Way out?

i am quite certain my problems are nothing and yet they are all i seem to think about. i'm quite sure my life is only a small part of the jigsaw yet it consumes me.
It's not even life that consumes me but the waiting, waiting for life to start like it will when the band starts gigging and recording, when i have enough money to get all the things i want, when my friends finally realise how witty i actually am, when i actually get round to tidying my room and putting my CD's back in order and get up to date on my guitar practice and finish all those books i started and call those friends i haven't seen in ages and find a girl who can't stop thinking about me and when i learn to drive and when i've finally been to America and and and and... oh this is tiresome.

Your ways are not our ways.

This is the first writing of any sort i've done in a few days, which is strange for me. i try to make a daily habit of writing in my journal and i try to spend time with G-d and a notepad to write down what He says but a spell of very bad flu has left me with nothing to do but lay in my bed and hope for it to pass, even writing was to much. Yesterday morning when it was at it's worst i was trying to send a friend a text and had to give up because lifting my arm and using my fingers was far too much work. i have never in my life felt as weak as i did then! i got angry, the idea of this weekend away was to pray, get closer to G-d, let go of those things in my life i hold back from Him and i just ended up feeling extremely ill. The negative thoughts about myself that i try so hard each day to reject came on strong and i didn't have the energy to stop them, i was a mess, both inside and outside. i even said to G-d about the band "send someone else, it's such a good vision and you need a better man than me". i then started to cry everytime those words came back in to my mind, i haden't cried in a long time so that was strange. Then Dario, one of the 3 Germans i've been sharing a flat this weekend and have become good friends with prayed for me. Not long after i finnally fell asleep and woke up feeling better (i even had the energy to pick up my phone from where it had been discarded and finish the text). G-d pointed me back to a bible verse i'd been reading the day before. It said "In your weakness I am strong"
i remember now that i prayed "G-d make me so weak that only You can be my strength." A dangerous prayer that He took very literally.
It was only when i was prayed for that my strength started to return, it was only Him who drove out those negative thoughts from my mind. i woke up feeling positive and only He could of done that. And as for the prayer about the band well my friend Laura said "The fact that it hurts to say give my vision to someone else shows it's yours." G-d has given me this vision and i may not be the best musician or the strongest leader, but in my weakness He is strong.
i'm so good at trying to do everything in my own strength and i'm also very good at failing, even this weekend i came to Leeds with many idea's of how to get closer to G-d, how foolish, He had a better plan.
Anyway i'm still recovering slowly so i'm going to go rest.
i've been typing this on a german laptop and the keyboard's very different, so i apolagise if there's any funny symbols or z's where y's should be.
Peace.

but, oh no

You say i'm the safe place you go when you're weak,
what makes you belive i'm so strong?
Even the rocks have secrets they don't speak
and stones bleed when everyone is gone

but oh no, you have no idea.

My stubborn lips and indifferent eyes,
the only part i'll let you see,
while you moan about those unfaithful guys,
each one is better than me

but oh no, you have no idea.

i wrote a letter on tatty brown pages
in a notebook i closed like my mouth.
When like me they've been her for ages
they'll start looking for a way out.
i might tear out that note and throw it in the fire,
i may throw myself in too,
and you'll watch the smoke rise higher and higher
taking me away from you

but, oh no, you'll have no idea.

Or perhaps i'll take that secret from the book where it's sealed
and slip it through your front door
where untill it's secret is revealed,
it will wait upon your porch floor

and you'll say oh no, i had no idea.
But it doesn't change a thing, oh not one thing.
i could never change a thing!

G-d is love, G-d is hope, but i'm also convinced He has a sense of humour and it's often the words we speak without thought or reverance that He holds us to and later reminds us of when we ask Him quite what He thinks He's doing.
i don't think i'll ever understand His plans, they are far beyond me but right now i have an idea and i don't like it.

i am not loving, i am not selfless, i am not kind, Godly or anything like it, sometimes i'm scared i'll become too good at pretending i am. G-d i'm a sinner, but won't You take my life, take my pride and make me more like You and won't you let the world see it's You and not me.

i had a scare the other day, a reality check. The two big things G-d has laid on my heart. One, the lost, those who are searching for Him, or searching for something not knowing it's Him. Two, the church and all it's flaws right now, this constant need we feel in Britian to pretend we're perfect and have all the answers. i stand before G-d and in my arrogance say "i think you're there but i'm not reallys sure, and i am a sinner and i'm sorry but if you could just make sure no one knows that would be great. By the way i'd like to help the lost and those people in church who pretend to be better than they are make me angry so i'd like to do something about that too." It doesn't quite figure does it? Yet still G-d in His grace says ok, and when the oppurtunities arrive, as was evident the other day, i freak out majorly and cry out to G-d "i can't do this". i don't know how He has the patience for me, but He's G-d i don't understand most of what He does and i take comfort in that.

G-d is good and the sacrifices i make for Him aren't really sacrifices atall. i have seen so many of His promises fullfilled recently and i'm excited about what He's going to do next. G-d is good.
Peace

G-d pull me out

Isn't life interesting? Isn't it full of surpises? Don't you always end up in the same place feeling the same way? Very possibly. As I sit here listening to Damien Rice and reading an e-mail from a friend talking about the awesome things G-d's doing in his life i'm not sure if it's the music, the shame of my own lacking faith or a mixture of both, but it's bringing me close to tears. Blurry eyes don't seem so bad when all you can see is darkness anyway, not that i've cried for years. G-d pull me out of here. I know you already have, help me believe it.

The thought for today

What we percieve as reality is only infact a product of our filtered minds. We choose our words and actions based on how we want to be seen or heard and not how we want to act or what we want to say.
What we see as truth is infact false and manufactured.
If human minds were totally exposed then we'd see ourselves for what we really are, then we'd realise our need for G-d's grace and why His love is so amazing.

Nothing else matters

I just read a friend's blog. She spoke about how when people see her they don't see her but who she wants them to see, how we are all such good actors. It scared me. In so many ways I believe I wear my heart on my sleeve, in here, in my songs, in letter and in my journal I express thoughts and feelings, I open up. I sometime's even feel ashamed of the things I say. But what about when I'm not expressing, what about when I'm just being, who am i then? Indeed who am i? I am no one. I had a conversation with a friend today about boundaries and she asked me if I'm as careful about being appropite when I'm with other girls as I am with her or if I'm doing it to respect the boundaries she stands by. Though I don't think I am dreadfully innapropiate in any of my friendships the answer to the question was the latter. That says alot of good for her but puts a serious question mark upon myself! Where are my boundaries? What standards do I stand by? I have some, but up to a certain extent I will set the marker where the other person says stop. I feel I should explain this has more to do with closeness and openess,more than other things you may associate with boundaries and standards. In so many ways I don't have my own rules to live by and end up living by those around me, surely this is just an attempt toward acceptance. It means I am a different person whoever I'm around, even to my humour. I don't have my own humour that you can say is mine but I adapt to other peoples, is the same true of my personality? Have I become so ashamed of who I am that I've pushed that down and covered it up with this person I feel people will accept. I want to remember who it is, I want to let that person out again. I feel the answer to this lies in creativity, in my writing my songs, my blogs. It's the only space the person I am gets to breathe, it's where I feel real. In that conversation with my friend today there was one I thing I wanted to say but couldn't or atleast didn't, for fear of ruining her perecption of me, her perception of our friendship. Yet if it was in a song I'd not hesitate to say it. Maybe that's because in a song I can hide it in imagery, take away the meaning from other peoples eyes and express it while it stays safe inside my mind alone, or is it more than that? If I felt despair in life I'd put on a brave face. If in music I'd contort my face, I'd cry out, I'd fling my body desperately around without care of damage. How can I be two so different people? How can I be me? I guess it's small steps, I know one I can take next, I'm just not sure if I will.
It's strange how I'm aware that people will read this and their minds will be filled with thoughts contributing towards a perception of me based on what I've wrote, and I don't even care. Yet, if I spoke this, if this was a conversation, I could never say it.
But is it this part of me I want to express, no! Beyond this, deeper than this and just as hidden is a love for people, a love for God, a love for those He loves. This, though I love to catch in songs, more so I want to flow through in my life, in everything I say, everythin I do, everything I am. Without barriers, without exception, without excuses. That's who I was made to be, that's who I should be, nothing else matters.