state of mind...

today i felt overwhelmed.
which is, in itself, fine. sometimes i strangely like feeling overly busy...it gives me a sense of purpose; "i have things to do! places to go!" i feel so productive! usually that's when i'm dealing with things i know i can take care of with minimal emotional energy exertion. (that's MEEE in textspeak)
needless to say, i'm sure, right now i am not that kind of overwhelmed. i am the sort that makes me feel like i can't move. worries for people, worries about work, doctor visits, bills, endless phone calls to my health insurance (aaagh will SOMEONE please use words i understand?), frustrating mental instability...
the one good thing about this kind? it makes me cling to the Lord.

an excerpt from my journal from monday April 13...

"...In My Utmost for His Highest the last 2 days, the Lord has pricked my soul. Nothing huge or flashy, or yelling in my face, but just a couple of quiet nudges. Yesterday there was one sentence that summed it up for me: 'Any strand of our own energy will blur the life of Jesus'. I don't ever really need a book or a person to tell me this because I feel it every moment of my life, but all the same I do. I needed to be told.

And then this morning the subject was right and wrong burden-bearing, and the folly of not casting our burdens back onto God. '...but if we roll back on God that which He has put on us, He takes away the sense of responsibility by bringing in the realization of Himself.'

My reliance on my own energy is both confusing and exhausting me. And despite my self-doubt, insecurity and weakness I just keep doing it. And so i become tired, angry, awkward, and cannot be of use to anyone."

That's basically where i've been all week, and today was especially difficult as things finally kind of boiled over. Even after what i wrote 4 days ago, i will not stop this reliance on my self, this carrying of burdens i am so loath to let God take back and help me with. Why is it so so very hard? Why don't i trust Him?
i mean, i do trust Him.
i guess i just feel that maybe He's taking too long...
or that i am not hearing Him clearly, if at all...how can i tell?
does He want me to wait, or take these steps forward?
or perhaps i have simply messed things up by my stubbornness and fear and now everything is ruined and i will never know what good He may have had for me if i had just: a. kept quiet and waited, or b. leaped forward in unwavering faith...(depending on the situation...)...
or...or...

~

in a moment of rest i realize i give my self way too much credit. stop. read Numbers 23:19.
i cannot thwart God. He cannot fail me. it is just nonsense.

"He takes away the sense of responsibility by bringing in the realization of Himself"

and suddenly, if even for just a moment, i feel a light and clarity i never would have if this day, if this mind, were happily and effortlessly my own.

inaguration tomorrow

i wish i could be excited. i really really truly do.

but i simply can't.

~

proposing truth

There are so many things that are difficult about being a Christian who is serious about God's word, and who Christ has called us to be in this world.
One of these, as anyone can attest, is being persecuted for our faith...being mocked and abused for our silly, "outdated" and "bigoted" beliefs.

Lately there has been another burden on my spirit.
For me there is also the pain of knowing that people around me who i love very dearly, who are not the Lord's, are also, in some cases, are feeling persecuted by us.

Don't worry, i know that this is essentially not true. (except where you do see the crazies on "our side" who act out in hate)
But i guess that one of the many stirring and eye-opening aspects of being close to people who are not saved, is seeing things from their point of view. A fallen one, granted, but it would be the exact way i would look at things if God had not already revealed Himself and His ways to me.

Because, to put it simply, The Lord's ways are not fair.
they are only right.

Why should my moral views make any sense to someone who doesn't believe in absolute truth? or in the sacredness of the Bible?
What does it mean to them what marriage symbolizes, and why it even exists...?

I have a friend who i care for very much who i went to school with. He is a talented artist, a generous person, and a genuinely kind and lovely human being. he has encouraged me and supported me and confided in me. He is also gay--which makes no difference in how much i love him. i don't even think about it. But it does drive an invisible, yet very solid line between us. It is a line that i have not yet had to try and cross, but the way things are going these days...

Yesterday he wrote a "note" on facebook (kind of like a blog post) for everyone he is "friends" with to read. It struck me deeply, and is a big part of what prompted me to think about all this.
Before i go on i'll let you read it for yourself...

Prop 8 Allegory

"What do you think an artist is?" Picasso once responded during an interview. "An imbecile who has only eyes if he's a painter, or ears if he's a musician, or a lyre at every level of his heart if he's a poet, or even if he's a boxer, just his muscles? On the contrary, he's at the same time a political being, constantly alive to heartrending, fiery, or happy events to which he responds in every way."

A friend called the other day and asked what "Yes on Prop 8" meant, and I told her. She said that there were dozens of people, dressed in yellow on Aliso Creek Road holding up signs that read "Restore Marriage" and cheering. Entire families, children absorbing their parents anxieties, learning how to see in black and white, learning that it's dangerous to see all those colors.

"That's what I thought," my friend responded. "That's fucked up." She said that she and another friend of mine were going to throw things at them, have a meeting of the Reptilian minds. I laughed and cried at this. My own feelings on the this perpetual debate have always been fragmented, since I first learned of it at the age of 14 when it was called Prop 22 and I naively assumed that civil liberties was just something that the modern world all kind of agreed upon. I remember being at Moonlight beach, surfing with my best friend during our freshman year of high school when I asked his opinion and he told me that he didn't think they should get married, "because it's gross."

I have felt angry and wanted to throw things myself, when I have seen them standing on the corner there, all the yellow merging into a single form. I wanted to yell in their faces about how wrong they were. My mind was detached and primal, they felt so separate from me, their prejudices so foreign.

I took a rose from my car that had been given to me the night before and that I had not removed from its place on the front seat. My throat felt swollen and dry as I walked up to the yellow beast. It pulsated there in front of me, thinking it was everything that I was not and daring me to prove it otherwise. I searched the moral behemoth and found a woman inside of it, writhing. She was a mother, I saw, with a son of about 9 years old who had prominent ears that he will undoubtedly later pay for.

Maybe it was her that first connected with me, or maybe it was him, or maybe it was his protruding ears that captured my attention and allowed me to pick them out especially from the flood of signs. "As the world becomes more horrible, art becomes more abstract," Paul Klee had said. I went up to the woman and gave her the rose and an accompanying smile. She asked if I would like to join them, and I declined politely and looked again at her son, who could so easily have been me. I gave him a wave before walking away, and I felt like a real artist.

Oh how grateful i am that i can be certain of God's power and authority and perfect judgment...because if i were in this with any doubt, i would crumble.
It would be so easy to say i just didn't care. If i love this guy, why should i stand in the way of his happiness...?

because i don't want him to DIE.

Because if i didn't love him as much as i do i wouldn't care.

All this emotion, all this very real real pain and love and anger and passion he is feeling and expressing is all leading him straight to his death.
This sensitive, dear man who has such really beautiful intentions in what he wants to bring to this world...in spite of his genuineness, his nobility, his earthly wisdom...is wrong. And the enemy is daily covering him in more and more velvety, soft, justifying darkness.

i am not ashamed about what my convictions are. i am not afraid of them and of what people will do to me, because it is not my welfare that matters, it is God's.

but i don't want to lose anyone...

i am completely overwhelmed.


And i ask for all of you to remember that while there are, indeed, millions of people out there full of blind hate and devoid of reason...
There are also those that love and care and believe they are doing what is right and good. All they can see in us is hatred and ignorance...it's the only way they can make sense of or justify it.

Please, please pray with me that Christ can touch the lives of these dear souls and reveal to them what is truly worth fighting for.

~

sometimes life is like singing
sometimes you sit and people watch


and sometimes you're just barely hanging in there



~

where is the joy

"I once wrote that God always answers us in the deeps, not in the shallows of our prayers. Hasn't it been so with you?
One of the hardest things in our secret prayer life is to accept with joy and not with grief the answers to our deepest prayers. At least I have found it so. It was a long time before I discovered that whatever came was the answer. I had expected something so different that I did not recognize it when it came.
And He doesn't explain. He trusts us not to be offended; that's all."

~Amy Carmichael

i really really love the way Amy Carmichael words her thoughts.

Lord i have not been accepting with joy.
i was at first, before the weight set in, before other matters overwhelmed me...but i admit it has been one of those "impossible" things. despite Your having provided so much...
what does it matter that i feel peaceful when my feelings are stable?
as i wrote before, the peace should come when the ground shakes. literally and figuratively.

oh so much to learn. so far to go...

Jesus would You heal the wounds of my family...and those around us...
would You provide Grace abounding in the coming days and weeks...
let Your joy flow out in spite of suffering...and so be that much more glorious and undeniable...

Psalm 9:1-20~~~thank you Kallista


~~~

At times, i want nothing more than to tackle everything in front of me...to seize opportunity, to overcome listlessness, to prove that my God is sufficient. Usually those days begin with an early rise, a good run, some hours of productivity, quality time with a close friend, a conversation about the Lord, a joyous dinner with my family, feeling like God used me that day.

But what about days where you wake up restless, hot, uncomfortable. I sit frozen in front of my artwork, when i speak i begin to cry, when i try to pray i am overwhelmed with anxiety, and all the while trying to be strong for the people around me who i have come to love so much it hurts. And then everything hurts, my heart, my head, my stomach...i can't eat, sleep, read...a friend calls me, and confides his struggles and i break down...then i feel guilty and pathetic because i want to be there for him, not burden him with my own worries.
I call my mother in desperation. She talks to me and somehow, despite my self, something gets through my muddled head.

The funny thing is, is that what she says to me is pretty much what i had been saying to my friend not 20 minutes before. To let things go, to pray instead of worry, to stop taking on responsibilities that are God's...not mine!

I'm lonely and scared, i said. she told me to try and realize that where i am right now is, for whatever reason, exactly where God wants me. Maybe right now He wants me to be alone, because He is tired of sharing me. Maybe i'm not supposed to run off and forget that i am in need. Maybe i am supposed to feel weak.

Phil spoke a really amazing message on Sunday about how the Lord allows us to come into captivity, to utter helplessness, so we can only rely on Him. Today i read the very familiar verse on 2 Corinthians...

"And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.'"

The greatest material in God's hands is not my strength, it's my weakness.

...right now i'm just praying i can even begin to understand it. It certainly "makes sense"...but i keep trying to take back control. I keep running to rescue people. In spite of the fact that i feel pitifully weak and unable to do anything for anyone, i try to do it anyway...because i just can't bring myself to fully trust in the promises of my Heavenly Father.

I told my friend that his job is to pursue the Lord, to make known his needs to Him, and to wait, even though his situation is becoming more and more unbearable.

And i can't even do it myself!
i guess i keep waiting for the day when it will just "click" and it won't be so hard anymore. but i'm seeing that that is the opposite attitude i need to have.

"...I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

i admit, i have absolutely no idea how to do this.
but i think, in light of this scripture, that is a really good thing. because it's not about what i can do...or cannot do. it's not up to me to "prove my God"...He can do that Himself.

i am seeing people all around me realizing their lack of control over their lives. my sister, Laurel and Chad, Edan, my friend Drea, Bettina, Joey and Ginger...i would go on but i think i would just end up listing every single person i know. :P

aaand i am at the point where i am simply starting to ramble...where my writing has lost it's remnant of structure and randomness takes over. so i'll finish and just ask humbly for your prayers and assure you that you are in mine.

love, colleen


~~~

...

portrait drawing i did in my very last class yesterday...

i'll post disneyland pictures tomorrow







i'm sad very very sad.

it'll be okay but right now i just wish Jesus would make everything go away
i'm hurting and grieving and scared. i shouldn't be...it's not fair to my Heavenly Father. but i'm disobedient and stubborn.

in the long run, that's probably why i feel this way.

Lord i'm so sorry.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~

whelmed-over II

yesterday i posted that a person i know at school was hospitalized. his name was Jeff Pan, and he died last night. he was a talented guy with many friends. he had just turned 21 a couple of weeks ago. Dad taught him twice.
Edan knew him...i wish there was something i could do to comfort him and it makes me ache. i didn't really know Jeff...he was in a completely different major than me...but i am still so stunned by this.
and other personal things going on...

i just rubbed out the face on my painting of nick...
i can't look at it. i wish i could walk away from it for a couple of days...
but i'm starting to panic because we are hanging the show tomorrow morning...yes...i said tomorrow morning...
and this painting still needs another solid week of work on it. i don't know what to do. i can't paint today.
my brain is not working.
only a miraculous surge of energy and ability from God is going to help me now...i won't be getting any sleep tonight.

again, prayers would be most appreciated for me and everyone around me. there is a lot more, but i always hesitate to get too personal on this blog (believe it or not). so i guess that's all...


~~~~~~~~~~~~

whelmed-over

here are some pictures of me presenting on Friday (painting of Nick very unfinished)...

i am madly getting myself ready for my show wednesday. probably won't sleep much in the next 3 days...and i'm already exhausted.

lots going on...lots of people in trials and under pressure...just found out that one of my classmates has been pronounced brain-dead after being sick with pneumonia...it's really hard to stay focused. please pray...!

updates later...



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i sat for a really long time but couldn't think of a title

so so very sleepy.
i don't really have time to post right now, but i'll get backed up and everything if i don't. last sunday Bettina came out and visited. we got dinner, went to a krispy kreme drive-thru and then went to the beach to enjoy them...


Christian, Danny and Robin taking a break from painting...

the last time i posted, i wrote about going to hang out with Phill, Red and Tiffany. we watched Zatoichi the Blind Swordman and Amadeus...




So, Bettina is graduating from nursing school this summer and is applying to hospitals for work. Friday, she and i got breakfast and coffee, and then visited my aunt Alice who works at Hoag hospital. we dressed up all in scrubs (which was only fun for me, really) and got to see some amazing things. we witnessed a couple of surgeries, got to see the pathology workers and touch weird stuff, and then Alice took us to dinner with a friend. Afterward Bettina and i went to hang out with some of my amazing friends from school.















in my studio sending a picture message...

Today i barely made it to church...but i'm glad i veered right onto the 605 at the last second...because i really needed to hear the message. i really needed to hear it.
my lovely family...and lovely pregnant Ginger and Anna...and, um, whatever Alec is doing...

as usual, Caid was a little too cute for my mental health...





Puppies are growing...








aren't they beautiful?

i think it's safe to say i hit a serious physical, emotional and spiritual wall this weekend. i have felt under vicious attack in every aspect of my life...dealing with a lot of confusion, guilt, heartache and self-condemnation.
someone at church today told me that they felt a burden for me this week and had been praying for me. it meant so much...
right this moment my body and spirit feel such weariness...i don't really know how to survive the next three weeks...

i wrote this in my moleskine 5 days ago...

Lord God...
I know You won't grow weary
of me asking the same
things every day...but i will.
So please give me patience to press on...
Lord i know that You won't
give up on Your children...but
i will. So please give me Your
love and endurance.

Today i feel Bitterness and fatigue.
How do i find Your overflowing joy & peace?

Search me and teach me, today, oh Lord.
i pray Thee...

i will be saying that every day for a long time.

"...but He giveth more grace..."

at least there's that...there's always that...
oh sigh



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

wow i'm really tired right now.

Saturday i "helped" Pip pack up his room (he's moving). we listened to lots of music and watched lots of youtube.
Sarah and Alec are in Texas, mom is sick, and today i had Chinese food in a B-rated restaurant with GP Floyd, dad, Jeff (who wore his new J Crew tie), and Melanie and Ed and their kids. i got some good quotes.

i drove to Laguna, where i am now, and i've done about a half-hour's worth of work on my painting but i think i'm spent. i was going to do homework...but i think i'll just drive home (Orange) instead.
i always wish i could hang out with people down here more but i'm too afraid to call them. even my closest friends. i'm getting a lot better, though! i am!

i've been having dreams about Grandma and Grandpa, that they are alive and living with us again and i am taking care of them just like i always did. i wake up feeling like i haven't slept, and feeling very bittersweet.
i'm debating whether or not to type up a very strange and unsettling dream i had 2 nights ago. it's pretty intense...

for the first time this semester i'm kind of dreading the coming week of school...not for the old reasons (social anxieties) but because i'm just feeling burnt out. physically and emotionally. i feel like i'm placing my hopes on too many unstable surfaces, relying on shaky support.
i need to rely on Jesus completely.

why can't i...?


~~~~~~~

Romans 7:18 – To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Philippians 2:13 – It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
Phil 4:13 – I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
---------------

From Whispers of His Power by Amy Carmichael:

'Romans 7 is a description of our life as it was. It describes our life as it is whenever, even if only for one minute, we live the old self-life…the contrast between Romans 7:18 and Philippians 2:13 shows this glorious truth. I cannot, but God can. And so I can, and Philippians 4:13 becomes my experience.
There is nothing we can do of ourselves, but 'When I said My foot slippeth; Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.' (Ps 94:18)

So—I cannot…God can…I can.'
----------------

Lord i cannot...please hold me up...

i'm tired, Lord.

i'm frustrated with my self and not knowing how to handle what should be tolerable, if not simple, normalcy.

usually i'm content to not be around anyone...but today, right now, i'm so scared of being alone. i just don't want to be alone.

When one's mind swings so wildly from side to side a great many times a day it's hard to keep track of the time. But you still want to smile, walk, see the people you love, get work done. And you try, even if it means not saying what you need to...breathing the bad air...sitting quiet and motionless in front of your easel with a pencil in your hand. You can hear the clock ticking, there is no one in the studio but you, but still you don't play any music because you don't want to get tired of your favorite songs...

i don't even know what i'm waiting for. i guess i'm just waiting to feel worthy of inspiration again.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Where there's smoke...

Driving into Laguna today was like driving into a war zone. The hills flanking the 241 are blackened and scorched, and the sky is filled with billows of dark smoke in shades of gray orange and brown. Many of my friends have had to be evacuated, and those who haven't, like Edan, just watch from their apartments as the landscape surrounding them is devoured by flames.

NASA satellite photo

My camera is still being fixed.

Disneyland yesterday was lovely:) The combination of it being a Tuesday, and extremely hot with the air permeated with smoke resulted in a very empty, relatively quiet and low-key day at the park. Edan met us there, which was awesome, and we spent the latter part of the afternoon and into the evening there. i got an annual pass for my birthday...so that excites me beyond description.

Last night Sarah and i watched some Walker and as i was falling asleep in the guest room she came in and we snuggled and prayed together. What did i do to deserve her? To deserve any of the amazing people and things in my life? To be able to go running in the morning with my mom, eat homemade apple pie for breakfast, go to the grocery store and within minutes have pretty much anything i want and need. This morning as i showered i thought about how most of the people in the world don't have the luxury of being able to simply make themselves clean every day.

i try not to feel guilty and instead be thankful...but sometimes it overwhelms me.

And it is all so fleeting...this little fantasy world called America.
As the numerous fires sweep through Southern California and destroy every material thing some people have i am forced to consider what is really of worth. What if everything i had was gone in a blazing instant...forget my dvds, clothes, all the "stuff"...i mean my pictures, sketchbooks, my journals chronicling my growing up since i was 9 years old...my heart almost stops when i think about it. And i can't think about it...it's too terrifying...but what if that did happen?

i don't know where this is going...i kind of just started typing and off i went.

i'm confused about my artwork and what to do with my life. with people. with my burdens. i think my focus is changing. i'm not even sure what that means, but i know it's true.

Lord will You please tell me what i'm supposed to do?



~~~~~~~~~

As a result of horrible negligence during her stay in the hospital, my grandma's health has taken a dramatic nosedive. Her Parkinson's has intensified nearly tenfold...she can't walk at all anymore...or even stand for that matter...she can hardly speak and she is in constant pain because the muscles in her legs and feet are cramping so badly. Her face is perpetually twisted in pain and her eyes, when not tightly shut, dart around aimlessly. Her whole body trembles...and when her muscles charlie horse all my mom and i can do is sit and massage her legs and try to keep her feet from curling up. It takes both of us...and it's a terrible feeling to have to watch someone be in that much pain and not be able to do anything to stop it.

Almost the hardest part, is that through everything that has ever happened in the last ten years, my grandma has always maintained an incredible spirit of acceptance and joy. But that person is gone...and my mom and i feel so helpless. We are giving her extra meds, muscle relaxers, &c...but it just knocks her out and she becomes a dead weight to have to move. We have a wheelchair that previously, we only used to take her out on long walks or to a museum or something, because she's always been able to get around as long as someone was helping to support her. Now it's in full time use.
She sat at the table in her wheelchair this morning as Florina (our other caregiver) fed her breakfast. Her eyes were completely closed. I put on some Frank Sinatra for her as i packed up the last of the christmas decorations and she was completely unresponsive to it. Then it made me think of my grandpa...and for almost the first time since he died i realised i miss him.
~
I'm so tired...all of this has come on the tails of a week that has been so dark and frightening...just because my mind has been increasingly disrupted and unwell and a few times i have lost control of myself. I am frustrated ashamed desperate and at a complete loss of what to even do with what is happening in my life. I don't know what to even pray for. All i've been able to say to Jesus is "Help me".

There is so much more i would like to write but i can't. And my hands are shaking.

If people could please pray for my grandma, for my mom, for Sarah (she's sick) and that i could get better so i could be a better person for all the people i know are affected by my inability to function.

Lord thank you thank you thank you...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

too fast!

Time has sped up. It seriously has.

I'm crazy. I'm tired. An a very befuddling combonation of terrified and exuberant. And sad. and peaceful. and confused...surprise.

I don't know if grandpa will ever come home again. Coming home every weekend is weird right now. It's only grandma...it's so quiet...i though i would enjoy it more.

Sometimes i wish i could read forever.

Yesterday was a disturbing day. I hate Hollywood, i hate pretentious art shows, i hate having my picture taken by some jerk so stoned out of his mind he can't hold a cigarette in his mouth and i hate being so uncomfortable i want to crawl out of my skin!! uuughghalalabbbgghh.
There is a reason why i'm antisocial! And overly careful! And don't go on dates! And the one time i take a little step out of that i feel like i've gone swimming in a lake of snot. All i could do was keep calling on the Lord...thank goodness he was there. all i hope is that somehow i'll learn something from this...

Today was good. I went to the Norton Simon with my friend Nick from school and it made me feel better. I just really don't want to go to school tomorrow.
Jesus, i'm afraid of trying too hard...i still don't know who i am and what you want me to do.

I feel like too much is slipping away from me. People, mostly. It may sound strange, i'm not one who holds up well when i feel like i'm losing a best friend...I miss her. I miss my friend. I miss my friend.

Lord i don't know what to do...


sigh...don't worry. i'm just venting. it'll pass...

c