Anyone reading this journal would probably think I got kidnapped or something after the Pony Fair... nope! It's just me being me! I admit I can be a little bit sporadic with my journaling-- I've always been that way, even back in middle and high school when I was writing everything out the old-fashioned way in those little blank books. Yeah, I would go months without writing and then boom! A flurry of sudden activity.

Maybe I'm just one of those people who only talks when she has something to say? And I do have a lot to say right now-- lots of amazing things are going on. God is so good and I love Him very much!

On my way to the My Little Pony Fair in Rhode Island tomorrow with my pony friend! :) I'm looking forward to the roomful of ponies. And yes, I'm bringing my camera!

I will write more after I get home Sunday night. :)

Well, this past weekend has been... interesting, to say the least. God has been leading me through Romans chapters 4-8, which is about Christ's death, His atonement for our sins, His resurrection, and how everyone who believes in Him shares in it, so that we're no longer slaves to sin. We're now free in Christ, and the old person (the person that we were, before we knew Christ) is dead with Christ on the cross.

Well, how many times have I read or heard that in the five years that I've been with Christ? Quite a few! And God Himself has reminded me of this multiple times over the years. But you know, even though I knew it in my head, I don't think it ever really sunk into my heart, if that makes any sense.

But now I'm seeing it. I'm starting to understand that the old woman, the person I was before I came to Christ, she's dead. She has no power over me. Her sins have no power over me. Evil has no power over me. I'm not even that woman anymore! I became a new creation the minute I came to Christ-- a new woman, without all of that old woman's junk hanging over my head any longer.

You know how when someone close to you dies, sometimes you'll inherit a few treasured possessions from that person? Well, all this old woman had to give me was junk! I mean, stuff that no one in their right mind would want: sin, pain, fear, insecurity, and every other evil thing you could think of. And try to pass it off she did, even as she lay dying on the cross with Christ.

The worst part is, I took it! And I didn't even have to. And that's pretty much where I've been in my walk with Christ: stuck with the old woman's junk that I don't even really want.

God has been faithful. He's really stepped up and helped me to toss a lot of this junk over the years. But I want it all gone! Now that I know that I'm new again, I'm not going to keep hanging onto this stuff. I don't want it, I don't need it, and it's not even supposed to be here with me. The old woman is dead, and everything in her is dead right along with her. None of this has any power over me anymore, because God is my master now and I belong in Christ's kingdom with Him!

Anyway, these past couple days I've been praying so hard about letting all of this go. "I don't want it anymore," I keep saying. "Please just take it from me, Jesus! I don't even want this junk anywhere near me anymore!" And I know if I keep praying and keep having faith God will help me to let it all go.

Today I had to go out to the post office to mail some packages out. But after I was done I asked the Holy Spirit to lead me where He wanted me to go, just to see what would happen. Well, my first thought was going to check out a park in the next town over that I've been wanting to visit, so I headed in that direction. Unfortunately, it was unfamiliar territory for me and there was a person right on my tail behind me (I hate that!) and it made me so flustered that I went right by the park entrance.

I kept going, hoping I would find a place to turn around, and then I wound up at a gas station. I got out for a minute to stretch my legs and went into the store to buy a pack of gum. When I came out, my car was having trouble starting and the engine light was on! I finally did get it started, but I decided that it would probably be best if I just went home because the engine light wouldn't go off. And I said, "Maybe that's why you wanted me to go this way, God... you wanted me to know that I need to get my car looked at!"

So I drove back towards Amish Alienville and then I saw my dad's old street. It was a shortcut back, so I decided to take it. My dad's house is empty now, because my stepmother couldn't keep it after losing the restaurant. It was this whole big mess with the bank and they foreclosed it and yeah, things were pretty ugly. Anyway, as I came up to the house without even really thinking of it I turned into the driveway.

The house is on a quiet wooded street, far back from the road, with trees surrounding it on every side and no close neighbors, so I felt safe enough going there. I knew I wouldn't be disturbed by anyone or anything like that. But here's the thing: it's also where my dad died. My brother and his wife found him dead in the garage, where he had hung himself almost exactly a year and a half ago.

So it's a little spooky for me, going there, as I'm sure you can imagine. Spooky, and a little sad. The grass in the front is all overgrown with weeds, and there's cobwebs along all the windows now. My stepmother is a clean freak, so I have never seen the house look that way before.

I walked around to the back of the house, where there's a deck and it's all woods. I was crying the whole time, thinking about my dad and how much I missed him. I wished that he was there to talk to, so I could tell him all of the things that I've learned in the year and half since he died, and how much I've grown. My dad was always so proud of me!

I stayed back there for about fifteen minutes, thinking of my dad and praying a little bit. And I realized that one of the things I needed to let go was my dad and everything that had happened. As horrible as it was, I know that it wasn't my fault, and God has also let me know several times that there was nothing I could have done that I didn't do when everything was going on.

I started to think about my dad's life and how I didn't want what happened to him to happen to me too. Did I want to wake up in thirty years after keeping who knows how much pain buried inside me only to go off the deep end? I don't think my dad ever realized that his old man was dead! Maybe if he would have realized that, he could have let go of all of his junk too...

I said, "Thank you, God, for bringing me here. I know that I need to let all of this go, even everything that happened with my dad, and move on. Please help me to do that!"

I had a pen in my purse so I took it out and wrote on the deck "(my dad's name) lived here 2003-2009. I love you Dad and I won't forget!"

And then I walked around front to the garage, peered through the window and said goodbye to my dad, and told him that I hoped I would see him again. I do hope he's with Christ... I do hope that I'll see him again!

The whole time I was crying but God's peace filled me too, and I knew this was what I needed to do. And even though it was sad and hard, it was also good, because I can't keep letting my dad's death and the circumstances surrounding it hang over my head like this for the rest of my life. I don't think my dad would have wanted that, and I know that God doesn't want that either.

He wants me to be new again, and I want that too. How many times in life have I wished that I could start over, go back? And now I can, thanks to Christ. The old woman is dead and she's not coming back. I'm free, and now I just need to start acting like it! :)

Today I had a nice walk through our local fairgrounds, which are right up the street from where I live. The fairgrounds always seem so different without all of the noise and bustle of the fair, but I like them like that. I imagine the barns filled with animals, the games and the rides lighting up the mid-way, people walking around carrying cotton candy and corn dogs on a stick.

But I think my favorite part is way in the back of the fairgrounds, where there's a log cabin and a little pond. Ducks swim through the water, and it's a quiet, peaceful place even when the fair is going full swing. Everyone wants to be in the middle of all the fun going on over at the mid-way, and the little pond is a ways off from everything. People tend to overlook it or not want to bother with making the walk out there. Why would they when there are so many other things to do, so many people to see, so much pleasure to be had elsewhere?

In a way, it reminds me of God. Many people ignore Him or overlook Him. People would rather eat their cheeseburgers on the mid-way and maybe distract themselves with a game of darts or a ride on the ferris wheel than come to Him. Here is our Creator, an amazing Person with infinite power that we can't even comprehend, the One who called the universe into being, and yet, He's this quiet little pond, just waiting for us to come to Him and leave our mid-way lives behind.

When we find Him the mid-way tends to lose its luster. He draws us to Him, and we begin to see how fake and unsatisfying that mid-way life really was all along. The mid-way becomes more like a carnival sideshow, with a bunch of laughing people who are actually screaming and dying inside and they don't even know it. We find ourselves wanting, or maybe even needing, that peaceful little pond that we would walk right by so many other times in the past without a second glance.

Christ is what's real. Maybe He isn't as flashy as the mid-way. Maybe He doesn't have lots of lights and colors and sounds that appeal to our flesh. But He has something even better to offer us, if we'll just come to Him and sit for a while at the little pond. We can exchange our fatty, greasy foods for the Bread of Life, and our fun and games for God's purpose. We can be free from having to keep step with the calliope, free from the never-ending spin of the merry go round, free from this death disguised as life.

And as we sit at the little pond, God's still, small voice will beckon each one of us. Come to Me, He says, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

God has been dealing with me about my "colorful" language lately! Now, I have never been one for swearing, even before I came to Christ. I always tried to keep my language clean, and rarely, if ever, swore. It's just not in my character to do so. And since coming to Christ I have completely eliminated all swears. But I guess over the years without realizing it I had developed a little vocabulary of swear substitutes, if that makes sense. You know, words that weren't actually swears, but were used in the place of swears.

Like the word "crap" for instance. I started to ask myself, "Why do I feel like it's okay to use the word 'crap' when I wouldn't use the other word? They both basically mean the same thing, don't they? I mean, really, what's the difference?"

There are several other words that I use as well that I realized I needed to stop using.

God revealed to me that He was the one convicting me about this, and that I really needed to get into the habit of not using this language any longer. And I of course realized that He's right, and agreed that I needed to stop. I mean, God has been telling me that He's preparing for me to get married and have children, and I certainly don't want to bring that kind of language into my home!

Anyway, I'm glad He brought this to my attention, but old habits die hard. Many times a day I catch myself either thinking or saying one of my swear substitutes. I never realized just how many times I was actually using these words until God started convicting me!

And here I was thinking I was being so good because I "never swore"... isn't that always the way with God though? You think you're doing great and then God comes along and says, "What about this?"

Ahh, I do love my God though. And I'm grateful that He cares enough about me to correct me! :)

Yatta! as Hiro (from Heroes) would always say. I did it! The dryer is put back together again and everything is working, as far as I can tell. I'm hoping to get a load of clothes washed today so I can check out how well it dries.

I reallyreally hope that I was successful with this! Because anything that saves me money is good, even if it was kind of a pain doing it.

Maytag should be calling me any minute now wanting to hire me... ;)

I went to the hardware store today and snagged a couple of different sized nut drivers so I could fix my dryer. Silly me forgot my bank card and only had $5 on me in cash, so I had to scrounge around in my change purse to make up the difference, but whatever. At least I did wind up having enough to get them both, so that was good. :)

I came home and took everything apart and WOW! My dryer was absolutely stuffed with lint and there was even a whole bunch of it trapped in the hose in the back. I kept reaching up through the hose and just pulling out handful after handful of lint. No wonder it wasn't working right!

I put the lint trap back together just fine, but the back panel itself doesn't like me. It has so many bolts all around it and you have to line everything up exactly right or the bolts won't fit into place. So I'm still playing around with it. I took a little lunch break because when I'm hungry I get frustrated easier, but now I've eaten so it will be time very shortly to commence with Round III!

Please don't let me have to call the repairman for this after all... ;)

*sigh* It's times like these that I really wish I had a husband, or even a boyfriend around to help me out. I'm pretty sure my dryer has some lint stuck deep in the lint trap, because all of a sudden my clothes aren't drying at all. The lint trap is so poorly designed on this dryer... the part that you pull out is really flimsy, for one thing, and the inside part is so deep that it just doesn't catch all of the lint I don't think. And it's too narrow for me to put anything inside of it to try and push any extra lint out!

After pulling it away from the wall (no easy task for a little 100-lb gal like me!) I have looked at the back panel to see if I can take it apart. Unfortunately, it appears as if the panel is bolted rather than screwed, which I have figured out (thanks to Google) means I need something called a "nut driver"! Which I don't have here, of course. So tomorrow I am planning on going into our town's local hardware store and really turning on the charm to see if I can get the guy who works there to help me figure out what size I need for this "nut driver" thingie... I measured the bolts and there are two different sizes so I don't know if I will need two different ones or what. I will bring the sizes with me when I go out.

I'm somewhat handy, and I should be able to figure it out. At least, I hope so. But ugh! What a pain.

One of my ex-boyfriends told me once when I had completely messed up my computer by fiddling around with it too much, "You're just smart enough to get into trouble."

And you know, he was probably right about that! :)

Today I went out and did my errands for the week... not too exciting, I guess, but you gotta do what you gotta do, if you know what I mean. My oil change sticker was past due, and I've been putting it off for quite a while. So today I stopped by the oil change place-- you know, one of those quick-change type places where you just go in and out without an appointment or anything like that. I popped open the hood and the guy there took a look at my oil and said, "What is the current mileage on your car?"

So I told him it was at about 90,000 miles, and then he came around and looked at my sticker. Now, the sticker date said the oil change was due sometime in April, so it was about two months overdue according to the date! But he showed me that the sticker also said 93,000 miles. And he told me, "The oil looks good still... it's clean, so you really don't need another oil change for a while. I would say bring it back after another 1,000 miles, but you should be good until at least then."

And then he asked me if I drive a lot and I had to admit I'm not much of a driver! This is kind of embarrassing but I haven't even filled my gas tank in probably two months now and it's still only slightly less than half full. :) I live right in town and there are a lot of stores and stuff here, so a lot of times I just walk into town if I have to go somewhere. Buying local is always good, after all. :) And now that I'm working from home, I really don't have to drive very much at all. But I guess with gas being what it is, maybe that's a good thing!

Anyway, it was really very nice of him to say something and not charge me for the oil change, because how would I have known? I thanked him for telling me, because seriously, I could definitely use that extra $35 for something else right now. And I guess I'll go back and see them in another 1,000 miles.

Which might be in the winter sometime, with the way I drive. ;)

I had another "message" dream last night... I do remember my dreams nearly every night, but the vast majority of them are nonsensical. Just your typical strange subconscious kinds of dreams, I guess. But every once in a while, I'll have a dream that I know has a message of some sort, and I think this one definitely fits the bill!

***

I had something important that I wanted to tell my mom, and I was in the bathroom kind of working out what I was going to say. I decided I was going to call her to tell her about it.

I opened up my bedroom door and walked out into the living room. To my surprise, my mom was there, but she was on the phone. She told me that she was on hold and she couldn't hang up because there was something that my stepdad wanted her to do. I told her that I wanted to talk to her when she was done on the phone.

On the end table next to my couch I had a little Christmas tree set up. But half of it was now dismantled and on the floor! I said to my mom, "Did you do this?"

My mom said, "Yeah, Christmas is over so I thought it was time to put it away!"

She was still waiting on the phone and I walked over to her and said, "What right did you have to do this? This is my house and this is my tree, and I always like to leave my Christmas tree up for a little while after Christmas. It helps cheer me up when I'm stuck in the house because of the snow!"

My mom apologized and said she "didn't know".

Somehow the next time I turned around, my stepdad was in my apartment too. I was mad, because I wanted to talk to my mom and now I couldn't because he was there. And my stepdad was mad because my mom was still on the phone, and they were arguing with each other about it.

Finally, my stepdad turned my TV on and started watching some sports program, but the TV wasn't working that great. So my mom said, "Oh, there's another TV in Emily's room. Go in there to watch TV."

My mouth was just hanging open! I wanted to say, "Uh, Mom, it's not your house, remember? You can't just invite people into my bedroom like that when you don't even live here!" But I held my tongue, because I didn't want to rock the boat, and anyway, she was still on the phone.

I went into my room to check on my stepdad and the TV in there was all messed up. My antenna (I don't have cable or satellite at the moment and don't really miss it for that matter! :) ) was all broken and twisted. I mean, it was so bad it didn't even look like an antenna anymore! I was like, "What did you do?!"

And what did my stepdad say? No apology or anything. He just said, "Oh, I guess I broke it" and stood there watching me (without even bothering to help!) while I tried to put the antenna back together again.

***

So, what does this dream mean? Well, it's a pretty accurate portrayal of my family, I'm sad to say. Now, I know my mom loves me, and I think she did the best she could with me, but she really wasn't there for me growing up and I never felt comfortable talking to her about anything. And every time I would try to talk to her, she was always busy or distracted or wouldn't listen to what I was saying, hence being on the phone. Sometimes I felt like she didn't even want to have a daughter at all. She sometimes acted annoyed with me, like I was inconveniencing or burdening her in some way. Maybe she didn't mean to act that way, but that was how she came off to me sometimes.

She married my stepdad, a man who pretty much hated me from day one, when I was only 8 years old. I cried when I found out my mom was getting married to him, but my mom totally didn't care. She just did what she wanted, and to this day she truly has no idea how much growing up in that house with them affected me. Living with my parents was horrible for me, and I seriously would not wish it on my worst enemy. We never talked about anything important. In fact, my stepdad never talked to me, period. Most of the time it was like we were three different people living separate lives who happened to live in the same house.

Even as an adult my mom has trouble listening to me. Whenever she comes to visit, she will just take it upon herself to change things around in my apartment without even asking me. Hence the whole "Christmas tree" thing!

Also, I thought it was interesting that my mom said she "didn't know" about how I felt about the Christmas tree, because like I said, she is completely oblivious to the pain that she (and my stepdad) inflicted on me growing up. I mean, how do you not know something like that?! But she doesn't. Or if she does, she sure is good at hiding it. To this day she (both of them, actually) pretend as if nothing is wrong with their marriage or their lives at all, as if the twisted house of mirrors they live in is actually something normal!

Every time I visit my parents' house God stays very close to me, and He always tells me, "There is great evil here." And every time I'm there I pray that at least some of the light of Christ starts to shine through me and onto them!

As for my stepdad, he was never a father figure to me at all, and he would constantly criticize me to my mom. They had many fights about me, fights that I always overheard. He thought I was a brat, even though I was a good kid who didn't usually get in trouble and always did well in school. I honestly believe that this man was sent by the devil into my life as one of the primary ways that the devil intended to keep me down, and God has confirmed this to me.

In the dream, my mom sent my stepdad into my bedroom without asking me, just like she made him a part of our lives without asking me. And then my stepdad broke and twisted my antenna, just the way he tried to break and twist me. (I say tried, because praise God, He has put me back together again and made me whole! :) )

The good news is, that thanks to Christ working in me, I have forgiven my stepdad. Even though I know that he will probably never apologize to me for anything that he has done to me, and you know, I don't think my mom will ever apologize to me for that matter. But I can be kind to my stepdad, and show him mercy and even compassion, in spite of the way that he treated me growing up. And he and I even talk to one another now, although as I've said in previous entries, I don't think we'll ever be close.

Something interesting that I've noticed over the last few years since I came to Christ is that my stepdad cannot look me in the eye! I think he knows that I've changed, and he might even "see" Christ in me. It's really sad that he believed all of the devil's lies about me, when I was just a little girl. It's even sadder that he made me believe them too-- for a little while, anyway. But again, thanks to God I'm starting to learn who I really am in Christ! All of that old junk is being stripped away bit by bit, and I will never go back to the way things were.

I know God won't let me, anyway.