Diana Reader

Since the semester is almost half over, I thought I'd do a recap to bring some humor!  I don't have a week by week this time because everything blurs together, but here are the random, weird highlights.  I like to call it, "Things I've learned": 1. Met a guy on the train.  He started the conversation by asking if I purposely matched my phone to my water bottle (no) and within the two minutes he talked, he told me we live in the same apartment, he was an artist and a photographer, and he didn't think I looked old enough to be in grad school.  As the train came to my stop, he asked me for my number and shoved his phone in my hand.  I didn't know how to say "No thank you" without being rude, and I thought giving him a wrong number was deceitful, so now I cannot go down to the gym at my apartment because that's where he lives.  This is going to be a problem come winter.  I learned I have confrontational issues.  And need to work on saying no.  ...

Before this week even started I was struggling .  Sunday night, sitting in darkness on my closet floor, I had reached the point where I couldn't continue down the road I was.  I called a friend of whom I demanded too much, I had talked with someone who I expected to fix me and couldn't, and so as I sat against my wall (I tend to sit in my closet a lot to think...judge me if you must ;) ) and I saw two paths ahead of me.  I had to decide which one I was going to choose.  Both required sacrifice, one was immediate, one long term. A friend once told me that whenever life was difficult, he noticed it was during those times he hadn't been reading his bible.  When he'd open up the book again, even though much of it wasn't directly applicable to his life,  life would progressively become better.  That thought always stuck with me, and I have found so much truth in that statement.  It's not that reading the bible will magically make life "easy" or tha...

I was hanging by threads of dust and bone. Every angel I knew was singing come home. Have you ever felt like everyone around you is cheering for you, but you sit there because you fear you don't have the right to stand?  You wonder if you have the strength, you wonder if you have the ability, but most of all you wonder where to start. But the melody was hard to sing along.  Tonight I cleaned and cleaned; there's something soothing about scrubbing the dirt and dust out of your apartment...you think that if you scrub hard enough, clean well enough, it'll reach your soul.  Maybe then, you'll be worthy enough to stand. The thing is, no matter how hard I clean, I can't remove the stains.  I can't clean enough to remove the sin.  I can't scrub away my humanness. I've been fighting for so long, this idea that I can do things on my own.  That once I fix myself, I can be worthy enough to come to God.  That I'll be knowledgeable enough to help ot...

The most important move you ever make, as a believer, is the move you make right after you fall. Satan whispers, "You are rotten to the core, sensuous, childish, immature. You will never be holy; you will never be anything in God. So quit! Give up. It's useless to try. Go back! God is too high and holy; it's too complicated and difficult; you'll never figure it out. It's all over!"   Lies--all lies!  Your fall is not fatal.  Stop your everlasting introspection. You won't find victory, probing around the garbage dump of your evil nature.  Right direction doesn't come by understanding the wrong. So quit looking inward; look up to Him who loves you at all times. Stop trying to figure yourself out, and rejoice in His restoring, healing love. -David Wilkerson (w/adaptations) Some days I am just so sad.  It's frustrating because I don't know why.  What is this constant internal struggle to be free, this lasting bondage I place upon mys...