleep because of these scenes.  Some are unrealistic like aliens attacking, others are a little more realistic.  Sometimes my mind remembers past dreams I've had that scared me out of my wits.  I don't know why they always happen at night when I'm trying to sleep but it happens every single night and I'm constantly begging God every night to help me with my thoughts and to get to sleep without any Night Terrors.

My paranoia without medication is crazy.  There was a time I thought my mother-in-law was trying to poison me by putting bathroom cleaner on my toothbrush.  Another time I thought the ground was going to swallow me up!  With medication my paranoia for the most part is under control, though there have been some fears that have come up still.  I thought mirrors were some sort of portal to the demonic world but a friend who's an expert in this area told me not to worry about it and that that wasn't the case.  I've also been afraid of things like when I'm in the shower and see my shadow I'm afraid I'm going to see another shadow pop up (something being there with me).  Another fear I have is I'm afraid to have my arm off the bed when I'm laying down because I'm afraid something's going to grab it (I had a dream once that something demonic grabbed my arm and pulled me down and have been afraid since).  Sometimes I feel like I'm being followed or watched.  Sometimes it bothers me more times than others.  Like if I'm alone it really freaks me out.  But if I'm with my family or my husband, I feel like if that is happening they're there with me and can protect me.  At night I like to have my cat sleep on the bed with me so if I see or hear something I'll know whether or not I'm hallucinating (I take medication for that as well).  If my cat isn't responding then I know it's just a hallucination.  But if my cat reacts to whatever it is, then I know whether to worry or not.

This is just my personal experience with fear.  I have other fears as well, such as social fears.  Are people going to abandon me?  Are they going to turn on me and betray me?  Are they looking at me strangely?  What if they don't like me?  I also have normal fears like the fear of heights, small spaces, and spiders (bugs in general, but especially spiders).

So how do we deal with fear?  Something I've been thinking about lately is that Jesus wasn't really afraid of anything!  I mean there were people who wanted him dead and he wasn't afraid to say the truth.  He wasn't afraid of the demonic, they were afraid of him!  I suppose you could maybe argue he was afraid of death in the garden when he asked his Father, "Please pass this cup from me."  But I don't think it was necessarily fear of death.  I think it was more like he didn't want to be separated from the Father.  After all, we were separated from the Father because of our sin, and when Jesus was on the cross our sin was put on him, which meant he was separated from the Father then.  Was Jesus afraid to be separated from the Father?  I don't know, I can't answer that, and there are probably people more qualified to answer that than I am.  But throughout the Gospel, I really don't see Jesus afraid of anything!  You could say, "Well he was God so what would there be to be afraid of?"  Yes, but, Jesus was man as well.  Jesus was God coming down in a human body.  When people were afraid to be near lepers he actually touched them.  He cleaned them from their disease, and he cleaned their hearts.

If Jesus wasn't afraid of anything (even if you say he was afraid of being separated from the Father), what do we as children of God have to be afraid of?  Sure we don't have powers like God has, but we don't need to!  We have the all powerful Creator on our side!  We have the Savior of the world that died and came back to life on our side!

Psalm 27:1
A psalm of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation--so why should I be afraid? The LORD is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?

If God is for us, who can be against us (Romans 8:31)?  No matter how alone we may feel and yes, even though I'm married, I often feel alone in my struggles with mental illnesses, we're not alone.  God is always with us.  He understands us better than anyone!  He knows exactly what we're going through, even our fears!  So we need to rely on Him to help us.

Shalom.

Fighter

I just got out of the hospital from being there for a week.  I was feeling suicidal and was about to cut (after having not cut for a few weeks).  I didn't want to go through with it so I checked myself into the hospital.  I feel better now.  I was looking at music on YouTube today and found this old Christina Aguilera song, "Fighter."  This is my new theme song!  Here are the lyrics:

[Spoken:]
After all you put me through,
You think I'd despise you,
But in the end I wanna thank you,
'Cause you've made me that much stronger

Well I, I thought I knew you, thinkin' that you were true
Guess I, I couldn't trust called your bluff time is up
'Cause I've had enough
You were there by my side, always down for the ride
But your joy ride just came down in flames 'cause your greed sold me out in shame

After all of the stealing and cheating you probably think that I hold resentment for you
But uh uh, oh no, you're wrong
'Cause if it wasn't for all that you tried to do, I wouldn't know
Just how capable I am to pull through
So I wanna say thank you
'Cause it

[Chorus:]
Makes me that much stronger
Makes me work a little bit harder
It makes me that much wiser
So thanks for making me a fighter
Made me learn a little bit faster
Made my skin a little bit thicker
Makes me that much smarter
So thanks for making me a fighter

Never saw it coming, all of your backstabbing
Just so you could cash in on a good thing before I'd realize your game
I heard you're going round playing the victim now
But don't even begin feeling I'm the one to blame
'Cause you dug your own grave
After all of the fights and the lies 'cause you're wanting to haunt me
But that won't work anymore, no more,
It's over
'Cause if it wasn't for all of your torture
I wouldn't know how to be this way now and never back down
So I wanna say thank you
'Cause it

[Chorus]

How could this man I thought I knew
Turn out to be unjust so cruel
Could only see the good in you
Pretended not to see the truth
You tried to hide your lies, disguise yourself
Through living in denial
But in the end you'll see
YOU-WON'T-STOP-ME

I am a fighter and I
I ain't gonna stop
There is no turning back
I've had enough

[Chorus]

You thought I would forget
But I remembered
'Cause I remembered
I remembered
You thought I would forget
I remembered
'Cause I remembered
I remembered

[Chorus]


People have turned their backs on me many times, including people I really trusted.  I've become thankful though for what they've done to me.  It's made me into a stronger person now.  I don't just trust anyone now.  I've been betrayed, backstabbed, and taken advantage of.  But in the end, I've seen how people really are.  Some people are good to you, and some are going to hurt you.  The way how so many people have treated me has been torturous.  But no more.  I'm not going to give them the pleasure of destroying me.  I'm not trash to be thrown away.  I'm a human being!  So I'm going to fight for my life!  Some people no matter how much they would hurt me, I tried to only see the good in them.  But now I need to see them for who they really are.  No more rose-stained glasses.  I'm going to have clear lenses.  I'll probably never forget the things people have done to me, but I'm not going to let them cripple me anymore.  I'm going to live!

P.S:  I've gone five weeks without cutting :)