The Battle

         I’m searching for the perfect words, but they are elusive. What can I say that hadn’t been said before? You are like me. You smile and laugh all the time, your friends say you’re a ray of sunshine. People like to say you couldn’t possibly understand their sorrow since obviously you have a perfect life. How little they know. They do not see the tears behind closed doors, small and silent in the night. They do not hear the heart wrenching sobs that cause you to close your door and turn the music up so you can’t be heard. No one sees you on your knees, pressing your hands to your head in an attempt to squeeze the voices into silence. No one is in your head when you spend half an hour in the morning trying to convince yourself that the days plans are meaningful and y should get up even though everything feels pointless. No one is there in the night when you wake up in a full panic from dream and spend 4 hours trying to calm yourself enough to fall asleep. What’s more, when they do witness the torture in your head, they cannot comprehend. Your co-worker sees you struggling to sign a meeting form with your violently shaking hand and looks with confusion into your perfectly calm face. Your church friends tell you, “When I get anxious I just pray and it all goes away!” but they’ve never heard your raw and bleeding cries sent out to God, begging  Him to fight this battle for you. You ask why. You lie awake at night wondering what you’ve done, what you’re doing wrong that you are still tortured. Some nights your faith wavers and you question whether God is really on your side. Some days you feel you might be sick if you pull one more convincing fake smile. I know. I understand. I face those thoughts too. I’m fighting this Battle as well. My beloved ones, I have no solution, no fix all to take the pain away. However, perhaps the most powerful way we can combat these lies is with the real truth. Prosperity gospel is the worst thing for anyone with a mental disorder to hear. It lays all the blame on you, all the things you already accuse yourself of, and the times you say, “I’m a failure to God and this is my punishment.” Are only encouraged by pr0sperity gospel. Here’s the flat our truth though. Faith does not equal comfort. Not only did God not promise comfort, He promises trouble. When you follow Christ, the enemy will fit endlessly to destroy you. Joseph listened to God and he was enslaved. He rose to power in Potiphars house and was imprisoned because he obeyed what is good and pleasing to God. Job would at first seem to follow prosperity gospel. He followed God and was greatly blessed with health, wealth, and family. Job did nothing wrong, but God allowed him to be tested. Everything was taken from Job even though he remained faithful. God is not looking to give us comfort in this life, but to grow us spiritually. James 1: 2-4 “Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish it’s work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.” That’s the key, spiritual growth. As w grow through suffering, we can be compassionate enough to come alongside others who also suffer. However, do not think this means you are alone in your head, in the darkness that threatens to destroy you. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” ~ Psalm 34:18 He will not always deliver us from the darkness, and He will not always make it easy. He makes one promise… to be with us.
“Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or Whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend into heaven though art there.
If I make my bed in hell, behold, though art there.
If I take on the wings of the morning,
Or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, ‘surely the darkness shall cover me’ even the night shall be light about me.
Yeah the darkness hide the not from thee, but the night shine through as the day.
The light and dark are both alike to thee.” ~Psalm 139: 7-12 

                                                              ~Katie Stone~

You Have I Loved

     This is to you, my dear friends who are slowly falling away. We walked side by side in life and faith, but now life is pulling us in different directions. We used to talk all the time, and when we talked there was never an awkward silence, only natural conversation which built on itself. You know who you are. The ones who heard every prayer request, the ones who listened to my midnight musings. When we were together, we were unstoppable. Still today just one word can flood my memory with a hundred inside jokes or deep conversations we shared. We were the ones who were always together, and when people thought of me they thought of you as well. Some of you I called best friends, others I called brothers and sisters.  Now we are just… friends. I hold nothing against you, for there is no one to blame. We didn’t fight, we didn’t neglect one another, but the path split and I took the left while you take the right. Perhaps one day our paths will fold together again, and I have no doubt that we could be as close again, but for now I think this is a small sort of goodbye. Aloha, which means goodbye, hello, and a special kind of love. Please know that when you need me I will still drop everything for you. When you’re sad, I still know precisely how to cheer you, and some days we will still have long and meaningful conversations. Most days, however, we will go about our lives and the thought of you will dance fleetingly across the landscape of my mind, there a moment and onto the memories in the next. I love you, and I always will. You have touched my life and changed me in ways no one else could have. Because for a moment in time our paths crossed, you will continue to change me forever. I am so thankful for the time we had together, and if you’re somewhere in my future then I look forward to that day. Until then “You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.” ~J.M. Barrie
                                Grow, change, live, but my darling ones…
                                                           Stay you.
  
"To every thing there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace." ~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
             

                                                       ~Katie Stone~

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When You're Not Smart

      I have a confession. I’m a 17 year old junior in high school and I’m only halfway through Algebra 1… yeah… I’m a 17 year old junior in high school and I’m the self-published author of two full length novels with a third on the way. One of these facts tells you that I am stupid, lazy, and I’ll never get anywhere in life. The other tells you that I am intelligent, skilled, diligent, and already making my way in life. The question is, which statement is true? If you look at one side of me, the mathematic side, you will expect nothing and think nothing of me. If you look at another side of me, the english side, you will expect and see greatness in me. Both points of view are detrimental. Everyone is like this, full of positives and negatives, and everyone seems incapable of seeing more that one side. If you see only the negatives of someone then you will tear them down before they have the chance to begin, and the Bible says, “therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”  
~ 1 Thessalonians 5:11. However if you only see the good, the second someone fails you can’t believe it. They were perfect, how could they fail at something?! The Bible says, “…no one is good except God alone.” ~Mark 10:18. Instead we ought to be fully aware of one another’s strengths and weaknesses. Where one is strong, encourage them to continue on and do good with their gifts. Where one is weak, react with grace, build them up, and help them overcome. 
      As humans we will always fail; we are all flawed. However, when  our weakness is surrendered to God, we can walk in strength with the gifts and talents given to us, glorifying God in our strengths and weaknesses. Your failings do not make you a failure. Neither do your successes make you a success. You are a whole human being, created, designed, and loved by God with a unique purpose and pattern in the tapestry of His own making. “for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for going works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” ~Ephesians 2:10 
        
                                     ~Katie Stone~