Cracks in my crystal ball

It has been a while since I sat and listened to a great song, and just cried. I've been needing that - for a long time. So, here I am at 4.44a.m, with tears in my eyes, music playing in my ears, and realising a really sad truth. I am not who I want to be. I think I've been a version of the person I've wanted to be, the person I present myself to be is not me. That's my Tony shaped shell, and I just want it to be filled so much with whatever my concept of something bigger is. Is that God?


I've been listening to Pink (Alicia Moore) a lot recently, and I just feel like the album she recently wrote has a lot of great songs that seem to relate to me. She wrote this album after breaking up with her husband and it is full of great material. Material that is drawing on pain, anger, loss, love - it's the divorce talking. I feel like I relate because in the last year I allowed myself to go through a divorce - a divorce from myself.


                   I am really lost. Has my faith been taught to me? Or is it really mine?


I lost all of who I am in stress, worry, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, bad relationships, sickness, alcohol, yet painted on a face and continued in ministry, worked hard, and harder and it was never enough I wasn't full, i wasn't  happy, not like I had been. I recently thought that a year away from the ministry I was working with would help to clear all that up, but instead I was surprised to see that God has been dealing with me in less than a month. When I came here to Germany I wanted to put a good face on for my friends I was coming to see. I couldn't do that with Simon, and to an extent with my new friend Liz, with whom I just clicked. I couldn't help but be honest about my shortcomings and my desire for more. How my heart actually really hurts for the lost. How I could never see a life with a job as something that appeals to me because I know my heart has been burdened for the lost. You can throw whatever excuse you want at it, but there was no way that after really evaluating what God is speaking to me that I could return home and work when God has given me a vision to fight for those without a voice, and to use the arts to do it. To inspire, to set people free in Jesus name. There are a few different things God has been speaking.


I, for one, cannot justify going home if it's not what God is calling me to do, and I need to stop making apologies and trying to justify to people why. I am accountable to no-one but God when it comes to the big stuff, and the people I've tried to let in, whether they see that or not, can't seem to get behind me. Thank you for those of you who do. I also need to be developing my own skills and talents and working on my dance, drama, and music in an environment that I will flourish and grow. Kyrgyzstan was not that for me anymore, and I can admit as much as anyone that things were not perfect there, but I tried my absolute best, I loved on the students, I saw their lives change and I can only wish the remaining people there luck and success. There are now a lot more people working in the Greenhouse, so it's no doubt in good hands.


I also, from these few songs will share openly with you a few things. Pink sings, 'No, I don't believe you, when you say don't come around here no more.' I feel like this is what my flesh has been trying to communicate to God, I feel like I've been telling him not to come around here anymore, and that is his response. 'No, I don't believe you.' Thank you Lord for believing in me....more than anyone else.


'Oh, I've had my chances and I've taken them all. Just to end up right back here on the floor.' This is how you can easily feel after chance, after chance, and then mistake and mistake. I've learnt with God, if you really want, he'll always give you another chance. Tonight I have been on the floor after a long, rough day. Another thing she says, and puts so amazingly, 'I'm learning to be brave in my beautiful mistakes. Oh I've felt that fire and I've been burned but I wouldn't trade the pain for what I've learned.' No explanation needed other than I have no regrets. I wouldn't trade the pain for what I've learned. I was watching something the other day and heard this amazing quote about pain. 'You can't outrun pain. It is something that needs to be faced head on, it's the only way through it. Trying to run away from it won't work. I'm gonna allow myself to cry when i need to, to be angry to feel the pain, it's the only way through it. Experience the highs, the lows, get salt water into your wounds. If only to remind yourself that even though things may be bad, you're still here, you're still alive.' 


I'm gonna run into the ocean with my open wounds and get salt water into them - if only to remind myself that I am alive.


Alive and in the company of good people. Irish, Satori, Simon, Sarah, Keith, Jolisa, Katie Suderman (Mindy 2) - to name but a few of the awesome people I now get to hang out with. Not to mention all the Pick A Pocket people.


























These are some girls I've been teaching dance to.