Remember the Fallen

I couldn't find a reason to grieve. I was sure there was something wrong with me. Hadn't I loved her? Everyone else was crying....
My great-grandma died close to a week ago. Sunday, December 2, 2012. We went to the funeral and I couldn't find any reason to feel even a semblance of grief for her. In all honesty, I still can't. I tried all the typical reasons.
I'll never see her again: Actually, I will. I'll see her in paradise.
She's not going to be here for Christmas: is this really getting to be about me getting presents? That's pitiful. She's not celebrating Christ's birth here, but she's WITH Christ. That's way better than any Christmas gathering.
She's gone. I can't see her any more: yes, she's gone. She is gone into Heaven. She can breathe freely. She can move. She can run and shout and laugh and dance again.
Death hadn't touched my life until then, save for the loss of two dogs, a hermit crab, and one relative I had never known. Even for my PETS I cried. But for my great-grandma? No. In the span of about 20 minutes I felt sadness. Not grief or sorrow, but sadness.

And now, here I am. This is one week after the mass shooting in Newtown. I think of those 26 killed. I think back to the stories I've heard of Columbine. Of the shootings in Tucson, in Aurora, in so many places within the past few years. I think of my friend's pastor who killed himself last year. I think of all of them who lost their lives, people I don't even know, and I grieve with a sorrow I have never known. It's a physical heartache. Something that makes my stomach knot and my head hurt. I do not hate the shooters. I weep for them. The boy in Newtown, he didn't just wake up that morning with a psychopathic urge to kill. He was human. He IS human. The others were too. The shooters, the victims, the witnesses, they're all HUMAN. I am by no means saying that what they did was right. I am not saying it is acceptable. But they didn't just desire blood. They were driven to that by so many different forces and voices. Some of those were their own.
Now, there are so many families who will wake on Christmas morning and weep bitterly for their children. For their husbands. Wives. Mothers. Fathers. And they will wonder why God would do this if he existed. They will despair in their loss. The shootings go on in theaters, churches, mosques, schools, homes, streets...
And so I grieve for them.
It is devastating. Those children may not have been saved. They will never get to live out their lives. They won't have children of their own. Their families, their friends, now live with not only the memory of their lives but with the memories of their deaths. Depression may ensue. Despair. Falling away from God. Hatred toward those who murdered the ones they loved. And all of this is understandable. To an extent it is expected. No words can compensate for the people you have lost. The nation truly does grieve with you.
Even still, remember those who begin such things. A teenager who decides to open fire on classmates before killing himself may be driven by depression. Depression brought on by others. Everything you do has a consequence. There have been multiple accounts of people planning suicide then rejecting it because someone reminded them that they are Human. That they matter. These kids were reminded of that because someone picked up their books, said hi to them, complimented them somehow. And it saved their life.
To those reading this long after these current events, do not forget to remember the fallen. Do not reject those who hurt. Do not cause the harm that pushes people toward, to, and over the edge of control into the abyss of depression and darkness.
To those not affected by these shootings: pray. Pray for the men, women, and children who have lost ones they loved. That they still love. Pray for comfort and peace. Pray for something good to come from this.
To those involved or affected by the shootings... There are no words for what has happened and I am deeply, deeply sorry. I pray for you. I weep for you, with you, and will continue to do so for years to come. Evil is hard at work. No law or regulation can stop Satan. Comfort each other. I pray that _something_ good would come out of this. Trust in God, because He is there. I can't explain the "why?"s. But there is a reason. Somehow, somewhere, there is a reason. Whether we will ever see or understand it, I don't know.
To you all: Remember the forgotten.




Ltpoethearts.blogspot.com

Questions...

Why is it that just when everything looks perfect and I've neatly arranged all my scenery that a whirlwind comes through and threatens everything? Just when I've filed away all of my Fears and shoved the last few crumbs of Doubt under the rug, a twister runs through and throws everything back out into the open again so that I have to rush to cover it until I have more time to reorganize. I'd just neared recovery from two back-to-back internal battles (the earthquake and the aftershock). Little did I know, a hurricane was on the way. My great-grandma died on Sunday night. I haven't slowed down enough to really soak it in and everything it means. I'm not sure I want to. Maybe this is that "denial stage". If I keep moving long enough, if I can fall asleep fast enough at night, I won't have to think about it and it won't mess me up again. I can outrun the hurricane.
Maybe that's a fantasy, but it's one of the few things I still want to believe. I can't seem to find the light at the end of any of these twisting and winding tunnels. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've been going in circles for months.

Maybe life wasn't meant to be put together. People always seem to think someone or other has their life all figured out, but what if that's not even possible?

Battle Cry

Kneel, brave child, a mere boy no more

Bold one, stand up as The Enemy roars

Fight, dear one, with the champions you rise

Put an end to the torment of the Evil One’s lies

You direct the future of all those you see

Stand firm, my child, and fight for me.

June 8, 2010

Leaena Tigris

We are in the middle of a battle, thrown in unprepared, but given all that we need. A fire burns in us like nothing that can ever exist when we are on our own. We fight in strategically colonized groups. Placed by those who know how to help us and by those who oppose us and, though in the same battle, tear us down which, through time, strengthens us. The swordsman is placed by the archer and it is up to each to protect the other. We are one through unification in this war and in this life and world. We are as one for who we are and what we believe. We work together, though distant. We are never alone. Nothing matters. Everything that has been hidden and unseen throughout our life does not even exist as far as we know. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.  Everything that we never said, everything that we always needed to hear, we cover that. We solidify under pressure and threat and danger. All of those components together make up a solid, unified, unthreatened, undaunted, fearless group of warriors which none of us are noble enough to be considered part of. 

We are given all that we need to fight in this war, but not trained in the way that we expect. From the moment that you become a soldier, you must choose whether you will fight or you will stand in the middle of the angry hornets’ nest that is our battlefield and wait for training until you are run through and your life is gone, wasted by uselessness and lack of use in itself. Everybody dies, but not everyone lives. People just don’t get that. There’s more to living than being alive. If you are physically alive, but that’s it, you exist. You have no purpose, no plan, nothing. You are a single grain of sand dropped down into an endlessly deep abyss. Lost. You are lost. Not irretrievable, but lost. Gone. You exist and that is all that you know how to do. 

If you are internally alive, you are standing on that battlefield, you have a purpose and you know what that is, you know that you are destined to fight, but you just stand there. You deserve to get run through for every single stupid thing that you will ever do and you deserve to die. We all do. We just stand there, but we don’t get it. This is not a game, this is a war. This is not some fantasy in your head where you can erase your actions and start over, what’s happened has happened and there is nothing that you or anybody else can do about it. We drive on and don’t look back; it doesn’t mean we can’t learn from our pasts. We need to learn from it or we are going to make the same stupid mistakes that we’ve always made day after day and we will continue to pound nails through the hands of someone who died for us. We tone it down way too much. That is what this whole battle is and we lose focus of the point. We forget why we’re fighting in the first place. We fight to defend ourselves and defend the only one who chose to defend us. We fight for everything that comes against us to try to knock us down and make it seem like we are alone and useless and completely lost, hopeless, irredeemable, unseen, unheard, and unknown. 

But no, when we are united through the blood of our King, we are unshakable, unchangeable, untouchable, and we are protected. Nothing can stop us from doing what we were destined to do all along. If you are fighting like you should be, then you know that this is war and we are fighting to the death. There is nothing that can stop us or hold us back. Nothing can touch us or cause us to fail other than our own, dead selves and our disbelief. If we could only get rid of those forever, if we could throw those aside and burn them into oblivion, we could fight and be unshakable in every aspect from everything. We would be, in essence, invincible. Doubt, worry, self-centeredness, jealousy, and hatred would not exist within us. We would be perfect and there would be nothing that could stop us from doing what we are called to do in all circumstances. But we cant. We can’t just burn it or shake it off, it comes back to get us and that’s what we are fighting. 

We are fighting darkness with light: fighting within ourselves and out in the open in the realm of the unknown. We have sided with the darkness since the beginning, but now we are in the light and this is a war of the living versus the dead. We have to re-kill ourselves each day to remain alive. Darkness itself can not approach, let alone touch light, but if we refuse to show that light by serving and loving and doing whatever it is that we are called to do we will end up sinning which, for all the geniuses out there, we happen to do a lot. 

Take a look around. This can not be all that there is. Look at the guy walking past you at Wal-Mart. He could be dying for all you know. Glance at that teenage girl in front of you in the drive through line at Wendy’s, she could be just as much of a fighter as you. Not everyone is what you will make them out to be. I’m not saying that we should judge them or make up stories about them or try to guess what is going on in their life, my point is simply that they might need some prayer. They are dying and you are watching them, you have the power to pull them out of darkness, now will you use it? Will you be on the frontline? Are you just going to stand there and wait for Death to find you or are you going to use every minute of time that you have to fight?

"I declare that they will speak to the walking dead in our streets and we will see them come to life again!"  -Mattie Montgomery

" 'You can burn in hell for all I care' is the message we send to all those to whom we neglect to preach the Gospel." - Mattie Montgomery

“He was the King of the Universe, yet He lowered himself down enough to become one of us slimy little meat bugs.”  -Riverblade

“He died for you. I mean, just listen to it, He died for you. Are any of you out there dying right now for someone? I don’t think so. And still we continue to do all those little, stupid things to Him every single day. How can you not get that?”  -Riverblade

                “We fight together and that’s the only way that we can survive here. We can’t do this alone, we have to do this as one. I am with you until the end.” –Leaena Tigris

God said... I said...

I think I actually saw this in a magazine once. Something similar anyway, and I made my own. I wrote this on November 11, 2011. Or at least, that's what the document properties say. 

I said: I can’t last much longer here.  God said: Yes you can. I know that you can.  But I wasn't ready when you put me into this.  Yes you were, child. I gave you everything that you needed to do this for me. You've lasted this long, why give up now?   Because I can’t go on. You don’t know what I’m going through.    Yes I do.  You don’t feel like your parents love you. Your old friends have left you and you’re relying on your new friends to help you through this. Your brother can’t seem to leave you alone and your sister either ignores or opposes you.   Well, yeah, but why did you put me in this family? In this position? In this life?   Because I need to strengthen you. I need to prepare you for what you will face later on.   But why this? You could have at least put me somewhere where I feel safe and secure. Somewhere where I would have the encouragement and support that I need.    I told you, you have everything that you need, I just have to make you stronger. Everyone feels alone at some point, you know that. Is the only way to do that to put me here and leave me?  You know that I haven’t left you. I've always been with you. But you don’t show up anymore. Not like you used to. But I’m here. I've always been right by your side. Then how come I can’t tell that You’re there? Why don’t you do anything with my problems? If You are right beside me, then You should know what’s happening and do something about it. Is this just a game to You!? Is it fun for You to watch me go through all of this? No, it’s not. Look around you. I've given you friends that are like a second family to you. I've given you time and dedication. I've given you skills. Please stop trying to push me away. Let me hold you. Let me talk to you. But what about- None of that matters. I know what you hide and what you don’t tell anyone, you’re safe now. I love you.    I know you do.    You have a purpose.   But I don’t think I’m ready.   You are.    What if I mess up? What if I can’t do it?    You can do it.    But what about everything that people have said to me? What about all the ways that I've been treated?   I know all about that. You don’t think that you are worth anything, but you are. You are worth My Son. Don’t forget that. Okay, but you don’t understand how I feel! How could you?   Because I've felt that way. You feel useless. You don’t feel loved or wanted, you don’t think that you are worth anything because that’s what people have told you for the last three years. You aren't sure who you are or where your life is taking you. Did you forget that my son was abandoned and hated by his own people? Do you not remember what they did to Him? I know that you remember that. You've known it since you were little.    But… I know. I’m sorry. I’m just mad and I don’t understand why You were doing this to me.    I know.  Come here. Rest. Don’t worry about anything, I’m holding you. It doesn't matter. I’m here for you. I've been walking through this with you. Don’t worry.    Thank you... for everything.    Rest, my child, you have a mission to go on soon.    I’m ready.    I know you are.   What is it that you want me to do?  Everything. Fight for me, rescue the dying, and comfort the lonely. You know what to do.  I’m ready, God, I’m ready now.

That We Were Made- Part 2

We’re pack animals. Have you noticed that? I mean, think about it. In the most obvious sense, girls go to the bathroom in herds (for reasons unknown to me). When crimes occur, even if people are direct eyewitnesses, studies show that people doubt what they see if others do not react. Peer pressure doesn’t seem so much to be inflicted by others but by ourselves because of our tendency to follow others. People were meant to be together. Depression often stems from loneliness. Hopelessness and despair come from lack of friends and therefore love. I find that fascinating….