update

Well as the story of life goes... I have been a busy lady! So i have a lot to report! I have shared my many struggles, insecurities and trails. I have worked hard to sort through most of my issues and I would like to tell you a bit more. About 4 and a half years ago a boy broke my heart and even more so i broke promises i had made with God. I felt ashamed and broken. I moved half way across the country to familiar grounds were i thought i could heal. I am not sure why but i felt that ignoring what had happened to me was the best way to deal. But it only made things worse. At first when i moved, i reached out to people but those doors were not open to me. I found other doors and I made great friends but i started to walk away from Jesus. I was tired and felt like God and His people could never love me so what was the point? I tried the usual things to distract me booze, boys, and my fav... shopping. This seemed to work for a while. I thought i had fooled everyone into thinking I was okay! Then one night I had a very good friend take me aside and tell me he was scared that i was walking away from something important to me! I shared with him how I felt but there was no excuses! How could I walk away from God? I knew He was real! but it was sooo scary to apologize and admit what I had done. I attempted to pull up my socks! I failed many times but i kept trying. In am unexpected turn of events, God called me to move again. This time to some place new and very windy! So i went and I sold every thing i could! I packed the rest in my jeep and went all by my self! I was all alone. It was me, my two cats and Jesus! i went through some really hard times and cried a lot! i was broken alright!
But for the first time i was starting to become the person I always wanted to be. It took a couple months but i found a church that seemed made for me. Full of screw ups like me! It was awesome! My best friend became a Christian and after my journey I had to make sure he understood the cost of becoming a Christian! It made me realize the life Christ called me to! I tried hard to make choices i could make sustainable. I was challenged in how to live my life as a shopaholic!
I started going to counseling. I fought, laughed, mourned, learned, questioned, listened with my counselor. I got a consolidation loan. I bought a house. I confronted demons from my past. I became honest. I received healing. I got out of debit. I left clothing retail, I am shinny again, I restored relationships and I continue too and I fell in love with Jesus all over again. I stopped running and starting become the person Jesus wanted me too be.

friends

Hey friends! I have been thinking a lot about you! I have been thinking about all the memories we have shared and the giggles we've had! I wanted you to know that I am thankful for them. I am often very forgetful. I visited a good friend from high school in Toronto and I was amazed (maybe a little ashamed) at all the stories she remembered.
I am thankful for the people who will pick up the phone when i need them. I'm also thankful for the people who can look into my eyes and make me feel loved.
In my life, I have often feel so alone and afraid, like i am never good enough for your friendship... maybe i pushed you away or hide. I am sorry if i hurt you....
I have been blessed by so many friends!
I have realized how privileged I am! There are so many lonely people in the world who have never realized what it means to be loved, appreciated, or accepted.
I will always feel in debited to my best friend, who has danced with me , laughed with me, cried with me, hugged me and everything in between. I often feel undeserving of our friendship and he would laugh at that!
I guess i also want to ask "how do we make friends? where are they?" I find that we live in a world were we can only meet people on the world wide web. I on other hand am very lucky (or cursed, the debate is still going strong!) to be an out going extrovert. Walking up to people or making conversation in the grocery store is easy for me! I have a few friends with the same personality typing and I would say the same goes for them. So what do we do with all the introverts, the shy, or just wounded people? how do they make friends? I wish I knew, but that part has not been my struggle. Letting myself be loved has been my struggle.
What I long and hope for is that all these friendships lead to community and a place where we hold on together through laughter and tears. It is soo much work but the glimmers of community in my life have been some of the best moments in my life!

cookies

Hey guys once again it has been to long sense my last post! i have been learning lots so i hope to write a couple in the nere future (a follow up post to 'lets talk about sex' is in the works.)
What has been on my mind is something like this in life we create patterns for our success or sometimes failure these patterns were first choices whether it is to study or skip school these choices become habit. now when these habits build you over time it creates character. These things shape who we are. Some times these Characteristics are not genuine or wanted so we have to change the pattern by going back the beginning. Making choices creating habits habit creating character. this is harder and much more pain full than it sounds! If you ever watch intervention( i might be obsessed) you will notice that there are many things in common with all of the users on this show they all don't really know how they got there and they don't know how to get out of it. they made choices that created and addictive habit and this has shaped who they are. the choice to become something different is so overwhelming it leaves them hopeless.
I gave the analogy to my friend last night that i fell like i have been baking cookies for years but they when i realized they hurting me and now i want to make something else but i don't have the recipe and i keep trying to make it up but it is not turning out the way i want to. I am re learning how to be me.
so?
well this process is hard but it also makes you ask what do you need? what do you want?
Seems easy enough right. My friend asked me 'What do you need?', yesterday after a breakdown i had because these thoughts and others over whelmed my brain. I know i need something. I have lots of wants and desires there is also a timing and i am pretty impatient but there is thing this i je ne sais pas. this intangible thing that will help me get through this
i just had the thought maybe it is about the ingredients i put in. Maybe i want some of the old this in the ingredients because they were so comforting for so long??? or maybe i want thing that make my stomach hurt?
so lets review choice, habit , character. creating something different something better some one more genuine. humm sounds so nice to be that person.... I Hope the growing pains are not to discouraging(some days they feel that way)
I want to say to you that can do it ( easier to say it than believe it) And we all need to get better at listen to one another. Finding the places in peoples lives were we can fill something for them or point them in the right direction. getting out of heads and listening to people. loving them. i think that if we create an environment were that happens growth happens in really positive ways! lets try eh?

love

I am pretty scared to share what is on my mind right know but i think i need to so here goes. I truly believe that my mission/ goal in life is to love people. There is a man who lives across the street he is a crack dealer. How do I love him? When I see him I see a man who has never been loved, I see a man who wants more for his son than he had, I see someone who uses violence to gain acceptance, Some one who needs love. My first instinct is to help him, teach him how to be or act, and help him become the person he would like to be. But I know that if i gave him everything he wanted he would abuse it. He would take advantage of my love. And I would be left broken and battered and hurt. So how do we love people who can't love us? Love your enemy's, that is hard but i think for me loving the people who are neutrals is so much harder. Loving the angry clerk, customer, driver, neighbour, friend even. How do we love them. In saying all this I know in my life I have let my self be walked over. All in the name of love. Not only with men but with roommates, bosses, whatever. I am starting to realize in my life that i deserve better than 'whatever i can get'. But how do I really love those people in my life? and love my self.
I have two thoughts:
Space. Realizing that i cannot save anyone from anything giving that person room to grow, room to be, room to mess up. I think of one friend who I love dearly. She often lets herself get used by men. I want to just fix her, I want to make it all better. I have realized though trial and error that the best thing i can do is just be there. listen and care. At first i used to make sure that she would never hang out with boys and lecture her when she messed up. This only pushed her away.
The other thing I have thought of is just taking a step back. I always see the potential for more in people. I need to learn where people are at, and how to be okay with that. As easy or as simple as that sounds it is a big hard pill to swallow.
Now in no way am i saying that we should not push ourselves to love people who are hard to love cause i think that we need a lot more of that. What i am saying is, there needs to be a balance for us to survive between love for others and love for ourselves.

just checking in

hey i just wanted to check in with people. I have been listening to some of the feed back on my blog and i just wanted to say a few things. My blog is an outlet for me to share the things i think are hard to discuss with some people> I don't think i know all the answers or any, sometimes but what I want to do is get people talking. I have lots to say as those who know me personally can bere witness too. I am bold, and straight forward. That being said most things I write about are what i am most scared to talk about some times! thank you for being supportive!
lolo

lets talk aboout sex.

i often have struggled to find the right platform to discus this issues in many areas of my life. I being a christian can't talk about it in church, or when or when it is discussed all is ever said is it is for marriage. In my non Christians circles were sex can be talked about freely I often feel like it is not given the respect I feel it deserves. taking what ever you can get seems to be high on peoples list of things to do. What i also think about how the glbt community sexuality is often discussed more often in church than my own. I find this frustrating. I also feel like it has CONTRIBUTED to me making poor decisions when it comes to sex. I am a single girl who struggles with what to do with sexual urges, thought etc. But I know I am not the only one, in my group of believer there are many of us who struggle with different battles within sexuality and yet it goes unsaid. I also feel like the solution is out of my hands. Where are these people who are saposted to talk to us about how to live healthy lives? I Have a very strong and powerful voice but when it comes to sex I feel like there is no one listening. I am striving for this thing. I honestly believe that we were created to be committed one person and have sex with them. I am wondering how we achieve that if no one is talking about it. It seems like a unicorn. How do i deal with my past and present struggles in a way that with bring growth to me? what if some times I don't even care and just want to go and have sex? I love sex I think it is great and have enjoyed it but yet even saying that I am breaking some barrier. And I know not everyone feels that way but i feel like every one in my life is on one side or the other and no one is in the middle talking about sex in a healthy way. and i am mad!

confessions of a shopaholic

Yes, I understand I am stealing the title from the movie / book! But that is kinda how I am feeling. I am a shopaholic maybe even a spendaholic. I realized this about 6 months ago. Came up with a plan to help curb my shopping but have just started to realize how deep the root goes. I have started to see how my shopping probably started as a coping mechanism for whatever i was dealing with at the time and felt like I could not handle it. About a month ago i realized I was super angry about lots that had gone on in my life that had hurt me but I thought I had dealt with it. And I did in a sense with the latest outfit. But i what I realized is that now that i am not allowing my self to deal with things in the same way all this stuff is coming back up the the surface.
I would like to take a minute to just say that shopaholics is a real thing that people are really addicted to I can witness the fact that when I don't buy something it actuality physically hurts and the high I get from buying a new outfit is indescribable My heart is racing just thinking about it> I am starting to see how much it effects my life. Why I work where I work how i dress the way i dress.
I was talking to one friend about it and he said something to the effect of 'i see you have stoped frivolous shopping. I made me laugh cause I think he missed something. I would go with out food, I would not go grocery shopping for extended periods of time just so I could have the newest top. what i have been doing is so much deeper than spending poorly.
BUT WHAT I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO TALK ABOUT today is that shopping is a coping mechanism some people drink some do drugs some kiss boys or girls or a combination of things we often do something to hide or true emotions but what I am wondering is we are not selling ourselves short? Are we not worth more? Do we realize how destructive our actions are? Or how much they effect. I am starting to realize I am worth more than a new outfit. that sentence stuns me to see it. It seems so simple yet it reaches deep with in me. it is scary and liberating. I matter. WOw.
it makes me think about how I am part of a generation that deserves everything, (hummer, great job, perfect lover, great wonderful house with the flat screen TV etc.) but we value nothing. everything is disposable it is cheaper to by something new than fix the old one. I think this culture effects how we view ourselves more than we want to admit.
So then what are we left with broken people who don't value ourselves... what can we do with that? how do we learn that we are pretty awesome, great, and valuable?