Hope Is Real!

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. ~ Aristotle  We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.  Fear of people and of economic (and housing) insecurity will leave us. ~ First and Tenth Promise of the 12 Steps I am so excited!  After so many years of living with my parents, I am finally moving out and I would not be able to be trusted to do this successfully if I was not living in recovery.  In the past, I have lived on my own or with roommates while I attended college and the situation always spiraled out of control after a while.  Hospitalizations, extreme loneliness and neediness, relapses into disordered behavior would always happen and after coming home from college, I worked hard on my recovery.  Unfortunately, I experienced more relapses; fortunately, those relapses pushed me to work even harder and to take two rounds of DBT classes .  Now that I have been practicing using my DBT skills on a regular basis for several years now, have a strong support

For example, a black man in America is oppressed in a racist society.  If God is the God of the oppressed, then God is on his side.  But if this black man abuses his female partner, does God switch sides to be with her?  What if she abuses her child?  A God who resists oppression does not love or hate, accept or despise one person in this scenario more than another.  God resists the oppressive activity and calls each party to justice in their lives.  (82, Monica A Coleman , Making A Way Out of No Way ) The Story Lives: Leading a Missional Revolution by Henriet Schapelhouman   (her website ), a Speakeasy book , was sort of a mistake for me-it should have been really obvious that this book was about "winning people to Christ," which is not my theology at all and I would not have ordered it if I had not realized it in the first place, still I would say that for what it is, it is really well written, the best possible book for that genre and even made me think a bit.

We are distinct from God-we are not God ourselves - but we are part of who and what God is, and God is a part of who and what we are. The entire world reveals God. (75, Making A Way Out of No Way, Monica A Coleman) The fourth day was much better because I remembered my new mantra from the " Girls Are Not Chicks" coloring book : I do not need conventional femininity! Also, my parents solved my snorkeling problem by renting me a "turtle-board," which is a plastic board with a clear bottom-perfect for being able to paddle around with my glasses on to see the fish and coral. I recommend it for anyone who is as blind as I am! I discovered that the pictures of the coral do not come out well through the clear bottom, so the next day I gave my water-resistant camera to my dad. Having enough sleep, and with a fresh perspective, I was ready to witness how the Virgin Islands reveal Godde on day four. I saw it in the animals, as we ran into a herd of goats runnin

Adoration: Mary of Bethany-The Untold Story by Martha Kilpatrick is a Speakeas y book in the spirit of His Desire Is For Me, as in it is written by a conservative and it is about adoration that is sickeningly sweet-Boo!  Fortunately, it was short.  The book is written in poetic style, which I did like.  What I did not like was the constant "He," "His" "Him" capitalized everywhere in reference to Godde.  It really seemed excessive and like the patriarchy was hitting me in the face.  The book was about Mary, the sister of Martha-the one who listened to Jesus, as opposed to Martha, who worked and so was chastised.   I found it very frustrating, as it sees things in total all or nothing - Mary was the adoring saint and Martha was the arrogant worker and there was never any room for anything in between.  Kilpatrick needs to learn some DBT!!!  I do not like the idea of vilifying Martha, as Kilpatrick seemed to be doing-women get vilified enough for working