Recess is Over!

Sorry. I haven't been here in a while. But I guess that's something you already know if, perhaps, you've been following me.

(but most-likely I'm talking to more air than people here)

As of this past Sunday I've been affected by two awesome people to begin again. And so, here I am--but with nothing to say. Okay, okay, actually there's lots to be said. Lots. A year is a long time for nothing to occur. lol. It's just, well, I really don't have the time right now....I've got work to do, as in work work. =(

Now don't frown. I'll be back! Recess for me is over. =)

So, hugs until the next post?

The Untamed Pen of Lydia Phee (a short fictional diary)

ENTRY ONE

Mother doesn’t love me. I call her Mother because that is all she is to me.

When I was 8 I remember her hitting me with her eyes closed after I mistakenly dropped my dinner fork on the floor because of the trembling in my body. I was trembling because I was scared. Of what, I do not know. It was just me and Mother and she had done nothing of notice to frighten me.

I was always just scared.

When she hit me with her eyes closed like that I knew it was because I was too ugly for her eyes to grace upon the skin her hand was hitting. I knew it was because I was only beautiful on the inside. One after another I received the slaps from Mother’s calloused hand. In the other she gripped my hair tight to the scalp, steadying me, my head at a forced tilt to the side. My scalp burned with her grip. My face stung from her slaps. My eyes watered. But I did not cry. I could not.

I wasn’t beautiful.

And now, here I am, Dear Diary. I am seventeen. I am tall. I am neither fat nor too skinny. I have hair that is past the shoulder blades. I have almond shaped eyes surrounded by long lashes. I dress nicely. Guys are attracted to me.

John Hansen, Mike Milton, and Jason Jones all like me.

But Mother still does not.

ENTRY TWO

I am hurt. I did not know that hurt could exist this way. It is as though my emotions have been removed from my heart. I can feel nothing now. But I know that I should. And that is why the pain is so great. Because I don’t feel anything and I know that I should, even if only to recover.

Diary, you will soon become my closest friend. And so I want to tell you badly just what this hurt is I am feeling. But I am still warming up to you. I must trust that you can keep my secrets.

I won’t say much. Just that someone new came over today. He is not tall like she likes. And he is dark. His eyes are the glow of honey. They are the soothing nature of a warm day in early spring and the mischief of a child that didn’t get caught. Probably she only likes him because he is dark. And because of his eyes. They always have the eyes in common.

I don’t think she knows how to pick a man who has eyes like my father. Brendon had soft eyes. And that was all. When I was a little girl I would find the softest feather fallen and stroke it with my fingers, knowing I was feeling the same softness that was in my father’s eyes. Once he came out on our porch steps to see me doing this. ”Why?” he’d asked. His voice had been genuinely curious. The softness in his eyes took the shape of squints like half-sized almonds. ”Because,” I’d said. ”I’m touching your eyes.” And with that he smiled big with a tilt of his head and amusement in the eyes that never betrayed their softness. With that, he pursed his lips emphatically and pulled my ear as he left for work that Saturday morning. He knew how much I loved him.

I could never love another being as much as I loved my father. Especially not the new guy. Ever. His eyes are deceitful. They look one way and say another.

The new guys frame is stocky. He was once muscular. I can tell. His belly protrudes over the belt of his pants. His chin is slightly double. His face is round and pudgy. But he is still strong. I know.

And I’m wondering if this is why Mother can still like him. Because he is strong. Because he is beautiful on the outside. I’m wondering, if Mother could have known it would happen would she have let him come over. Somehow, I think that she would. She is destructive herself. I am learning that destruction likes destruction. Perhaps he only did what she inwardly didn’t mind. Perhaps.

Right now I am in my room and they are eating a dinner that Mother slaved all day to prepare for his arrival. They are eating in silence-as if it did not just happen. I can hear her forcing away that it did with each clearing of her throat. It is a frequent habit of hers, when she doesn’t want to see, when she doesn’t want to admit. I can hear the mischief in his eyes in the way he carelessly chews his food and gulps down homemade iced tea.

In his mind he didn’t get caught.

ENTRY THREE

It is morning now.

But I don’t want to get out of this bed. The softness of the pillows surrounding me is comforting.

I love my pillows, though there is nothing special about them. They are just pillows. And if they all were replaced tomorrow with different ones, it would not matter. I just like pillows. That is why I have more pillows than space to sleep on my bed. How I would like to temporarily drown in them if I could! I would like to become weighed down by a sea of fluffy pillows, my body being tossed sporadically, forcefully, but with softness by its currents. I would like to feel that loss of control. I would like to feel the safety that would come with it.

ENTRY FOUR

There is no entry four. I just wanted you to know no matter what you're going, been through, or what's to come that "God is real." I just wanted you to know that "He's there. He always is. But you've got to challenge yourself to believe that he is to experience him...just talk to him!" And I just want to say "I'm sorry if you were beginning to like the fictional diary thing. Perhaps I'll finish it one day. ;) God just makes me love you so much I HAD to do what it took to get you to this point--to read all this!" And last, I just want to say, "If you're reading this and you don't believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord & Saviour, that this is no accident." Please come to God. Be held. Be healed. Be helped once and for ever. Email me at marsh_leah@yahoo.com if you want to try this mighty God that I'm speaking of...email me with the subject line "I read aboutagir1 at blogspot."

Have a beautiful day.

The Meeting Room PART 3

It was better than anything I’d ever experienced in my life. I don’t know How else to describe it. And nothing. NO thing, no being, no other entity, NO nothing can touch what happened to me.

As I fell involuntarily to the Floor I worshiped Him in the feelings of my heart and with the words that came from my heart instead of the opposite way around as was the usual case. I could still hear the song for Him playing in the background. I agreed to its lyrics…“Yes, You ARE the one true God, You are sooooo Holy. Thank you so much for this. Nooo other God…! You are the one true God….!” I said all this to Him with my thoughts because I could no longer speak. I was unable to move my body!

And then, suddenly, I felt Him loving me. I mean, I’d felt Him Loving me the instant the hand touched the back of my head. But this was different. I suddenly felt Him loving me very deeply, very intimately. It was as if God was making love to me, but not in a sexual way. It was an incredibly heightened intimacy of the soul. I felt myself slipping deeper and deeper into a secret place where it was just Him and I. Things seemed to darken until I was in the deepest darkness. But as the darkness moved towards me (literally) a big, soft light unlike the light of the sun or any artificial light I’ve ever seen penetrated it. Then suddenly, I could not hear! The voices of the others around me became muted. And that’s when I heard it, felt it.

“I love you so much” He said. His voice was very quiet. Inaudible it seemed. It was as if He spoke to me through some means other than my ears. Like maybe He’d reorganized my body structure or something and said “Okay. NOW you will hear instead through your feet.” But there’s no mistaking it. I Heard Him tell me He loves me.

And it was the most awesome thing that ever happened to me.

I mean, I didn’t expect that I’d ever be able to allow Him to fill me that day. I really didn’t. And that was awesome in itself. But I didn’t know He would speak to me too. That was the icing on the cake!

As I lay there, I felt myself smiling inside. The funny thing is—like I said—I could not move. But I knew that if anyone just happened to glance at my face they’d know I was experiencing a piece of heaven.

Not long after He told me He loved me, I could hear again and I began to feel that I was able to move. But oh, was I drained! And my eyes didn’t seem to want to open. Slowly I propped my chin on my forearm and opened my mouth weakly to speak. “Thank you so much God” I said. “I didn’t know you were sooo real. I didn’t know. Never. Never can I doubt your existence or your Power again.” But I soon could no longer hold my head up and laid it on the cool, hard floor again, eyes still closed. And that’s when the light returned! But it was brighter than before! Much brighter. It got closer and closer and I yearned to hear God tell me He loved me again. But He didn’t and the light faded away. “Wait! Comeback!” I said to Him with my thoughts. “Tell me you love me again…Please.”

And it did! The light returned! But as quickly as it came it faded back again and my eyes opened as if a hand that could not be felt but whose existence was known had opened them. It was as if my eyelids were remote controlled. Simultaneously, one of the women helping out at the retreat came to help me up. “It’s almost time for the last meeting before the bus ride home” she said in semi-broken English. “Oh okay” I said, standing up and feeling suddenly full of energy. I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt light. I felt giddy. I walked with a bounce and with ease back to my room as if cloud hopping, unaffected by the pull of gravity.

“You certainly are amazing God” I thought. Then suddenly I realized that it was He who had opened my eyes! I was amazed at how perfectly He’d timed things so that right when I was told it was time to go I was also regaining complete consciousness. Our last meeting was going to start in the next few minutes and He wanted me to be around for it!

On the bus ride home I heard one of the members from my church playing audibly, but very softly, the song me and some of the others had just been worshiping to in the meeting room. “Holyyy, holyyy…” the song was saying again. Whoever it was kept playing it over and over. It had been playing for nearly 20 minutes! I looked to see who it was. It must be my prayer leader, I thought. I looked ahead to the seat in front of me. But it wasn’t her. Her iPhone wasn’t even out and she was fast asleep. I looked behind me to her brother who had headphones in his ears. Maybe he was listening to the song loud enough for it to come through his headphones. But it wasn’t him either!!! I looked over to one of the other prayer leaders who was also our driver. Was it him?? The music hadn’t seemed to be coming from the radio/cd player, but maybe that was it!

It wasn’t.

I looked around the small, 18 seater bus once more, examining each individual. Absolutely NO ONE was playing that song! It was then that I realized the song was playing just for me. I didn’t tell anybody what was happening to me. It was just for me and God to experience. We were finishing what we began in the meeting room.

Later that night, as I drifted off to sleep I was aware of His presence still. I could not feel myself. My body was light as if my substance were made of air itself. I felt the continual pins-and-needles buzz of happiness and peace flowing from my head to my feet. In the background was still playing that song of ours. “Holyyyy, holyyyy…”

Yes, God, I thought. You certainly are.

 *This was my experience at The Encounter, a weekend retreat experience that has forever changed the course of my life with God. Every word is true. Every experience can be yours. For more information on how you can participate to have an encounter with God like never before please email me at marsh_leah@yahoo.com with the subject line as "Encounter with God."

The power of God is amazing. When we experience it, it makes him more Real to us. It makes us BELIEVE more. Our faith Increases. Think about it...

 And this is why my life will never be the same again. Now, I can't convince you of any of this.  You must experience for yourself. It is up to you to take the climb to see exactly what I mean. Email me about The Encounter.

 Some things you can do if you want to read more true stories of God's power in my life to influence your own (but I pray that you will come to experience him in this way for yourself!):

-Add me as a friend on Facebook. 

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=504809058&ref=profile

(Subscribe to my notes after you add me as a friend on Facebook--or you can simply come back here! But usually I publish first to Facebook.)

 *If you need prayer, it doesn't matter if you don't know me. I'll do it. Send your prayer request to my yahoo or Facebook inbox.

 Above all, remember this....

 God loves you. Dearly. And you're reading this because he's calling you. Come.

The Meeting Room PART 2

What if I couldn’t perform?

I had already tried twice before dinner.

But I knew it was worth it to at least try, it was worth it to miss taking a shower, worth it to leave my hair unwashed and unstyled in the curly puff that it had become--even if nothing happened. I began brushing my teeth and washed my face to pass a little more time. Could it Really happen? Would this be my time??? How many people were there? Ohh, it would be sooo hard for me if there were too many people! Why couldn’t I ever focus? Why do I even care how many people there are???

Soon, I left my rectangular shaped living quarters, passing slowly through the dining room to go into the meeting room. Would I let Him down yet again? Could I let go enough to allow Him to have full control? Oh, how I wanted to allow Him to Love me too. But I was scared. What if I embarrassed myself? How did the other girls manage to give Him so much freedom over Their bodies? Was it Really that Good? Yes, it must be. I want it. Now. I Have to try. I want IN.

I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, took a deep breath and walked in nonchalantly. But the other girls didn’t seem to notice me. They were enchanted by Him, busy being loved by Him, feeling Him, breathing Him in, exhaling everything else out. They were talking to Him too. But I couldn’t understand them. It was a foreign language that they were speaking. Not in their native language of Portuguese for which I can immediately recognize upon hearing and minimally understand. It was a language of Love. A heavenly language.

I sat down in a chair close to the center isle of the meeting room and bowed my head to my knees. That’s when she came to me. Her face was even more flushed than before. “Leah. What are you doing?” she asked, as if I was doing something strange and foreign, such as trying to drink water from a bowl instead of a cup. But her words were not judging. They were simply the question that they were. “I’m praying,” I said, with shame in my voice. I felt like a child. Not because of her. But because I didn’t know the first thing about what I was doing. She told me to stand up. “We’re going to baptize you,” she said. She said it the way a mother tells her child he/she Has to do something she already knows he/she Really wants to do anyway but is scared to say that he/she wants it. She said it the way a good friend says “Here, you take the orange one” because the friend knows you prefer it without even having to ask. And I immediately loved her all over again like the sister that she is to me, a love continually renewed by acts such as this since the day she became my spiritual leader. I knew she knew I was scared. I knew she knew how hard I had tried earlier and that I was unsuccessful. But she also knew I Still wanted it. And I was amazed by her faith, that I, after nearly 6 months of having been trying, could let go enough to experience the baptism of the Fire of God, could let go enough to be Filled with Him, could let go enough to say “Here, you take the wheel God.”

I was amazed by my own Faith that I had the nerve to even try again this third time. I felt ashamed before God for not trusting Him enough to let go of myself. But at the same time, just as Jacob refused to stop wrestling with the angel of God until he received a blessing, I’d made up my mind that I would not give up my struggle to trust Him enough to receive His filling. This was the basic theme for why me and the other girls had come to Camp Peniel in the first place. Peniel means “to see God face to face.” We’d come to have an Encounter with God like never before, to have our names changed just as Jacob (which means “Deceiver”) did by wrestling with an angel of God (the angel of God changed Jacob’s name to Israel, meaning “Prince of God”). Truly, I wanted an Encounter with God that would change my life from the spiritual murmur that it was. I was tired of backsliding. I wanted to feel His love so deep that I’d never again Think of betraying Him once I got home. I wanted a new name.

No sooner did I stand up from the chair, she was gone again. But I knew she would get back to me. I knew she was waiting for the Holy Spirit to direct her, to tell her When to come to me. I walked awkwardly to the right side of the room and stood with my eyes closed. I thought, “Okay, just keep it real Leah. Just keep it real with God! And stop thinking of what you hear the others doing around you. Give your attention to God.” And I did. There was a song playing for Him in the background. “Holyyyyy, holyyyyy…” it said. I listened, then suddenly decided to sing to the Lord along with the song. I didn’t try to sound good. I was broken inside. I just wanted Him to know I loved Him. I just wanted to show Him I could worship Him with my heart and not just words. That I could focus on Him and stop being afraid. Soon I began to talk to Him. “Oh, Lord, my God,” I said. “I just want to learn to worship you. I just want to give myself to you. I’m so sorry I hold back. I know you deserve more than me…”

And then I began praying parts of the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t know why. I guess I’ve been understanding the depth of it more and more lately and somehow knew I could pray it with sincerity in my heart to Him because of the newfound genuine understanding. But I didn’t even get to finish because suddenly, without any warning at all, I felt the open hand, the stretched fingers of another in the room cup the bottom of the back of my head where the head meets the neck. I knew this was not her own decision. It was The Holy Spirit of God. It was her Allowing God to use her. She had come upon me so suddenly, so accurately, so powerfully and calculatingly. My eyes were still closed. But I knew what was happening was of God. I could feel it.

The moment she touched me, my groin turn to jello. “God! It’s you! Thank you! Oh, Don’t leave me. I Will surrender. I Will” I told Him. She began to speak in that heavenly language again and I realized it was my Leader’s cousin who had touched me. But just as quickly as she had touched me and began speaking in tongues, I felt another come in front of me touching the left part of my chest with the palm of her hand. She, too, was speaking in tongues. My heart turned to jello as well and my body began to quiver involuntarily, wanting me to fall.

In the past, when this would happen, I would try to stand strong. I would resist letting God fill me with the Fire of His Holy Spirit. I was scared to look like all those other people in Church who jumped and shouted and spoke to God freely, laughing with happiness at whatever He was telling them or making them feel. But this time the moment I felt I was losing control I said to God “Take me, do what you will. I submit myself to you. Take me. I’m tired of struggling. I need you. I need you so bad. Let me feel how Big of a God you are.” With that, I felt someone’s hand on my forehead as well. Surges of something way more than the word Incredible flowed throughout my body. This actually had started the moment the back of my head was touched and increased as the other girls saw fit to place their hands on me too. And it felt, well—good. Really, really good.

I mean, I felt absolutely wonderful. The power of God inside of me felt better than Sex. Better than a drug. Better than anything I’d ever experienced in my life!

(to be continued...part 3)

The Meeting Room PART 1

I always Knew it was real, that some people faked it, that some didn't. But that's all I ever had to go by. What I Knew in my heart. And while I still can only say that I know in my heart there are people who fake it, I now have the pleasure of being one of the one's that didn't. And I now Know it to be real.

For the past 14 days I have replayed over and over and Over the experience I waited so long for that finally did happen. But no matter what I do I can't seem to remake into reality this dream of mine that came true. It is surreal. It is mind-blowing. And what I felt, no matter how much I re-imagine it, cannot be properly reintroduced to me or anyone else by my futile words and visual memory. But the Effort is worth it. And so that's why I'm here. To Share.

"We're in the meeting room, does anyone want to come?" She'd just walked into our bunked-bed room, our living quarters for the past 2 and a half days. There were at least 8 of the bunk-beds within its painfully cramped rectangular shaped walls. However, a few of the other girls still managed to take advantage of the narrow space between the two parallel sections of beds stacked and lined on either wall of the rectangular room. They were standing, chatting. "No, it's okay" I heard one of them say. The rest of them conceded. I don't remember that any one of them actually asked what was going on in the meeting room.

But maybe I missed that.

I, myself, was standing at the sink preparing to refresh my tired skin and mouth. I had been pondering if it was worth my time to shower, as I was feeling quite lazy and wanted to rest up a bit before we hit the road again back to Atlanta. We had just come from the meeting room, then on to a tasty Brazilian dinner in the dining room less than 45 minutes ago it seemed. And I was tired out from my efforts to make happen what I just couldn't seem to do. But not for one second did I stop thinking about what I Could have accomplished there. Not for one second was I ready to have left the meeting room. And if I couldn't experience for myself what many of the others were, I was absolutely content to simply watch and be happy for those who did, amazed by the surreal nature of it all.

"So what are you guys doing in there?" I asked, toothbrush in hand. I immediately conceded to meet up with her and the others in the meeting room once she told me.

But she didn't have to.

I’d already noticed when she first walked into the room how her incredibly fair skin had developed the slightest tint of tan orange. I’d seen how her face was flushed. I’d seen how her long, waist length hair was unraveled and sprawling, in need of being reordered into the single hair tie for which the rest of her hair desperately struggled to stay inside. I’d seen the excitement in her eyes, heard it in the way she’d opened the door, noticed it in the way she’d come into the room unable to stand still, caught it for myself in the way her body involuntarily trembled every few seconds, in the way her speech was hard to come out, in the way she inadvertently made the “S” sound as if shivering from the cold.

It is what always happened whenever she got This Way. I’d seen it many times.

But I must admit, although I wanted to be a part of what was going on in the meeting room, I was horribly scared. What If I couldn’t perform???

(to be continued...part 2)

Hardened

i imagine there is much work to be done concerning myself. actually, why am i even imagining. i already know the deal.

there is much, much work to be done.

when i became such as i am, i do not know. why i became such as i am, i May have the answer for that. but i'm not willing to explore that now.

 for now just know that i'm hardened. i don't care about people the way i used too. i used to lose sleep over the problems of others. i used to strategically employ all the right words, sounds, action and emotion in general to solve them. i used to be able to feel what Billy, Sue & Bobby felt as if their soul had been transplanted to replace mine. i could really Love then. 

and now?

well, i already told you.

out of thin air.

before 10 minutes ago i was dead broke.

$0 was in my account as far as I knew.  but low and behold, there is a God...

who just so happened to put 25 dollars into my dry account.

now how about that.  the bank itself saw fit to place 25 dollars into MY account. me. out of all the other people out there this could have happened to, it happened to me.

i'm telling you, dear readers, having faith in the unseen really does pay off.

into thin air i casted my faith. out of thin air God produced.

MAYBE THE AIR WASN'T SO THIN AFTER ALL.

have a glorious day.