Little Birdie

I have writer’s block. I have no less than 8 working drafts sitting in my queue, ready to be edited and published, all on very valid topics from the federal government to stewardship, and here I sit, not a coherent thought in my mind.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been going through life at an unusually fast pace over the last few weeks (months?!?), even for me. We have new side projects going on at home, I’ve been swamped at work and church…the excuses are endless.

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Ever just wake up one morning in a bad mood? No apparent reason, just…grouchy. My husband would call it pissing in your own cornflakes. How poetic.

Well, it’s one of those days. With my personality though, it’s dangerous because I start to analyze why I feel the way I do, and I either blame myself or someone else, and get more depressed. It becomes a vicious cycle. Soon I’ll start feeling like I deserve to have the problems I have, that it’s my fault my life isn’t perfect, and I can’t do anything about it.

Isn’t it nice how I know in my mind how I will react to things, yet I seem helpless under my own willpower to jerk myself out of it?

The only thing that can interrupt the cycle is the Word. Did you know that there are 102 verses in the Bible dealing with deliverance? Psalm 18:2 says “The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” The Lord himself brings deliverance to those who take refuge in him.

Now I just have to remember to do that.

I’m a big fan of discovering more about myself and my loved ones (or even barely-known acquaintances, for that matter). I take personality tests all the time and highly encourage everyone I know to do the same.

The most recent test I took can be found here: it’s an inkblot test. I’ve never taken one before, but it’s pretty interesting.
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All the descriptions of my personality type include words like unique, creative, and artistic to describe the way a lot of 4’s dress. Until recently, I haven’t really felt that way about myself and it’s been kind of a condemning thing for me. Why can’t I express myself in the way I dress? Why do I always feel the need to blend in, hide, and become as insignificant as possible?

Well, I’m happy to report, that’s not really true anymore! I’ve noticed over the past year or so that I have branched out considerably in the colors I wear. I used to be very conservative and always wear shades of neutral or black, and hardly any jewelry. That started to change last year when God began healing me and drawing the real me out. I still hesitate in the style of clothes I wear, and I love jeans more than anything, but now my jeans have sequins or rhinestones and embroidery on them. My shirts are bright and bold. My jewelry is big and loud. I wear purple eyeliner and I have red streaks in my hair (that need to be re-done). I have discovered that orange is my favorite color…and not that peachy quiet orange either. I like contrasts, and I like colors that pop.

I like the un-stifled me. Not that there’s more in there wanting to get out, but God is slowly leading me and always working in me

The Lord has uncovered a little more of my stupid pride. I have been asking God and wondering why it is I’m so unmotivated to practice my music. Today I learned that there are at least two reasons.

First, I continually struggle with always wanting to be in the spotlight, always wanting the attention for myself. Since I know that’s wrong, I’d rather not pick up my guitar at all. That way I’ll never be good enough to become a big star. I don’t want to be complimented because it swells my ego too much. I can’t take compliments because I know in my heart I hold them too dear and I don’t cast my crowns before the Lord. That particular problem extends to all areas in my life.

The second reason kind of stems from that. I know I can’t be the best on the planet, so I don’t want to work at being the best I can be. That’s perfectionism and it’s also wrong.

Both reasons stem from pride. God I hate it. But I know that I can be delivered. In my spirit, I want to excel at music so I can worship God. In my heart, I want to others to worship ME. But should I continue to shun my musical ability that God put in me because I am afraid that my pride will taint it? Or should I press through, pick up my music, and war against myself that way? If I can continually have the truth in my face, that God GAVE me this talent, that it has nothing to do with me, and He put it in me for HIS purpose, maybe I’ll be able to pick up my music again.

Since I couldn’t quite let myself chop all my hair off and dye it magenta so I’d look like a pixie, I did the next best thing….red highlights. Yep, I’m red. Pics coming soon.

I did this once in college when I was first feeling the need to express who I felt I was inside. I got a few friends to do it with me. I went strawberry blonde, one of those 21-day rinse out jobs….and it lasted 6 months. My grandmother mistook me for my mother’s first cousin Ann. It was an interesting experience.

This time I didn’t do the full-blown job. I didn’t really want my whole head to be red. Just some streaks that I thought said “hey, I’m in here somewhere.” I wanted to take an entire chunk and dye it bright bright magenta, but deep down I didn’t want to draw that kind of attention to myself.

Part of the 4 in me always screams out for attention, but when I get it, I don’t want it. My friend hit the nail on the head tonight when she said the reason I don’t want to draw attention to myself is because I don’t like the way I look. It’s true. I’m still fat, I’m still insecure, yet I yearn for people to take notice of my unique-ness. It’s weird. Pay attention to me leave me alone.

Does that make me emo? Maybe I should have dyed my hair magenta with a big black streak in it instead…

1. I wish flowy hippie shirts looked good on me.
2. I wish I could get away with chopping all my hair off and dying it magenta.
3. I wish I could sing, write, and dance like a hip-hop artist.
4. I wish I could draw.
5. I wish I could travel through time back to when all the people I love were young, just to see what they were like.
6. I wish I could run a marathon.
7. I wish I had good taste in home decor.
8. I wish I could teleport.
9. I wish I could fly.
10. I wish my innards would quit mistaking themselves as a fart factory.

Yeah, I’m pretty selfish. No world peace or stopping global warming, hunger, and poverty or healing the sick for me. It’s not that I don’t want those things, it’s that I’m absolutely certain those things will happen on their own because God made provision through Jesus. And no, that’s not a cop-out that we shouldn’t do everything we can to improve those conditions while we’re waiting for Him. It’s called good stewardship.

Actually, I believe that Jesus could teleport too. Check it out:

John 6:19-21

When they had rowed three or three and a half miles,[a] they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

See, and not just himself–the ENTIRE BOAT. Of course there was no record of the accompanying sound-effect - BAMF! - but I secretly believe it made that sound.

Hmm…if Jesus could teleport, and I’m in him, and he’s in me….

If y’all see me at church tomorrow without a car you’ll know what happened. If my head is on backwards, call 911.

I love MySpace. It’s completely addictive. You can get lost in MySpace. You can get found. People that you haven’t seen for years and years that you barely ever knew are now your “friends”. You can be friends with Mary J. Blige. Where else can you be friends with Mary J?!?

I use MySpace mostly to reflect my latest mood. If you check out my current layout, it’s rather dark. My last layout was bright and in-your-face. I love how there’s ALREADY a layout somewhere on the wide web that expresses exactly the way I feel. Someone even made an icon collage that is the essence of my interests and feelings. How did they know?!?

I’ll tell you how. People are predictable. I mean, people generally fit into 1 of 9 different personalities. NINE. There are more than 6 billion people in the world, and they can be grouped one of nine ways. Of course complexity exists within a personality type: each has 3 subcategories, and some people exhibit strong characteristics of 2 personalities. Like, I am a 4 (emo), but I have a 5-wing, meaning I am also highly analytical. So I can analyze my mood swings almost as quickly as they happen. It’s very entertaining.

…And, after an hour of fruitlessly trying to end my blog with a witty vid from YouTube, and failing miserably, I bid you all good night.

I am an intermittent insomniac. Here it is, 12:30 in the morning, and I’m not sleeping. Five dollars says it’ll be 3 a.m. before I get to sleep. It’s happened often enough so that I can pinpoint the various causes:

1. I am repressing anxiety about something that I don’t feel like analyzing and resolving
2. I have had caffeine after lunch time.
3. God is calling me to intercede for something or someone
4. I literally think I’m missing out on something and I don’t want to fall asleep because I’ll miss it for sure

Tonight, I am putting my money on numbers 1 and 2. I drank a 32 oz full-flave Coke because man, I wanted one so bad and it was 95 degrees out and what goes down more smoothly than a Coke? Problem was, it was 9:00. PM. Alas. I was working my tail off and I needed refreshment. Thank you Marty, you are my hero for bringing me that Coke. I don’t even regret it.

Also, I am stressed about various things; work, my relationship with God, etc. All things under my control, yet I am so unwilling to work on them. So, I stay up and watch loser tv instead.

Number four doesn’t happen much anymore, but sometimes I feel like if I close my eyes, I will miss something important. Like, something big is going on and I will miss it. I think it’s just a manifestation of a deeper fear, that I am somehow missing out on life. Maye it’s a four thing, I don’t know.

As for #3, I used to mind God waking me up in the middle of the night to pray, or keeping me up, but now I don’t mind so much. I can tell when it’s Him and I’m honored he would wake me. Of course, my humanity often rears its ugly head and I complain, but I’ve seen prayer work in too many circumstances to ignore its importance. It’s such a mystery to me how God can be sovereign and still hear and answer our prayers. I guess I won’t understand it until I get to heaven. And no, it’s not a cop out because I still search the scriptures for more understanding on the topic and wrestle with it all the time. Just because we don’t understand something doesn’t give us an excuse to quit searching. It should actually encourage us. However, I like how Ben once put it, and I paraphrase, that God requires us to fill the gap between human understanding and supernatural answers with faith. Until we get the answer, we must walk by faith.

Well, happy sleeping everyone. I might end up losing that $5 after all

You know how sometimes you try to use sarcasm to be funny and it comes out all wrong?

I do that a lot, and it especially doesn’t translate well on the web. I feel my last post had a little too much sarcasm in there and it muddied up the parts where I was trying to be sincere.

I really did have a great vacation. I really do, believe it or not, love going to the mountains when it rains. It wouldn’t be the mountains otherwise. And losing my keys wasn’t that bad.

I wouldn’t normally post a follow-up like this but sometimes my sarcastic nature gets on even my own nerves. Anybody else ever get on their own nerves?!? Is it hard to get off? What happens if you get all twisted up and stuck?

These are the things you can ponder on your cell phone when you don’t have to worry about how many minutes you’re using.