Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

Please don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off and none of them are me. Pretending is an art that is second nature to me, but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled.

I give you the impression I'm secure and that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name, coolness my game, that water is calm and I'm in command and that I need no one, but don't believe me, please don't believe me.

My surface may be smooth, but my surface is a mask--my ever varying and ever concealing mask. Beneath it dwells the real confusion, fear and aloneness. Beneath lies my smugness, my complacency, but I hide this--I don't want anyone to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed. That's why I frantically created a mask to hide behind-- nonchalant sophisticated facades to help me pretend-- to shield me from the glance that knows-- but such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only salvation and I know it. That is if it's followed by acceptance. If it's followed by love, it's the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self built prison walls and from the barriers that I so painstakingly erect. It's the only thing that will assure me of what I cannot assure myself, that I'm really worth while, but I don't tell you this, I don't dare--I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid that your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love. I'm afraid you'll think less of me and you'll laugh and your laugh will kill me. I'm afraid that deep down, I'm nothing and that I'm just no good and that you'll see this and reject me.

So I play my game; my desperate pretending; with the facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. And so begins the parade of masks, the glittering, but empty parade of masks and my life becomes a front. I idle chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that's really nothing and nothing of what's everything and what's crying within me.

So when I'm through going through my routine, do not be fooled by what I'm saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying--what I'd like to be able to say, but for survival I need to say, but what I can't say.

I dislike hiding; honestly, I dislike the superficial game I'm playing, the superficial phony game. I'd really like to be genuine, spontaneous and me, but you've got to help me, you've got to hold out your hand, even when it's the last thing I seem to want or need.
If you choose to, please choose to. You can help break down the wall behind which I tremble. You can encourage me to remove my mask. You can help release me from my shadowed world of panic and uncertainty. From my lonely prison.

So do not pass me by-- please don't pass me by. It will not be easy for you. A lone conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back.

It's irrational, but despite what books say about man, I am irrational, I fight against the very things that I cry out for, but I am told love is stronger than strong walls. In this lies my hope, my only hope, please help beat down those walls with firm hands, but with gentle hands--for a child is very sensitive.
Who am I, you may wonder?

{Charles C. Finn}

Just Some Thoughts

"I have been a Christian for most of my life. But there are times-an uncomfortable frequency of times, to be honest-when I'm not entirely sure I believe in God."
-Jason Boyett

Doubts.

Good little Christians are not supposed to have them. We are afraid of them. We squash them like they're cockroaches scurrying across the floor of our soul. We worry they will bring down the property value of our faith.

I'll let you in on a not-so-little secret. I have doubts. I am probably one of the most skeptical Christians you will ever meet. I can tear down the intellectual arguments many Christians have for God so easily. I remember reading Lee Strobel's 'A Case for A Creator' at twelve and being so relieved to have scientific "proof" for what I believed. I also remember going through the same book when I was fourteen and disputing every argument raised in his book. What can I say? If you're a twelve year old reading books like 'War and Peace' byTolstoy and 'On the Origin of Species' by Darwin, the Bible begins to look......hokey.


1) What if our religion and our longing for God is just the way our brains are wired? Could spirituality just be the product of chemistry or electrical impulses?

2) What if the atheists are right, and faith is just a crutch we've developed to give life meaning and mitigate the prospect of death?
Is there any real difference between the ancient religious stories of Judeo-Christianity and the folklore of, say, Norse or Greek mythology? Or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

3) Why do some Christian focus so much energy on policing the culture and so little on producing it?

4)If some Christians really have the gift of healing people, why are they putting on big conferences--and making the sick people come to them--rather than hanging out in hospitals and nursing homes?

5) What if I had been born into another culture and practiced another religion with complete devotion, would God still allow me to be tortured for eternity in Hell? Even though I was pursuing him, but through the wrong religious system?

I could go on and on. I haven't asked any questions about HIV/AIDS, homosexuality, politics, the church's response to the environment, poverty, etc.... I haven't touched on the exclusivity of Christianity and why we sometimes have to explain away the verses that say Christ died to save everyone. I haven't listed everything. That list is too long. Maybe you've asked some of these questions too. Maybe you've hidden them behind raised arms and closed eyes.

So, where do I go from here? Not on any other subject is my academic intellect and passionate emotions seemingly so deeply pitted against each other. So, what is faith? Hiding my (very real) doubts just isn't feasible. I'm no expert on faith. Right now, faith looks like believing in God though my intellect and academia is telling me that a belief in God is foolish.

Just some thoughts,
{Miyah Faith}

Just some thoughts

I have been thinking more and more about what it means for me to follow Christ in every area of my life. I have not been feeling Christ very much lately, and I feel like I’m in a self-induced emotional drought. Overwhelmed and lazy are not a good combination to have at all, especially as a teacher.

Thoughts on God

Do I love you? Or do I just love the thought of you? The idea that there’s someone out there who’s loved me their whole life; my whole life. Though we can pray for renewal in the Spirit, what if the Spirit is being ignored? I don’t like God. I don’t even like the idea of Him. Why do I like Him? Do you have to like God to be saved? Oh! My mind and spirit are in turmoil. I don’t really get it. I don’t really get you. I feel like you’re an intellectual puzzle I can’t solve, but I’ll die if I don’t find a way out of the maze. Then, I get distracted by me, a boy, my nails, my emotions, other people’s emotions, LIFE.

For once, I’d like to be weak, break down and in the crying and blubbering between, breakthrough. For once, I’d like to be strong, on top of things and living in the Spirit, day-by-day. For once, I’d like to say what I think, because I want to and because it’s needed, not because others have come to expect me to say weird things. For once, I’d like the solution to be as easy as crying. I feel trapped in this quirky, geeky persona like it’s a skin that’s attached to me. Comfortably like it’s me, but rub me the wrong way and it all falls apart. I fall apart.

I try to act better than I am, and it doesn’t make me feel guilty anymore. I’m not good. I am and I’m not. I constantly feel a tug of war between the spirit and my flesh. My flesh wins. Why? (2 Timothy 2: 22) I’m not giving you a fair chance at all. I’m surrounding myself with things that attempt to satisfy my insatiable flesh. CONVICTION. Why am I not listening to God? Because I have Matchbox 20, erotic stories to replace the pornography, raps, Hulu, fantasies, Buffy/Angel, etc...screaming in my ears and mind 24/7. Detoxing is in order.
I've got to listen to you before I just write you off. I know it won't be easy, but I have no idea exactly how hard it's going to be. How am I going to deal with these ugly flesh desires? I feel like they’re not warring anymore. I’m just used to them. I’m used to doing things my way instead of yours. Teach me you. Teach me your way. If I don’t listen, beat me until I do. I mean it. Kill me so I can live for you. Scratch that. Kill me so you can live through me.

God heals those with broken hearts. (Psalm 34:17) 1 Corinthians 9:27 (I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should.) It’s like God is a nice thought. God is not a sweet religious system. Pray for a burden for the lost.

I feel as if I am going to Hell. I will get up to Heaven’s gates and be told that Christ never knew me. Do you? Do I know you? God, most times I don’t know how many thoughts fly through me and how many screams unknown are ripped silently from my throat. I don’t take Hell seriously. Heaven and Hell are abstract ideas to me. I don’t understand your prodding at my soul. My soul is an abstract concept to me, and I don’t understand any of it. I don’t understand any of this. What do I do? I could accept this superficially (which I’ve done all of my life) or I could ask questions and see where it leads. Ima ask questions this time, this month.

‘It’s all about You’ is not my battle cry. What can I do? What can you do? What will I do? What will you do? Dig into John. Dig into the gospel of my love. (I’ll say goodbye to my father, my mother/I’ll turn my back on every other lover/ and I’ll press on.) Preparing to meet God. Preparing to know God. How do I practically prepare to meet someone I’ve technically met and say I love? Do I love you? Do I know you love me? Isaiah 43:19-21

Genesis 12:1-4

Firstly, I want to apologize to those who read my previous post {Mark 12:30-31}. I did not mean to mislead anyone, and I don't mean to back-pedal on my feelings about the church's poor treatment of my brothers and sisters in Christ. However, as this blog is me trying to be honest, I must correct my mistake. Deep feelings, in and of themselves, are considered platonic love. To be a crush, there must be a physical/sexual attraction to the person. In order to be honest, I must correct myself and say that I felt deep platonic love for all of the people in the previous post. {Thanks to the people who helped me understand this better.}

Secondly, I have been thinking more and more about what it means for me to follow Christ in every area of my life.