Dreams. . . Wednesday, Sep 24 2008

Dear Friends,

I am a dreamer.  I always have been.  I’m much like my father in that regard.  My mother is more of the hard realist.  For some reason I attribute that to her more Germanic heritage, when more than likely, it’s just her.  meh.  lol.  However, I am still a dreamer.  I’m going to dream a little bit this morning.  Just dream.

This morning I’ve been doing a bit of research to get an idea of what i’m going to write my paper for my urban sociology class on.  I am obsessed with urban agriculture.  I dream of living in a city and teaching those who have had a shit life handed to them how to grow vegetables.  There is something amazing and redeeming about growing your own food.  Something cleansing and purifying about getting into the dirt and smelling it’s deep richness.  I don’t know of any time I have felt closer to my creator than when I have planted a seed and cared for it hidden beneath the soil and weeks later it pops out of the ground, and months later, I reap the harvest.  To provide others with the ability to do that would be amazing.  I do not desire to be rich.  I know I won’t ever be wealthy by this worlds standards.  I don’t know if I could be happy if I had money.  I want to be “poor.”  To see those in need around me and give them what they need to make it day by day.  To go without so those around me may continue on.  I desire to live a simple life.  Sometimes I get frustrated being in college because I am surrounded by such a complex world.  A world of technology and just suc ha fast pace.  So often I just want to go back to the farm and slowwww baaackkkkk dowwwwnnnn.  I like to keep things at a slow pace.  I like to be able to think.

Well, dear ones, I need to leave the coffee shop and head home so I can walk to chemistry.  blah.

May you have a blessed day. 🙂

Angela Pickle.

Leave a Response »

 

I’m not crazy. . . Tuesday, Sep 23 2008

i’m just a little unwell?

I feel like I’m going crazy.  if I’m not there already.  it’s almost 4 am and I have been fighting all night.  Fighting the desire to take too many pills, fighting the feeling that someone else is controlling my thoughts.  I am at such a weak and broken point right now.  I haven’t had a delusion in 2 years.  I KNOW this isn’t true, but every time i’ve had a skewed thought like this, i’ve known it wasn’t true.  I’m fighting it, but dammit, it’s hard.  I don’t know what has caused these darkest parts of this illness to rear it’s ugly head.  I don’t know why the control and stability I have had for the past year or so is being lost.  I fear this will only get worse.  I just took one of my klonapin, which is something I haven’t had to do in about a year also.  I know i’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill, but it is scary to be laying in bed thinking that someone else is controlling your thoughts and to be trying to fight that.  HOW do you fight that especially when for some reason it seems so real and so true at the moment.  I’m scared of myself right now.  Scared of the path my mind is going down.  Right now I can keep myself safe and can fight these whack thoughts, but for how much longer?  I know i’m not a slave to this illness.  I have freedom in Christ, and I take such joy in that.  He has brought me so far in these six years, but even this little step backward takes me back to such dark places.

I am scared, but I know I serve a God who is so much bigger than this illness.  A God who is in control of the universe and who holds my life in His hands.  My Abba Daddy holds my sanity in his precious, loving hands.

Whoever you are, out there reading this, please pray for me.  I am just a fellow traveller on this road of life and it’s a bumpy road right now.  Prayer would definitely be appreciated.

2 Responses »

 

Untitled Poem. Tuesday, Sep 16 2008

I peer into the broken mirror of my past

Silver backed glass shards reflecting

Logically or illogically

The hard times fragmented

Into essence of diamond

Glittering, sparkling

Running my fragmented mind

Across invisible glass tipped memories

Anger filled my soul then

I couldn’t believe You loved me.

Those who see You in me

Pour living water down

The cuts and sores

Rinsing away the fragments

Of the past embedded in my skin

Cleansing, soothing the hate

 

Peering into the broken mirror of my past

Slowly I see less of me

Less of my tears

            Or lack of tears

Less of my blood

And more of Your life.

One Response »

 

September 11th, 2001 Thursday, Sep 11 2008

September 11th, 2001 began like any other day in that, my junior year of high school.  I was to take the ACT in Moberly that day to see if I could get a high enough score in the math section so I could take trigonomotry for college credit; ever the nerd.  There was a softball game scheduled for that night Monroe City I believe.  I drove to school nonchalantly and went to prayer group in the Library with my friends to hang out, and to ask Gods blessing over the four hour test I was about to partake in.  I had no idea the events unfolding on the east coast of our country at that moment.

My first hour class was Chemistry, and my teacher, Mrs. Farmer always watched the morning news.  I knew this because I was incredibly good friends with her daughter.  When I walked into the room, my jovial mood turned sour almost immediately.  There was shock on everyones face, and the television was on.  The mere fact of the tv being turned on was enough to concern me.  We watched the first building burn through the first few minutes of first hour, our young midwestern minds not completly grasping what was unfolding before our eyes.  The most shocking thing happened then.  Another plane came flying in low, a plane, filled with PEOPLE, people who were innocent, people who had families came crashing into the second tower of the World Trade Center.  I saw it happen.

My rural mind still does not grasp the enormity of this event.  More people were killed in this attack than live in the largest town in my county.  To me it would be the obliteration of everything I know.  The destruction of half of my county of 5,000.

To those mourning in New York and Washington DC, those who saw so much more than mere images flashing across a tv screen, know the prayers of a midwestern farm girl are with you.  Know that today I will be thinking and praying for you.

Leave a Response »

 

Insects ROCK! Monday, Sep 8 2008

This semester I am taking a class on Entomology, that’s right, bugs. . .  I know, I know, the initial reaction is probably “EWWWW!”  I get that a lot.  In all honesty, I LOVE this class.  I have learned so much and every Tuesday and Thursday, I leave this class more and more in awe of our creator.  Insects are VITAL to our worlds survival.  Without insects, the food chain would collapse, decomposition would slow to a crawl, and many other vital earth processes would fail to go on.  In contrast, if we, Humans, the “master species” failed to exist, not a whole lot would change.  A few species of insects, which feed exclusively on humans, would fail to survive, but eventually, Earth would go on.

            This past week, we have been learning the external parts of insects in great detail and instead of becoming frustrated with all of the crazy latin I’m having to learn, I find myself in great awe.  God put SO much detail in how these insects run and how they moved from a more primitive animal to what they are now.  It is so incredibly awe inspiring.  I know the stereotype is that the more science you learn the harder it is to believe in God.  I just don’t see how that is possible.  The more science I learn, the more real and amazing God becomes to me.  I look at the morphology of insects and just am blown away at how much care God put into these animals we crush without concern.  It really shows how in Gods eyes, the least is the greatest.

Leave a Response »

 

heh Friday, Sep 5 2008

So, school is keeping me busy. Sorry to all none of you who read this ;).

 

Every once in awhile i look back on my life and am just blown away by how far Christ has brought me.  I look at the trials, at the pain and am just set in awe that I am still alive, still (mostly) unscarred, not permanently in the psych ward, I am in freaking COLLEGE taking a full course load, I have friends who blow me away with how amazing they are, I have a boyfriend. . .

1 year ago: I had just started Mizzou and was scared of another hospitalization occuring.  It had happened the last 4 falls, why not this one?

2 years ago: I was working at C&R and about to start at NECAC I would end up being hospitalised in october, lose the NECAC job, get a new job at a coffee shop in Hannibal, quit C&R, then lose the coffee shop job, and then I quit for 4 months.  I did nothing.  There was talk of me living in a group home.

3 years ago: I was at Culver-Stockton and could not manage to go to class.  I would step into class and have panic attacks because I thought everyone could see that who we were talking about in those psych classes wasn’t just a general example, it was ME.  I was hospitalised that fall and had to drop out because i could not pass my classes.

4 years ago:  I was at MACC and took 15 credit hours and worked 10 hours a week, I ended up with a 3.5 gpa that semester.  I was hospitalized around labor day after having been hospitalised the previous march.

5 years ago: I was a freshman at Hannibal La-Grange College and was full of anger.  I was still cutting myself and had no idea how to stop.  I didn’t know if God could love someone as fucked up as me.

6 years ago: I was having the quarter of my life.  playing softball, ended up with a 4.0 first quarter of my senior year of high school.  things went downhill rapidly.  a group of teachers called me out on it, but things still ended up not good.  I cut myself in late november and ended up in the psych ward for the first time.

 

I know I highlight the negative.  The negative stands out.  There has been soooo much good over the years.  The main good i see that has come from all of this, is that I am still here.  I take my medicine.  I have been at one school for over a year!  I haven’t had to be hospitalized for almost 2 years now.  Lives have been touched by me being honest and open with my struggles.

Abba, Daddy,

I am still so young, I know there are many more trials, and many more amazing things you wish for me to see.  Lord, give me the strength to fight those battles as they come, and Abba, when I feel weak, and those doubts creep in, Lord help me to call back on where I have been, and how far you have brought me.  Lord help me to look back on the past in a healthy manner, mourning what I have been through, but not getting caught up in it, always praising you for what you have done in my life.  Jesus change my heart to be more like yours.  Your work is far from finished in my life.  You are the potter and I am the clay Lord.  Change me, Mold me.  I want to be like you.

Angela

3 Responses »