Staircase...to Heaven??

First of all. Happy Christmas Everyone!!! Praise God for sending his Son to earth to suffer the penalty of sin that we should suffer so that we would have a chance at eternal life with Him!

I often dream of staircases and being afraid to go up them. Last night the staircase was wobbly and would change position every so often. It was kind of like Inception actually lol (remember when he changed the staircase?). So I was deathly afraid of going up this staircase, but it was necessary to get where I wanted to go. I asked a friend (someone I trusted and knew would help me and protect me) to go with me up the stairs and of course it kept changing position. I was afraid of falling to my death, but I got up there where I needed to be.

I looked up what staircases meant:

"Seeing a staircase in your dream, symbolizes change and transformation."

And stairs:

"Dreaming that you are walking up a flight of stairs indicates that you are achieving a higher level of understanding. You are making progress into your spiritual/emotional/material journey. It also represents material and thoughts that are coming to the surface."

Higher understanding seems to be the theme of my dreams lately praise God ^_^

Don't worry about it...

When I make progress in terms of spiritual/character/personal growth I become afraid that I will "relapse" and go back to my old, unhealthy ways of thinking and being. But I have to remember that I can't change my heart. The most I can do is be willing and open to the Lord doing that for me. Even if I do "relapse", it just means he's still working in me. My desire is for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in fullness and completeness. But, I can only be where I am. I have to be patient with myself and wait on the Lord.

I'm surrendering my desire to God

First of all I wanna say that I don't feel very well :-(( I think I'm coming down with something. But! I just graduated from MBI so I feel great!!!


Now back to the point. Remember my very first blog post titled Stop? It was about me needing to stop looking for men and relationships to heal the wounds in my soul. Here's an excerpt:


Stopping is exactly what I'll be doing. My life has been filled with either unhealthy relationships or me liking douchebags who play with my emotions and could care less about me. And now I've come to the breaking point and I realize that I just need to stop. Ever since I hit puberty I've been searching for a man who would treat me better than my father.
And my quest consumed me. I realized that it was all too much when I got hurt just one last time. It was the last straw. Finding love became an idol for me so it had to be destroyed.

I've come to terms with the fact that my last name might just stay the same forever. I may never get a chance to marry a man who affirms me, loves me, treats me better than my dad did. And that's okay.

Ok so obviously I didn't get the point the first time because every single potential "boo" as I like to say hasn't worked out. And what I'm realizing is that I figured out what I was doing: my search for a man became an idol. But I didn't know just to what extent this idolizing went.


I thought that if I de-prioritized men and just lived my life then that's all I needed to do. It wouldn't be an idol anymore. But after experiencing disappointment after disappointment I realized I needed to some more self-examination because God keeps closing these doors and I need to figure out why.


I learned in one of my classes that people have deep longings that only God can fulfill. Even in the best marriages people will still have longings that only God can fulfill. That was a eureka moment for me. Now I realize that marriage was still an idol for me. I thought that a life partner would fulfill the longings I have. And they may be able to fulfill them to some extent, but not as full and as complete as God can. Now I really have to do some more soul searching. I have much better and healthier expectations now than I did before. But I definitely need to stay single for a while so that I really know in my heart (not just my head) that only God can fulfill my deepest longings; not a man, not a marriage.


This learning process has been very difficult because I still desire to be married (and that's okay), but I need to put that desire into perspective. So I am surrendering this desire to God. I'm giving it to Him because I obviously don't know what to do with it. I'm trusting that I will learn what he has to teach me and learn to fully rely on Him to fulfill my deepest longings that no one else can fulfill.

Weary

I'm an olive colored American of African, Native, and European descent (gotta love colonization I'm like a true American lol) who grew up on the south side of Chicago in an African American neighborhood. I grew up in a Christian home. My father was on the legalist side, my mom was cool. She was about loving people, not changing them. (We love people the way they are. It's God's job to change them.) When I came to Moody Bible Institute it was different. It's a totally different culture. There are many white people here who came from under whatever rock they lived under to the city of Chicago to learn more about God.

Anyway let me just tell you what happened. Once a week MBI students have to go to something called a PCM (Practical Christian Ministry). A PCM is any kind of ministry outside of school like volunteering at a homeless shelter, playing the piano at an old folks home, or helping kids with their homework. Well I work at an after school program with kids. There's a group of 6 of us who all drive up there. Well on the way I want to have fun and laugh with my friends and joke about things in the car. We joke about Moody life, tv, movies, whatever.

Well I noticed that one girl was kind of quiet and looked mad all the time before and after PCM. So I asked her what was up. Basically she was annoyed and offended at our conversations in the car. She said we made jokes about homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, and sexual abuse. And that we were acting like the world instead of like Christ.

Well, first of all I would never make fun of sexual abuse. I'm a victim of sexual abuse myself. But maybe she took one of our jokes out of context or misunderstood somehow. I also don't remember making jokes about sex outside of marriage. We did joke about the movie Knocked Up. Maybe that's what she's talking about. All I know is that movie was funny. And as far as jokes about homosexuality. We were just noting the gay tendencies we usually see from men on campus. It's kind of strange to see some of these things (especially coming from a different culture). Also sometimes things are easier to deal with if we can laugh at them.

All this to say that I know life is filled with people who are going to disagree with you or judge you without knowing the whole story. But I'm soo sick of it at this school. I feel like I need to be white and sheltered in order to be accepted. Now every time I laugh at something in the back of my mind I'm going to wonder if someone is judging me for laughing at what I'm laughing at. I'm tired. But until I graduate in December (YAY!) I'll have to deal with it and just keep in mind and be sensitive to those who grew up under rocks.

Acceptance

I'm learning to accept the things in life that ar painful, but won't change. I'm learning the true meaning of "it is what it is." I have gone from depressed (repressed anger) to angry. It's good that it isn't being repressed anymore. But I have seen what I can become when I let anger control me and I never want to see myself that way again.

I have a strong desire for justice. But I'm learning that I'm not always going to see justice (or see it the way I think it should be played out). And I can't always be angry about that. Ultimately I'm not the one in control of justice. God is. Vengence is the Lord's. So I have to accept the situation God has placed me in and be patient and longsuffering. The way I've been doing things isn't working so I need to change. I need to accept things the way they are and learn from them instead of being angry that things aren't changing and aren't the way I want them to be.

This is actually freeing. I don't feel bound to anger. I don't feel bound to a responsibility to change things that aren't right. I feel like now I'm really allowing God to be in control. By his grace I'll continue to learn how to do this.

Epiphany

Ok I know I talk about dreams a lot. But I truly believe dreams are the language of the soul so...I'm gonna talk about them.

I've been having lots of dreams about me protecting babies. I have recurring dreams of me either saving them from danger or holding on to them so that they don't get hurt by whatever threat there is. So I looked up what it meant and it said:

Dreaming that you are protecting someone, suggests that you are putting up an emotional wall or barrier between you and others around you. Consider who or what you are protecting for clues as to what aspect of your own self you are afraid of letting out and letting others know.

Wow. I'm protecting myself from others seeing the baby inside me. I think that we all have babies within that are crying for needs that were never met when we were children. So now that we're older we may attachment issues, anxiety, or whatever as a result of not having needs met. Our issues are how we learned to cope with not having certain needs met. Deep down inside theres that baby that I don't want anyone to see because if they see it they'll know something very personal; a part of my soul.


When I was a kid I needed to be encouraged, praised, treasured. I needed to know that I could go to my mother for comfort. I didn't have those things. There's still my internal child that cries out for that stuff. But I don't want anyone to know that about me. Man...so interesting.  

I'm Surrounded by Idiots

I'm not really surrounded by idiots (well sometimes). But don't we all have those days? Today everyone and everything infuriated me, irritated me to the core. I don't know why but when I woke up this morning I really didn't wanna go to school. This is my last semester and I can tell that it's really time for me to go. It's time. People have really been pissin me off lately. America's been pissin me off too. I wanna move to a different country. Even some of the friends I have at school right now I kind of don't want to see ever again after I graduate. It's time for me to move on. I'm sick of dis ish! Lol. I don't want to write another paper. Nothing. I'm afraid that I might cuss someone out before the semester's over. I'm at the boiling point. *sigh* I wish everyone would STFU and GTFO.

Beauty in Pain?

I've heard the phrase that there is beauty in pain. You know that old Edna St. Millay poem about having rainbows on your eye lashes from tears type stuff. I think it's crap. The only way beauty comes from pain is if there is victory over that pain and somehow you come out better than what you were before. We all want stability. We want to feel stable, we want to be in stable environments, we want to be treated with stability by stable people. We all want that. No one wants to be in pain. I'm really sick of this cycle that instability and pain has brought me into. My soul wants more for myself, but the instabiliity of my environment won't allow for it.

Dreams Par Deux

I've been having strange dreams lately and I can't seem to figure out what they're about.

The first dream:

Me and a friend were coming from this concert. One of the owners offered us free drinks if we got the dancing started. We got the dancing started. Fast forward we're on our way home and we realize that only she got the free drink. So we decided to go back and get my drink (I know silly right lol). So we go back and right when we start talkin to the owner this panic or fear breaks out and we're all running trying to get away from whatever it is that started the panic. And the club is like this maze like thing that we're just trying to get out of. So we finally make it out the club and we see what people are running from. People are dropping dead all around us for no apparent reason. Almost like the movie "The Happening." I was freaked out. The guy who was running in front of me it looked like his neck broke and he dropped dead. I thought I was next so I kept running. My friend was still with me. I thought the people who were dying were gonna turn into zombies, but when they died they stayed dead. We ran until we found this RV/trailer type car. And the owner let us ride with her to get away. It was really weird in her RV. There was a dead fetus wrapped in paper which was hella strange, but she was our only way of getting out of there. Then I woke up.

Second dream:

This dream started out really weird. I was at Burger King and they had this new food, better than burgers. They had my favorite curry chicken so I got that. It took them forever though and I never got it. It's me, my nephew and another friend there at BK. I never got my food so we left. When we get out there is panic. We start running again, but this time we are running from zombies. We are trying very hard to find a vehicle or something to get away from all the zombies. Every where we turn another person is turning into a zombie and chasing us. I found a train station and I'm hoping we can get on a train to get the heck outta dodge. But for some reason I just couldn't get in the train station. It was like there was a force field and it was so aggravating cuz I didn't want anything to happen to my nephew. So we just kept running and I woke up.

I can't figure out what this stuff means...Maybe they're just anxiety dreams or something...

Glee 2x03: (Sue Sylvester & Religion)

What are you???

People often ask me this question. It's pretty confusing to answer though. I usually say I'm African American, but few people are satisfied with that answer. The follow up question is usually "Well what else?" And of course there are other things there. I mean this is America, our country is as diverse as our bloodlines. And because of this I'm not really sure what to call myself anymore. I read an article on the Black Girl with Long Hair blog titled "Black, brown or yellow?" (http://bglhonline.com/2010/09/black-brown-or-yellow/). The article is about how the writer is unsatisfied with the term "black" because Americans of African descent aren't black, they range from dark brown to very light or yellow as we say. She says that "perhaps the whole “naming system” when it comes to black people needs to be overhauled." Well my opinion of the matter is that people of African descent in this country are the bastard children of the Americas and we can't be named. We lost so much of our African culture. Africa is a continent, we can't even name a country that our ancestors came from. Also some of us are so mixed in our ancestry that we don't know if we are even "black" anymore. And because of racism and hypodescence (one drop rule) it becomes hard to become apart of or seen as apart of different cultures. We really don't belong any where.

Dreams

I am a dreamer. I love to dream. I often wake up disappointed that I'm back in my real life. I've always dreamed. I still remember dreams that I had when I was a little kid. Sometimes I dream lucidly, which means I can control the dream. I just decide in my head that I'm gonna do whatever I want in this dream and then I do it. It's so weird and fun. Sometimes my dreams are just dreams and they don't mean that much, but sometimes they are symbolic and I know that I'm getting a message.

The other day I dreamed that I was in a cave (kind of like Lord of the Rings). My brother was there and someone else was there. There were two of me. One was a fake me. It was a holographic, perfect looking me standing next to my brother. The other me, which was the real me, were just broken bones in the bottom of a pond. My brother knew that the holograph was not the real me so he scooped up my bones out the bottom of the pond and the real me was there and in tact.

I got this from hyperdictionary.com:

Dreaming of bones, suggests the discovery of your personal, family, or cultural secrets. It is also symbolic of your underlying strengths that you have not yet recognized. Dreaming of broken bones means that you have discovered or realized that there is a weakness in your plans or in your thinking. Your dream may call for you immediate attention to a particular situation or relationship.

This is interesting because before I had the dream I was discovering more of the painful sides of my family life. I also noticed that I don't easily open up about painful memories. I'm prone to keep them inside, bottle them up and not face the pain. This is a weakness because eventually I explode. It was so cool when I read what that symbolized b/c it was true.

Seeing a pond in your dream, represents tranquility and desire for more quiet time to yourself. It is a time to reflect on your situation and what is going on in your life.

Again, also true.

Dreaming that you are walking in a dark cave means refuge or the unconscious mind.

Seeing a hologram in your dream, suggests that you need to look at the whole picture instead of just pieces of it in order to get the whole story. Alternatively, the dream symbolizes your ideal self and your notions of perfection.

There was also a part in the dream after the cave (u know how in dreams they just change so quickly and u realize ur somewhere else and don't even know how u got there). In this part of the dream I had on a queen's crown. So I looked up queen.

Seeing a queen in your dream, symbolizes intuition and personal growth.

I definitely believe that this was a message from God. Some Christian psychologists believe that dreams are the language of the soul. What do you think? Do you think God can speak to us through dreams?

Not Ready

I realize that I've been distracting myself. During the week I'm in class and it's easy not to think about things because I'm doing. But I'm a counseling major so it's kind of my homework to think about my experiences and how they've affected me. I've been having such a hard time with that. I just can't bring myself to do it. It's like I'm apathetic, but I care about doing it cuz it's my homework and I want to graduate. When I sit down to do it I can't. And on weekends I find friends to hang out with. I go dancing, I watch a plethora of House episodes lol. And when I do all that I don't have to think about painful experiences or situations. Sometimes when I'm in class or watching tv I have flashbacks and I have to fight back tears. I'm not ready to face it though. I just hope I don't have an explosion. That wouldn't be good at all because then people would know that something is wrong with me.

Flapjack-Skymaid

Ode to FlapJack

Since I'm not whining anymore I decided to post something positive and happy. You guys have seen that show on cartoon network called the Misadventures of FlapJack right? I LOVE that show.
I like it because it's really bizarre. I'm a fan of dark comedy and creepy weird things (i.e. Tim Burton, Neil Gaiman). So this show, although it's for children, is right up my alley. I also love it because FlapJack is constantly looking for an adventure. And so am I! I'm so itching to do something. I can't wait to graduate and go on my next adventure. Also everyone on the show eats candy (Peppermint Larry and his Candy Wife are hilarious). Cap'n Knuckles and FlapJack's main goal in life is to find Candied Island. I can respect that. I've been eating candy since I got out the womb. Seriously I had all my teeth filled by the age of 10. And my first fill-in I didn't even need anasthetic. I couldn't feel a thing, all the candy must have numbed my gums for me. All this to say- FlapJack I love you and I wish you were real.

Snap out of it

I've been sick the past couple days and I haven't felt like going to class. Thankfully someone took my shift at work so I didn't have to worry about that either. That's the good thing about not living on campus. When I get sick I'm already at home. Anyway, I've found that I've been awfully whiny lately. Sometimes we need to be when we're going through things. It helps us work through our emotions so that we can better cope. But don't be whiny forever lol it can be annoying. So I'm going to stop whining for now (until my next life crisis lol). All these things I've been talking about on my blog lately are things that are actually helping me. I'm still ok with being single the rest of my life if that's what God wants (although sometimes that realization can be painful) and me and my dad aren't the best of friends by no means, but I guess I'm starting to understand that he might just be mentally ill. Right now I'm trying to find a balance- when to stay away from him and when to try and be nice to him. It's been really hard trying to be nice to him though because I kind of don't care about his feelings which sounds horrible, but it's the truth.

Me and my father

Hm...where do I begin? Childhood? Well when I was a toddler my dad was nice. He'd feed me sherbet and play with me. I wasn't old enough to disappoint him yet. I think maybe around the time I started talking or started going to school (or maybe it was around puberty? idk when) that he was mean. I know for sure I was in grammar school. I heard a lot of "What's wrong with you?" "You're not a Christian." If ever he had something to say to me it was mostly to point out things I'd done wrong or things he didn't like. And he always blamed me for everything. I was like a scapegoat. I remember one time when I was about 9 years old it was storming outside and our basement flooded. My dad grabbed me out of my bed in the middle of the night, took me to the basement and said "Look what you did!" I didn't know I had power over mother nature. I don't remember him ever saying anything nice about the kind of person I was or am. He'd tell me from time to time that I do good in school. But that's just a performance and really doesn't reflect who I am as a person. He's never told me that I'm a good person. I don't remember him even telling me  "I love you."

Our relationship is pretty non-existent. I lived at school for a few years and during that time our relationship got better. He was trying to be nicer which was awkward, but ok. And I wasn't living with him anymore so I kind of forgot how he is. I moved back home this summer and I wanted to give him another chance. I tried talking to him more and wanting to have a better relationship. That was until he had another episode/outburst of name calling/verbal abusing. He told me that I don't meet his expectations, I'm irresponsible, lazy and he took some scripture out of context just to let me know how bad a Christian I am. So I haven't talked to him since. I try to stay away from him. I don't trust him. He could have another outburst at any time and I don't want to be there when he does. So it's safer just to avoid him.

He asked my mom the other day why I won't talk to him and she told him it's because of all the things he told me that day. He said, "I didn't say that. I would never say anything like that." He said that he's so successful in life that people just feel inferior around him. Wow. It's not that he makes you feel inferior by the way he tears you down, but it's your own fault that you feel inferior because he's so great.

I was so hurt (sad and angry) when my mom told me he said that. Because it's so convenient. You never have to own up or apologize for hurting people if you deny ever doing it or conveniently "forget." So now I'm wondering if maybe my dad is mentally ill. I know he's narcissistic, but now it seems like he's delusional too. Sad.

Stop

Stopping is exactly what I'll be doing. My life has been filled with either unhealthy relationships or me liking douchebags who play with my emotions and could care less about me. And now I've come to the breaking point and I realize that I just need to stop. Ever since I hit puberty I've been searching for a man who would treat me better than my father.

Growing up (and still) my father was emotionally and verbally abusive. So what I've been is the more innocent version of "looking for love in all the wrong places." I just had to find a way to redeem what I've been through with my father. I thought, "Well the one man who was supposed to love me and encourage me and affirm me didn't do his job so what better way to redeem the situation than to find a man who will." All this time this is what it's been about. And I've been bitter with my dad blaming him for all my failed attempts at love. Blaming him for the unhealthy relationships, blaming him for liking men who are unavailable or who don't care about me. I resented him. So I searched and hoped for my loving hero who would heal me from my messed up past.


And my quest consumed me. I realized that it was all too much when I got hurt just one last time. It was the last straw. Finding love became an idol for me so it had to be destroyed.

I've come to terms with the fact that my last name might just stay the same forever. I may never get a chance to marry a man who affirms me, loves me, treats me better than my dad did. And that's okay.