When it rains, it gives.

I've heard it said that rain is a good thing. It's refreshing and life giving. However, rain in my life has been without ceasing. Flooding has taken over and it's all I can do sometimes to keep the boat I'm paddling in to stay floating. It's seems as if storms and waves have rose against me and the wind and rain beats me down. Yet, there I sit, under my sail, and watch. I watch because I am not afraid. I'm not afraid of death, of pain, of drowning, or of the storm. I don't fear the monsters in the seas or the hurricane's unforgiving eye. I don't fear because I trust the one who allowed the storm to rise. I have faith in the one who created the boat and the sail that keeps me gliding across the raging waters. I have learned in this stormy season that life is not something you can plan for. There is no cure for the battles and storms in life that rise up to kill and destroy you. There is only hope. I have hope. I have faith that I will rise up victorious over my past. I have hope that I will beat cancer or any other medical ailment that stands in my way. I have truth that no matter where I go or what I face I won't do it alone. I have light that even in the darkness I will not be lost. That's the difference between who I was and who I am. Although I am not a finished product, I have evolved. I am stronger and wiser. I realize that sometimes winning the war is not fighting in the battle at all. I sit here, under my sail, and stare out into the storm. I marvel at how the wave sent to destroy me only brings me joy because of the feeling of adventure it brings when the waves crash a little too close. I look at the storm clouds and marvel at how no matter the thickness of the grey clouds, the sun always finds a way to shine through. I smile at the wind blowing my soaking hair until its dry and giggle when it poofs from the humidity. Thankful I have hair at all. I look into the storm and I see its magnitude and I am thankful that He is bigger than all of it. The thunder rumbles through me like a lion and the lightning flashes like the clanging of two swords and I imagine the fight occurring for my very life. I think back to a time in my life when I would paddle so hard only to go no where. I would constantly be afraid and angry at the circumstances. I would feel so alone in the middle of the ocean and contemplate jumping into the mouth of the shark to end it all. I was hopeless, lost, alone, afraid, and angry. I was shaken from the water and wind. I was focused on doing it alone. I know now that I am human, but I am a warrior. I am never alone. This warrior does not intend to drown. As I near the eye of the storm, I stand. Peacefully, I tighten down my sail and I press onward. My eyes determined, my sword in hand, my smile genuine. I'm ready to fight. Onward I go.  

The calm after the storm.

       Have you ever been in a terrifying storm? The kind that makes you run to a safe place and ride the storm out. The kind that leave destruction and chaos. Have you ever gone outside and seen the aftermath of the disaster? Did you think to yourself "I'm lucky to be alive?" Or did you think "this clean up will be impossible?" Were you able to look up into the clouds at the rainbow and the sun kissed sky and think to yourself " life will never be the same?" That's exactly how I feel.
         My life has been a series of storms brought on both of my own doing and some of others. I have made the storms worse and have locked myself so deep inside that the rain and wind would never touch me. After years of living in the basement, hiding from the terrible storm, I realized loneliness had taken over my mind and made me a prisoner. I was a prisoner of fear. I was afraid of the storm outside when I should have been afraid of the storm inside. I was worried people would see how weak I was, yet I was the only one hiding in my safe place while they braved the storm to help save others. They saw through my strong wall face and saw my shaken broken heart. Why was it so broken? I didn't have a good reason, but my mind did. It made up horrors far worse than the storm that had raged. My mind convinced me of the hurricane, tsunami, tornado that was coming for me when all it was turned out to be thunder and lightning. I'm not saying lightning isn't dangerous or scary, I'm saying it's not a tornado. Ashamed, I stayed hidden in the basement, in my assumed safety. Loneliness again made it's way in, which made my thunder storm more powerful. My addiction, rather by force or willingness, opened my "safe" place and made it weaker. I didn't know it, but I was completely vulnerable. Shame took over, whispering lies and false statements. I was left hopeless, ashamed, and alone. As I perceived. The storm stopped raging inside me long enough for me to look outside. The damage wasn't as bad as it seemed. I looked around expecting to see ruin and damage beyond repair. What I saw I didn't ever expect.
           My friends stood, smiling, in the middle of the muddy street. They had been in the storm waiting for me to join them. Even though their hair was messy and they were wet from the rain, they stood holding out their hand to me. Ashamed, I took their hand and started explaining the reason for my hiding. I still didn't know everything, but I knew enough. They embraced me, despite my hesitation and feelings of unworthiness. That's when I saw Him. He held out His nail scarred hands and said " come child, stay with me awhile." Feeling dirty, and shame I inched closer. A voice deep inside me said " It's not real, He can't love you, you've fallen too far." He stood, unmoved by the wind that started to pick up again. His hands still reaching for me. I know what He says, I know how He feels, but I can't forgive myself. I know freedom comes when I take His hand, but I just can't. I'm too ashamed.
            My storm rages. Will it ever end?

Liar, Liar, pants on fire, oh, wait! That's your life that's burning!

        When I met you, I started building a bridge between our hearts. With every little bit of my life I shared with you, another block was laid and cemented into the bridge. As time passed, the bridge grew bigger, longer, more beautiful, and strong. Until the day I decided to supplement the real bricks with a cheaper, less sturdy kind. In my eyes, these cheaper bricks were prettier, a better way to build a bridge with someone like you. You didn't see how bad the bricks were because they appeared to beautiful and you started including others to join in the idea of this bridge. With every new person came a new entrance and path to our bridge. I used only the cheap bricks from then on. It grew and grew and before I knew it, I could no longer see the original layer of brick. I was content keeping the secret to myself, hoping you wouldn't see that the bricks weren't as pretty as they seemed. Hoping you wouldn't find out and think that I cared less for you because of the cheap bridge I had built. You tried to introduce the perfect architect into our bridge. I fought you, knowing someone with His expertise would see right through my faulty wiring and poor beam support. You invited Him anyway, after all, it is half your bridge. It only took one step onto the bridge to start the fall out. One crack is all it took to bring the massive bridge down in flames. You looked at me, almost as if you knew the whole time that the bridge was built to fall, and said you still loved me. I wanted to believe you, but I had been here before. Our bridge, if it could ever be rebuilt, would never be the same. It would always be a reminder of history we once shared together. It would provoke feelings of sadness, grief, and even anger. No, I knew our bridge had been burnt. Maybe one day I will learn to stop building bridges. Or maybe I'll learn to use the real deal no matter what the cost. At this point, I doubt I'll ever learn. I'll just keep running. After all, there is always another ocean. I just hope this time I drown in it.

Words

Words are very important for a young person. Trauma, fear, anger, confusion, submission, and fight are words that most people should only know about without experiencing them. Unfortunately, these words became very common to me for years. Starting at age nine and seemingly to never end, these words became the only words I needed to know to survive. I learned these essential words within the time of four long years. They crept into my house in one day just to become a part of my vocabulary forever. Everyday, these words took over my mind and my body, the first word being one I will never forget. The important idea to grasp is that one general word is followed by many words, making a sentence. When one knows too many words, they all seem to jumble together in an array of chaos. This is exactly how the story began for me.   It was early spring when the book writer and his wife moved in our house. They had lost their own because of bad decision-making and loose change pockets. I thought it would be an adventure, like the old time Native Americans living together in a long house. We would be one big family. My openness and desire for a big family made it very easy for the book writer to pry his way into my heart. I suppose discussing the book writer’s personality without describing him would be pointless, unless you yourself had quite the imagination. Honestly, the book writer’s name was Dave. Dave is as tall as a closet door, but fat like a pig. His bald head glistened with sweat in the light. His glasses and beard made him look like an Irish Santa Clause, and his blue eyes seemed to be able to see into your soul and pick out your worst fears. Dave’s wife Debbie, on the other hand only reached Dave’s stomach in size. She was skinny, like an anorexic ballerina. She walked with grace and dignity, but her face showed her age. I never understood why two very different people would come together in holy matrimony. Debbie was very quiet, so quiet it freaked me out. My parents worked a lot, and I would rather be home alone then come home to her. Needless to say, I was grateful when Dave lost his job, sending his wife to work alone. Now coming home from school would be a treat knowing someone was there to answer me when I walked in the door. The first three weeks went well. I came home from school and there would be cookies or games waiting for me. I really loved this man for giving me all these wonderful gifts everyday. I should have known that book writers are smart. Soon, Dave would ask me to give something back. A good thing for a good thing, how fair is that? It wasn’t but a month later that the book writer began stealing my words and replacing them with his. Tragedy became my new word.  Sure, my teachers asked what changed my vocabulary. My parents even began to show concern about my change in behavior. I would just simply splash the lying explanations Dave had written in pen on my mind and my tongue. I did find out that night, that book writers don’t just tell stories. They make them. Every night, Dave made me a story, and everyday he gave me new words to color up my language. Years passed as my language drifted from perfect English to mumbled junk. This book writer had destroyed me. His colorful words that were once mine made him famous to everyone dear to me. His distasteful vomit that was thrown into me makes me burn inside even now. Fear, anger, confusion, and submission seemed my only aids. Telling the critics that a book writer is plagiarizing would be like speaking blasphemy in a church. Who would believe an illiterate young girl? I let the book writer spread his slander against me. I even let him begin stories with my close friends and little sister. It wasn’t until one brave night that I found a word that scared me more than Dave. This word is called fight. When Dave entered my room, I would surprise him with a whole new dictionary. The time neared and my heart raced. What would you do? Would you fight back? Maybe you would have done something earlier or maybe you would have done nothing at all. The point is, I believe I was ready to come back. It was pitch black the night he entered my room. I heard his footsteps stop beside my bed, as if it were a ritual. His gruff beard touched my smooth skin as he bent low to lay more words on my lips. His heavy body made my bed tilt as his knees engulfed my hips. He began writing a story like every night, but this wasn’t every night. I slowly pulled a knife out from under my pillow causing my body to interrupt his paper and pen.  “Finally, your going to write for me my prodigy,” Dave smirked. “No,” I said, “I’ll just finish it.” I swung my arm around and stabbed him in the ink, ruining his pen. “I’ll kill you!” He screams in pain. “You won’t,” I reply. “It’s not how this story ends.” I ran that night. I ran from him, from the words, and from myself. Dave went to jail and his wife fled from the guilt of having also been a story of the book writer. Now, the chapter is finished with the climax. The parts following the climax don’t really matter. After all, the ending sometimes is not the end, but a new beginning. As for me, I got my vocabulary back and I intend to write my own ending.

The singing bird

In a small Forrest, near a tiny town, lived a little bird who loved to sing. It would sing all day to the tune of different harmonies and melodies. The bird would sing a happy song when feeling joyful and a slow song while feeling sad, but mostly this bird would sing the blues. The chirping blues singing bird loved to sing the blues over and over again. Since the tune was so uncommon, none of the other birds could sing along which made them all very upset. The other birds would show kindness to the little bird, but only for a short time until they could no longer ignore the song. The little bird didn't mind moving from flock to flock at first. After all, the little bird loved how much attention it's song brought to a new group. Unfortunately, after loosing many feathered friends and running out of places to go, the bird began to wonder why it's song was so different from everyone else's. No matter how hard the little bird tried , it couldn't change it's tune. Before long, the little bird stopped singing all together. The other birds liked the little bird better this way, but the little bird was depressed. After six months, the little bird lost it's voice, it's color, and it's beauty. The little bird watched, lonely, as all the other birds sang love songs and flew to bigger better places. Adventures the little bird would never know. The little bird often wondered if it had been a mistake to stop singing. It liked having friends, but the cost was misery in silence. After years of watching other birds be happy and find families of their own, the little bird decided it was better to sing alone then be miserable with a bunch of others. The little bird opened it's beak and began to chirp the blues. It chirped so much that it's color and happiness returned whole the depression left. After hours of singing, the little bird was happy. Although the other birds flew far away from the unique song, the little bird chirped and sang for the rest of it's days. Happy, colorful, and unique. Different was good after all.