To bring me to tears

This is probably going to be a long post. It's going to cover many different things. It will most likely require many different emotions too, so I'm sure it will be both interesting and confusing to read. But I guess I just want to write about things that have been on my mind recently, things that I have a hard time saying out loud because they are just too deep and emotional sounding and I would mess it up if I tried to say them. Anyways. I'm just gonna stop writing this now.


I was reading through my blog the other day, and I realized that it can be read through two voices. One of the voices is my voice. It is bouncy and all over the place. It is confusing to read and doesn't make much sense because the thoughts don't flow or I'll say something and not finish it. It's just how I talk. The other voice is deep and dark. It is also my voice, but I think it's the voice of me when I go inside myself. It thinks too much and too deeply. It sounds so very hurt and broken. It knows too much about people. But while I like the deep talking, dark sounding voice, somehow I feel that I can't let it keep going. I need to make it go away. I need to come out of myself. If I don't, somehow, some way, it will end up killing me.


This past week being back from Encounter has been interesting. It seems like I am so much more emotional than I ever have been. Any little thing can just about set me off crying, where previously, it would take so much to do anything, and even then I wouldn't cry. I'll even just be walking down the street and the tears will flow. I never let myself do that. But for some reason, I've been accepting it and just letting myself cry. I still do so in private, don't want anyone to see me, but I am letting myself do it at all. And like this morning, I glanced up and happened to see Rachel and Lorraine, and they just started waving at me like crazy. I almost started sobbing on the spot. It took so much to stop myself from doing that. Everything is getting to me. We'll be singing songs right before the service at New Horizon and I'll find myself tearing up. I'm not too sure what's happening. But I'm feeling everything so much more intensely than I can ever remember feeling it before, whether that's sadness, anger, happiness pain, or even joy.


Tonight, at New Horizon, the speaker was talking about how in Acts, the apostles got in trouble for preaching about Jesus and they ended up getting thrown in prison and then they were beaten and released and told not to preach anymore. And then they rejoiced over the fact that they got beaten for the sake of Jesus. Just to be clear and make sure we got his point, he said something about how they weren't rejoicing because of the PAIN. In a very disgusted tone of voice, he spat out "some people have such sick, twisted minds that they actually get pleasure from pain." It was just the way he said it, the disdain and disgust that he had...it made me feel so very bad and so very ashamed. And in that moment, I lost some respect for that man. I feel kinda bad about that, because he is supposed to be some sort of super important preacher and pastor who has written a lot of books and is really good at preaching. But I guess it's just the thought that, in a way, he judged me and so, so many other people before even meeting us...it just doesn't seem right to me. And I know everyone does it, but I guess just because you don't like something/someone or are disgusted by them, doesn't mean you should verbalize that fact.


When we were working with the Gorey and Wexford church plants, we did a lot of magazine drops to try to get people to come to the church or to at least call the pastors. The funny thing is, when I pass by estates here now, that's what I think about. And then when I'm walking back to my dad and Claire's house, I look at the houses in the street and I want to go put a magazine through theirs letter boxes because they need to know too. But I have no magazines to give them. So I don't know what to do.


When I left for work yesterday morning, it started raining really hard, so I came back in and asked my dad and Claire if I could get a lift. Problem was, they were in their room so we were talking through the door. What I heard was "Louise, just go." So I left. And I was quite bitter and angry too because of the way it was said. Then when I got back to their house after work, they asked why I had left and said that they had got up to give me a lift and I was gone. So I had misunderstood. Later, I realized that I should apologize for being bitter and angry toward them when they didn't even deserve it. But then Claire brought it up again and started talking about how much I had screwed up that morning and how they didn't sleep much the night before and how I had woken them up for no reason by asking for the ride and that I definitely was not her favorite person that morning, so I decided that since she was going to respond that way, I wasn't going to apologize. But that's still the wrong attitude and I know I still need to do so. :/ It just seems like almost everything between me and her turns itself into some sort of problem.


I don't feel like Encounter is over. Well, maybe Encounter as itself is. But for some reason, I keep getting the feeling that it will be started up again. It will be different, but the same basics. Sonship and then outreach teams. And for some reason I keep getting the feeling that it will be started up again by someone who was there this year. And that the World Harvest MAP team will come back out for it again when it does to help run it for that month. But for some reason, I don't think I'm going to be involved. I don't think I'm going to be there. No matter how much I would want to be. Sometimes I'm not sure how much I should trust my feelings.


I think it would be interesting to do Sonship as a nation/world-wide tour type of thing. That would be your job. Use either the one week or two week format, and travel around with your team, leading the talks, doing the disciple-ling, all that stuff, and then after the time is up, move on to the next town. Maybe do one town a month, and that way you could do 12 different places in a year. Get more people involved to make multiple teams, and you can do even more. It would be really cool if it did work, and I really want everyone to be able to learn what we learned and to maybe even start thinking like that. It would be quite incredible. I wonder if it would work out.


While my team went to Wexford and Gorey, the other outreach team went to a place called the Anchorage. When I first heard about Encounter from Rachel, she told me she was doing the Anchorage part and told me a bit about it, and it was mainly hearing about that that made me want to go. Interestingly enough, I was placed on the other team. See, from what I know about the Anchorage, it's a safe place for kids. There are kids clubs there, teen outreach types of things. It's just somewhere safe. And that's what I want to do. I know I talk about media and I'm studying it and I talk about wanting to be a film director, and I do...sort of. But part of me wonders if that's just a false dream. Something concrete. A job that would be concrete. Because I don't want a real job. Not because I'm lazy or don't want to work, I do want to work. But I don't know if what I want to do exists. Mainly because I'm not sure what I want to do. I don't have it all figured out, and everyone thinks I do. That bothers me. It makes me feel like I'm lying to everyone. I'm studying media because if I HAD to have a job, that's what I would do. I'm not studying it because that's what I want to do. I mean it is, but not really. I want to do something worthwhile, something that will help people. I've talked about it before, but not here. For several years now, I've wanted to build this building that is basically like a community center layout. Kitchen, bathrooms, gym type area, outside sports areas like a basketball court and a garden, but then there are also bedrooms and places to do homework. It would be a place where kids can come after school. They can come to play, to do homework, to hang out, to talk, to just be there if that's all they want to do. A place to go when there are bad things at home that they want to get away from. People that care that are willing to be there for them and talk to them. And from what I've heard, that's what the Anchorage is, and that's a big part of why I went to Encounter. I'm not and never was sad that I was put on the other team. There was a reason for that. I could have put in a request for the Anchorage if I really wanted to. But maybe someday I will go down there and see them, and see what they are all about, and see if maybe I can do something to help.


At my new job, there is a lot of standing around time. Many people just buy stuff and leave, so I'm stuck doing nothing. And even when I have stuff to do, I am own my own in the back anyways, clearing tables or washing dishes. In a sense, I am spending about 6+ hours of my day on my own. On my second day of working there, I realized I was thinking too much and needed to get out of my head. The job was supposed to be a distraction, and instead it was an isolation and just causing me to think more. Then suddenly I got a thought. "Just pray." So that was my idea. On my way to and from work, and when I'm back there on my own and have nothing to do or when I'm thinking too much, I'll pray. Normally I don't pray that much, if at all, but now I'm starting to. And it's getting easier and easier to do it too. It's kind of cool. Things are already happening.


It drives me absolutely crazy when there is this concept that I know I should be getting, and in a way I do get it, but it doesn't completely make sense. But then all of a sudden, on some random day, it will click and all make perfect and complete sense. I love that part. That happened today. I was sitting next to Lorraine in the seminar (which was about sex btw...me? in a sex seminar? what. the. heck. I don't even know...), and I don't remember if this was part of it or if I happened to glance at the next page in my Bible and saw the passage, but its always bothered me in parts where it says that the immoral and greedy and all these other bad things won't inherit the Kingdom of God. And I always think but I'm like that, we're all like that. But today I realized that yes, we are like that, but that's where Jesus dying comes in and how when God looks at us and sees Jesus and how we've been made righteous through Him, so God doesn't see the immorality and the greed, He just sees Jesus and so that's how we inherit the Kingdom of God. I was quite excited when that suddenly made sense.


Today was pretty great. Not all of it, but just cause I got to see Lorraine and Rachel. And this morning was the one time that I didn't expect to possibly come across anyone I knew. And I wasn't even sure why I was going. It was mainly because I had nothing better to do and cause I needed to get my exam resit stuff dealt with. But then they were there and as I said I was almost in tears when I saw them. And Lorraine had to leave really soon after to go back down to Dublin because she said she probably shouldn't have gone to New Horizon in the first place, but she still took time to talk to me and hang out a bit and then tonight Rachel was working at the coffee stand thing but she let me stand behind it with her so we could chat and then she drove me home at almost midnight and it's just...amazing. And I don't think they know how much it means to me or how much they mean. And I just can't believe how much they care. It was like...like the day I realized that Ellisha and Rachel L didn't think of me as a dumb, tagalong kid. They thought of me as a friend. It was as amazing as that. And people don't realize. Sometimes they don't even think they are really even going out of their way. But sometimes being there is enough. Sometimes that's all that's important.