Nothing Else Matters.

Well, today has marked another bit of a vast change.

I'm reluctant to write of it, but feel the need to do so. There are just certain things which had been completely reluctant for undertaking, despite having felt the need to do so increasingly over course of past couple months..

..done, today. And even an additional thing which wasn't entirely or at all desired for doing. Just...sometimes it is impossible to ignore the blasphemy. It's never pleasant to see, of course. But, ordinarily, there's nothing done except prayer. Ordinarily.

Periodically, though, it's given to provide Scriptural refutation of blasphemy of God--when done in a "Christian" community. Not often something that's a given, to do, though.

Fearing God reduces fear of man, though. Proportionally to the extent to which the Lord is feared (even as He is adored wholly, also). Such that...there are certain things which can't be done, any longer, for fear of the Lord. Just as there were some things which had to be done, for fear of the Lord.

For so long a time as I was mired in the world, its ways are understood...and there's fairly often attempted mental assault, in terms of an attempt being made to restrict freedom of speech unto the glory of God, with all the many assertions which readily are given as refutation from all the many demonic spirits maintaining such prevalence in society.

Doesn't matter. The Lord is greater. Knowing the enemy does no favors, except as to anticipate likely attack...given that they've already been mentally attempted, but by grace through praise, prayer, and devotion abolished.

I realize there's no conception, amongst those who are fallen prey to society, to the world, to the devil's ways...of the lack of consistency in their observations, regarding self-examination especially. But it's the way of it--they don't recognize truth, because it's not in them. They can't receive it, because they don't recognize it.

Only by grace have any of us ever come to know and love Truth, to know and love the Lord Jesus.

Remembering how absolutely overpowering were the responses, previously internal, in rejection of Him and any who proclaimed His name...especially when I was in thick of things--bartending overnights in the French Quarter, with all due and expected ungodliness and blasphemies attendant upon my ways and thoughts and manners of being...
...I remember how violently internal rejection of even mention of Christianity was. Which, really...it was Christianity which was so abhorrent, moreso than Jesus. Jesus...I still spoke of, with a perverted fondness, in regard to blasphemously likening Him to individuals like Buddha who were abominations before God.

But...I don't know, there was a conversation once where I was trying to convince one of my best friends about Jesus's being God. In 2005, first time I'd met her and was alone with her, helping her move out of the apartment she had to leave. I remember, then, taking up for Him and asserting that He was the Son of God, Emmanuel...even though there wasn't really comprehension of the work done through His crucifixion, I was asserting that He had died and resurrected and ascended.

And was, all the while, wholly disgusted by and absolutely furious over Christians.

It was Christians who were so reviled. Like the ones who could sit and quietly smile to one another during service, then immediately turn to sniping gossip in malicious tones of whisper, immediately after the Bible had been closed.

Like the ones who had escorted me out of the sanctuary, the night I was overcome with joy, then weeping supplication for a friend's parent. Out to the sidewalk, at night, on a Sunday. It's still not entirely clear how old I was, but between 11 and 13, best as memory serves.
And they just took me outside the church and deposited me on the sidewalk, and then a few of them just stood and watched me while I wept and pleaded for them to pray with me for my friend's parent. They just stood and watched, maintaining distance.

No one ever talked to me about it.
They just gave me wide berth afterward, ceasing conversation.
...regarding with suspicion.

It absolutely crushed me. I'd begun to know the Lord, up to that point. Talking to Him in very sidelong sorts of ways, but still...having called out to Him, numerous times, and getting response.
Direct response. Inexplicably precise response, beyond comprehension or chance.

Yet, to then be cast out of the church?
I turned a complete 180 at that point. Feeling for sure that it must have been something wrong with me, for them to reject me so wholeheartedly...so wholeheartedly that they wouldn't even talk to me about it. Excommunicated while still permitted to wander as though invisible within their midst.

Not that they'd really ever spoken to me, any of them, prior to that. I didn't talk, after all--people terrified me, and so I could never bring myself to talk, aside of being nice and smiling if spoken to.
Rarely.

Rarer still, after that night. Or, maybe it just seemed so, for feeling so completely cast out. Maybe the shame of having been physically removed, all things else considered too, was so much that I stopped even making eye contact with anyone.

I don't know. Both, most likely.

Everything fell apart, then. Everything.

I didn't really bear anything against God, then...just pain and longing to understand why...why so rejected...I didn't bear anything against Jesus, either--He just basically departed from my vocabulary, so shocked and traumatized as I was. I was afraid of what would happen, afraid of what had happened, and had no idea what to do or who to go to, because there was no one.

So, I turned gradually to one cohort--the one whose father had been such a burden on my heart, that night. She turned me onto supernatural fiction and mysticism, gradually, and from that I delved ever further into the occult. Achieving results sought, in every instance where any was...per sheer determination, moreso than any attempt to deal with spirits. Although, in years immediately subsequent, there were spiritual things which manifested and were wholly rejected--putting a halt to that end of pursuit, for fear.

Everything fell apart, though. Family already had been, but increased in decline. I didn't realize how things were, even--it was just a matter of going through the day, unto each next.
One friend, the one who remained friend until very recently...the one who persisted as an accepted and honored and respected Christian, amongst all those who were otherwise loathed...the one who had Bible study with me, periodically, over all the years intervening..
...he made a statement, a few years after I'd left home--what home was left, at least...
...when I was in Florida, he just made a statement about how shocked he'd always been that I'd been responsible for taking care of my siblings and for running the house.

I never saw it that way, but he explained it to me in such a way that...well, he was right. Eldest of four, and it was my responsibility to make sure everyone was wherever they were supposed to be at any given point. They were all terrified of mom already, as I was, so some things were just done without being asked--homework, laundry (my sister Amber did laundry, I did dishes...I really don't know that anyone cooked, most days, so much as scavenged), and whatever else. I was responsible for cleaning the house. All of which is why I wasn't allowed to take part in helping the local mission, or for volunteering anywhere else if there had been elsewhere, nor allowed to spend time out of the house really. Because I had too much to do at home, is how she put it, for me to be off running around everywhere else and doing stuff for other people. If I wanted to do things for people, I had to make sure everything at home was done first.

It was never finished. I had no idea what I was even supposed to do.
All I knew was vacuuming, and moving piles of stuff around in the rooms which were used most. And dishes.

I don't know if mom maybe did bed-clothes for the others, but I know I had to do my own...which means it was done maybe a couple times a year (have kinda picked up on the realization that they need to be washed a lot more often than that, just to note). Just...I didn't know. I'd never been told, I didn't have an example to work from--I was too terrified of the lash of mom's tongue and the strike of her hand to go near her, willingly, without just cause. Which was largely why I'd ended up becoming responsible for my siblings--being the eldest, I was able to mitigate the damage to them by taking the brunt of it myself, by intervening when things got out of hand.

So, it was always a matter of listening around corners, being very, very, very on point with aural and visual observation as to immediately jump between, when or if things should spike beyond reason at any point. Like the day my sister Amber tried to stab my little brother with a steak knife. None of us knows how I made it across the room in time to grab her wrist during the downward stroke.
Of course...he'd just hit her with a frying pan, which I'd had to abscond and dispose of, during which time she had opportunity to arm herself and nearly complete an attack.
He was crouched in a corner, when I made it back across the room, she was lunging over him--knife raised to the apex of her ability, with the downstroke already well begun to half-way complete, and I caught her wrist motionless, inches from his face. She was going for the eye, maybe. Or maybe for the heart--I've never asked, in all the times we've discussed that instance.

Oh...

That instance was before things got bad. I still kind of had them under control, at that point.
It was before the incident of being kicked out of church and just giving up on everything except barest necessities for survival.

I grew up with my little brother calling me mom, for the longest time, for years. And I don't know if mom ever even knew that. I don't know if dad ever knew it.
They were never there.

They'd hired someone to babysit and clean house, and she did just that--we were all confined to a room together, expected to stay there and (literally, this was what was both meant and intended) not to kill one another. Those were the rules. The only rules.

Stay in one room, no going outside. If you play, do so quietly (unspoken rule determined by matter of course--there was wrath to come, if we got loud enough to warrant anyone's attention). Just don't kill one another.

...now, don't get me wrong--I was absolutely no saint. Living in those circumstances, and not to affected? I had a temper which was unto death, only barely restrained most days...and, even then, the only reason it was so restrained was because I had apparently seriously hurt one of them once, when I was maybe 4?...I remember the "talk" they had with me, is how I know it was so young--mom and dad were BOTH there, and TALKED, rather than "beating it into me." Just...told me that I didn't know my own strength and if I wasn't careful, I would end up seriously hurting one of them.

So, I tried. Oh, I tried. But I know there were moments when I did lash out. And, even staying more to myself--distance instituted by the known responsibilities for all, implied even if not consciously realized...always walking that line between being the aggressor and the peace-maker, just to ensure no one died. ...even staying more to myself, in ways, I still preferred the company of my next youngest sibling. And we often verbally tormented the younger two.

For no reason, except just that it was done. I remember feeling absolutely horrible about it afterwards, sometimes, but...there was just this overwhelming malice which would come again and again, inciting the instances. Frustration with the all, unto rage.

And yet none of us killed one another.
We've all, since, either attempted to kill ourselves or seriously thought about it, though.

Mom did kill herself, in 2007. Dad tried to kill himself at some point in the 90s, apparently.

And that same bit of mental anguish which had ever tried to come upon me, driving me into such despair and utter confusion from reality as to ever try so many times to die, by my own hand? ...except that I remain close to the Lord, that same voice starts speaking again.

It's demonic, is what it is. I know that. Even as much as I know that most folks nowadays think "that sort of thing is just nonsense." It's not my place to convince folks, though, and there's no desire to. All that's given me is to relay what experience has been and whatever revelations are given. That's it, in most all ways.

To what end, I have absolutely no idea, on the whole.

All that though...all the many things, even with there being interspersed moments of happiness and peace, during childhood and adolescence...all that is done. Even as some of the stuff that was spawned as temptation and oppression back then still yet attempts to periodically find purchase again, still--it's over, the time for those things has passed.

Merely, to have ever been completely caught up in all of the many things which were wrought from all those many decades completely entrenched in raging, malicious chaos...and to have been delivered to freedom in Christ, bound now to Him and constrained by His love? ...yeah, it's worth anything to cleave to Him, completely. No matter what.

Just...the nearer I draw to Him, the more things seem to change. Gladly, really...only, today it did cross my mind...clearly realized...

...the more near and dear He becomes to me, the more real, and the greater the faith...the stronger is the enemy's loathing, and the more incentive he has to eradicate me.

...which doesn't scare me, in the least. I don't care what he does--he's every bit as subject to God now, as he ever has been, given that he's merely a creature. He can only do what God allows. And, the greater the persecution, should or when it does moreso come...the greater the glory to God.

Because He will not fail. God will not forsake me. He will never abandon me. And having drawn me unto Christ, nothing can snatch me from His hand--He said it's so, and I believe Him and trust Him wholeheartedly. He saved me.

What it does mean, though, is that...walking closer with God means that it can only continue as it is and unto walking even more closely with Him. Anything otherwise would be knowingly giving place to the enemy, and that is unconscionable. Entirely unconscionable.

Which is why the things which were done today were done. And why they had to be. And why, even as it may seem like nothing to some folks, it took two months' worth of prayer for me to acquire to do, and given what bit has been written of the all...maybe the things which have ever been experienced can attest to why that would be so.

Just...in regard to employment, which is the core component of the "I can and must be self-reliant and provide for myself, no matter what"-bit of pride-inciting logic...it has been on my mind, repeatedly, these past couple of months that my resume needed update. As to signify foremost my identification as a Christian, pre-requisite to desiring or accepting any position of employ.

Period.

It HAS to be so. HAS to be, otherwise I cannot work a job and will continue to rely upon the Lord in all things, even unto whatsoever He wills--whether employment or some other avenue, as has been.

There are so many complications entailed in that pre-emptory proclamation of faith, as part of public acknowledgment of availability for work, is what's so very strange. I feel liberated, really. I feel better about things, knowing that's in the open, even as the implications are all the more clear now.

First off, to take it from a "political correctness"/quasi-legal (ungodly) stance...anything which may in any way offend anyone at any time is something that's not supposed to be brought into anything of any kind of any work environment. According to all the many, many codes of law in regard to discrimination and harassment and person rights, as are so highly lauded as supreme these days.
Which, having been in mid-management numerous times now (very unsuccessfully, for just these very reasons having wrought complete breakdown as course of such blatant internal conflicts incited in one seeking after Christ)...I know that a lot of what that equates to is that "whoever you are, leave it at home." Which basically equates to depersonification. Dehumanizing. Because it's in the business's best legal interests not to give any person a job, but instead to hire employees...to employ associates...and so on. People who are depersonalized to the extent that they identify with the business wholly as to the detriment of self, within context of it all being "just business," as it truly goes. To the extent that store management can direct mid-management to fire a single mother after Christmas, with a deadline of roundabout New Year's, because they basically don't like her...with the expectation that mid-management will trump up sufficient charges as to make it happen, literally overnight (I was given a story as an example of how one particularly enterprising mid-manager accomplished such a thing, from nothing, within a week given direction by store management to do so). Not only that, but in the most recent position still (as this just mentioned was from), they also wanted me to work on finding ways to get rid of "that one guy...something's not right with him"...who was the best, most reliable worker on that particular department team, yet who happened to also work within restrictions of autism which meant that he'd never be able to be promoted, which meant they wanted him gone. Because he was autistic, you know.

There was no way. Absolutely no way.

And after a month's worth of building pressure on both those counts, then raped on Christmas Eve, then stress of just not knowing anything and not even being able to go to church because I was working at least 10 hours a day, six days a week at the end, tracking (per pedometer) between 15 and 20 miles a day across the 100,000sq. ft. building...just, complete nervous breakdown, on January 1st.
All I could think of and could even conceive of doing, from the moment my eyes opened...was to go to the kitchen sink, drink windex and bleach, by whatever means required as to do so. That surely THAT would kill me, where Raid had failed numerous times, even with codeine and allergy medicine. And other things. But surely THAT would work.

And it had been on my mind for weeks, as things had gotten worse and worse...and that day, the first of this year, the moment my eyes opened...the compulsion to do that, and ONLY that...made me literally cling in abject desperation to the bed frame--weeping and seeking sleep, again and again--for fear that I might get up and go and do it, as there was no other option. The store manager called. Again, and again, and eventually I was able to let go of the bed with one hand as to answer the phone...and ended up sobbing and telling him just of the desperation and not knowing what to do, without mentioning ANY details. Hospital was recommended, and it was then an option. But I knew if I were to drive myself, it would not have gone well, in that state of mind.

So, still had to wait longer yet to gain further resolve to walk to my then-roommate's bedroom rather than the kitchen, to beg them to to take me to the hospital. Never crossed my mind to do anything else.

God became a real necessity again, in the void which was the hospital-space. In a very loose, undefined, yet barely grasped sort of way...there was just an internal certainty which instituted itself, more and more apparent per each passing day (even now), of the abject need to return to Him in all ways, with everything, and to cling to Him with every bit of abject desperation as I'd clung to that bed frame and to fitful sleep in the midst of weeping, that first day of absolute brokenness.

And I started, then, even having been trying to very haphazardly and ignorantly to seek Christ, in the years preceding--it had all been such weak and paltry searching, as so guided by those who led what churches had been found did attest to. I did as best I knew, and it wasn't enough. It wasn't even the beginning of being enough, except that the Lord did have mercy so as to allow me to be broken enough to truly know such need for Him, then.

That was grace. That was mercy.

But I know, is all--I couldn't go back to that. I CAN'T go back to that. It is impossible for me to exist and live in that environment, without ending up right back where I was in January--if so blessed even as to be spared yet again, from my own such strong temptations unto death.
So, I can't compromise. I can't. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

I CAN'T. Because compromising entails opening myself to the breadth of those temptations, again, and I cannot in any good conscience do such a thing. Not only because of the havoc in wreaks upon me, but even moreso and quite explicitly because it would be idolatry to do so--for God to have spared me, yet again, from death?...yet for me to, by my actions, undermine the severity and the magnitude of what He has done in me and for me...by walking right back into what death He'd delivered me from?

So, yeah. My resume, and every site which as anything which represents it, now has a brief yet explicit statement of faith as primary focus, prior to detailing even work experience.
Because if they can't or won't accommodate me as a person, for what matters more to me than anything else in this world, then I cannot even begin to condescend as to offer my labor. I will not allow my faith to be degraded. Me--fine, whatever. But not my faith. Not my Lord.

A few years ago, it never even crossed my mind as a possibility, let alone a necessity. But I can't refrain from making a point of letting whosoever may hire me know, foremost, that they're hiring a Christian. Because that's all I have. There is nothing else. Christ is ALL.

And if He is not welcome, then I'd just as well go to straight to the hospital than to spend a day in training.

*sigh*

Just...I know how that's going to go over, in the secular world. The guy who called today about interviewing me, having found my un-revised resume...when he asked what I've been doing for work, and I let him know "praying"--both times he asked, because he wouldn't accept that as a response, despite it being truth..
...yeah. He ended up ignoring it, on the whole. He is now the first recipient (aside of any who may wander across it, over course of looking for "candidates") of the new and largely improved version of my resume.

We'll see whether they still call about an interview for later in the week. Even if they do, once it becomes apparent that there's no cog for the machine, but a person...? Yeah, we'll see.

It's up to God. Not me.
I didn't apply for it.
I didn't apply for the last corporate job that was given me--which, that ended in a trip the the hospital for a week..

Just don't bother with all the arguments against it--they've already been side-swiping me for hours, attempting to wring a retraction of faith...everything from how "they'll all thing you're a complete joke," to "they'll take one look at that and believe you're completely insane," to "you're likely to get called in for interviews just so they can heckle you for amusement on a slow day at the office."
All since then, I keep hearing on repeat, "well, you've done it now--you may not have been looking for something, but so long you stay with that you've made yourself unhireable."

To which my response has been mult-varied. First off...most folks think I'm a complete joke, anyway, even unto uncles condescendingly making wry remarks about my faith, my dad making jokes about how poor I am, my closest sister now completely refusing to even acknowledge my existence, my little brother laughing at my insistence upon the necessity of the Gospel...and all else, in regard to folks which aren't even family--that gets interesting, especially. So, yeah, what-with all those things being the case already? And not mattering one whit, given that being so blessed as to know the Lord is more than any person should ever hope for, so let alone to experience...??? Yeah, let them laugh. Hopefully, maybe once they have laughed, maybe something in the sincerity and lack of repentance for my faith which is evident....maybe something in that will be used of the Lord, to strike a chord within them, resounding the beginnings of His truth into their soul.

And as far as them thinking I'm insane? Oh, have fun! That's been a running joke, throughout my life, and given insight into some of the few things my life has been comprised of...not to mention the extents or types of abuses experienced for years, nor to mention the perversions wrought in my mind as a result of such abject traumas as "normal" course? Yeah, please--feel free. I don't mind. It doesn't bother me to be called crazy. My parents were the first to tell me as much, when I was barely more than a toddler--first, for telling them about the singing I heard, then for humming the melodies which were to songs I couldn't identify but knew, then for giving away possessions to people who looked as though they needed something to brighten their day. All that, before perversion began to take sway. And, called crazy for it all, then. So, surely now as well, too. Only, knowing psychology so well as I do, having studied in and lived it in complete depth of practiced pursuit for years--I have SEEN crazy. I know what it looks like. I know what it feels like, to have it glaring at you across a room or attempting to abduct you at 4am. And, while there had been moments where the line was walked, it wasn't ever crossed to the point of no return--by grace of the Lord, entirely. So, maybe in seeing what they perceive as insanity, the Lord will strike a chord in them which inspires the beginning terror for their own insufficiencies, which may ultimately be used to draw them unto Him.

If the Lord does see fit that anyone would call me to interview, then it'll be as prayerfully completed as any interaction. To His glory, and to whatever end is His intent.

So, as far as being unhireable goes? There's a Subway somewhere hereabouts which has experienced some trouble for having sent a letter to a pastor somewhere, asking that they let folks know of jobs, if anyone needs one--that they hope to have Christians employed. Whether because they want to take advantage of such people, or whether they truly do want a Christian business...either way, there are such places.

And others. And I can only work in such a place, regardless.

Because if I deny Him before men, He will deny me before the Father. And that's a heart-wrenching thought, even to consider. Definitely one which isn't worth courting. Better, in all ways to acknowledge God, so He can direct the steps of my path. And, thus acknowledging Jesus before all, He will continue to acknowledge me before the Father.

Only by grace, is all. I can't maintain that sort of resolve on my own.
Even as there is no alternative, truthfully.

Which, really, is where the remark was going in regard to how there's no turning back from the Lord. Once someone has begun to seek Him, truly, there's no turning back. Once someone has been found by Him, there's certainly no turning back. And, if someone has gone so far with Him? Then there's only possibility to go further. Anything less would be too painful.

Knowing Him in spirit and in truth is to yearn to know Him ever better and ever more truly, for ever having so known Him at all.

It must be. For what else is there?
Jesus is EVERYTHING.

Truly, nothing else matters.

Granted, having read Daniel a few nights ago has certainly increased perspective on how dangerous a thing it is to compromise. Or, in terms of how the stories within the book of Daniel actually were laid out--how very important it is NOT to compromise to society's standards, period. The difference between salvation and damnation. The difference between life and death.

He is faithful. He does provide. He loves. He delivers. He protects. He preserves. He comforts. He provides company and conversation--the friend who stays closer than a brother. He fulfills every need, even as in delivering from the vanities and wickedness of this world.

Who, knowing Jesus to be so, would knowingly compromise the blessing it is to know Him so...for the sake of something as paltry and insufficient and utterly meaningless as the regard and acclaim of mere men...and, even worse!, men who are wicked in their ways and who don't know the Lord?

I mean, really...really, it's not even a question. It's just been a matter of working up taking the next step.

Even as I have no idea, except just to remark--these are things which come to forefront of mind, and they seem well.

So, God bless you all. It's my ardent prayer that He keeps us all in the very palm of His hand, shielded beneath His wings, through all the world has to offer by way of rejection and persecution--and, He will, for He has, and He is faithful. So, further, I pray that we are always so cognizant of this, as truth, that He keeps our mind on that which IS true. That, evermore, we will continue to have a deepening regard for a realization of how deeply and truly indeed does our Lord, our Savior, our Most Precious Friend and Counselor, Jesus Christ...how deeply He does love us. Oh, He is to be praised!