Stagnation in the Church

I'm hesitant to commit myself to a church because due to my current location (I'm assuming), the churches here are SO white-washed. The diversity is so very limited. And I really don't like that. I'm so used to being in class with so many different kinds of people that it's weird to go into a church and see so very few people of color. I like other perspectives. I feel like internalized stereotypes in the south keep those people away. I also wish there were more LGBTQA members for different voices but of course the church scared those people away with their abomination and sin screeching. I see very little open mindedness and it's frightening. People still see women as less. People aren't open to different and deeper interpretation. I think the fact that scripture isn't so easy to understand from our culture and time period is scary to other people because that means they can't take things for face value. That means they have to work to understand it and it might clash with something they previously believed. I'm really tired of the church remaining silent about mental illness. Reading the word of God and praying isn't going to keep someone from wishing to be dead or from hearing voices. The church needs A LOT of work in the south but I don't know if they're willing to change. I don't know if it's better up north but I'm tired of it down here.

I've been thinking about death again recently. I'm not really sure what that means. Maybe I should call my psychiatrist. I don't really know. I'm tired. Tired of having to follow this pattern of life. Like I'm stuck. There's no out. You're born. You go to school. How long you stay in school determines your job most of the time. You get a job. Some people have a family. You work your job until you're old enough to stop. Then you die. Like why do I want any part of this? There are happy times but part of me doesn't think it's worth all of the suffering. Call me weak, but it's true. I feel stuck in my body. In my life. I just want to go away or somewhere else. God has to understand I'm tired..Death is one thing people have control over. Actual control. Everything else is pretty much an illusion. Like sure you get to choose your job and interests but they literally all suck you into what society already wants. They want your money and your labor. What is the point of all this going around and around? Like where are we going? What do we expect to gain? Control over others? I don't want that. It's pretending you have control over lives when all you want is control of life in general. You can't erase mortality. We can't play God because we too will disappear. I don't get it. Why would God create beings out of love so that they can then suffer to the point of not wanting to even have been created? They say suicide is a permanent solution for a temporary problem. But suffering is a permanent problem until you're dead so...how does that make sense? Technically Jesus chose to die to pay for us since we can't do anything right. Which isn't technically our fault since we were "born into sin." So if someone dies because they are tired of their flesh sinning what does that mean? Your soul is saved not your stupid meat suit. Apparently many say suicide is a sin, but I'm not sure. They say our body does not belong to us, but then why were we given one in the first place? We're allowed to make choices. That was a part of God's love standard. So I don't know. It doesn't really matter if you don't actually do it.

I don't really post a lot anymore. I don't know. I guess I don't have much to say. I wish I had more friends. I wish I had more energy for friends. It takes a lot out of me to interact with people I'm not really close with. It's always so nice to get back home. No one seems to really interest me though and I don't seem to interest them. So I'm stuck in this loop of trying, but no one seems to care enough to reciprocate the efforts back. The most interest I seem to get from people is from guys because they want more than friendship. I'm not around a lot of guys anymore so I don't experience that too often anymore. No complaints there though. I don't know what hit me today, but it feels similar to a wall of apathy. Like my motivation dropped out from under me. It sort of happened when Ryan told me that we should maybe limit our communication more. Which I totally get. But when he said it, I just didn't even have the energy to form a solid opinion. I just gave in and said I'd back off. Just like that. No opposition. No complaining. Just whatever.
You can't answer every why question. I think that will always drive me crazy. I'll always hate it.
I just don't get why God would create creatures to in turn praise him? Like I'll probably be struck with lightning but doesn't that seem egotistical? If you create creatures and let them have their own choice, why is one choice created to be negative. We're bad if we don't love the creator even though we were given the choice? Who says that's bad? The creator? Then why did he even give us the choice? Love isn't love without choice, but no one is entitled to love. You can't be upset when someone doesn't love you when they have the choice to not. If they've lived a crappy life with no sign of hope, they don't have to do anything. Some people I think would rather not have been created. Why is suicide bad? Because we don't like being creatures where we're given choice but one has negative consequences which logically pushes you to do the other so you don't suffer? Suicide is saying I don't want any part of this. It's saying why was I created when I was going to be pushed on way or the other. How is that choice? People rebel because they think their statement is worth the suffering. I personally do not like to suffer. So where do I belong in this mess? I'd like to be "good" but I hate the terms good and evil. It restricts your vision. It doesn't allow you to see the beauty that is the mess of the human race. We are messes. We deal with things the best we can, but we all deal with things so differently that you get an entire palette of colors. It's funny because even through all that color, we're still all people in this giant mess together. And we are going to mess up more things than fix them because with every fix comes the possibility for more mistakes. It's okay though. Messes aren't all that bad. I mean why else would we be left this way? It's not our fault we came to be and were born into this mess. There's gotta be something out there for us. Or so I hope.
The less I understand God, the more I fall in love with people.

My heart does this thing where just the thought of you fills it so full with gratitude that the overflow of it comes out as tears. And while it's mainly gratitude and happiness to have you in my life, part of it is missing you with all of me. Because it's hard to be apart from someone that makes you that happy even with miles between. To not be able to show you my love through touch, sometimes it kills me. But I'll wait until I see you again and then those tears can be nothing but joyful. The tug in my heart is never fun but it's a clear indication that you're something special and worth every second of the wait. So in a couple months I'll be way up in the sky knowing I'll be in your arms in a little bit. No one wants to do long distance. I swore I'd never be able to. I thought I wouldn't be strong enough. I guess I had to grow up a little and meet the right person to know that strength is there and only reserved for those who truly deserve it. We started this way so some may say that makes it a little easier and it did in the beginning. But it also makes everything in this relationship, like all of the touches, so much more meaningful. The small things are huge. We crave them more than the big things. Yeah we still want the big things and maybe we'll do them every once in a while, but nothing is better than being in your arms. Because after being so far apart, having no space in between us with you still being you is the exactly what makes me one of the luckiest people alive.

every day I want nothing more than to end up in your arms










people think they miss their loved one after they've left or haven't seen them for a day or two.
there's nothing like months apart and nothing you can do about it. when your world feels bright and shiny they can't go out and celebrate. when you want to do nothing but cry they can't hold you. you can't even look into their eyes. feel their warmth. smell their scent. you get a voice here and there. sometimes if you're lucky a pixelated face on a screen. the words 'I want you' have lost their ability to communicate this desire that tugs so hard that it makes everything else's priority seem tiny in comparison. when missing someone means the tug hurts so much that it makes you cry. I'm not the 14 year old who believed whatever boys told me anymore. there comes a point when you decide that relationships aren't games or fun to mess around with. they aren't some naive girl's fantasy. instead of diving in with all the joy I'm scared. this is more. and that's the scary part. because messing this up means messing up a once in a lifetime chance with someone so unique and kindhearted. it's one of those things that becomes your lifelong 'what if.' i refuse to let this be a 'what if.' my life doesn't die if this does. I will move on and do whatever comes next. but he has significant potential to influence my life long term. this deserves my best effort and the best me I can provide. he deserves it.

Abortion And Why You're Not Allowed To Have An Opinion For Anyone But Yourself

So there comes a time when I always see something on the internet that causes a fire in me. It's always a fire of disbelief with ignorance. This time it deals with abortion. I personally would never get an abortion for I don't think I could deal with my mental health afterwards and it doesn't exactly go too well with my religion either. That doesn't mean I'm allowed to say abortion is wrong. It also doesn't give me the right to shame other women and fight against their rights as humans. People are put in all different sorts of situations, none of which you can judge considering you're not perfect either. Before I start on why forcing people to stay pregnant is wrong, let me just say no woman is happy getting an abortion. Let me repeat that. NO WOMAN IS HAPPY GETTING AN ABORTION. Relieved perhaps, but happy? Yeah right. There's a quote out there that says “A woman does not want an abortion like she wants an ice cream cone, a new dress, or a Porsche; she wants an abortion like an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg to escape.” Now let me tell you why it's wrong to tell a woman she has to give birth.
You cannot force a human being to save someone else's life. Dead people do not have to give up perfectly good organs to save people. People who are brain dead but have perfect, LIVING organs do not have to give them to others. It calls for consent. The family's consent. You do not have to donate blood to someone who is bleeding out before you even if you are related to them. You don't have to supply your organs and blood to a fetus. The fetus is dependent off its mother. It cannot live without it. Just like some people can't live without machines to keep them alive. If you force a woman to have the child, you are giving her no body autonomy. Does the fetus have the right to use the things keeping it alive? Let's see, if we're going off the argument that the fetus is already alive then let's pretend this is a child. If a child is in the hospital and it cannot live without a transplant, transfusion, or some other miraculous medical intervention, do you know who gets to make the call? Not the doctor. Not the government. Not a bunch of people with loaded Bibles. The parents. Yup. The parents get to say what sort of treatment the kid gets. If they do not want to put the kid through that or if their life would be financial hell afterwards which would mean losing the child (which is emotionally damaging to children. the psychological trauma induced with separation cannot be easily repaired like a cut), they do not have to. You want to know has all the say during pregnancy? The woman. She is the hospital and the organs and the doctor and the mother for this fetus while it is in her. She can say what she wants. Yes it means that fetus won't get to live a life and some people think it's murder, but honestly, that thing couldn't live outside the body. She's turning off the life support that she is providing physically. There's no telling what mental trouble she's taking from the pregnancy too. Yes a healthy marriage would consist of making a joint decision together but the world doesn't work like that for everyone. Everyone has a different situation. Some people are raped. Some people can't afford it. Some people would be social rejected and ridiculed. Some people would be abandoned. Some people just don't want a child. Some people don't want their body to go through pregnancy. Regardless, you have no right to make their decision for them. Most people who argue against this believe in God, right? You might argue we need to live by God's rules and not the governments? The Bible says to respect and follow the laws of your government. You sin. Why do you get to judge another sinner if that's what you consider sin? If you're a Christian, you believe in forgiveness. Jesus already knew they were going to kill him before they did. Even as they were he asked for God to forgive them. If you're supposed to live like Jesus, maybe you should revisit that. But you are not allowed to force your beliefs on others. Your religion is not everyone else's. Let people make their own choices based off of their beliefs.
If you are pro life then you believe every single life has the right to live. This includes children born from incest, children with painful and horrible diseases, children born from rape, children born from the death of their mothers in labor. Every single life. Every single pregnancy. Every single situation is included when you throw in this argument. You cannot disconnect the two. It's impossible. So you want children to be born from the act that was a sin, a non-consensual act forced upon a woman. You would rather shame people who have consensual sex who do not want or are not in position to have a child. I'm sorry but hospital bills are freaking expensive. Giving birth is expensive. People are going to have sex. As creatures of survival, we have the instinct to reproduce (let me exclude the asexual community from this), and so sex will happen. In marriage and outside of. You can't stop it. There are consequences to having unprotected sex. There are also consequences of sin. Which EVERYONE does. If you're a Christian, you don't have to pay those consequences though. The consequence of sin is death. You were freed from that with Christ. Let those people be free from their consequence as you are. Do not cast your stones. Let them go. The world is not black and white. You are the same as those people. Try to love people even as they are sinners because that is exactly what Jesus did for you.

I am a Christian and I am pro choice.

*screams internally forever*

Freaking a. I have seen so many sexist things today that I have to rant about at least one of them because I'm about to want to throw myself off a building and that's like 25% joking.
Women DO NOT need to be the traditional female role for relationships with men to work.
Men DO NOT need to be the traditional male role for relationships with women to work.
REPEAT AFTER ME.
TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES DO NOT FIT EVERYONE AND EVERY COUPLE.
Some chick on facebook who goes to the church I am like maybe like 5% affiliated with now posted some article saying how Kirsten Dunst's view that men should be men and women should be women in relationships is refreshing. refRESHING. After thousands and thousands of years of patriarchy and gender roles, somehow conforming to what feels like the timeless norm is refreshing. What. Like I'm sorry, but that is the stupidest thing I have heard. I respect women who chose to be stay-at-home moms and fill the traditional role by knowledgeable choice, but to state that, that's what it takes for things to work is entirely ignorant and insults diversity in and of itself. Sometimes I wonder if I nailed myself to a cross and suffered a painful death while speaking of how horrible gender roles are, maybe just maybe people would be less ignorant. Influencing tons of generations of people to be more accepting and open minded..that would be worth dying for.