"What can you do today to stand together and believe with and for one another?"


Today I stand shoulder to shoulder with my friends, trusting in God, practicing spiritual principles. Today I pray. I pray for those who are sick and suffering, in great pain, those who are mentally ill, those who are in such need of God's grace that they know not what they do. Today I can love, give comfort, not judge, just listen. Today I can show someone what God's grace did for me and not just tell them what I think it can do for them. Today I can stand, hand in hand with others and have faith not just through my thoughts or words, but also in deeds. Today I am honest, openminded, faithful, courageous, have integrity, willingness and humility, have brotherly love, discipline and awareness of God and most importantly: I am of service to God and my fellows.

Grief is... undescribable.

Growing up my Dad used to say to me, "do what your told and don't give me any grief." I still don't really know what that means.

I do know that grief is a feeling like a twisted heart. It makes you cry, it makes you stay very, very still. It makes me want to scream and hit. It makes me hope

that if I just smile a little brighter,
make a better grade,
be a better leader,
stand strong in my self,


it will please just
go away.


Its having my insides just up and dump out on the floor when I least expect it.

Initially, I thought I was going to die it was so painful. That was eight months ago. These days it is a thought that just makes my eyes water with a painful smile that comes across my face in hopes that no one will notice or know of the reminder. I continue to experience things each day and there are days, not every day but some days, when I think she is not here to see this, hear this, know this, experience this with me. WHY did She Go?

Then there are other days that are the greatest day of my life. I work, laugh, play, love with no attachment to the past or the loss. I move on and she is not a part nor do I feel like she is supposed to be. I don't notice. There is no shadow, no tug, there is no wonder.

I know that one day it will just be a story. Something I can tell someone else and let them know that there is change, that life becomes okay again and that while relationships end I don't have to. I can keep going, keep playing, creating, loving and maybe share all of it with someone new.

And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast
To the slim chance of love's recovery.

I was working with a woman today on not drinking. It has overwhelmed me with the things that I remember when I share myself with someone else. On a daily basis, I forget the horror through which I survived until I share it with someone else who needs to know hope. She needed to know there was something worth working for and I know there is: I have lived it. I am living proof there is a miracle for all of us. I am a burning bush, on fire and not consumed. More importantly, I have the ability to give love to someone else today through sharing the debacles of my life and how I got through them.

Sometimes I don't remember in my drinking. Lots of missing information in my mind. I will sit here and think and think and think and try desperately to bring back an event I have been told about and there is just nothing. Nothing. I can't do anything about to hell I have raised and don't remember. Strangely, remembering nothing brings hope to her because she has periods of blackouts too. She knows that if I can not drink, she can not drink.

I can remember thinking that I was the only one who couldn't get themselves together. That I would be the one people referred to as a real drunk. I would be that drunk woman at the bar that night. I would be the only one who was unsuccessful, who vanished because of a drunk driving accident. I would be the one who people forgot.

I was in a storm all the time. I drank thinking it would stop that storm not knowing that was part of what was causing the storm. If I could just...not...drink...

Who knew?

There is a miniscule chance that I will never take a drink again for the rest of my life.

A slim chance. Here's to love's recovery.

I read a blog today that had a guest poster who was a journalist. His outlook on life seemed...bleak, at best. He was 28, single, well educated. His balloon of hope had been burst as a result of surviving his twenties. That fantasy that reality was a storybook was overwhelmed by the reality that has set in from the global issues he has entangled himself in as a result of...idk exactly.

I can remember coming to that realization that the world was full of it. I was angry, hostile, bitter, unable to complete a sentence without four letter words sometimes using them in the middle of words (except in front of my Mom for fear of abandonment). I was confused, overwhelmed, unsure of myself or my surroundings. Nothing made sense and the only thing I could see was others and their stuph. I couldn't see me. I didn't want to see me. No one else did either! for that matter!

I had to seek Love to find me. When I finally stumbled onto myself after a few years of uncovering, discovering and discarding, I had to go through a process to learn how to be me. It was strange. I continued to seek Love in my life. I found myself Loving those who are easy to love, those who everyone Loved. Then as I continued to practice being me, I found compassion for others with great capacity available within me. Then one day, I found that Love for me. It has only been recently that I have begun Loving myself. Loving me the way God would Love me. Whew, it is hard. I want to judge me, put me down, feel less than you, pity me, greater than you and arrogant with force. I want, I want, I want. But when I love me with God's Love. There is no defect of character, only perfection in imperfection.

Now I am sure you noticed that there is nothing about the world in my last paragraph. Because when I am focused on God and His Love, the rest of the world fades to grey.

I had a man who led a Disciple Now for my group when I was in 9th grade at Carla Dobbins house. He had a glass full of sand and several ping pong balls. When the sand is in the glass there is no way to get all the ping pong balls in the glass. We got two in the sand filled glass. When the ping pong balls go in the glass first, the sand fills in around them and meets the brim. The illustration has become paramount in my life today. When I put God first in my life, the world fills in the cracks, but is no longer dominant.

All those reality crushing heartbreaks the young man was going through just because he could only focus on the world and not God, it was a painful post for me to read. It reminded me of the hell I have been through and that I never want to go through again. Today, I have a choice: Seek God or be swallowed by the hell of despair. I choose to be a Seeker. I hope the young man Seeks Love too.

God Bless me, Bless me indeed, Bless me a lot,
Enlarge my territory
Lay Your hand upon me that I may not cause harm,
Guide me as I go throughout this day,
Thy will not mine, be done

I say this prayer every morning. I think I came up with it when the Jabez prayer became so popular. I am not sure it is the actual prayer of Jabez, but it is some form of it that I remember. Here lately, I have been in a place of a larger territory than I have known in a while, partially literally. And while the territory it expanding, I am not quite used to it and mostly just feel stretched out.

Growing pains?

All of it, for the first time in a long, long time is good growth. I have had so much growth that was to "overcome" the odds, that this kind of growth is unfamiliar. It is having friends who know me, but not so much and being able to love them for who they are and not for what they do. As a result, I have great relationships. It is being able to continue old relationships that I thought would never go on and on, yet they do. Then I come to find that they have changed and it is just okay. Change is not so scary after all. It is finding someone who has been there all this time, watching me, loving me and being the brother God had picked out for me and stumbling onto the relationship as though it were new and fresh despite knowing him for a decade. As I look inward on this relationship with this new/old brother, I realize I love him too. What a great feeling to have such a raw emotion, a vunerable place to be with another person who would have never been the one expected. It is growing back into the comfort of laughter with my husband again. Knowing that who we were surfaces despite poverty, absence, death defying acts of car dodging in the street and that we just love to be with each other in the midst of all of it, and we laugh. It is wondering if I will ever have time for all these people in my life while I am pursuing this path God has set in front of me? Large growth.

I am hoping that the territory that God has enlarged is actually a garden of my soul. That maybe just maybe I am growing some really cool flowers that only come up to bloom once a year and then others that are just plain Rae: blue hydrangeas. It kinda feels that way as I go from person to person. Some are hydrangeas others yellow roses, and still more are butterfly bushes or some strange wild orchid. Which are you?

I have been so busy lately it knocks the breath out of me when I take it all in. I know that I had a spring break from school, but there are so many other things that I am overwhelmed to think that I will do all this and school too next week. My daily routine has something booked for every hour of the day.

Today was a great day, today I had morning plans and evening plans but no plans in between. Just me and nothing and nobody. When my hubby got home from running errands he had gone off and bought me a new necklace. Woohoo! What a great Saturday gift! It is a hippy necklace with an amber center piece. I love it. He got it from the hippy folks at Sweetwater. Gotta love sweetwater. Definitely making a stop there tomorrow prior the break being officially over.

I think about those people who have those pda's and are all organized with their lives and wonder if I am ever going to be one of those people. Those people who have time to book their lives in a pda. I just go. I don't think or plan or any of that nonsense I just go.

My Monday starts early with prayer and meditation, goes to work out at school, go to class, go to work, go to coffee for asc, go to the farm to study for test, work on papers, close with prayers and go to bed. Go, Go, Go.

I remember being like this when I was 16 or so. I loved it. My life was full. My God was present. My happiness was great and there was no time to think or get in trouble. That is why I am so grateful for my go today. Going means growing means God means my life just keeps gettin better.

John and I have not seen a lot of each other lately despite being in the same 20x20 space. I have been sick. He has had finals (two A's in his classes, btw). I have had friends to help. He has friends to help. I am asleep before he ever even starts to get to bed. So Thursday and Friday, after work and school, we made time for each other. No one else, no other phone calls, just to catch up. After all, all we've done for weeks is sleep next to each other. Thursday we went out to a really nice dinner in Dahlonega. Friday we went to a movie. Normally we'd do this all in one night, but we did still have school and work.

The movie is what I wanted to talk about (surprise). We saw Watchmen. It has all maybe up and coming actors in it, all of whom I recognized but none of who I could name. The one I liked the most was the return of the badass kid from Bad News Bears who has been on drugs since that movie and is back. Finally. The film had been panned in all the reviews, but it was that or nothing so, whatever.

The Watchmen is a lengthy, disturbing piece fragmently done by the same director as 300. I thought it would be more computerized than it was, but mostly it was a dark graphic novel. The director left no room for imagination drawing out every detail including the sex scene which was just short of a porn scene. There was some amazing art that came out of the movie. Several scene that appeared drawn out of a comic, but apparently film. They will make for great posters on college kids walls. It is not one I would ever see again or even buy from the $5 bin.

The part that I liked, was the plot line. The concept that superhero's aren't so super. That they have human traits that are super sized. The main prescence was the Comedian. He was an ironic charater that created chaos, had no conscience, and nothing about him was all that funny. Everyone seemed to hate him actually. Then there was the Silk Stockings, the female superhero, who was a slut and a drunk. What a contraversy: superheroes with super character defects. How could they believe in a God? They were gods. It was like they were lost. Even more interesting they all aged. I don't know that WonderWoman has ever aged in my mind. I would assume that she is Wonderful forever, immortal. But the Watchmen are every bit humanized. The most interesting and greatest painter because he liked hacking on folks due to his cracked psychosis, was Rorschach. WOW. This guy had the best lines in the movie ie "you think I am locked in here with you, what you don't know is you are locked in here with me." He then proceeds to burning a guy with fryer grease shortly thereafter. He was the psycho of psycho. His irony was contained in his unrelenting loyalty to the saving of the human race. Crazy sob with a purpose. My kinda guy. The character development was tremendous by every actor. The sets being in a twisted 1985 (Nixon was still president) were very well done. The throwbacks to Dr. Strangelove were appreciated. The cracks at our own history were not really all that funny, but a nice touch. The costumes were on the mark down to the earrings.

I am still thinking about the movie and it is long gone. Maybe I will buy it in the $5 bin.