The Best at Faking

I feel so alone. All the time. In this pain. I literally never want to bring it up. I never want to feel like I'm burdening anyone with my pain. Or even just have the feeling like people don't believe me or they might think I'm faking it. It's easier to just live with it. To smile and laugh and act completely normal. It comforts people to believe that you are just fine. People ask "how are you?" and they want to hear "fine." They don't want all the gory details. It causes them to have to give part of themselves away to empathize. So it is always "great!" "I'm just great!" I don't have the option of staying in bed all day. Even if everything in my body is weary and my soul is tired. I don't even want to stay in bed all day. Because I am so good at acting like I'm not sick I think everyone has forgotten I am chronically ill. To the point I throw up from the pain. To the point I cry about it when I'm alone. I am too good at pretending I'm ok. But I am in so much pain. I'm ALWAYS tired. I'm ALWAYS in pain. ALWAYS fighting through the nausea and pain. If I don't seem 'that sick' it's cuz I'm a good faker. Probably the best faker.

6 feet apart.

Have you ever had an emotion so big. So all consuming. So life changing. Altering. Defining. That you literally cannot feel it? You look back and you try to recall it. And it's just nothing. A void. Even specific parts of the memory, the feelings, are gone. It's just empty. 

My brother died when I was 13 years old. He was hit by a car. But I can't feel the emotions associated with Jordan dying. Is that normal? That can't be normal, right? It can't be what they call "healthy"? There has to be some way to tap into that part of my soul and feel it. I WANT to feel it. I WANT to remember him. To hold the memories of us in my hands and see every side of it. Every perspective. To reflect on our relationship. Our conversations. Our bond. I want to remember his face. His voice. His mannerisms. His laugh. Him. I want to remember him. But I can't. 

Is this what it is like to be broken? That some parts of my life. Are so BIG. So damaged. So dark. That my mind just erased them. And every feeling associated with it. I want to remember him. I want to grieve for him. For this amazing thing I lost. I want to be the kind of person that can look on my brother with fondness and with longing. But I'm so damaged I just erased him. Who deals with emotion like that? Who holds their pride so closely that they pass off numbness and nothingness as some kind of badge of strength. I'm not strong. I'm just pathetic. My entire brain has blacked out parts of my LIFE. Not just parts. But integral PEOPLE. Erased them. Because actually feeling the pain of losing him was too much for me. What would that pain have felt like. Initially there WAS a type of pain. I remember that much. But it's all hazy and muddled. I wish I could even feel THAT watered down maybe pain now. Anything would be better than nothing. 

Stale Coffee and Antibacterial Hand Gel

-Jillian Whitney

My life has been torn apart,

as if it were a fresh juicy slab of meat a tiger has torn to shreds.

I retreat into a tiny ball on the floor holding my bleeding heart.

The sick are rushed past me on their soiled beds.

A few nurses stroll by, but I go unnoticed as I break into a cold sweat.

I try to hide my face and bid all farewell,

burying it in the rigid, scratchy carpet.

It smells of stale coffee and antibacterial hand gel.

I’ve heard crying helps but no emotions will surface.

Weakly I pound my fist into the foul carpet, but still I feel nothing.

I curl further into his favorite sweatshirt; my new special place. 

I exhale harshly trying to force out all the vile smells that cling.  

He was my favorite smell;

Brute deodorant and sweat. 

This place makes it different like a mutilated cell, 

it’s weaker, as if I already should forget.

I turn my shell of a body towards the gray, dank hallway wall.

Silently I pray, “Stay with me. I can’t be without you.

You took him. Give me the strength to at least crawl.

I’ve become that story of a broken heart with no glue.” 

I stare at the wall blankly. I feel nothing. I hear nothing. I want to yell.

I smell stale coffee and antibacterial hand gel.

I Feel her Filth in my Bones

I feel the filth in my bones.
All the way through. 
I try to wash myself clean so often. 
Scrubbing every single part of me,
bleeding out. 
My life has looked the same for so long; 
move forward,
stand tall. 

I beg Him to slow me down
rest my weary hands,
bend my stiff knees,
lay my face down in the dirt.
but His face is white with burning flames
my eyes water looking deep within His blood-stained retinas. 
Etched, raw into every contour of His flesh is my blame. 

Desperate to fall,
my knees at his feet; 
they sparkle like shards of glass.
I'd give it all up 
slow it down,
kiss his feet. I pant with a thirst so deep 
bloodied sword,
broken past.

Fighting the urge to run away;
ripping apart all that is good in me.
Slow it down,
offer empty hands.
He bleeds.

I cry aloud, "No longer can I hold this shame."
At Your command the world is still.
"No longer can I be the same."
The one sitting upon the throne is as brilliant as gemstones.
He is the answer to all that is unknown.

Daddy

Happy Father's Day daddy.

How do i begin telling you how much you mean to me. I'm really not even sure. I know for a fact that I am who I am right this moment because of your love and care. So how do you thank someone for shaping the very essence of who you are? How do I relate to you my gratitude? I really don't know that i even can. Dad's are arguably the most important person in a young girl's life. Little girls find so much of their strength through their daddy's words.

Thank you Daddy for calling me beautiful every day. I wouldn't be the confident woman I am today without your reassurances. 

Thank you for shielding me from this depraved world. I am so lucky to have pureness of mind because of your diligence in protecting me.

Thank you for always taking me seriously. I have never, not once, felt belittled or childish in your sight. I remember waking up that morning after I had "the dream"... how old was i? 8? and I remember walking up to you and telling you it and you never once dismissed it. You embraced it as truth and maybe that's why Anita got better. Because you had faith in the meekness of a child. 

You have always valued my thoughts and opinions. That has given me such confidence. I never hesitate to share my heart with you because my heart has always been received with respect and love. 

Thank you for always believing in me. You have given me your entire trust and all I wanna do is make you so proud of me. 

Thank you for reading everything I've ever written and spurring me to write more and seeing the potential I have.

Thank you for working so hard every single day so I never ever needed or wanted anything. You have given your family such an amazing gift in this. I am probably so spoiled. :)

There are a thousand things I could thank you for. A million. I thank you for taking caring of me physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. I thank you for showing me how to be charming and professional through your example. I thank you for teaching me how to drive, how to save money, how to be generous in a reckless faith filled way. I thank you for teaching me about insurance and cars. I thank you for forgiving me endlessly, loving me wildly, pursuing me passionately. I thank you for being there for me every single step of my life. You've ALWAYS had all the time in the world for me. I have never had a truer picture of Christ's love for me then seeing your love for your children. Even just watching you love JD has been an amazing example to me. You have lived the parable of "The Prodigal Son." And your love has usurped it all. You loved him and gave him all you had to give no matter his reception to it. Your life has such profound reaches. I hope you know that. 

More than anything, more than all that, thank you Daddy for introducing me to my one true Love, My Saviour. My life is poured out as a living sacrifice to our King because of your diligence with me since I was a Child. You truly personified Christ for me till I could find Him on my own, Thank You Daddy. You are my hero and my love, always. I am so blessed to be called Rodd Whitney's daughter. I'd never want any other Daddy. You deserve the world, but unfortunately I work below the poverty line in America ;-). But do know that I love you more than life itself and I'm always here. I wont ever leave. Happy Father's Day DADDY!

Remain in His Love,

Jilly

Another Story.

I feel like this song right now. 

Is that a strange way to feel? I'm not even sure anymore. I've listened to it so many times its all become just background noise... 

Maybe that's why the lyrics resound in my soul or maybe it's just because the fever has finally eaten away at my reason. I sit back so often and just wonder about everything. I try to see through the mist of now and figure it all out. I want so desperately to write profoundly. To write something that will tear through the heart and coddle the raw lonely soul. I can't even begin to explain my desire to write. I read everything I can lay my hands on, listen to every raw word of every desperate writer and just try to absorb their passion. 


The Sweetest Kill

Lyrics to Sweetest Kill :

I thought you were the sweetest kill

Did I even know?
And all the time we thought we did
Was it just for show?

If they try to pull you out
Would you even go?
I thought you were the sweetest kill
Did you even know?

I held your hand until the light
The scars were on the back
And all the time we were the right
Was it just retract?

And they can try to put you down, wear you out
Get you through the idea of the luck

I thought you were the sweetest kill
Did we even know?

All the time, we get by, trying to figure out our lives
Like a fade out
All the time, we get by, trying to figure our lives
Like a fade out

When we took the level ten
Was it just a twelve?
And when we went to where we've been
Was it just for self?

And they can try to wear you down, put you out
Get you through your will, that won't work

I thought you were the sweetest kill
Could I even know?

All the time, we get by, trying to figure out our lives
Like a fade out
All the time, we get by, trying to figure our lives
Like a fade out
All the time, we get by, trying to figure out our lives
Like a fade out
All the time, we get by, trying to figure our lives
Like a fade out

I break you through this world
I break you through this world
Let me break you through this world
Can I break you through this world?

Page Two.

The Storm moved in darkly. The rain-pregnant clouds hung so low that as I lifted my hand to see if I could touch them, an icy darkness enveloped them. The air around me twisted and contorted to my trembling frame. The darkness cut through my cold skin. Freezing my hot blood into scabbed and oozing slashes. I tried to breath in heavily and cold dark tar filled my lungs. The dark of the Storm was eating me alive. 

December faded away into nothing but a whisper of days gone by. As January approached I wanted, dreamed, ached to change the world. I had read of things that tore open the very epitome of my soul. It had peeled back the naïve scabs that covered my eyes and revealed the bloody truth of this life I had chosen. I wanted to wear the shackles of the oppressed and feel the hot embers of torture and martyrdom for the Sun. I walked day by day with Him and had seen things that He revealed only to me. I wept with the chained. I smelled their dungeons and felt through the lies of their captors. I wanted that life…more than anything.

The Storm covered every inch of the land. It tore through the flowers, strangling the very life from their petals, turning them to ash and dirt. The trees that once breathed and stretched, stood splintered and stranded in their own personal hell. They stood no chance against the Storm. The grass became brittle and hard. Everything died in the wake of the Storm. I watched as it approached me and fell to my knees in submission.

The Sun saw my potential and as the days went by and the Storm grew closer and closer, He asked again and again if I was ready.

I thought I was. 

"A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for." - Tortured for Christ

Page One.

Sometimes in the midst of adversity the world loses all color.

You used to walk through the earth seeing through the very eyes of Christ’s soul. The greens are so bright you feel the tickle of the freshly mowed lawn; the pinks and reds of the sunset paint themselves to the back of your eyelids; the blue of the sky as fathomless as staring into a deep sapphire ocean.  Everything is fresh and novel. You can hear the birds varying tones; the waves breaking hard against the hot sand; the spring air stings of flowers and the hot sun promises a clean slate every new day.

  

You never saw the Storm approaching. 

How could you? As you listened to the air around you, lifting your face to be warmed by the sun, your hand tangled in His, sewn to His bleeding side, the wind murmuring through the trees. Without any forewarning, any indication, the once cerulean sky bleeds black and the green of the meadow you are standing in turns a musty gray. Everything is silenced as the warm wind turns to a frigid blast. It rolls through you, melting and refreezing your bones to a deformed mass. All alone now, your hands bleed from where He cut the threads of your soul. You hear the chains of the enslaved clanking in the void as they approach. Sleet falls from the devoid mass that used to be your sky. It cuts you as it hits your pale skin. But you don’t even notice this because the dragon has approached… you feel the hot breath of him on the nape of your neck.  He whispers and licks your neck with wicked lies. You can taste them, they taste of cold hard metal.

                 

“You’ve lost your worth.”

As I sat in Faithwalkers 2009, listening to the pastors utter truth, I could never picture what my next year would look like. I knew I was going to be a leader. I had plans. Dreams. I was ready, willing, eager even. It would happen that afternoon. Amanda would tell the women, obviously there would be tears, even from me. I didn’t really want to leave Amanda alone to fend for herself. 

Looking back, it’s sometimes really hard not to think that the Storm approached because I was made a leader. And now that I’m not….the storm could be enveloped and curl back into the sky and the earth would seep back into color.  But I know that’s just another one of the dragon’s lies. Storms don’t work like that. I know that now. 

Each day of 2010 seemed to bring another round of ice and fire. If it wasn’t my heart episodes, my brother, or my sickness that just developed one day without counsel or sense; it was attack, accusation, slander, lies I believed and followed. I lost all sense of my current surroundings and sunk deep into the “mire and clay.” I didn’t even wanna find my Sun anymore. He had hidden Himself, so why even look. 

There’s an old poem entitled “Footprints,” many Christians have read it through the years and clung to it. It’s a picture of a man walking along a seashore and he is looking back over his walk with Christ. He noticed through all the most prosperous times in his life there were two sets of footprints deeply etched into the wet sand, his and Christ’s. As he reflected closely though, he noticed during the dark times of his life there were only ever one set of footprints. He turns to Christ and accuses him of leaving him in his deepest need. Christ looks at the man tenderly and explains that He would never leave him and the reason there was only one set of footprints is because he carried the man, when the man could no longer walk. 

I wasn’t walking along a quiet seashore though. I couldn’t even see what sort of ground I walked on anymore. It all felt the same. The air smelled dark…tasted dark…looked dark. There was just no justifiable reason for Him to leave me here.  We used to walk through every day together, falling even more in love, learning about the intimate depths of each other’s souls. Then He was just gone. No note of explanation. 

                “Did you find another to love the way you used to love me?”

I want to use this blog to detail my life then and now. Don’t read it if you don’t want to see burning, hard truth.  If you know me now, you see how I have changed, grown, fallen, got back up again, and continue to struggle forward. This is just the beginning…

“A faith that can be destroyed by suffering is not faith. If the heart is cleansed by the love of Jesus Christ, and if the heart loves Him, one can resist all tortures." Tortured For Christ