we're getting close to the 200 day mark.
whew.
it's getting real.
it's getting SO real!
:-)
YC
25 September 2012
20 September 2012
18 September 2012
clothes in the dryer.
lol.
smh.
one footstep at a time, man. just one foot in front of the other. even as the gate gets narrower.
let me go and do some work.
YC
smh.
one footstep at a time, man. just one foot in front of the other. even as the gate gets narrower.
let me go and do some work.
YC
this morning i had two dreams.
the first one involved me at some very large hotel. inside of the hotel were a bunch of middle eastern people. they looked like muslims...maybe indian people. some had on turbans......most of them were men....
one of them was my friend and his name was tariq.....he was muslim...wore the garb....i was trying to convince him to become Christian....he said eventually he would...we were checking out of the hotel. the lady at the front desk also happened to be the teacher next door to me, nicole, who is jewish. he grabbed a purple rose from the decorations outside and said he would like to give on to her....then jokingly said something about after they fell in love, he would make her convert to Christianity. we were standing in the front desk line again, when i noticed a stir among some people. he didn't notice it, but as i began to look around, there were quick movements of men. something was happening, but not everyone was supposed to know.
i grabbed tariq and told him to come on...we had to leave the hotel. as we ran down the stairs to the door, we heard a major explosion and water just came out of nowhere. i thought the building would be decimated but it was water....the water rushed through the hotel doors and swept tariq away. standing right next to me. it's almost as if it was sent to wipe certain people out. one second he was standing next to me and the next second, the water swept him up into the air and killed him.
the water kept coming and wiping out groups of people. the entire time though, even when it seemed like the water was close, i did not die.
i found a side closet door in the hotel, and hid in there. with me were two gentlemen who had on the garb. they looked indian this time. we hid in there safely.
then my alarm rang for 4:30. i reset it for 5.
in those 30 minutes, i had another dream about a bomb. it started off with me in some sort of bunker, feeding children (i suppose students) food. i would cut up the food into pieces and feed it to them. it was dark in there but somehow we were hiding.
then the dream transitioned to me being in the middle of the ocean, looking at a large floating house on a vast expanse of water. there were people on it....they looked southeast asian...maybe filipino or something...dark skinned but asian......grilling, laughing, cooking out.....
then boom! their ship exploded as well, and they began swimming towards another ship. some were dead in the water, while some, along with myself, swam over to to another ship. on it was a guy who looked as if he was the same race as the guys on the other ship. however, he was formally dressed in some sort of formal military attire.....he had four stars on the shoulder of his jacket and on his lapel had his initials...
M.A.N.
i asked him what that meant....
and then i woke up.
God told me to write it down.
one of them was my friend and his name was tariq.....he was muslim...wore the garb....i was trying to convince him to become Christian....he said eventually he would...we were checking out of the hotel. the lady at the front desk also happened to be the teacher next door to me, nicole, who is jewish. he grabbed a purple rose from the decorations outside and said he would like to give on to her....then jokingly said something about after they fell in love, he would make her convert to Christianity. we were standing in the front desk line again, when i noticed a stir among some people. he didn't notice it, but as i began to look around, there were quick movements of men. something was happening, but not everyone was supposed to know.
i grabbed tariq and told him to come on...we had to leave the hotel. as we ran down the stairs to the door, we heard a major explosion and water just came out of nowhere. i thought the building would be decimated but it was water....the water rushed through the hotel doors and swept tariq away. standing right next to me. it's almost as if it was sent to wipe certain people out. one second he was standing next to me and the next second, the water swept him up into the air and killed him.
the water kept coming and wiping out groups of people. the entire time though, even when it seemed like the water was close, i did not die.
i found a side closet door in the hotel, and hid in there. with me were two gentlemen who had on the garb. they looked indian this time. we hid in there safely.
then my alarm rang for 4:30. i reset it for 5.
in those 30 minutes, i had another dream about a bomb. it started off with me in some sort of bunker, feeding children (i suppose students) food. i would cut up the food into pieces and feed it to them. it was dark in there but somehow we were hiding.
then the dream transitioned to me being in the middle of the ocean, looking at a large floating house on a vast expanse of water. there were people on it....they looked southeast asian...maybe filipino or something...dark skinned but asian......grilling, laughing, cooking out.....
then boom! their ship exploded as well, and they began swimming towards another ship. some were dead in the water, while some, along with myself, swam over to to another ship. on it was a guy who looked as if he was the same race as the guys on the other ship. however, he was formally dressed in some sort of formal military attire.....he had four stars on the shoulder of his jacket and on his lapel had his initials...
M.A.N.
i asked him what that meant....
and then i woke up.
God told me to write it down.
15 September 2012
the glasses were a trigger.
december 17th, 2005.
my white suit that i had to lie down for.
in the mud accidentally by the mishandling of my then soon-to-be line sister.
dang.
she got the silent treatment all night too.
we almost came to fisticuffs that night.
we lived together the next year and barely said anything to one another.
but i was jealous of her...and couldn't express it.
i just acted that same way with you.
forgive me.
please.
yvonne
december 17th, 2005.
my white suit that i had to lie down for.
in the mud accidentally by the mishandling of my then soon-to-be line sister.
dang.
she got the silent treatment all night too.
we almost came to fisticuffs that night.
we lived together the next year and barely said anything to one another.
but i was jealous of her...and couldn't express it.
i just acted that same way with you.
forgive me.
please.
yvonne
13 September 2012
fatigued but i keep on pushing.
it seems as if as soon as i sit down to catch my breathe, there's something else to do. today, i just turned down the offer to moderate an after school club because i feel like i'm at my maximum already. i'd rather focus on a few things and do them really well than do a whole bunch of stuff really badly.
i guess you're stretching me God. i know i won't pop or crack or give in to the pressure.
just....God....help me. please.
please.
i used to cry when i felt this way...now i'mma just pray.
and i'm going to sleep.
goodnight.
i guess you're stretching me God. i know i won't pop or crack or give in to the pressure.
just....God....help me. please.
please.
i used to cry when i felt this way...now i'mma just pray.
and i'm going to sleep.
goodnight.
08 September 2012
i forgot about this song....but it's the way i feel...
"...love's my permission to be who i am...no inhibitions 'cuz you understand..."
everything i prayed for.
and i'm so blessed. and this evening...after flowers delivered to my job...after tea at starbucks...after conversation....
it felt like it used to feel....but better. and right. and pure. and good.
"...freedom to breathe, oh baby...love is you...."
Thank You Lord....
Thank You Lord....
03 September 2012
the struggle
For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For i have the desire to do what is good, but i cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing....So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin and death...
Romans 7.
i have always been fascinated by this scripture, even since i was first born-again and began reading the Bible. in "MY" first Bible, a king james version which now sits on my windowsill, dusty and unused, this chapter is highlighted and underlined....even in my spiritual infancy, when i knew little of the deep things of God, i felt Paul struggle for real. the top of the page even has a by-line: "The Christian Struggle". and is this not the struggle indeed....God, i desire to good...you know I do...but everytime i want to do good, sin is right there all up IN MY FACE trying to get me to do the wrong thing...and sometimes I succumb, because Lord knows I'm not strong enough to face temptation myself. plain and simple. i am not. every time i've tried to handle that situation on my own...bam. plow. boom. yea....no. failed. so yes, i am a wretched man. this heart of mine is desperately wicked. who can know it? but as verse 25 says, THANKS BE TO GOD who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
the book tells me to explain where i am in this struggle against sin and lay myself before the Lord. then, i must pray to Him and ask Him to not only shield me from wordly passions, but to also teach my while i read the book. it also tells me (in chapter 2) to confess where Satan has deceived me about sexuality.
so here goes...where am i? how have i been deceived?
i have been struggling. since I was 9 or 10.
the summer that I turned 10. 1997. Dallas, texas. We moved from Maryland to texas the summer of 1996. It only took one year for our family to be ravaged. My mother filed for divorce from my father. She moved out of the 2 bedroom apartment down the road to a one bedroom of her own. I stayed with my father, who was either crying or intoxicated….vacillating between self-pity, depression and rage. My brother went to live with my mother. Even though we were literally one apartment complex and a five minute walk away, we might as well have lived in different worlds. I saw her once…maybe twice a week. My brother and I switched. I spent the weekends at my mother’s and my brother went to visit my dad.
My mother was a registered nurse who worked the night shift at the veterans administration hospital in dallas. One Saturday night, she left me alone in our first floor apartment on her way to work. As she closed the door, all I could hear was my father’s voice in my head… “don’t watch those shows late night. She has HBO and showtime….that’s nothing but garbage that comes on at night”…..
I had NO idea what he was talking about…and yet, I was intrigued. I wanted to know. It’s almost like Eve in the garden…she received simple and plain instructions, and yet, the devil tempted her by telling her the exact opposite. Somewhere in my mind, I figured that my father’s instructions weren’t worth anything….that whatever was on that television wasn’t harmful. Whatever was on that television wasn’t insidious enough to wreak major havoc in my life….i was only 9 turning 10. I was young. I was innocent. I had no understanding of good and evil….i just knew what I was told not to do…and I disobeyed.
I don’t remember what exactly was on. Probably one of those infamous soft porn movies with D level actors and even worse acting….a crappy plot line that only provides the tenuous strings that attach a series of simulated sex scenes. At 10….i was enthralled. I had just begun my period….hormones that I didn’t know I had were raging inside of me….i watched….and I orgasmed…and I wanted to do it again and again…
Little did I know that this would begin a decade-long addiction to pornography that was only broken within the past year. I would only look at it when I was lonely….not just alone, but when I felt lonely…when I felt things weren’t going right….when I needed a fix…and I would shower afterwards….because I felt dirty. Never clean. Always dirty.
And then came the relationships…if you want to call them that. I’ve had sex with men and women. My first sexual encounter with a man was on Saturday, October 9, 2004 with a man who was twice my age. I met him about two or three years prior…because I was lonely…home by myself….on a chat line…and I gave him my number…and he wouldn’t stop calling me. We remained friends but never met. He said that I intrigued him. I liked his conversation when we did talk from time to time. I had an internship the summer before I went off to college. An older man, recently married with 2 or 3 kids began showing interest in me. He would make comments about my legs…he said they were nice…that I had nice knees….that I would be the right size after I gained a little weight…in a few years….
Now, as I look back, I realize he was a sexual predator….when I went off to college, he would call me from time to time…and I knew that he wasn’t right. All he wanted to talk about was sex….
But he was the first man to ever take me out on a date….my last day of work, we went to a nice steak house.....but we never did anything…he made me feel like the piece of meat on his plate…his ways were way to obvious…so the enemy had to use another tactic…more slick to take what he wanted….my virtue…my virginity.
I told the guy from the chat line…who confessed that he’d always liked me….i called him as soon as I returned from the date…he told me that I should give him a try….this whole time, I’d never been with a man…might as well give my virginity to someone I knew, right? We began talking more and more…I went away to school…and again, felt lonely….needed to have a grip on something I knew…something that could comfort me in a strange new place….so we planned to see each other for the first time ever….Columbus Day weekend…fall break at school…I came home…I was meticulous…preparing myself outwardly to be examined….to be taken stock of…to be looked over as if I were…a piece of meat…and he like what he saw…of course, I was young, slender but shapely, brown, pretty girl, pretty smile, unspoiled. Sweet but sexy…
I didn’t like what I saw…he was older…his rich, deep voice didn’t really match his smaller frame…and everything that I’d built up about him in my head sort of deflated…like a balloon…one that I struggled to inflate during the next few years….but at that point, I saw all of his shortcomings….
But I was already in this deep…I couldn’t back down now…I’d talked a good game…besides, what would he think of me if I said no…I had to go through with it. and we did....he took me to…a steak house (see a pattern here?)…I drove because he didn’t have a car…(a pattern that I’d continue into real adulthood)…got back to his house he shared with his cousin, her two kids, baby’s father and a boarder named Anne. He had his own room. A mattress and box spring…on the floor…not supported by a frame. And when we got to the room, he began to undress me….and I got that dirty feeling again. Wasn’t this supposed to be romantic like all those times I’d seen on the tv? Wasn’t I supposed to be sighing with ecstasy? Wasn’t this supposed to be pleasurable? I didn’t have ONE CLUE what I was doing…I just knew what I saw on the movies…the soft porns….
I remember once in high school, he’d sent me a couple of “real” ones on VHS…I’d sneak and watch them on a small television at night when my father was sleeping….i hid them underneath my bed….my father found one….and instead of reprimanding me…he told me… “there will be time for all of that…”….
My boyfriend (I guess), began to kiss me and say dirty things to me which I guess was supposed to turn me on…it didn’t. I was so afraid of it hurting that I’m not sure he was able to even get inside of me. If he was, I know it hurt….it was dry….it was quite unpleasurable.
Eventually, it became pleasurable…..i called myself loving him….but eventually he wasn’t enough. My second sexual encounter found me screwed over and the laughing stock among several men who I do not have the desire to ever see again….one second I was a beauty queen…the next minute, I’m entertaining a frat brother in my hotel room….didn’t I know what he wanted? Didn’t he get what he wanted? Hyped me up with a fantasy…gave me the okie doke, hit it, quit it, and he called me when I made it back to school out of courtesy.
I was pissed. I was hurt. I was vulnerable. Then I figured it all out. Sex was a game. It wasn’t valuable at all. It was a trinket to be wielded at the right time…to get what you want. People didn’t take it seriously at all. It had no value to me at all. And so, instead of treasuring it…treasuring my purity, I pursued my sexual desires….i pursued the flesh….my first partner wasn’t enough.
Romans 7.
i have always been fascinated by this scripture, even since i was first born-again and began reading the Bible. in "MY" first Bible, a king james version which now sits on my windowsill, dusty and unused, this chapter is highlighted and underlined....even in my spiritual infancy, when i knew little of the deep things of God, i felt Paul struggle for real. the top of the page even has a by-line: "The Christian Struggle". and is this not the struggle indeed....God, i desire to good...you know I do...but everytime i want to do good, sin is right there all up IN MY FACE trying to get me to do the wrong thing...and sometimes I succumb, because Lord knows I'm not strong enough to face temptation myself. plain and simple. i am not. every time i've tried to handle that situation on my own...bam. plow. boom. yea....no. failed. so yes, i am a wretched man. this heart of mine is desperately wicked. who can know it? but as verse 25 says, THANKS BE TO GOD who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
the book tells me to explain where i am in this struggle against sin and lay myself before the Lord. then, i must pray to Him and ask Him to not only shield me from wordly passions, but to also teach my while i read the book. it also tells me (in chapter 2) to confess where Satan has deceived me about sexuality.
so here goes...where am i? how have i been deceived?
i have been struggling. since I was 9 or 10.
the summer that I turned 10. 1997. Dallas, texas. We moved from Maryland to texas the summer of 1996. It only took one year for our family to be ravaged. My mother filed for divorce from my father. She moved out of the 2 bedroom apartment down the road to a one bedroom of her own. I stayed with my father, who was either crying or intoxicated….vacillating between self-pity, depression and rage. My brother went to live with my mother. Even though we were literally one apartment complex and a five minute walk away, we might as well have lived in different worlds. I saw her once…maybe twice a week. My brother and I switched. I spent the weekends at my mother’s and my brother went to visit my dad.
My mother was a registered nurse who worked the night shift at the veterans administration hospital in dallas. One Saturday night, she left me alone in our first floor apartment on her way to work. As she closed the door, all I could hear was my father’s voice in my head… “don’t watch those shows late night. She has HBO and showtime….that’s nothing but garbage that comes on at night”…..
I had NO idea what he was talking about…and yet, I was intrigued. I wanted to know. It’s almost like Eve in the garden…she received simple and plain instructions, and yet, the devil tempted her by telling her the exact opposite. Somewhere in my mind, I figured that my father’s instructions weren’t worth anything….that whatever was on that television wasn’t harmful. Whatever was on that television wasn’t insidious enough to wreak major havoc in my life….i was only 9 turning 10. I was young. I was innocent. I had no understanding of good and evil….i just knew what I was told not to do…and I disobeyed.
I don’t remember what exactly was on. Probably one of those infamous soft porn movies with D level actors and even worse acting….a crappy plot line that only provides the tenuous strings that attach a series of simulated sex scenes. At 10….i was enthralled. I had just begun my period….hormones that I didn’t know I had were raging inside of me….i watched….and I orgasmed…and I wanted to do it again and again…
Little did I know that this would begin a decade-long addiction to pornography that was only broken within the past year. I would only look at it when I was lonely….not just alone, but when I felt lonely…when I felt things weren’t going right….when I needed a fix…and I would shower afterwards….because I felt dirty. Never clean. Always dirty.
And then came the relationships…if you want to call them that. I’ve had sex with men and women. My first sexual encounter with a man was on Saturday, October 9, 2004 with a man who was twice my age. I met him about two or three years prior…because I was lonely…home by myself….on a chat line…and I gave him my number…and he wouldn’t stop calling me. We remained friends but never met. He said that I intrigued him. I liked his conversation when we did talk from time to time. I had an internship the summer before I went off to college. An older man, recently married with 2 or 3 kids began showing interest in me. He would make comments about my legs…he said they were nice…that I had nice knees….that I would be the right size after I gained a little weight…in a few years….
Now, as I look back, I realize he was a sexual predator….when I went off to college, he would call me from time to time…and I knew that he wasn’t right. All he wanted to talk about was sex….
But he was the first man to ever take me out on a date….my last day of work, we went to a nice steak house.....but we never did anything…he made me feel like the piece of meat on his plate…his ways were way to obvious…so the enemy had to use another tactic…more slick to take what he wanted….my virtue…my virginity.
I told the guy from the chat line…who confessed that he’d always liked me….i called him as soon as I returned from the date…he told me that I should give him a try….this whole time, I’d never been with a man…might as well give my virginity to someone I knew, right? We began talking more and more…I went away to school…and again, felt lonely….needed to have a grip on something I knew…something that could comfort me in a strange new place….so we planned to see each other for the first time ever….Columbus Day weekend…fall break at school…I came home…I was meticulous…preparing myself outwardly to be examined….to be taken stock of…to be looked over as if I were…a piece of meat…and he like what he saw…of course, I was young, slender but shapely, brown, pretty girl, pretty smile, unspoiled. Sweet but sexy…
I didn’t like what I saw…he was older…his rich, deep voice didn’t really match his smaller frame…and everything that I’d built up about him in my head sort of deflated…like a balloon…one that I struggled to inflate during the next few years….but at that point, I saw all of his shortcomings….
But I was already in this deep…I couldn’t back down now…I’d talked a good game…besides, what would he think of me if I said no…I had to go through with it. and we did....he took me to…a steak house (see a pattern here?)…I drove because he didn’t have a car…(a pattern that I’d continue into real adulthood)…got back to his house he shared with his cousin, her two kids, baby’s father and a boarder named Anne. He had his own room. A mattress and box spring…on the floor…not supported by a frame. And when we got to the room, he began to undress me….and I got that dirty feeling again. Wasn’t this supposed to be romantic like all those times I’d seen on the tv? Wasn’t I supposed to be sighing with ecstasy? Wasn’t this supposed to be pleasurable? I didn’t have ONE CLUE what I was doing…I just knew what I saw on the movies…the soft porns….
I remember once in high school, he’d sent me a couple of “real” ones on VHS…I’d sneak and watch them on a small television at night when my father was sleeping….i hid them underneath my bed….my father found one….and instead of reprimanding me…he told me… “there will be time for all of that…”….
My boyfriend (I guess), began to kiss me and say dirty things to me which I guess was supposed to turn me on…it didn’t. I was so afraid of it hurting that I’m not sure he was able to even get inside of me. If he was, I know it hurt….it was dry….it was quite unpleasurable.
Eventually, it became pleasurable…..i called myself loving him….but eventually he wasn’t enough. My second sexual encounter found me screwed over and the laughing stock among several men who I do not have the desire to ever see again….one second I was a beauty queen…the next minute, I’m entertaining a frat brother in my hotel room….didn’t I know what he wanted? Didn’t he get what he wanted? Hyped me up with a fantasy…gave me the okie doke, hit it, quit it, and he called me when I made it back to school out of courtesy.
I was pissed. I was hurt. I was vulnerable. Then I figured it all out. Sex was a game. It wasn’t valuable at all. It was a trinket to be wielded at the right time…to get what you want. People didn’t take it seriously at all. It had no value to me at all. And so, instead of treasuring it…treasuring my purity, I pursued my sexual desires….i pursued the flesh….my first partner wasn’t enough.
the book that Deac. Annell gave to me requires me to journal about my past sexual experiences....the myths that i've interpreted as truths along the way during my life's journey about sex, sexual sin and immorality....lies the enemy told me which ensnared me and kept me captive.
but i know that i am no longer bound to the law of sin and death...rather, it's the law of the spirit...that very same spirit which is working in me and growing in me...that has the power to nullify the former....
Thank you Jesus.
it's cathartic, in a sense, to write down thoughts....revisit the past...dig through the muck and mire to finally arrive at the truth.
some entries i will make public...some i will not...in the end, i know that i and we will be better for it. a part of our prayer during this time of fasting is that God prepares us for marriage....part of our vision is that we remain celibate. this means we cannot give into temptation...nor can we play with fire....can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned?
ha. rhetorical questioning. of course we know the answer.
i thank you God that i will be able to walk down the aisle towards my husband without spot or blemish in your eyes because you are a God of restoration and you make all things new.
so as i crucify this natural flesh...crucify also those lustful and sinful desires in me.
in Jesus' name I ask. amen.
bless You.
YC
but i know that i am no longer bound to the law of sin and death...rather, it's the law of the spirit...that very same spirit which is working in me and growing in me...that has the power to nullify the former....
Thank you Jesus.
it's cathartic, in a sense, to write down thoughts....revisit the past...dig through the muck and mire to finally arrive at the truth.
some entries i will make public...some i will not...in the end, i know that i and we will be better for it. a part of our prayer during this time of fasting is that God prepares us for marriage....part of our vision is that we remain celibate. this means we cannot give into temptation...nor can we play with fire....can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned?
ha. rhetorical questioning. of course we know the answer.
i thank you God that i will be able to walk down the aisle towards my husband without spot or blemish in your eyes because you are a God of restoration and you make all things new.
so as i crucify this natural flesh...crucify also those lustful and sinful desires in me.
in Jesus' name I ask. amen.
bless You.
YC
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