I Gave Up

Surrender... Often during worship we'll say that we surrender to God's will or whatever, but what does that actually look like? Are we saying empty words we don't intend to carry out?
Surrender isn't something to say we're doing just so that we can have a good, fluttery feeling in our stomachs while we sing to God. It isn't lifting your hands, getting on your knees, singing as loud as you can. It isn't tears streaming down your cheeks.

Main Entry: sur·ren·der
Pronunciation: \sə-ˈren-dər\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): sur·ren·dered; sur·ren·der·ing \-d(ə-)riŋ\
Etymology: Middle English surrendren, from surrendre, noun
Date: 15th century
transitive verb 1 a : to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand b : to give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another
2 a : to give (oneself) up into the power of another especially as a prisoner b : to give (oneself) over to something (as an influence)intransitive verb : to give oneself up into the power of another : yield
synonyms see relinquish

Main Entry: re·lin·quish
Pronunciation: \ri-ˈliŋ-kwish, -ˈlin-\
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English relinquisshen, from Anglo-French relinquiss-, stem of relinquir, from Latin relinquere to leave behind, from re- + linquere to leave — more at loan
Date: 15th century
1 : to withdraw or retreat from : leave behind
2 : give up
3 a : to stop holding physically : release b : to give over possession or control of : yield

You can't surrender to God without giving yourself entirely up. This means every pleasure, every craving, every thought, every action, etc. needs to be God's, completely.

I am so guilty of lifting my hands in surrender, and then turning my back as soon as the music stops.

God got on my case about this a little while back. Of course, as gracious and merciful as He is, he actually went as far as to make it easy for me to surrender myself to Him.

(Just as a side note, I'm trying hard not to care about man's opinion of me, but I would really appreciate it if you could please try hard not to judge...
I don't want your reassurances that you love me and care about me, etc. Most people in my life I've known long enough that it's pretty clear who honestly cares about me and who doesn't. I mean, I love being reassured that I'm cared about, but don't reassure me simply because you think it looks like I need it.
Judging includes jumping to conclusions, so don't do that either. Especially if you think you're mentioned. If you are, I've most likely talked to you about it before.)

Without the Lord, my life kinda sucks. I'm not saying that to be negative or anything, it's just the truth. I rarely sleep. Whether it's because of the neighbor's dog that barks into all hours of the night/early morning, my cat, other things going on, or my own mind- there's always something that keeps me awake. I don't really have "friends". I'm burnt out from being the only one who actually cares and constantly being taken advantage of by people who claim to be my better friends and love me. I'm not going to go into more details because I don't believe in slander or gossip, especially when those in question haven't an opportunity to defend themselves, and there's some stuff that I simply don't want to share... But yeah, basically, outside of my Mishpacha in my congregation, my life fell apart.

About a week or so ago, I was pondering all this, and just started sobbing (tearless sobs... I'll explain that later. Or maybe not.). I just gave up. I told God He could take me any time, because life is meaningless now.

I don't even remember what happened the rest of that week.

And then this past Shabbat, everything changed. I really did give up my life.

This week, I'm not reading any books except for my school books and the Bible. I'm spending a lot of time in the Word and in prayer. Not only am I not listening to any secular music, I'm only listening to worship music.

God told me Saturday to go a week like this. I'm starting to want it to last longer.

Anything secular seems meaningless to me right now. While I'll always be an avid lover of anything classic, intricate, complicated- I probably will never throw out my Metallica, Wuthering Heights, or Tomb Raider- it's all pointless and it needs to not be what defines me. If I get through this week and find that I need to listen to that Five Finger Death Punch song or I'll go nuts, I'll go another week without it. I'll go without secular music and books until I don't need it to get through my day, then I'll move onto the next thing. I'll take this week by week until I have no idols.

I've given up on life. And that's what made it so easy to surrender myself completely. You can't surrender without giving up. To surrender is to give up.

And no I'm not becoming a nun or taking an oath of silence or anything like that. I'm just simply making God the main focus of my life rather than myself. (:

The past couple of days have been pretty easy, but I'm not expecting it to be all smooth sailing. I know my flesh will kick in one of these days and demand Tool. That's what happens during a detox. It's easy, then you go virtually insane with cravings, but once you get past that, you're free. And I'm not going to attempt to run on empty. Everything that goes out is replaced with something much, much better- God. Meaning.

I'm relinquishing my life, surrendering to God.

My Mind... Part 2

I have a great dislike for society.

For one, all your life, you're taught that there are two types of people- right-brained and left-brained. Creative types and mathematical types. People always always have one preference for the way they think... If you're left-brained, you have a more logical, sequential, rational, analytical, objective way of thinking. You like to examine each individual part of something rather than just accepting it as a whole. If you're right-brained, your way of thinking is more random, intuitive, holistic, synthesizing, subjective. Right away you look at the whole picture rather than each individual piece of the picture. Society pushes this idea into us. It caters to each side of the brain as per the individual. If you're right-brained, you have this set of careers from which to choose. If you're left-, you get to choose from this set.

Mostly why I hate this "ideal"? I don't fit in.

I always struggled with this. Most of my life I just went along with the idea that I was right-brained. I planned on Graphic Design for my career, I played up the role of a shy, creative type. I was supposed to be one or the other, and since I loved to draw, write, sing, dream; music keeps me going and The Lord of the Rings are the best books ever written, I must be right-brained.

So someone tell me, why did I take apart all my pens as a kid so I could figure out how pushing a button at the top made the point come out and then retract? Why do I weigh the pros and cons before stepping into any situation? Why are mysteries like the ones Agatha Christie writes my absolute favorite books to read? (Why is my math homework to my right and my sketch pad to my left? o.O)

My favorite subjects in school are and always have been Science and English. I can't choose whether I want to go to college for English or Counseling. I love to poor my soul out by singing but I'd have just as much fun being the band's manager. Etcetera.

Basically, I'm somewhat of an oxymoron with flesh.

A freak of nature.

An outcast.

But recently, like within the past 4-6 months, I've actually come to terms with it. I've accepted the way my brain operates. While it's frustrating as all heck to have emotions of rejection simply for my parents pointing how my schedule for getting the laundry done in one day is flawed (because that schedule is a thing that I created), it's how God created my mind and I'll learn to utilize it somehow.

After all, why did the "ideal Renaissance man", the same man whose designs involved primitive prototypes for things like the machine gun and armored tanks, paint the Mona Lisa? Why did many of his artistic works include very scientific sketches of human anatomy? DaVinci was definitely a walking oxymoron to the most extreme.

Society doesn't get me. But I'm perfectly okay with that, because I don't get Society.

I read the dicitonary when I'm bored. I stare at the ceiling fan working out in my mind why it turns the way it does. I sketch my cat completely aware that her ear is a 60 degree angle. I can get lost in math problems just as easily as I can get lost in a J.R.R. Tolkien novel. When involved in a conversation I am aware of my mind putting together equations of what words to say to merit which series of responses.

Oh, and did you know that, contrary to common belief, the sky isn't blue because of the ocean? The earth is mostly water, and we're taught, therefore, that the sky reflects the blue of the ocean. However, in order for this theory to work, the ocean has to have its own source of... blueness. So why is the ocean blue? The preferential absorption of long-wavelength (red) light gives rise to the blue. Basically, the ocean can't possibly be the cause of the sky being blue because the ocean isn't technically blue itself. It's only blue because of the way the light reflects off of it...

Micheal Kruger says, "The sky is blue not because the atmosphere absorbs the other colors, but because the atmosphere tends to scatter shorter wavelength (blue) light to a greater extent than longer wavelength (red) light. Blue light from the sun is scattered every which way, much more so than the other colors, so when you look up at the daytime sky you see blue no matter where you look. This scattering is called 'Rayleigh scattering'; the amount of scattering goes as the frequency of the light to the 4th power."

So really, the sky isn't blue because of the water, and the water isn't even blue itself. They both appear blue because of the way the atmosphere distributes light.

By the way, please ask me about one of the novels I'm writing... I'd love to share one with you. One's about a girl and her unicorn. (;

Oh fun, I'm going to talk about: Dating.

Most people describe the teenage years as the years you're supposed to figure out who you are, what you want in life. Probably most importantly to teenage girls, your 'type' in men.

Dating is supposed to be a really big part of being a teenager, especially in high school. It's shocking to find out someone who is 16 hasn't had their first kiss yet. When you're 14 a boyfriend seems like a really important thing to have. While abstinence from sex isn't necessarily looked down upon, one constantly has to deal with the pressure from tv, movies, music, and peers to just "live a little".

This coming November, I will have been a teenager for 6 years. I have never had anyone I could call my "boyfriend". I've never been able to change my Facebook relationship status to something other than "single". I've never been on a more-than-friendly date. And of course, my first kiss belongs to someone in the future.

I tell this to people, and they either look at me like I just grew an extra limb or like I'm something to be pitied. You wouldn't believe how much crap I get for it.

Of course there have been times where I let my emotions do the talking. I won't go into all the gory details, but I've tried giving my heart to a few different guys. Never once have they held it long enough for me to get comfortable enough to call them my boyfriend.

I started my teenage years saying this, and I've never said anything contrary. It's only recently that I've actually started to believe it, though. Dating, at my age, at least for me, is a waste of time.

Fun fact to help back up this point:
A Harris Interactive survey conducted in January of 2006 merited the following results- Only 14% of people 18+ in a relationship (not necessarily married) met their counterpart while in school (high school/college). 34% of these were ages 18-27, 14% ages 28-39, while only 10% were 40+.

Why should I bother falling in love with someone who isn't the one God wants me to be with forever? Maybe I know that guy now, as a teenager, but if I have my whole life to spend with that person, why should I rush things?

You could argue my point by saying that, as I stated at the beginning of this post, your teenage years are meant to figure out who you are. Sure, the years of your youth are meant to be a learning period. But don't you think you'd be on the shorter road to finding out who you are if you simply looked to God to tell you who you are? I don't see anywhere in the Bible that says dating is crucial to unlocking the mystery that is ourselves. I don't believe that "falling in love" is the key to who you are. How many people do you know, let's say around 25 years of age, who know exactly who they are? Not very many would be my guess... In fact, I don't think I know anyone who spent their teenage years doing what society tells us to do who knows "who they are" because of it. I think most people, if ever, figure it out in their mid-late 30s, and end up regretting a lot of what they did as a teenager.

Not to mention, how many friendships do you lose by dating guys? Why date someone for a few months only to get too hurt to ever talk to them again, when you could have spent that time building up a solid friendship that may carry into adulthood? Friends are worth so much more than a dating experience. Unfortunately this is one lesson I learned from the past, although it doesn't take a genius to figure out. But hey, if he didn't want to stick around as my friend simply because I "broke up" with him, then how good of a friend was he really? Yet another point as to why dating is a waste of time. If a guy isn't willing to be your friend, he doesn't honestly like you and you shouldn't waste your time dating him.

You could point out that this is really easy for me to say being that there probably isn't a guy in all of Arizona who even has a crush on me. While that's probably true, my whole view point on dating isn't solely based on the fact that I'm perpetually single. (I'd also like to state, perhaps unnecessarily, that I'm not perpetually single because of my view on dating. There really isn't anyone who likes me that way.:)

I'm not totally adverse to dating. I do admit that if a certain boy asked me out, I'd probably say yes in a heartbeat. But my point of this post is simply that my confidence in myself doesn't depend on what some guy thinks of me. It doesn't depend on how many guys I've kissed, how many dates I've been on, etc. The fact that I'm 17 and can count on my fingers on one hand how many guys have told me they liked me hardly affects me. I don't need horrible experiences and a broken heart to tell me what to look for in a guy. I certainly don't need an STD to tell me not to sleep around.

I know that God knows what He's doing, and if He has someone for me, that guy is somethin really special. And if it's what I have to do, I'm perfectly okay with waiting. How cool will it be when I can smile at my husband while telling my kids my first love was their dad?

Love and Mistakes... in the same title.

What is a man if he lacks passion for anything? Yes, passion often leads to a world of hurt, but pain is a part of life and it makes us human. Somewhere along the line you lost the realization that, while things may often hurt like heck, it's a whole lot better than being heartless.

I'm so sorry. Somewhere down the road I was too selfish. I thought I did what was best for the both of us. I never meant for it to turn out like this...

I feel like I betrayed you. I allowed my own sick selfishness to get in the way of a great change that was taking place in you, and somehow undo everything...

My words from the past are hitting me in the face right now. I've always stood so strongly on the belief that Love is not a mere feeling, but an action that can prove its presence over and over and has a solid foundation on the Word. Yet this whole time I've been basing everything on my feelings... I can say with complete honesty that I have never been so sure of anything in my life as I am sure that I love you so, so much... I have always loved you. Maybe it's not the kind of love that leads into a relationship or anything like that, but loving someone doesn't always mean you have to be in love with them. And trust me when I say that I have never loved anyone quite like I love you. I just can't believe it took me until this to realize it.

What I can't believe, even beyond that, is how easy it was for you to let go... Haven't you learned by now that not every word spoken from my mouth is truth?

Was loving me really putting you through so much hell that you couldn't even stand feeling anymore?

I remember I once told you not to ever let me do anything stupid regarding you... And you promised me you wouldn't. That you'd always be there for me, never give up on me. And you understood that my emotions can be, at times, very unstable. That I could say something with meaning and by the end of the day wish I had said something completely different with a completely different meaning. At the time you thought it meant to make sure that I didn't want to be in relationship with you when I said I didn't. But can't you realize that this was the stupidest thing I could have ever done regarding you?

I am so sorry. I've begged on my knees for God to show me a way to fix this... I'm not seeing any way out. This may be unfixable. I'm left to face my mistake.

History never fails to repeat itself.

God Is Good (:

First thing's first: I dreamed last night!!!!!! Err, this morning more like, since I didn't sleep last night... Anyhow, the point is, I dreamed. I haven't done that in a while, which is really sad because I absolutely love dreams... There's just something about them that fascinates me.

Moreover, it wasn't a nightmare as my dreams typically are. I didn't wake up shocked and sweating, there wasn't any reason to reach for a book and blast music until I got my mind off of it, etc. It also wasn't the "I was driving until suddenly I tripped over a rock" type that my dreams/nightmares usually are. It made chronological sense. Well, for the most part... there was one thing at the very end that caught me off guard. But that's beside the point.

I won't go into telling you all about it as it was a long, detailed dream. There was one part of it, however, that really stuck out to me.

We were staying at some resort, I can't remember where. I was taking a walk around the pool area (I might add that the pool was HUGE, even larger than my community's pool/water park thing) when I saw some of my friends. They convinced me to go swimming as well, so I had to go back to my family's room to change into my swimsuit. On my way to the building, some guy starting making rude comments about how I was too skinny(I won't go into the details of what exactly he was saying...). Basically, I told him off and left him speechless. Again, details aren't required here. ;]

I'm so proud of my dream self. hehe

I interpret that part of the dream to mean this: no matter what people do or say to me, I always have the strength to remain confident in who I am. My strength doesn't depend on what people may or may not think of me. I don't have to rely on man because the foundation of who I am isn't earthly.

God is good. Not only did He give me a dream, He gave me the encouragement I've been needing so desperately. (:

Strength- Pure Ramblings...

 ...Which Will Soon Develop Into Well-Organized Thoughts (:


God's been teaching me a lot about strength and weakness. Correction. God isn't teaching me about anything. He's forcing me to grow, showing me first-hand how weak I really am. How weak those I used to rely on are. I guess the only way for one to grow stronger is to have our support ripped out from right underneath us, though. At least, that's what I'm gathering based on what I've been going through lately.

I feel very much like I'm not strong enough. Like the slightest gust of wind, so to speak, is going to come any second now and knock me out completely. Funny thing is, though, it hasn't happened yet. Not quite. Things keep hitting me from every angle, and somehow I'm able to keep defending myself. But I feel weaker and weaker after each trial. I've already snapped twice at the one person God told me to control my emotions around. I'm at the point of severe exhaustion despite having slept for nearly two days straight. I'm easily irritable, I have little patience, and I'm unable to concentrate on the tasks set before me.

So maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Obviously I get that God's strength is all we're supposed to rely on. We're not supposed to rely on the strength of ourselves, of man. That's what I'm trying to do- rely on no strength but His. I'm praying every moment for strength, litterally every breath is either praising God or asking Him to keep my barriers strong or confessing something specifically I did wrong, repenting, and asking His forgiveness. Basically every moment I'm awake is spent talking to God. I'm abstaining from secular music, reading secular books, etc. because my mind can't take anything that isn't of God right now. If my focus strays just a tiny bit, I collapse.

I just want someone else's support. So far, a lot of people seem to understand the extent of exhaustion that I'm in. But I can't cry on anyone's shoulder, because everyone's too busy crying on my shoulder.

I tried "crying on someone's shoulder", so to speak. I had someone who listened to all my problems and tried to offer encouragement. You know what happened? This. All that I'm going through right now is happening because I was relying on someone other than God to offer me support. I talked with Him late into the night, into the morning, about it. He told me that my issues weren't meant to burden this said person. I was supposed to be the pillar. When the pillar collapses, the whole roof falls in... Even though it didn't seem like that's what was happening, it seemed as though I had found my own pillar of strength, God warned me that eventually it would happen if I kept going about things the way I was.

I have all the answers to my own problems. I know what to do to solve any emotional strain I'm going through, or at least how to let God handle it. But there are people out there who don't have that "advantage". That's why I'm here. I'm here to show them the answers that God has given me. Not to ask them for answers, because apparently I have those already if I concentrate on God enough.

It's just really hard because the human mind craves the physical. I crave a pillar I can hear and see, who has a physical shoulder I can physically cry on. Okay, so maybe that's going a bit far. I'm not exactly the type to cry in front of someone, let alone on their shoulder. But someone whose physical voice provides encouragement and strength would be nice.

I know that one day God will bring someone in my life who is that pillar. Right now, though, I need to rely solely on Him so that I can keep being the pillar for those in my life who need me. I can't make someone who doesn't have the right answers be that pillar. I can't cry on anyone's shoulder who needs a shoulder themselves to cry on.

Until God brings me MY pillar, I'm supposed to be the available shoulder to cry on.


(Or maybe there are pillars in my life, I just haven't recognized them yet? Hmm, something to ponder.)

And no, I don't allow anyone to take advantage of my strength in God. I know who will learn and grow from what I have to offer and who will run me dry. That's why I continue to offer strength to certain people when I feel like I don't have any myself. Because I know they will grow from it and turn around to give me strength back. They offer me encouragement when they're strong enough to offer it. They're around for God to show me that, while they can't be my pillar of strength, God doesn't neglect the fact that I need strength time to time from those physically around me. By giving them strength, I can, in essence, allow Him to give me strength through myself.


Confused yet? Don't worry. This all lines up and makes sense to me. (:

God is good. Despite how trying this time in my life is, how weary I feel, He's always around to keep me going. I love how He shows me things as I write. His words just come out of my finger tips and speak to me. This post itself, what God has spoken to me through it, gives me enough strength to face the next trial ahead.

Strength is a funny thing. Ultimately we're all supposed to draw our strength from God, but the sources He gives us from which to draw it vary. Try to draw it from the wrong source, it will most likely fail in the end. I'll just keep praying that I focus on the correct source from here on out, so that this is the last time I have to go through something as ground-shaking as I am right now...

Or at least, so that I'll know better right away how to handle my next big earthquake.

My mind...

My mind is very mathematical. I approach everything with logic, and I can literally debate myself into or out of anything, and I mean anything, if I try hard enough. Just as an example, if I wanted to write an argument that the sky is green, I could make you believe that the sky is green. But first I would have to put myself through a process in making ME believe that the sky is green. My mind would literally debate itself until it believed that the sky is green. Of course, before I did that, I would have to ready myself into a state of being WILLING to accept that the sky is green. This would require wracking my brain on everything I know about the sky being blue, and, not exactly erasing that data from my mind, but turning each one completely upside-down and reversed so that each fact of the sky being blue is questionable. The entire process would put a lot of emotional strain on me, as well as the inability to handle other, regular tasks efficiently. But, once I was through and honestly believed that the sky was green, I could write up such a convincing argument about the sky being green that most people would agree with me.

 And, because I know you're doubtful and you're wanting me to prove myself, no, I am not going to try to make you believe that the sky is green.

You see, there's this other quality that I have. It's the quality that states simply that I need to be there for people. When I'm in the process of convincing myself of something, that part of my brain takes me over completely. I'll argue anything you say that doesn't have logic or reason behind it. Since humans tend to think with our emotions first rather than examining every thought and every reason behind that thought, as you can guess, a lot of what we do and say doesn't have much other than emotion behind it. It still has math(logic) and reason, but that math and reason is based off of the emotion, and therefore the emotions and actions which follow have a great potential to be the incorrect answer to the equation. So, to put it simply, I don't get along well with other people when I'm in this particular state of mind. And when you don't get along with other people, well, it's pretty impossible to be there for them.


There are times when someone might say I'm being illogical, and technically they are not incorrect. I've noticed that my brain also works at a certain level that is above logic. If we view certain aspects of life with only logic, they'll never make sense. Such as, for example, the universe. The universe is very illogical.
Technically, in God's point of view, time doesn't exist. If that's the case, then this life, this world around us, the universe- they don't exist. Not in the sense that we understand the word "exist" to mean, anyhow.

To exist, as we understand it, means to have being in a specified place or time with respect to understood limitations or conditions. If something doesn't operate in the laws of time, it can't exist. The universe isn't confined. It goes on, forever, with no limitations. Therefore, it technically does not EXIST. God's love for us has no limitations, it's purely unconditional, therefore, His love can't exist. God doesn't operate in the laws of time, He has no limitations, He Himself is unconditional. Therefore, technically, even He can't exist.

So, what have I done? Well, basically, I've just used 100% logic, based on the definition of the word "exist", to prove that God doesn't exist. I've also managed to prove that we don't exist, either. But obviously, we do exist. The universe exists, otherwise we wouldn't exist. God exists, otherwise the universe wouldn't exist.

This is purely an example of how limited our human minds really are, and how limited the English language is. The English language leaves no "wiggle room" in its words. Each word has one specific definition, or sometimes multiple definitions, and it is only limited to the definitions it is given. They cannot mean anything other than the definitions they are given. Period.

In order to understand how we, the universe, and God exist, we must scrap all logic and all understanding of the English language. We must be willing to look at things from a completely illogical point of view... but I'm not going to get into that, because it has nothing to do with the point I'm making. (:

As you can see, my mind is very complicated. I have a completely logical, mathematical way of thinking, yet I can look beyond that when it is required of me. I have the advantage of seeing everything from multiple perspectives. It's a gift that God has given me, although it usually feels like a tormenting curse... I have to be extra careful and constantly submit my thoughts to God, because, as you can see, it's just too easy for me to talk myself into or out of anything. Nevertheless, I am thankful for this gift and I will try to use it for His purpose.