To my family

Dear Mom, Dad, Bonnie, Bobby, Betsy, and Mommom,

I wanted to share a brief moment of my thoughts while with you this past weekend. I so enjoyed your company more than I ever have, and I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for waiting on me to get to that point.
Thank you for waiting with me.
Thank you for waiting.
Thank you.


Journaled Thanksgiving Day 11/22/07


This morning has been awesome. We've all been hanging out in the kitchen, 1st over breakfast, and now everyone is getting together their contribution for Thanksgiving dinner. We're eating at 1pm and Uncle Bill and Aunt Teri and the kids are coming over. I have so much enjoyed being with my family, and I just keep trying so hard to live in each moment. Maybe too hard. but it's like everything is going by so fast, and I can't take it all in.
I'm in the living room right now, by the fire, and everyone is scurrying around in the kitchen. I can hear Bonnie repeating herself... "Here's the brown sugar, mom. Here's the brown sugar!" Mom keeps trying to show Bobby how to do something. The dogs are locked in the other room because Min (foreign exchange student) is deathly afraid of dogs. It must be so hard to live in such fear. But in all honesty, I think we are all deathly afraid of something... some things are just more outwardly expressed than others.
There's candles lit all over the house and it smells like the holidays. The music has been playing throughout the house, but it seems to have stopped at this moment.
I think I'll go fix it.
Or maybe I'll just sit here in silence with the noise of my family in the background... which reminds me of how thankful I am this Thanksgiving, and everyday for that matter. I have so much to be thankful for. Above all, my family.
I have an incredible family, and I'm starting to wonder why I'm sitting in here journaling when I could be hanging out with them. I guess I just never want to forget this.

---------------------------------------------------

That was just one moment out of many.
I know y'all know that over the years isolation has become quite a comfort zone for me. I naturally tend to isolate, if not intentionally. This weekend, being with y'all, my family, not only made isolation uncomfortable, but unwanted. Thank you.

I love y'all!
Love, JJ

You

You are imperfectly known,
but I am perfectly loved.

You are the rock that I trust like quicksand.

You are the future that I fear and the mystery that I hope for.

I pray You are the right that shows me I am wrong.

You believe in my unbelief,
and You love what can't be exposed.

You are the music too beautiful to be heard.

You are the love too strong to understand.

You have forgiven me too simply for me to accept.

You hold my hand that has not been washed.

Your voice is so loud that it comes in silence.

You broke what I thought had been whole,
You made whole what had really been broken.

I gave You reason to walk away,
You came closer.

I pushed You away,
You pulled me with you.

I try to earn what You have already given me.

It's hard to love you because you love me so easily.

I boast that I know You, but don't act like I care.
I act like I care, but don't boast that I know You.

You let me rest when I try too hard.
You let me rest when I don't try at all.

My life is Your workmanship,
Your life is my performance.

My life is Your work,
Your life is my job...

And again, I try to earn what I have already been given.

You scare me.
You suprise me.

You take what I want and You give what I need.

I hate what I need and I love what I want.

I love to disagree with You,
and I agree I don't know better.

I think that I know,
You know what I think.

You know what I think...
and You love me.

Your love is always consistent,
I can never decide.

You love commitment,
I like my options.

You offer life,
I offer nothing.
You accept.

And despite who I am to myself and to others,

You love, love, love me.

silence

My heart is broken and I don't know why.



I feel an emptiness. An emptiness that I assume "Christians" are not supposed to feel because God is supposed to fill them. None the less, here I find myself... a "Christian," deeply in love with God, yet still alone and still broken hearted.



I know, I know... God promises to fill me. It's not that I don't think He doesn't, it's that I don't feel it, which unfortunately God never promised I would.



It seems like almost everytime I blog I'm feeling down, but I guess that's just when I feel inspired to write. I do have good days, and one of these days I'm hoping to feel that inspiration on a good day, but for now this is all I can do to medicate my loneliness.



My mind is blank, but I guess I'm hoping that if I keep typing, something that makes sense will pop out.







I got nothing.







I'm going to face my fear and sit in silence.

whatever

I made a commitment back in October to not date for a year. I know. I, myself, used to make fun of such an idea.

But the question isn't whether or not it's a good idea, but what is the motivation behind it?

For me, I was proud to announce that my motivation to make such a commitment was to get to know God more, and develop our relationship, and myself, and discover what God has for me... actually, that's if a Christian or someone from church asked, then I was proud to give such an answer. To be honest, I think I was so proud that I didn't even wait to be asked, I just slipped it into casual conversation as an FYI.

I don't even think people outside of church knew I made such a commitment. It's easy for me to boast of Christ behind the church doors. I've done it all my life. The hard part is when it's time to boast outside of those doors. Living "outside of the box" (literally) has taken on a whole new meaning to me.

So in all honesty... motivation #1... I want people to think I'm great. And in my mind I must have to do something in order for people to feel that way about me. Why do I keep trying to do all these things to make me a better person? And why do I care so much? I feel like that frustrates me more than anything... how much I care about what other people think.

And motivation #2... it's a defense mechanism. Most people who know me know that I don't really date in the first place... but not really on purpose... kinda by default. I know that I am at a place in my life where I don't need to be involved in a relationship or anything, but there comes a time in a girl's life where regardless of what she needs, she atleast wants to feel desirable. Which is where I find myself.

While in my eating disorder I lost all intrest in the idea of relationships... especially romantic ones. I could not comprehend what intimacy meant, emotionally or physically. I was in such a different mental state that the idea of of even being touched literally discusted me. I lost contact with a lot of friends, and I lost any type of feeling that invovled anyone other than myself.

The more I work my way into recovery, the more I find myself getting those feelings back, those desires back. My inital reaction is that it is wrong to feel that way, but it's not. It's normal. It's life. It's human... something I try so hard not to be sometimes (because I try so hard to be perfect).

So, since I have those desires, but they don't seem to be returned, I protect myself. Instead of facing my fear that I may not be desirable, I put up a guard. A wall. A barrier, with a spiritual disquise so that not only can I protect myself, I can be thought of as great in the process... maybe even desirable.

I don't have to face any form of rejection because I have already placed the restriction "well, I'm not dating anyway." It no longer matters if someone likes me or not because I beat them to it. I made the decision not to be available. I took control.

I took control... away from God.

Again.

So how do I give it back? How do I, once again, let it go?

What do I need to do?

I think once again God's answer is... "nothing."

He's asking me to live. He's asking me to be.


Yes... Again.

So it's not that I'm making a commitment or taking back a commitment or trying to figure out what I need to do in order to please God (and others)... I'm just going to live and see where God takes me. I'm just going to be and see what happens in the process. The Beatles once sang that "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Every time I make plans, life happens. Every time I make plans, God butts in... in a polite way, but none the less he interupts my way of doing things.

Thank God.



So basically what I'm trying to say is... "whatever!"

Which is exactly what I say when I throw my hands up and let it go.



-------------------------------------------------------------

(if you're wondering what I decided to do about that commitment... I didn't decide to do anything. I decided to live my life.)

Love?

I fall in love with everyone...

With the guy who plays drums at church... the guy I hand his coffee to at work... the guy I stand next to in line... and even the guy driving in the lane next to me.

I know it's not actually love...

It's a feeling... something that I hear love is not.

It's the idea of falling in love I fall in love with.

I fall in love with love when I see these guys in real life, or in the movies. When they smile at me, or say "thank you." When they laugh real hard, or hug their mom. I fall in love with the way they wear that hat, or play with their hair. I fall in love with the way they play an instrument with such passion that it awakens something in all those that listen.

It doesn't take much for me to fall in love with love... sometimes it's an accent, or a 5 o'clock shadow. Sometimes it's a fragrance, or a close clean shave. And sometimes it's just a colorful pair of shoes. Sometimes it's even as simple as seeing a left hand with no promise attached to it.

I fall in love with the guy who reads his bible every day, and I fall in love with the guy who's never even picked it up.

I fall in love with the country boy, the city slicker, the beach bum, and the shy guy. The people person, the class clown, the home-body, and the world traveler. I fall in love with whoever will fall in love with me.

My standards... Love me!

And this is where I ask myself... is that really love? Loving someone based on the way they love me? If they love me? How they love me? Why they love me?

My answer... I do not know what love is.

I know the feelings I get, I know the emptiness I feel, and I know the neediness I have. But I do not know love as a selfless act or a daily choice regardless of the feeling involved in that moment.

Is love real?

I believe so. If God is love, love has to be real. To not believe in love is to not believe in God. Love is who God is.

So if God is love, what does it mean to be in love?

To be in love is to be in Christ.

Love cannot work, cannot exist without Christ at the core.

We can not be in love without first being in Christ.

So am I in love with these guys? No. I am in love with a feeling. I am in love with escaping reality, even if just for a moment. I am in love with a dream that God promises to make a reality when I fall in love with Him. When I live my life in Christ, and not in love.

In other words, accept that fact that to live in love is not to live in Christ, but to live in Christ is to live in love.

Brandi Carlile

I think it's funny when I get phone calls from people and they ask if I still like church. It's usually people that know me real well, like family, because they know I go through phases, and maybe are wondering how long this church one is going to last. I've gone through the church phase before, so the fact that I am in church may not be such a suprise, but the fact that I keep going even suprises myself.


Let me rephrase that...


The fact that I keep going because I really want to go suprises me.


Growing up as a preacher's kid, you learn to go to church whether you really want to or not. Rebelling as a preacher's kid, you learn you have your own choices and will one day face a decision... do I really believe this, and despite what my parents want for my life, do I want to live my life this way?


Honestly, it's been hard for me to break away from my parent's faith. Probably because we share the same faith... but I'm trying to learn how to make that faith my own and not just something I was raised to believe.


It's hard.


It's hard because I have something engrained into who I am that I've tried to break away from yet tried to find at the same time.


I wonder if God is actually asking me to do either, or if this is just another expectation I have put on myself.


It's like I have this unwritten list of things I need to accomplish...

#1 Recover
#2 Know God
#3 Make God #1


I expect myself to do these things and to do so in a timely manner... as if it's a certain point I'm trying to get to. A point of accomplishment, a point of perfection, a point of complete obedience to God.


A point that is non existant. So if it doesn't exist, why am I trying so hard?


I'm trying to get past the hard stuff to the place where I look back and say "oh yea, remember those days, they were tough, but I made it!"


I realize in my attempt to try and get past the hard stuff, I'm attempting to get past life itself. I'm not living it, I'm trying to get through it.


The "point" that I wrote about is a place I believe I will get to, but not here. Not while I'm alive. Not while I'm human. And certainly not while I'm JJ (or Jennie Joy or just Jennie, or whatever name anyone knows me by).


By trying to get through this life, I am trying to hurry up get to the next one. And believe me, I want to go to Heaven, but in all honesty I don't necessarily want to go right now. SO much of my recovery is about wanting to live, and not just one day in heaven, but here and now. Not just getting through this life, but living it!


I was sitting by the river yesterday listening to my favorite singer. I love nature, but the silence is so loud. I had a revelation from the words of her music...

"I'm going to live until I die!"

let her be

Normally when I blog I am listening to some type of music. Normally when I read my bible I am listening to some type of music. Normally when I drive in my car... I am listening to some type of music.

I am obessed with music.

But now I'm sitting here in silence, and it feels awkward. I don't even know if I know what to say since I don't have the music to move me. I just feel blah.

I've got so many thoughts going through my head that I don't even know where to start.

I barely ate today... I think that's why I feel so down, and so speechless. I have nothing profound or encouraging to say because... I don't care. Why am I taking care of myself again?

I know... "this too shall pass..." but it still sucks in the moment. No wonder we always want quick fixes.

This is so hard. It's so hard to just be! I don't even have to do anything, just being is hard!

I'm having a hard time being me right now. I'm having a hard time being alone. I'm having a hard time being in silence. I'm having a hard time just being.

What does that mean... "Be still and know that I am God."


It doesn't say stay still, or act still, or look still... scripture says be still. So this is who I am supposed to be... I'm supposed to be still and know that He is God. (not me.)

Nike says "just do it!"... a motto I used to live by.

God says "just be!"

To whom it may concern...

"For you I'd wait, till kingdom come.
Until my days, my days are done.
And say you'll come and set me free.
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me!"


-coldplay

perfect

Written 10/7/07

I don't want to die.


I really don't want to die.


I don't want my friends to die.


I really don't want my friends to die.


We don't want to die, yet we find it hard wanting to live.


So what are we supposed to do?

While in my eating disorder I was dead while I was living.

I wanted neither... neither life nor death, so my only solution was to have both... suffer "death" while living.

I'm lost for words. I don't even know where to begin. There's so much I want to say right now. I feel the need to continue to help people understand the severity of this disease, YES, DISEASE, ILLNESS!!!!

in an attempt to exlpain...

those of you who know me know how full of life I am. I love to laugh, sing, joke, dance, goof off. I believe that God had given me passion for himself and for life. I believe that I am fully alive.

8 months ago.... you would have met a completely different person.

You would have met a hollow shell.

I couldn't laugh. I couldn't joke. I was afraid of people. I was afraid to talk to people. I was so overwhelmed with anxiety and depression. I didn't want friends because they got in the way of my "diet." I was too depressed to cry. I never smiled. My favorite part of the day was going to sleep... the worst part... waking up. And that's if I could sleep... my obession controlled my every thought and so I would wake up in a panic almost every hour to see if it was time for me to run yet. I was tired all the time. I had no energy. I was always freezing cold, even during the end of the summer (in the south). The only thing that encouraged me was hearing people say I looked sick, I was too skinny, and I needed to eat. In my sick mind, these were compliments. But at the same time, they made me angry, because I couldn't understand why people were "lying" to me.



fast forward...
11/1/07

I think I wanted to end this piece with my "success" story and where I am now. But I never finished this writing. I have a lot of unfinished entries like this. I figure my writings are a lot like my recovery... just when I think I'm done, I realize there's more to do. I also realize that I, myself, will never actually be quite finished... at least not on this side of heaven. Sometimes I get frustrated at the thought, especially since I invest so much time and energy into being perfect. But God reminded me of something the other day... when I try so hard to be perfect, I'm not allowing God to be God. If I was perfect, I wouldn't need God.

Here I am trying to impress Him, but I'm starting to wonder if what He really hears me say is "see, I don't need you!"

So back to that girl... the one I wrote about with all the issues... I realize... she is so not beneath me. I am still her and I am still capable of living the life she lived... the difference?

It's not her life anymore.

It's been surrendered...

but it hasn't been perfected.

I still need God just has much as I did as when I was deep in my illness.

And I've decided... If being perfect means living a life that doesn't need God... I don't want to be perfect. Ever.


(atleast not on this side of heaven)