What is “Real”?!?

Recently I recieved a message from one of my “friends” informing me that I am not a “REAL” Christian because I support planned parenthood. Upon asking her why she thinks this her answer was a tad bit shocking. She said I was not a “REAL” Christian because I support abortion….WHICH COULD NOT BE FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH. My blood was boiling! Not only was this completely random, but when the day of judgement comes my choices are between God and I; not “her”. Shocking does not even describe…..well how it made me feel.

Then that reply was followed by another quoting scripture and pretty much super judgemental and dashing my upbringing, beliefs, choices, PARENTING, and my character. Newslfash that tells me more about you than me sweetheart. 🙂 I have not made it a secret about what beliefs I keep; or the reasons why.

I have said this many times over and will say it here for the last time. I support planned parenthood for its ability to give affordable birth control of all forms to women with/without insurance. I support planned parenthood for its resorces to educate others on safe sex, STDs, womens healthcare, and MENS healthcare!!!! It is not about abortion people, dont be naive. Pro-Choice is what I choose to be because I hate saying, “im pro-life unless it is under special circumstances” That seems like the safe answer and it seems to start arguments. Most people have had conversations with me on many of those taboo topics and we are still friends, WHY you ask is because we are honest and understand where the other is coming from. Being the most understanding and non-judgemental person is sometimes a pain.

By no means does that mean that I am a push over, I am just curious of the way others feel and think. Must be the science nerd in me. Then it got me thinking…”real” why did she choose this word….why is she so quick to slap a label on others? Why is this so important to her? The answer, I am clueless.

Truth be told I started writting because I was upset, and now, that feeling has passed and I am not really sure what to say or how to respond. This issue for me is not cut and dry. Which is why I belive it is hard for me to vocalize. That is an issue between God and I. Everyone is on thier own journey with faith and the Lord. I just can never understand why some are so quick to point fingers instead of helping to gain understanding and possibly teach others.

All right…well I think I have pissed off enough people tonight….Goodnight!

Thank You for Reading!

Half Full? Half Empty?

If y’all recall in a previous post affectionately titled “Changes”, I happened to mention that indeed things were changing, unfortunately I feel so much anxiety. In the past few months our church youth group has been undergoing a lot of changes, our director leaving, my husband originally volunteered me to do youth group. I will admit I did not want to do it, I was not excited, it was not on the list of things in life I wanted to do.

Well, now here I am. Sitting in an office at least 2 days a week and trying to create the calendar, plan fundraising events, and keep the parents involved as well as keep the teenagers interested, while still carrying a full course load and trying to find another job. I have found myself to be stretched a bit…actually alot too thin.

Taking on the responsibility of handling the paper work and making sure the rest of this season goes smoothly, I have lost my connection with God through this process. Not lost as in “never to be found” or  that I don’t believe in God anymore. I simply mean that when this started I became closer to God through watching h teenagers learn, I became closer through the teaching while being with them and continuing on my own. This past week I have made more phone calls, emails, calendar changes, budget decisions, planning needs than I have ever done for a single organization.  As I sat stareing at my inbox on friday I realized…this is not about God anymore. The work I am doing has become about the kids coming to have a good time and learn about God, not them learning about God and having fun while doing so. Which is how it started…

While we were in Berea I felt God. He ran through my veins, oozed from my pores, and filled my heart. Since we have been back I feel like I have lost that feeling. I am yearning to feel that way again. Yearning for Him to speak to me, hoping that what I am doing for this youth group will start to become what it was, a way to glorify God! It feels more like a job more than me trying to lead these young people to God. It has become a thorn in the side of my spiritual life. That trip to Berea changed my life. I shared stories from my life with these girls that only a few in my life know about and they shared with me. We recited scripture together, we cried together, we learned together, WE WORSHIPED TOGETHER! Nothing was more profound that watching these teenagers sing with the band and throw their hands in the air to worship!! I have never put my hands up to worship, but I did then. In those moments I felt my closest to Him.

Now everything is all mixed up. I don’t want to feel like I am working for the church, I want to work for God. It is starting to hinder my relationship with God. Instead of taking a step forward I feel like I have fallen down a few stairs. I want to show these young people all things are possible and full of love with the peace given by the Father.

I don’t want to feel this empty anymore. I feel myself slowly falling back into an old pattern of losing sight of Him and holding onto the earthly ideas of life. I WANT TO LIVE MY LIFE FOR GOD! So far this struggle is becoming the priority, being a firm believer that once God becomes the center everything else falls into place. There is an example I would like to share but it requires me to make a video and I just don’t feel like it at the moment 🙂 Y’all will just have to stay tuned and I will get it done.

Thank You for reading and helping through this journey.

How Great Thou Art

Best picture of Nanny and unfortunately I couldnt make it any bigger without making it fuzzy…

    In Loving Memory

 Ida Mae Widener Smith “Nanny”

November 26, 1940 – December 19, 2012

I will not say there are words left to be said; because there are none. I will not say that there are moments left to live; because there are none. For my Nanny her words are treasures, and the moments will forever and be cherished by those of us that had the honour to be in her presence. She passed away December 19, 2012…the wound still very fresh from my Pas passing sometimes feels like coarse sea salt was viciously rubbed into it. As I sit in my living room on this very cold New York Christmas night, I feel myself either getting angry or bursting into tears thinking of those moments and those words. Trying to piece together what God has planned for my family and I.

Through out history it is said “it takes a village to raise a child” I believe I am a prime example. Being very fortunate to have a Nanny and Pa whom were possibly the best parents/grandparents ever. My parents deserve TONS of respect for making the decision to let them raise me. Along with having a very close relationship with my Aunt Theresa and Uncle Fred. Their son, my cousin Benjamin, is the best big brother I never had. 🙂 This year has…for lack of a better word, numbed me. My best friends in this entire world share plots side by side in Sunset Cemetery in Graniteville SC. They pushed and never judged, while still teaching our family about Jesus. Family and Faith the best things in life they taught us to cherish.

Finding comfort in the everyday things that remind me of them, has seemed to have the opposite effect…Pressing power on my keurig and hearing it brew, then smelling the Folgers coffee makes me severely sad. My heart feels like vice grips have been tightened around something fragile that could shatter at any moment. To the point where I have to force myself to drink my favorite coffee. As I sip the bitter aromatic liquid, memories flood my senses. Pa getting up early to make it, Nanny shortly following him to make us breakfast. He sat at the kitchen table, affectionately known as “the bar” while I stayed in bed waiting for the smell of bacon and cinnamon toast to make me WANT to get out of bed. His patrol-man uniform that Nanny pressed the night before, vanilla pipe tobacco flooding the kitchen along with the Folgers coffee. Such a comforting smell…Kindergarten memories, when the house seemed so large, and they towered over me. I literally had to look up at them, never did I realize how much I emotionally, and figuratively looked up to them.

Nanny was amazing. I am sure y’all already know or at least can tell.  Her purpose for things always were ment to teach and guide. Whether is was a simple statement like ” God don’t like ugly” ((which I wrote a blog about some time ago; Silly words & God don’t like ugly)) or yelling “go pick your switch” 🙂 If I had to say the most important things she taught me were, to love with my whole heart, how to correctly fry a chicken, and to let God be my teacher and friend. She did so many things for me, and to make a broader statement my family. She taught me how to cook, clean,  how to keep cookies from drying out, laundry, I can say that I would be dreadfully lost without her. Which I feel almost every minute of everyday…

Back to the everyday things, she stayed in my house in October for my wedding. I can’t walk into the room where she slept just yet. While she was here she just wanted to relax so I showed her how to use my blu-ray/dvd player and she watched Cinderella, one of her favorites while my mom and I were gone. Smells of japanese cherry blossom lotion, red door, and FOOD always remind me of her. They did while she was living as well, living so far away hasn’t exactly been a blessing. For the past few years I have carried a unweighable amount of guilt with me wherever I go. George says that Thanksgiving/Christmas has always been my worst time of year, because I get depressed and angry. Missing my huge family that I have barely spent time away from since I was born. Thoughts running through my head like ” if i were there id force her to get up and go to the dr” “if i were there id make sure pa had all his medicine” “if i would there…id be able to help” I love them so much living in New York has literally almost killed my relationship with George and sometimes I think myself. I have my moments I scream to heaven ” I want my nanny” “I need my nanny” “pa was the only one who was always proud of me” and the infamous “I feel like I have no one they are gone”

Being human it leaves room for vulnerability, pessimism, and hate. I would be lying to you if I told you I have not felt those things in the days since Pa died. Id be lying if I told you they didn’t get worse when Nanny died.  South Carolina is my home. South Carolina is not just a place I was born and moved away from. It is a place my soul craves to be. My family is there, everyone I love and cherish and want to see everyday till the day I die is there. I didn’t want the last time I hugged my Nanny to be the night of my wedding. I didn’t see her the next day before she got on the plane…there is something else added o the list of things I feel guilty about. I didn’t want my last conversation with her to be over the phone…I want to hear her voice, I want to feel her arms around me. I want my Nanny back…Like Pa I didn’t want the last time we spoke to be in  nursing home. I didn’t want my last memory of him to be his hand on my face while he slept. I feel guilty because I left every time. If I had been there after  Pa died and told her and showed her how much I loved, needed, respected, and absolutely positively without a doubt let her know how much she ment to me she may still be here. We all ((my family)) took advantage of her sometimes. We took her love and willingness to do anything and everything for us for granted. I wish….I just wish I were around more…

Then the christian in me stops the self loathing me. God is the true judge and jury. God is the true giver and taker of life. Nothing I could have done different would have changed the outcome. They would want me to live my life with George to its fullest. They would want me to embrace the cracks in our family and try to mold them back together. George and I have already decided in honor of them we will bring everyone together. We will carry on the traditions they started along with a few new of our own. Our children will learn to look up to Nanny and Pa as we have even though, in this physical world they have not met.

There is something she wrote on my guest frame and it is the thing I will cherish forever…”with all our love, be as happy as we were love nanny and pa” I will leave you with that, and some pictures that will show how amazing she is. It has taken several days to write this and several re-writes to effectively convey how I feel. and now it is finished…

I will always love you Thank you for everything

Practically A Stranger

When my siblings and I, ((mainly Joshua, Zachary, and I)) were growing up, we never really knew how large our family was. When it came to my mom’s side we all knew everyone. Right down to the ancestry…but my dad’s side was a bit harder to grasp. As I have gotten older I have tried to reconnect where the veins that keep a family together began ((or when I was old enough to notice)) to fray. Thinking back on the aunts and uncles on my dads side whom I don’t know, I soon realized it was for good reason, and it showed how much Daddy loves us. The ones I do know sometimes I wish some one else. other than myself, would pick up the phone just to talk. To let me in on their lives just a little bit. Or at least send a christmas card, or a declined RSVP to my wedding, or answer a RSVP for a bridal shower. George and I want to reconnect the family unit and bring everyone together, but you can lead a horse to water…but you can’t make it drink…

On the flip side there are many aunts and uncles on my dad’s side that George and I pray for everyday. The drug and alcohol addictions…thanking God my dad didn’t want us around all that. My Papa Don was an extraordinary man. I loved him, everything about him. He tried to teach me about cars 🙂 Always had a story to tell. I miss him an awful lot. He has been gone since 2007 and it pains me to know that his name has been smeared before and after his death. While I chose to not keep “MOODY” legally, I will always and forever be Jessica Danielle Moody. A name that I am very proud of, it is my father’s name, my grandfather’s name…

I am angry at the very fact that my dads family ((meaning us children and my mom)) were somewhat out casted. After Papa died I had hoped it would somewhat bring us together, but it just lead to more aggravation, and some seriously fucked up people still trying to get a dead mans money. Then my dad got screwed out of just a few things that my he wanted to pass down to us, so we could remember papa, but that didn’t happen. Drugs and greed do that to people.

In any case I feel like I am practically a stranger that no one is willing to give the time of day. Blood means nothing when there is no sincerity. I wanted to share so many things with them. My marriage, my life, myself, my children…I want them to want to know me, it is painful to know that after all these years they still don’t care. The realization that they never cared is even more painful. Papa never forgot, Papa loved us. I can name the people who have come and go, I can name the people whom I thought cared. I can count the awkward encounters between them and I where I knew they didn’t want to speak to me. I have always been “the other niece” or if I happened to see them with a new person here is how it goes,” hey”…

relative : “hi how are you”

I’m great how are you?

relative : ” good, oh …this is Jessica, my niece”

new person: “is she the one you always talk about”

relative : ” no that’s ….the pretty one, Jessica is the smart one”

Smart is a complement but still, who knew being compared to someone else could suck so bad…i know i have used that conversation before but that is what showed me I may never have a relationship with that side of my dads family. And I thank God everyday that my dad decided to not raise us around those junkies. I am so thankful that when I did meet them it was under good circumstances. But that never lasts long…

It’s disgusting that when I say, Don Sr was my grandfather I get a rash of questions about his other children, or an estranged ex-wife or girlfriend. At the core of him he was an excellent man who did anything for his children, and some of them took him for granted. It is disgusting. I wish I could turn the clock back and spend more time with him. Alas I can’t so his pictures will continue to be on my shelf, and the memories will forever be with me. I have very few of him so they are very important to me. And here he is, Thank you for listening to my rant. It has been bothring me for many years.

Reconciliation

What does it mean to REALLY reconcile? Is it just the inevitable door to forgiving and never forgetting? Or does that cause more troubles than its worth…is it being cautious or holding a grudge? Where is the line? How can you be honest with someone? Why is fear holding me from being honest?

Reconcile is a verb, which means it requires an action. By definition it is – “to conciliate anew; to call back into union and friendship the affections which have been alienated; to restore to friendship or favor after estrangement; as, to reconcile men or parties that have been at variance.”   For example…the pending divorce and black cloud that has consumed my summer. I love my parents but daggumit I can’t come to terms with them NOW trying to make it work. If you have been following these past few months in between the venting about my parents and the hurt feelings I have been hiding away in music, positive things, George, and thank you God for God.

After all that has been said and done, I don’t know if I can “reconcile”. That action I am not ready or willing to take. I kept going back and I kept getting burned, glutton for punishment it seems that I am. What would you do if someone you loved turned your name into a bitter taste. Or lied to make themselves from having to acknowledge the truth. To make it worse the people who hear whom believe it…I thought they knew me better than that. What would you do?

A lot of nights George has held me as I cried, other days when I am alone I talk to God and pray for an answer. Which often times ends in tears hence why I choose to pray alone. I pray that with time and that when a wake up the next day with a clear head I have an answer, but I don’t. Patience was something that when God made me there was no room for 🙂 I am still having trouble with letting it go in Gods hands, I fry my brain out of scenarios as of how I could fix it. I know I can’t which makes it all the more frustrating…the recent development is, I said I have had enough. My siblings and I cant handle this again, we are still fragile and after all the CRAP that has been done a sorry is not going to cut it. But what will? Is that part of the Bible something I missed? Is there a verse somewhere that will all of a sudden make this clear? Or is my heart not ready?

Taking it to a different level who knew compromising was so unattainable. My father in law and his I don’t even know what to call her….the “on & off again”  girlfriend? Granted they are set in their ways but geez why makes things harder! I have tried to get them both to understand, he is set in his was. She is set in her ways. Why are you getting so frustrated for them being who they are? Especially when your 50 and dating your NOT going to change them. Your really can’t change yourself either. It either works or it doesn’t. Or you’re trying so hard your over thinking it and driving yourself into a panic attack. Or ticking off the people who are trying to help you see clearly.  It is crazy, I feel like I am teaching a teenager to come to terms with “relationships are different” “sometimes they change move on”  I just don’t understand how you can be negative all the time! There comes a point where you have to realize maybe there is no reconciling.

When all is said and done you have to know your limits. When push comes to shove, are you pushing? or shoving? When given the opportunity to forgive do you? Or do you say it to just ease the mind of the person whom did you wrong?  OR does that cause more trouble down the line? How do I fix my relationship with my mother? How do I become ok with the fact she is not treating my feelings as if they are relevant?

How do I reconcile???

Thank you for reading! FYI while looking for this picture, I googled images of confusion..what came up was pictures of gay couples, seriously?! whatever thats google for you…

Indestructible Faith

     My dream is to eventually become indestructible. I wish to be indestructible in all I do whether it be in my faith,emotions, or physical strength. Today if one of  those days where my world feels as if it has been shattered. I know that I am NOT indestructible.

     Lets start with a definition, 🙂 It seems like I love a dictionary.

Indestructible – adjective- not destructible; that cannot be destroyed.

                                 synonyms – unbreakable, permanent, enduring

     Starting with faith, I have some wonderful examples of “indestructible faith” The first, my Nanny and Pa. They have always read a bible verse before bed. For years I have seen the Bible in their hands. The second being a fellow blogger. I went to high school with her and she graduated with George. I never knew her personally but I had band with her. Her writings show me what some one around my age would be if they continued their walk with the Lord from childhood. She writes beautifully and she truly has a gift, I deeply appreciate the time she takes to write. Last but not least, I received an email from another individual I went to school with. She must have read, The Lines are being Blurred  and I Didn’t stop to think about God. I received several emails reassuring me that if I had any questions to ask her. That she was apart of an awesome church, and that she would be happy to help me in my journey. Not to be too open but lately she has been having some problems of which I don’t know ((assumptions from facebook)) but her faith has shown through like a lighthouse in a storm.

     Other than my grand-parents these two individuals don’t really know me from a hole in the ground, but, they have been more help to me in my journey of faith than I could ever thank them for. These are awesome forms of indestructible faith.

    I try not to show my emotions in public unless it is called for. Like a concert calls for high energy, and a funeral calls for a calm energy. I have learned how to hide my discomfort well. Crying is another thing I do not enjoy doing in public because I believe that is a private moment for myself.  

My heart is NOT indestructible.

Sometimes I wish it were. So that I would hear bad news and it just roll off without a problem.

There have been more times than not I have blamed myself for the problems in my parents lives. They have been together for a long time ((22 years)) and have been through a lot. They got married very young because they were pregnant with me. I guess that is the “oldest child” syndrome. “Blame yourself for your parents problems” I know now that it is not but I still have these thoughts. I feel indestructible in my strength for myself, emotionally and in my faith.

I hope that I am indestructible enough for them as well. As I bring this to a close Are you Strong? Is another entry describing strength through some scripture.

  My soul is weary with sorrow: strengthen me according to your word.- Psalms 119:28

Today was Mothers Day, and what a horrible day to receive bad news. I apologize if this entry holds no lesson, teaching, or understanding. It is what was on my heart. Have a great night everyone, I am taking myself to bed…

Thank you for reading!!