God, What Have I Been Doing?

The title is a line from Matthew West's song "My Own Little World"

I'm tired of seeing scars all over my arms and legs. I'm tired of hurting. I’m tired of trying and failing. Why should I hope when all I ever do is get let down? I’ve done EVERYTHING. I gave it all to God and I’m still struggling. I don’t want to cut, but the devil has such a strong hold on my mind and I can’t get him to let go. Every time I think it’s getting better, he makes me think it’s not. He’s just constantly waiting for a chink to penetrate my armor and he takes full advantage of that. It hurts. I just want to feel okay. That’s all. I want to forgive myself, but I can’t. I’ve tried and tried and tried. It took me over 2 years to forgive myself for cutting in high school and I only cut twice in high school. How long is it going to take me to forgive myself for almost 3 years of cutting?

I had my worst day in 2 ½ years last Thursday. I couldn’t look anyone in the eye for fear that I would just break down crying. I was in spiritual direction with Fr. Brad for over an hour and stared at the floor the entire time. He tried to get me to look at him, but there was no way that was happening. He asked me to write a letter to Jesus about everything that’s going on, but I don’t think I can do it. I feel like I’m backwards when it comes to this stuff. I have no problem praying when things are fine where most people quit praying when things are fine. I don’t pray when things are going bad because I feel like God doesn’t want to hear it. Most people pray their butts off when things get bad.

Lord, what am I doing?? Is this worth it??

A Confession and Where I'm At Right Now

You know that saying, "The darkest hour is just before the dawn breaks"? Well, I'm at that point in my trying to stop cutting. I fell back into cutting about 3 weeks ago. Things have gotten really rough and I've cut multiple times in the last 2 weeks, but I'm not giving up hope. I can feel that there are some things that have already started to change from working with Fr. Brad. Right now, the devil is super pissed that I'm about to beat him and I can feel that. He's made my life really hard, but I'm not going to let him win this time. Yeah, I've given in a lot, but I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm almost there. I've noticed in the last 2 times I've cut that it doesn't even give me that 5 minutes of relief anymore. So, I've decided it's not worth it at all. Working with Fr. Brad's been really good. It definitely is extremely painful, but I know it's what has to happen. It's been 2 1/2 years of wounds that have never healed correctly. I'm more hopeful about this than I have been in a long time.

Fr. Brad's got me really into Scripture. We talked for an hour and a half last week on Ephesians 6. In that time, we got through 5 verses about the armor of God and it's teaching me that Sacred Scripture really is a two-edged sword that can beat the enemy. I've immersed myself into Scripture more than I ever have before.  I don't get why Catholics aren't more into Scripture. It's incredible. There are SO many encouraging things in Scripture. My favorite passages really do keep me going. Ephesians 6 is one of my favorites, but my absolute favorite verses are Psalm 147:3 (He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds) and Exodus 14:14 (The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still). It's making me realize the genuine goodness of the Lord. He's done so much for me since being here. He's healing my heart. Right now He's ripping off those band-aids so that he can cleanse the wounds of my heart and help them heal correctly. It hurts like hell and I've fallen into cutting as a result, but I'll get there in time.

So, I can tell that my finally beating this is coming soon. It's gotten really hard, but I'm not going to let it beat me. I'm a fighter and I have been for 2 1/2 years. Why stop now? That would mean that 2 1/2 years of my work as well as countless other peoples' work was totally pointless. I'm not going to let everything that so many people have done for me be totally pointless because it hasn't been. So, I'm getting there. I'm not letting go of hope, because as Fr. Greg once told me, losing hope would be a bigger sin than cutting. I've also come to realize that as soon as I completely lose hope, I'm going to die. Humans can't live without hope. I've learned that at the concentration camps and from a book we read in my Philosophy of the Human Person class. That class is changing my life more than I ever would have thought. It's making me realize my value.

The Precious Blood Of Jesus

So…It’s been a hard day today. All day, I’ve had a physical pain about halfway down on the inside of my forearm. It’s a feeling that I get when I want to cut REALLY bad. This sounds really gross and sick, but I felt like earlier the only way to get rid of that feeling would be to put a knife through my arm (of course I didn’t do that). I’ve got a priest here, Fr. Brad, who’s been helping me. He came at the recommendation of both Fr. Rick and Joe, my counselor. We’ve met twice since I got here and what he’s told me has been some of the most powerful things anyone’s ever told me. He said that when I cut myself, I cut Christ because Christ is within me. I was like “Holy crap…” So yeah…I was going to go to his office earlier today and tell him that I couldn’t do this anymore (the spiritual warfare because of this has been really bad. The fact of what’s coming from meeting with Fr. Brad pissing the devil off, like really bad). He wasn’t there, so I walked into his office after class today and told him I was having a REALLY hard day. We talked for a few minutes then he asked if he could pray over me. I’m all about the power of prayer, so of course, I agreed. He placed his hand on my head, said a HARDCORE prayer, claimed the Precious Blood, told the devil to leave, and then had me pray a prayer asking Christ to put a drop of His Precious Blood in my veins. As he prayed, the pain in my arm got really bad, worse than it was during the entire day. At the end of the prayer, he asked me how I felt. Well, I could see that he was standing like 5 feet from me, but it felt like there was still a hand on my head. Then he told me to go look in the mirror. I got up and went over to the sink. My face was completely flushed. I’d been really pale when I walked in. That was a physical sign that Christ had done exactly what I’d asked Him to. Then he asked me what else I was feeling, I told him that my arm hurt like hell. He took my arm, anointed it with holy oil and prayed over it. He asked me how I felt when he finished the prayer. My arm still hurt a little, but I felt at peace. The anxiousness I’d felt all day was gone. He looked at me and told me that Christ is within me and that He loves me no matter what I do. I could screw up way worse than I have, and He would still want me to run back to Him. He reminded me of the image of what I’d want my daughter to do if she fell down. It was a complete glory moment and God really worked today.

Imagine You Have A Daughter...

I've got literally 2 minutes because I'm getting ready to Skype with my counselor back at Steubenville, but I wanted to share something that Fr. Brad told me tonight in Confession. He asked me to pretend I had a daughter. He said when she falls down and scrapes her knee, what should I want her to do? He said that I'd want her to run to me and not run away. Then he said that God wants the same thing for each and every one of us. It was SO powerful. It's an image that will be forever stuck in my head.

Glory to God :)

"What Love Really Means" - JJ Heller

This is a song that I've come to really love lately. After the relationship crap I went through a year and a half ago, it still hurts me. I don't trust people. I'm always waiting for them to quit on me and choose someone else over me, just like he did. I've never had anyone show me what love really means.



He cries in the corner where nobody sees
He’s the kid with the story no one would believe
He prays every night, “Dear God won’t you please...
Could you send someone here who will love me?”

Who will love me for me
Not for what I have done or what I will become
Who will love me for me
‘Cause nobody has shown me what love
What love really means, what love really means

Her office is shrinking a little each day
She’s the woman whose husband has run away
She’ll go to the gym after working today
Maybe if she was thinner then he would’ve stayed
And she says…

Who’ll love me for me?
Not for what I have done or what I will become
Who will love me for me?
‘Cause nobody has shown me what love
What love really means, what love really means

He’s waiting to die as he sits all alone
He’s a man in a cell who regrets what he’s done
He utters a cry from the depths of his soul
“Oh Lord, forgive me, I want to go home”

Then he heard a voice somewhere deep inside
And it said, “I know you’ve murdered
And I know you’ve lied
And I have watched you suffer all of your life
And now that you’ll listen, I’ll tell you that I...”

I will love you for you
Not for what you have done or what you will become
I will love you for you

Why? Because I love you.

My friend and roommate Emily just sent me this Facebook message. 


"this is a reflection on God's love that one of my friends sent me, and I couldn't help but share it with all of you. she's living in Haiti and felt this in her soul as she was laying up on the roof, looking up at the stars. it might be a little harder for the guys to read, but hey, God loves you passionately and completely too, and you can put your own spin on it :)

Jesus: "Come away by [yourself] to a deserted place and rest a while." (from Mark 6: 30-34) Have you ever been with someone who had something so incredibly special to show you? Do you remember the excitment in his eyes, how his voice changed as he told you about it and called you to it? Imagine him taking you by the hands, pulling you to this special thing he had waiting. Just for you. Imagine what you're feeling in your heart. Has some of that excitiment rubbed off on you? Do you feel yourself putting off distractions in order to be present for this moment you're being pulled to?

Now, imagine that person with a surprise for you is Me. Don't just imagine, actually - know it's Me. Tonight, I pull you up onto the roof, My back towards the sky, My eyes never loosing your gaze, our hands locked. I am so, so excited to be here with you right now. I am so, so happy you said yes when I asked. Watch me, now, as I fling My arms up to the sky. 'Look!' I tell you, and I gesture to the sky, a sky with more stars than you've ever seen, filled to overflowing. The stars shimmer. You catch Me staring at you as you take it in, and I am smiling, because I am so joyful to be able to give this to you tonight. And because I know your heart, I know that you, too, are joyful looking at it. Hold up your arms. It's part of letting go. You'll notice, in between your hands, a star shoots. Don't doubt that I did this, too, for you. You deserve it. Why? Because I love you. I love you. I love you.

Things will not always feel this perfect. Even now, you tremble. Did you know I was holding you even before you started trembling? Of course I was. So fall into My arms. I have felt everything you will ever feel, and there is nothing I had in all of My pain, My suffering, My dissapointment, that I will not give you, too.

Remember that My Father, your Father - our Father - made this sky and all the stars in it. Can you imagine how hard it was for me to leave Him to be on Earth? I could do it only because I knew it meant I could be with you, and thats how much I love you. Look at this sky, and feel how much you feel for your Heavenly Father in it. Then, imagine how much more I, His only Son, abandoned to come below it with you as He commanded to suffer with you. You need to understand this love I have for you before you can love in this world as I am commanding.

Thank you, my dear child, for letting Me love you tonight."


---


I wish with all my heart that I believed that God truly does love me. I go back and forth a lot between knowing God loves me and believing that He can't. I hate going back and forth. I guess that because I keep going back and forth means that I don't truly believe that God loves me. I sit in Mass sometimes and wonder. We had a Festival of Praise a week and a half ago and it reminded me a lot of my initial conversion. As soon as the Eucharist came in, I lost it. I started crying hysterically and couldn't get it together. I thought "How could You love me?" I felt in my heart that He was trying to tell me that it didn't matter and that He really does love me, unconditionally. I'm trying so hard to believe it. In Mass yesterday, I prayed that the Lord would give me the grace to know His love for me. That's one thing Fr. Rick told me to do over here. I'm trying so hard to get it together. I know I need to pray more often and stop begging God to help me. I need to praise Him for all He has done for me in the last 5 years, because it's been a lot, even when I was trying to take control of my own life. Sometimes I can't believe that I don't believe God loves me. He's shown me SO many times that He does. 

I don't know what's going on. I know all of this stuff in my head, I need to know it in my heart. I want to have a good relationship with the Lord. I think some of this is coming from not cutting for so long, but still. Things are messed up. I was really hoping that this semester would be one of ongoing conversion. That's what I wanted more than anything this semester. I was hoping it could kind of be like a 4 month retreat from all the crap back home. So far, not so much. I know I've still got a while left here, but I'm afraid I've let too much time slip away. I feel like I'm almost in too deep of a hole to get myself out of...deeper than any hole I've dug myself into before. I just want things to be okay, and just for once, stay okay. I'm getting so sick of things being like this. I'm fine for a little while, but then, it's back to where I was. 

My relationship with God has always been better when I'm cutting, as screwed up as that sounds. It's when I'm at a really dark moment that I give up and drop to my knees in prayer. It's then I know that God's the one who really can help me. Then, I give it up for a while and it's like He's says go me, "Look, you're okay now. You can do it by yourself." That's what I feel like right now. This is where things really get tough. I didn't bring anything to cut with me, but I know I can get my hands on something. I feel like right now it's not worth it to stay clean because things are just as bad when I try to stay clean as they are when I cut. I just can't catch a break. It's ridiculous. I thought getting away for the semester would help. I was wrong. I'm afraid it's going to be like this for the rest of my life. I can't keep doing this whole back and forth thing. It takes a huge toll on me.


I've got a meeting with one of the friars here in Austria today. He's the one Fr. Rick told me to talk to. Hopefully it'll help.  

Austria Blog

I've changed the URL to my Austria blog. It's now www.englandinaustria.blogspot.com

It's the place you should follow me while I'm studying in Europe. My posting on here will be rare.