Misunderstood

I wish I could make people understand. Understand what it is like to be me. To think what I think, to feel what I feel, to have them truly see and think of a day to day basis how I do. To have them endure the same anxieties that I do on the same level.


Maybe, just maybe people would understand it. People would understand me. If people understood me, they would know that I am a human being, I have feelings. On the outside, I may not be that kid that expresses what I feel, I may not wear my emotions on my sleeve like everyone else but they do exist. I get upset words still do damage. The way people treat me causes damage. From my previous blogs you have gathered that I still struggle with cutting. This semester has been really hard on me. I have had nights where I just need an escape, a quick fix, a way to let everything out. I was doing good until tonight. I fucked up.


If people understood me, they might choose to acknowledge that I exist. I have gone to school here for two years now and I still live in the shadows of everyone's life. I am an after thought, a convenience. I am here to fix your IT problems, or to bring you food, to clean up your mess, and be expected to keep tabs on my roommate. Honestly, nobody has ever come to the room looking for me.
If people understood me, the would learn that my silence is good. I do not sit in silence because I hate people, but because I want to listen. They would know that I do not seek social confrontation because I have been shot down by people over and over again. I isolate myself because that is all I have known.
All of this is just a wish. I wish someone would take the time to get to know me. I want to be understood, I want people to accept me for who I am. I do not want to be changed, I want to be loved. I want to be invested in, to be seen as more than just a warm body that people can take advantage of when needed. X

The Intern

Man, it has been a while since I have posted anything here. To be honest, I am not the best with words nor do I find much of anything I do very interesting. This summer was probably one of the most stressful and discouraging part of my life. I have never felt more betrayed by a place that I hold a deep fondness for.
This summer had the chance to do my internship at my home church. I thought this would be a great opportunity to get to know the people more at my church and make things a little easier on the social aspect. I had pretty full summer, Wednesday night classes, Sunday morning teaching, three weeks of camp, a week of drumming, a mini mission trip, CIY, and VBS. Along with all that, office hours. I was fairly busy.


 My first week of camp was awful, nobody listened in the class and straight up told me they would not due to my gender and the fact that I was not much older than them. Second week I was unexpected dorm mum and nurse. We also had a really bad sickness going around camp. I cleaned up a lot of vomit. I also had to fill in for someone on a class. Third week of camp was canceled. Between the first two being back to back, I was beat. I had about a week or two I between events that I spent in the office doing lesson prep and gathering my supplies. The kids had a blast on Wednesday nights. We walked through the 40 years in the wilderness. They even got to build tents out of PVC. It was also during this time that I let the stresses of life get to me and messed things up with my significant other.


The next big trip was to a school in Arkansas. I went on a mini mission trip with the middle school kids. While we were here, we cleaned up their gardens, transplanted tulips, and deep cleaned the school. It wad also on this trip that I got stung by a red wasp smack dab in the center on top of my hand. Within a 5 hour span, my hand was swollen to my fingertips all the up to my elbow. Freakin savage. I ended every evening with a small reflection of the day and verse or two from the book of Philippines.

Following this was CIY. Again I only had one day I between the two to do laundry. This week legit kicked me in the feels. We walked through the book of Ephesians each night in the main session and talked a little bit after them. Small groups were also different and were more about getting to know one another more and building a stronger relationship with one another. It was here that I shared my story for the first time, every detail with 13 kids that I have been working with the entire summer, with adults that had watched me grow up in the church and had no idea. I was not cool with it at first, but God uses that to impact more than what we think.

For our extended recreation, we went to and Escape Room. We were split into two groups and locked in a room. We had an hour to escape. My group was two steps away, the other group had four. Overall, the trip was a blast. I got to grow closer with a lot of the kids and even some of the adults.
Following this was VBS. I was in charge of games. All of them were water games, so that was fun. It was also during this time that I got to fix things with my significant other, so that made things better as well.


So as you read this you are like yo...what is so discouraging about all of this? My first week of camp made me feel like a failure, nothing went right, nobody really cares, and the kids smeared ink all over my stuff. Following this were two board meetings that I got to attend. In both of these, the role of women in the church was brought up. This has been an issue that I had fought before, but have been able to drop it. This went on for two months and the main elders basically decided that a woman cannot: Give communion meditation, pass offering plates, pass communion plate, speak doctrine, or teach a class even if it is not on a "standard" church night. She is to have mo authority over man at all. Heaven forbid a man show up and want to learn something from a woman. As you can tell I am a little bitter. To say that is stupid, if someone has knowledge let them share it. If God has blessed a female with knowledge do not let her keep it to herself, let her share it with others.
As an end result to all of this I was basically told that yes, we support your choice, yes we support you, but you will never be a youth minister; the only thing you can be is a minister's wife. This enraged me, it is an insult. It is basically saying you are not good enough, your voice does not matter. I got this from my home church. It crushed me. It made me angry, and it severely discouraged to the point that I do not even want to be here this semester. I still have the feeling, it is hard to battle sometimes. Even now, being here with my profs and fellow classmates it is hard to stay encouraged about such things.
Well that is about all I have for right now. Going to a steam punk festival this weekend, followed by a trip to an amusement park the next weekend. So many adventures, may post about them! Stay fabulous! X

Home

 I am home for the summer. I should be happy about that right? I should be excited and filled with joy. I get to spend time with my family that is never home. I get to see all the people who I went to college to get away from for like 3 months. I should embrace everyone I have missed while being away. Tell them just how much I missed their faces, or how glad I am to see them. But, I am not. I am not happy to be home, I am not happy to be back in this dreadful town, I left for a reason. If it was not for my one friend, I would have not come back. It is amazing how much one person can affect the choices you decided to make in life. I have been back a week and am already counting down the days until I can go back. 102 days if you would like to know.

Since I have been back, I have had about 8 phone calls, each asking the same question; “Are you going to walk with your class?” To each I respond, “no.” They were all followed by the same response, “why.” I gave the first truth, I was told by the principle I was not allowed to walk with them. Which...I did not really care, I was not going to show up anyway. That seemed to work until my parents asked why. They do not know much of what happened in school or what I have done so I basically told them this: “I left for a reason, I do not like the people in my class, I cannot stand them, I want nothing to do with them.” My dad could care less, my Mum was a little upset but she got over it. I am my own class technically. Class of 2014 ½.

I would like to say I am one of those kids that has the perfect relationship with there parents, but I am not. When I was younger they were heavily involved in my life, once I hit 4^th grade, I began to shut them out, I shut out everyone. I continued this all the way up until now. There are things I cannot bring myself to tell them. There are things I do not want to talk to them about. If they ask a question, I'll answer, it may not be the answer they want to hear or the answer they expected. Coming home occasionally throughout the semester, they began to realize just how much I have 'grown up.' It is not that I have grown up, it is that I just gave up. I am tired of trying to act like there is nothing wrong, if something is wrong or I disagree, I say something about it.

This month and the past month has kind of sucked for me. I have been dreading this summer because I know what it will entitle. Work...work...and...more work. Not that work is bad, I mean I can get a car and hopefully pay some on the bloody loan I had to take out in order to attend school this year. I am currently attending college in hopes of receiving a bachelor in Youth and Family Ministry, but with the way things are going and the things that I have been told, I feel as if my major and study are pointless. I always understood that women could not be preachers. In the Bible it says not to let a woman hold an authoritative position in the church.

I called my church towards the beginning of April and asked if I could give a communion meditation. My preacher said it would be fine, my youth minister said he saw nothing wrong with it, but the church elders said “no.” Not going to lie, I did feel a little hurt, but I did not take it personal. I was told by the elder that the communion meditation was an authoritative position. He backed this up by saying it was a place he saw for teaching and during this time, it would be giving me authority over men in the church. I did not agree with his statement, but out of respect I let it drop and quietly walked downstairs to my class. This did not shake me at first, I kind of brushed it off at first. I had friend's from school with me that weekend so I did not want them to see me upset. I pushed it off and pushed it off until it basically began to just creep in my thoughts and eat me. I began to think about everything going on in my church the good and the bad. I began to think about positions and what I could and could not do in the church. I grew up working audio/sound for the church and for youth group, as I got older, I began helping with Wee Worship, and even Children's Church. I know this counts as serving, but there is nothing in the Bible that says a woman cannot pass the plate during offering or communion. There is nothing that says a woman cannot give a meditation. I apologize if I sound like a feminist, I promise I am not. My thing is, I plan and feel called to be a Youth and Family Minister, how can I do that if I cannot give a communion meditation? The more I compared church to the church in Acts, the more upset I became. What has happened to the church today?

On a different, more interesting note, I do get to go back home for a full week this year!! I am super excited for that, I cannot remember the last time I got to stay more than 5 days in my home state of Michigan. Right now, that seems to be the only good thing I have going for me this summer unless I can find a time to run back up to school to see some friends. Hopefully that will happen, looking forward to at least one day of disk golf and just catching up over what part of the summer has passed. I feel as if I live a double life almost. Here back home, I am the quiet reclusive person that hides in their quietly playing on the keyboard or strumming on the guitar. I leave to go to work where I just do my job and listen to music, then come home to go back to my room. At school, I am a tad bit more social. I can joke around a bit, I have a couple of friends that I really connect with and can talk to easily. I spend time with people and actually enjoy it. Sometimes it is just me laying there listening to them type as they write a paper or talk to themselves in order to study. Whoever said that people need to socialize in order to hangout was wrong. Sometimes just being in the presence of a really good friend and saying absolutely nothing is the best thing. For me anyway.

Well, I think I am done boring you with my rants. Maybe I'll find something other than my boring life to blog about. Chances of that happening are slim, who knows...maybe you will get something or learn something. I hope to do some deep theological blogs in the future, but the chances of that actually happening are well probably good. I have all summer.... 102 more days before I go back to school, surely I will be doing some reading in that time...anyway, have a fantastic day! x