Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Back to the Future

I hate things that scare me. (Boy, isn't that a way to start a post?) One thing that terrifies me is the dark.  If I can't see, I start going a bit irrational.  The only way that isn't true is if I'm looking up at the stars and someone is right next to me.  Another thing that scares me is the water.  If possible, I'm more scared of water than I am of the dark, and you add those two things together... oh boy....  The main reason for my being so afraid of those things is that I cannot physically see what I'm stepping into.  If I can't see it, it ain't gonna happen.

I'm kind of like that in my spiritual life, too.  If I can't see where my next step is, I will quite literally stop dead in my tracks and sometimes run back the way I came.  Maybe that's why I am able to write what I'm about to write.

I'm terrified, mortified, petrified of what will happen on this earth before the Messiah comes back.  I believe in Pre-Trib (the Rapture before the Tribulation of the earth).  I also believe that Christians will be persecuted harder than they ever have been in any time past.  What all will that entail?  Because I don't know who all reads my blogs, I won't go into any detail, but I do believe that God's people will be tortured and martyred.  After all, the Messiah did say that no servant is greater than his master, so they will do to the servants what they did to the Master.

I cannot back these things up just yet (minus my first and last statements of my last paragraph) because I am just as afraid to really read Revelation as I am to even think of future events.  God said that a lot of responsibility would come with reading that book, and I do not want to take that responsibility without being... well... responsible enough for it.

I guess the whole thing would not be as hard for me if it were not for the things I was told about the "end times".  My husband has termed the person who taught me most of what I "know" about that time as "sadistic" due to the effect it has had on my very being.  Since I was very young, I have had nightmares about what would happen in those days.  From having dreams about these monsters burning my house down and throwing me in a bag alone forever to dreams where I'm worrying about the whole thing and wondering why I should even bother to live or have a family or plan anything for the future.  This is my lifetime, unending nightmare.

I have a few home businesses.  I am a good business-minded woman.  I am a good people person.  I am a good sales force.  But when I even barely think or am spoken to about the whole deal, I very honestly and literally cannot function.  Everything that keeps me going stops.  I basically turn into a terrified, worried vegetable.  I don't eat; I don't sleep; and I bury myself in my computer games and internet businesses and buying to try to hide from it.

I feel bad for my husband.  He gives me so much all the time.  He loves me so much.  But when this lovely event happens, I can't respond to him the way I need to.  I'm just a mask with a ghost behind it.

I am so tired of this whole crappy mess that happens inside of me.  It shouldn't be this way.  No person, especially no believer, should have to live with that kind of terrified fear.  Why do I get stuck with it?  Why can't I be happy that soon everything will be the way God intended it to be - perfect and beautiful?  Why can't I even lay down some short-term plans and goals without being frightened out of my wits?

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On a more positive note, my cat is pregnant, and I just felt the kittens moving.  And I'm trying not to cry.


~ Rose Stitch
1140 Wed, Sep 21, 2011

"Who Are You When I'm Not Looking?"

I was just thinking about the whole "you are what you are when no one else is around to watch you" thing.  And I suddenly realized that for me it isn't true.  I very much dislike being alone, so I go into my shell and hide.  Sometimes very literally.

That got me thinking about something else.  I've been told that line so many times in my life that I think that started to affect some of how I perceived myself.  If what I was told is true, then in my mind, I'm a lazy, selfish, coward.

However.  In my defense of myself, I am not lazy, even though BJ decided to make that one of my "charges" that got me kicked out.  I am simply afraid of screwing something up and feeling like a heathen for it. ("Heathen" for me being a deep-down feeling that I have royally messed something up.) Also, yes, I can be selfish, and there have been times I've waited to be left alone just so I can do something totally selfish.  But when I'm alone, I miss my people, in particular, my husband.  I don't want to do anything without him, to the point of not eating or functioning.  As to being a coward, I don't think a coward could have taken some of the things I've had to take.  I don't think a coward could have someone who strongly dislikes him say he's not good enough, and he turns around and gives a broad smile with no anger or bitterness in it.  Now the problem is actually getting that through my very thick, tough skull.

~ Rose Stitch
0519 Wed, Sep 21, 2011

On Growing Up and Being Who You Are

I'm not even going to bother looking it up right now because I know I'll find it soon anyway, but after reading a blog, I feel the need to write about training children.  I'm thinking it's Proverbs 17:17 or 24.  I'll look later.

"Just starting to discover who I am instead of who I was told I had to be."  I just read this comment on someone's blog, and that fast it got me thinking about how we are told you have to be such-and-such when you grow up.  Right?  WRONG! (There was more to the comment's meaning than just that, but these are my thoughts from that part of the paragraph.) I can't be a butcher just because my dad was. (Not that he was; I'm just using that as an example.) Me personally, I get sick very easily, and the thought of killing something and ripping it up just makes me so sad.  Or, how about this?  My dad's a ... (trying to come up with an idea) carpenter.  He knows that's not where my talents lie.  So he tells me, you're going to be a kindergarten teacher.  My response?  GAH!!!!!!!  I love kids, but I do not want to teach the little ones.  I'll be doing good to work with my kids, if we can ever have any, when they are there as it is.

The Bible says to "train up a child in the way he should go" so that "when he is old he will not depart from it".  A lot of people think this verse is talking about discipline.  Maybe.  But on the whole, I really disagree.

I believe it is more talking about the vocation.  I don't have much to back me up because it's been so long since I talked about it in depth with my dad.  However, I will state what I think and probably come back and add to it later.

When a child is born in a Jewish home, they wait to name the child until after he or she starts showing character traits that are easily recognizable.  It may be a couple of years before they name the child.  Instead of the child growing into the name (i.e., Christopher Columbus or myself taking the meaning of our names and trying to be like that), the name is chosen for the qualities shown naturally.  For instance, a little girl comes home from school and starts playing school as the teacher.  Maybe she will be a teacher someday.  But you watch her grow up.  She is good with kids and helping others learn.  Those are bigger indications that she may well be great as a teacher.  But, on the other side, if no one ever tells her that she has those talents and skills, she may well think they are worthless and go searching elsewhere for something to be good at and feel good about.  On the personality side, you may have a child who is extra quiet and tries very hard to be wise.  The child will be named something that fits those personality traits.


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It is now very late, and I am very tired.  But I have tried to finish my thoughts the best I can.  I may come back and revise this post, but then again, I may be lazy and not come back.  You never know.


~ Rose Stitch
(Started Sat, Sep 17, 2011)
0148 Wed, Sep 21, 2011

Can You Believe It? I'm NOT Alone!

Oh my goodness!  I'm shocked!  I thought I was the only one who had to deal with that.  That desire to be great and marvelous all around and totally falling short on all but a few things.

When I'm doing better, I know I'm fantastic at English, great at Math that isn't geometry, horrible at writing an English essay/research paper because it's a totally different format than I write, good at singing (if I'm warmed up well), very organized when certain people aren't breathing down my neck about it because I don't organize the same way, good at household things like cleaning and ironing and folding clothes, not really great at cooking (mainly because when I was younger I had to cook, and it was always something boring and uninteresting), but I can make something taste good.  I can make jewelry and have lots of fun at it because it takes skill and precision.  I can also write well when I put my mind to it.  I've actually been told I'm a very emotional writer. (More on that later because the story of why I quit makes me mad still.) I'm not sure what else I'm good at.  Well... spelling mostly.  I don't know.

Maybe I'll do what a friend is doing and post on the positive things about me.  It might help.  And it'll keep readers from thinking I'm totally negative because I'm really not.  I've just been through a lot and am having a really hard time sorting through everything and moving on.

~ Rose Stitch
Originally Posted 1646 Fri, Sep 16, 2011

Alone

I have often felt that I am alone in the world.  I am married to the most wonderful man in the world.  I have the smartest, most intelligent cat I've ever met.  I have a good relationship with my mother.  I have several friends though a lot of them have sort of fallen away since I got married.  A lot of them are still there, but they only check in here and there.  I have Facebook with all my "friends" there.  I play my Facebook games and have friends come visit and help me.  I have my fellow wives around me.  We visit and enjoy our times together.  I have my God Who loves me and always has.  And yet, I am still alone.

I have a decent relationship with my father.  I have very little relationship with most of my siblings other than the blood that runs through us.  I have always felt that people watched me and laughed at me, made fun of me the second I was out of earshot.  And sometimes they didn't wait for that.

Wearing the clothes I had to when I was younger, I often was laughed at.  I looked like the freak from the wrong side of Pluto.

I've always tried to be the best of the best.  But my best never got me anywhere.  I got to college and it got me kicked out.  My RA my first year hated me.  I could have died, and I doubt she would have cared.  She scared me so bad I had a panic attack the first time I saw her after she graduated and left the school.  I wasn't right for a month.  The child lives way away from me, and she still scares the life out of me.  I was good friends with my dorm supervisor before I started college.  But she was good friends with my RA and listened to what she said, so I had to give up on that.  And when my clueless dorm counselor got in on the deal after a family issue was wrongly taken to school officials, everything slowly started crashing down around me.  My last semester was total hell on earth minus a couple of friends and my favorite classes.  And I got kicked out.

My attitude was right for a while, but then I became angry because I wanted to finish just one thing in my life.  I didn't start college so I could watch my work pass me by.  I started college to earn a degree and finish something.  With everything I've ever done, I've left something undone.  Everything.  I just wanted to finish one thing.  What was so wrong with that?  Granted, I know God was working a lot of things out of that, but it still hurts.  Like so many other men, my husband is being kicked out of the Army for various reason, and he is hurt and angry about it.  And I can't blame him.  He joined the Army to do something.  To be something.  And when you can't finish what you started, it does hurt.  God designed humans to finish their tasks, and when we are unable to do that, it can really mess us up.

So with pain and pain and more pain on top of everything else, I feel alone.  I'm scared of living.  I'm scared of dying.  I'm scared of being wrong.  I'm scared of being right.  I'm so confused and afraid.  I want to be successful.  I want to take care of my family.  But I'm afraid of being successful.  And I've had two miscarriages.  What family do I have to take care of?  My husband is amazing.  He can do practically whatever he wants to do and be fine.  He does need me that much.  I'm just a piece of flesh that has a soul.  I sit and play games on the computer, trying to beat out everyone else because that's the only thing I feel like I'm successful at.  That's the only thing I'm not afraid of. I bury myself in my games, trying to beat myself and everyone else, and my husband is jealous of the computer because I give it more time than I give him.  I feel like a failure as a wife, a mother, a human, and a Christian.  I feel alone.  And until yesterday, I was.  I still feel alone, but it's not quite as bad as it was.

There is so much more I could write, but I'm so overwhelmed right now that I can't write it all.

~ Rose Stitch
Originally Posted 1241 Fri, Sep 16, 2011

First Post

Finally I have created my "cheap therapy".  Finally.  Maybe.  I can heal.

Sometimes my notes will sound sensible and logical.  Sometimes they will be a mishmash of feelings or thoughts I've had for a long time.

Today it will probably be the latter.  I'm stuck in bed a bad sciatic nerve issue due to a fall, so take anything I say with the knowledge that I'm extra frustrated today.

~ Rose Stitch
Originally Posted 1210 Fri, Sep 16, 2011