Chapter 11:11

 My favourite colour. The colour of my middle name. The colour of sunshine and pineapple and sunflowers and lemonade and my favourite shirt. There is a particular shade of yellow that is my favourite. I used to wear it often, and people always commented on it and said I look good in that colour. This is no secret. But what people don't know is that yellow has also been one of my biggest and most feared triggers. Because yellow is the colour I was wearing the day the world showed me just how cruel and godless it can be. Yellow became a dirty colour. The colour that triggered panic attacks. The colour in my nightmares. Healing took years. In part, because I refused to admit that damage had been done, and partly because healing just takes longer. Sometimes I could wear yellow, and I'd be okay. And then someone would give me a genuine compliment, not knowing the innocent attention sent me spiralling. I would go home in desperately shove every piece of yellow clothing I owned into t...

 I never want to argue with God. I try sometimes and never win. So I need to lay this topic to rest. This morning during my coffee with God, I began crying, picked up my journal, and wrote the following:  Dear God,  I never now know how to begin when I talk to you because asking about your ay doesn't really work, and created me with a disdain for small talk anyway.  The past few months left me angry and confused and questioning everything I thought I knew. Events that broke me so hard. Events that passed through your hands. That was the most confusing part of it all. But I see now, these things weren't sent to destroy me. You weren't angry with me or trying to punish me. You didn't let these things happen to chuckle behind glass while I wrestled and struggled with a God who didn't live up to my expectations. You let me kick and scream and hurl accusations at you because you're not afraid of my rawest form. You formed me in the secret place of my mother's wom...

(Am I furiously typing instead of tackling my calculous quiz? Absolutely I am. I will regret this later.)  When I was 4 or 5 years old, I remember making a playhouse house under a massive bushy cedar. I climbed as high as Mother would allow into the lilac tree and picked as many clusters of those delightful flowers as I possibly could. I used leaves from the weeping willow tree to make soup for my kittens. We moved around a lot in my growing-up years, but one thing that never changed was my attachment to the trees. During a particularly difficult season of life when I was 12, I was planning to run away from home. But I didn't know where I would go until I remembered a certain tree at the edge of the graveyard behind our house that I had hidden in before and decided that was my Hiding Place. I fell asleep then, planning to climb out of my bedroom window at first light, but after a night of sleep, I decided I'd try one more day at home, and never actually ran away. Most of my tee...

 I haven't been writing because I'm scared of what I'll say. There is no taste more sour than the words of someone who has let grief and pain make them bitter and I, for one, would never write another word if I thought that was who I was becoming. It is hard to be your own judge. We are our own harshest critic. If what I thought of myself was true I would kill myself off to spare the rest of the world from my existence. I'm not being dramatic to make a point, I am serious. I've been so silent and so afraid that I'm not grieving well or in a healthy way. I haven't been able to put words to what I go through. At least not accurate ones. Talking to God is hard because I have nothing to say to Him. My soul feels so naked and exposed and raw and torn and bleeding. I feel like the wounded man on the side of the road, and all the upstanding, God-fearing people go rushing past. I don't say this to shame anyone or make anyone feel bad. I speak of generalities, no...

 I've always been very independent. The thought of being "needy" made me cringe. An "independent woman who needs no man" was my quote of the year for several years in my early teenage life. I did everything I knew how to meet my own needs. I wanted to fix my own car and open my own pickle jar. I didn't want to ask for a hug or be one of those super emotional girls so I learned the art of giving myself a hug. (Google it, it's actually a thing!) I wanted to be known for being many things, but being needy was out of the question.  Looking back I've often tried to figure out where and when I decided it was a weakness to have needs that required other people's help. I'm not exactly sure I know. All I know is that I wanted to be capable. I hated being underestimated. I hated being told I couldn't do something because I was a girl. Few things give me more joy than accomplishing something someone said I wouldn't be able to do. Because somehow...

 "But I'm restless, I'm restless, 'till I rest in You."       My soul connects with the thrashing moody sea in a way it connects with nothing else. Watching the wild waves come crashing in and the wind mercilessly blow anything unstable where ever it chooses, I feel like it understands the turmoil of the human heart. I feel like the chaos in my soul is given permission to rest and I can let the earth and sky do the groaning and thrashing for me. I feel so safe here. I've learned to hold on to and bask in these moments of peace and safety as they pass by and to never take them for granted. The world is a cruel place where sin abounds in heaps and dozens. Even in the church. There is evil and madness and destruction under every tree these days. The vulnerable are crushed and the powerful worshiped. Oh, I get so weary of it all. I long for peace and rest and safety. I know full well 'tis only heaven where these things will be without interruption, so it is fo...