okay. i guess i'll post a real into this time...=]
sometimes i'm not comfortable introducing myself as a christian. not because i'm embarrassed about god, but because i really don't think it describes me. or...well, i believe. let's put it that way. i'm a follower of Jesus. but i am not what people think of christians as so much of the time. i don't claim to be perfect or better than anyone, and i don't look down on anyone who isn't a christian. i just believe that they must be really unhappy, but i'm not fit to judge their choices, because it takes a lot of courage to learn to trust, to open up and admit that you're alive and let god in. it's terrifying to have someone see you exactly as you are, even if you have the promise that you'll be loved anyway, because so many of us don't believe in love anymore. but that's the only real love, the only time someone really loves *you*. am i making sense? what i'm learning is faith, by which i mean trust, i guess. i'm learning that faith means making the descision to trust god even when it seems like the world is collapsing beneath you. and when the voice in the back of your mind starts telling you that you're worthless and don't deserve to be loved and that god must be angry at you and that you BETTER make up for whatever it is you messed up...it means not cutting, not hating yourself, not starving or purging, not walking down dark streets alone at night in some misguided attempt at atonement, at some attempt to earn god's love. it means saying, 'no. no matter what it feels like, i will choose to believe'--to believe that blood was shed, though not your own, and it was enough.
and it will always be enough.
that's what i'm learning and i know i'm not alone. maybe the people at church look down on you when they hear you cut--that's their problem. please don't think that God feels that way. he doesn't hate you because you're hurting--he only wants to heal you. it's what he's been doing in my life. it really IS a miracle i'm still here. i know you probably have heard that a million times from a million people like i have, but one day you'll be able to say it yourself, and feel this amazement. recently someone said to me, "you know, when i met you"--i was 12 then--"you were so self-destructive that i was sure you wouldn't live through the year." I'm 18 now. I've been SI free for 7 months. Miracles are real. Yeah, there are days that I still hurt like hell inside, but it's temporary because God is healing my soul.
yours too, if you'll let him.
...well that was a bit of a rant. i only meant to introduce myself! =] and i guess i did.
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