living

Yesterday I had a near death experience.

How dramatic does that sound? Pretty dramatic? Good. I was driving, almost at the church, which was where I was headed, when someone turned left, running a red light right in front of me. It is just hitting me now how lucky I was. Right before I went through that light something told me, almost audibly, "slow down." And I did. Normally I ignore those annoying little whispers telling myself I am just being silly, or I am overreacting, but yesterday I listened. I slowed down to 25 mph and when I saw the car in my path, I slammed on my brakes and barely missed them. If I had ignored that voice, and continued at my previous, legal speed of 45, I would have plowed into the side of that rather sizable SUV.

I could have died. I probably would have, if not for that little voice that told me to "slow down." Looking back, I have had a lot of close calls. I was once locked in the trunk of a car on a ninety-eight degree day in late May, and I lived. I remember realizing that I had stopped sweating. I felt cooler, and I remember thinking that if I could just go to sleep, I would feel much better, but there was that voice that told me "No Kendra, you need to stay awake, just hold on a little longer." I believe that if I had fallen asleep in the trunk of that car, I could easily have died, but I am still alive. Yesterday I could have died, but I am still alive.

I believe God knows me, I have always believed it. I believe he could have let me die yesterday, or any other day, but instead He whispered in my ear, warning me, protecting me. What's news to me (and I can't believe it never occurred to me before) is that I have a purpose. There is a reason I am still here. I am not just drudging along, alone on this rock all haphazard-like; God wants me here. Right now, in this small moment in my tiny little life, I am supposed to be here.

Part of me is not sure how to feel about this. Part of me is so exhausted with living, (the part of me that wishes for anything from going to bed and not waking up, to a fiery car crash) the part of me that thinks dying would be easier. The rest of me is in awe. For years I've asked myself questions like "Why was I saved?" "What is the reason?" "Why do I even matter?" "Why doesn't God just let me die?"

I've realized that perhaps I have been asking the wrong questions all along. I realize now that if there is a creator, and if He has a plan, and if my being alive is part of that plan, then I have a responsibility. I am supposed to accomplish something. Maybe the questions I should be asking myself are, "Who am I supposed to help?" "Whose life am I supposed to touch?" "What good can I do?"

I am supposed to be alive, I know that now, but I think more important than that, I am supposed to live.

perspective

This blog post is going to be brutally honest. Today I was awful to someone.

When I was being abused physically, I developed this hard-won ability to turn off my senses. Nothing could touch me, nothing could hurt me. I suppose that's a metaphor. I hurt, I always hurt. I made my way through the halls of my high school gingerly, skirting around people rather than pushing through the crowds to avoid unnecessary contact that would further irritate my constantly injured skin. But I could take anything that was dished at me physically, because I used the pain as fuel to do what I needed to do to stay alive. The pain was good. If I used the physical pain I was dealt to dull the emotional pain, it was like I was untouchable. Bruises didn't ache, burns and cuts didn't sting, and the mad rush of five hundred teenagers didn't phase me. When someone was hurting me on purpose, I could deal.

Now I have a dear friend who would never, ever want to hurt me. But without the intense physical pain to make the pain of emotions, of feeling feel insignificant, it's like everything hurts. Words that mean nothing harmful make me cry. Being misunderstood makes me cry. Misunderstanding makes me cry. This pain, the pain of my heart beating in my chest is sometimes so much to bear that I don't know what to do. I've never cried so hard as when this person doesn't mean to hurt me.

And so, today, in a rage, I told this friend that I could better understand him if he would just hit me. I told him that I wished he would, that then at least I would know what to feel. I told him, in essence that I would prefer abuse I could understand to him.

I have never felt more ungrateful in my life than when I said those words.

This friend means the world to me. He is understanding, patient, unwavering, a person I don't at all deserve and today I treated him like crap, and his friendship like it was worthless. All of this is to say that I am trying. I am trying so hard to act like a normal person that can have normal relationships with people, and I fail. But I am lucky. I have people who love me no matter how badly I screw up. I have friends that insist I deserve better than what I wish for myself in the heat of an angry moment. I have faith in a gospel that teaches that the worst blunders I could possibly make can be wiped clean. And are. Today I really screwed up and I am SO grateful for the opportunity I have to learn from my mistakes.

She'll Be A Morning Shadow

As I am starting this entry, it is 11:11 pm on October the 22nd. When I finish it (more than likely) it will be October 23rd. October the 23rd, 2010. In 49 minutes it will have been one year since I was raped in a grocery store bathroom by someone I knew.

My life took a sharp swerve that night. In some ways, the girl I was that day, and the girl I am today are not so different. Our faces are the same, our core beliefs, our hidden talents are shared, but she had something that I can no longer afford, and that is the luxury of denial.

This one incident brought up more painful memories than I can share in good conscience here and now. I haven't taken a picture of myself once this year. Making art is painful now. There are some days when I can't bring myself to get out of bed. The nightmares kill me. Last night, I didn't sleep at all. I tossed and turned all night, my mind filled with visions of violence, black and white, and slow, with mouths moving, trying to yell, scream, cry, argue, but no sound coming out. Like an old silent movie.

I often wonder if people notice that because of this, I walk around in a fog. Sometimes I feel like they must be able to see that my nightmares walk beside me, but no one says anything. In fact, the people closest to me have noticed a steady change in me from that night, and not for the poorer. It's hard for me to see sometimes how relatively normal I am when I feel such a wreck, but as a line from one of my favorite songs goes "you've come far, and though you're far from the end, you don't mind where you are, cuz you know where you've been."

Today I stand as a woman who has taken only the first few steps in a lifelong journey, but I go forward with the knowledge that, although there may be no real end to this story, there is something better to look forward to. I also press on with the knowledge that I no longer have to walk alone.

Testimony of the Book of Mormon

When I can't breathe I go outside, lie on the ground, and let the trees envelop me like a cocoon. Like swaddling a baby, I am enclosed, I feel secure, and the trees breathe air back into my empty lungs. Sometimes I think that Heavenly Father put trees on the earth just so I could get through this. He is wrapping that swaddling blanket around me, drawing me into his arms, and rocking me until I am calm.

*****************************************
Where, when my aching grows, Where when I languish,
Where, in my need to know, Where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand? He, only one.

He answers privately, Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant He is and kind, love without end.

I am extraordinarily lucky

Today I met my Girl Scout leader from when I was like ten. It was weird...and Happymaking. I remember being a brownie, and what's better, SHE remembers me being a brownie. How many little girls has she taken to Savannah? How many girls has she pinned little rainbow pins on, or had to help with mundane projects or stood outside with on chilly spring Saturdays selling Girl Scout Cookies? And she remembers me. I was a silly little girl scout then, and today, I donated a box of lemonade cookies to Walter Reed.

Also today, I drove with the windows down and my music blasting. I know it's a little sacreligious to blast Ray Lamontagne, since he is so chill and deserves to be listened to in quiet meaningful moments with headphones in, but all the same, I blasted Mr. Ray with the windows down and the sun shining on my skin, and it made me smile.

1. bathroom accessories in green and yellow and blue to match a splatter painting done by a nine year old (when he was 8.) a toothbrush holder, a soap dispenser, a trashcan, a shower curtain, and a "cotton container" (which actually ends up being filled with bobby pins and ponytail holders and barrettes)
2. clothes that have not been worn in months coming out of the dryer smelling like Happy and Clean.
3. spring is coming



Would it be bragging to call myself richly blessed?

it's the very least i can do.

i know how cliche it probably sounds- not to mention unlike me. i tend not to talk about things of this nature in public forums. but today i am grateful for the amazing power at my fingertips. i'm talking about, not only my own ability to string words into sentences relatively coherently, but the fact that at the click of a little white mouse, i can broadcast my thoughts and feelings and opinions across the internet.

i wonder how often we stop and that about the sheer vastness of this everyday part of our lives. if they knew what they were looking for, anyone, anywhere in the whole world who had access to a computer could find their way to my insignificant little page of musings. that is power, my friends.

internet celebrities are born overnight, people actually make money, just by making videos and letting companies post ads next to their faces on youtube. while i have no desire whatsoever to acquire my 15 minutes of fame through the intarwubs, it does call to mind, for me, the amazing ability we have to reach out to one another. we reach across city lines, and country borders. you can meet someone, who in your lifetime you would never, ever have met otherwise. you can touch people's lives, possibly without even knowing it.

the internet allows us an amazing kind of communication we have never in the history of the planet accomplished before. and while it is wonderful, and amazing, it also convinces me that there is a lot we can do as human beings. a lot more than we are doing now. we can reach out to people.

You can reach out to someone. Whether it be across oceans and telephone lines, or across the table at lunch, the power is the same. Because it's not the technology that makes the human race what it is. It's not technology that gives us ideas, and emotions and talents. It's not technology that accomplishes anything. It's not the technology that makes us powerful.

So reach out to someone. If there is anything i have learned today (which was actually the purpose of this entire tangent) is that there is so much at my disposal, so many opportunities, so many blank canvases, so many unwritten songs.

I want to use them to praise the Lord. I want to use what I have, to serve Him more fully. He has given, and still gives me everything I have. Everything good in my life, right down to the computer on which I am typing, and my ability to string words into sentences relatively coherently, comes from Him.

I almost can't put into words, my desire to live in a way that might make Him proud, and make me feel like i am doing anything worth being done. so instead, i will post the lyrics of a hymn. and then i will be finished.

Because I have been blessed by thy great love, dear Lord,
I’ll share thy love again, according to thy word.
I shall give love to those in need;
I’ll show that love by word and deed:
Thus shall my thanks be thanks indeed.