Eighteen: Everything Is Grace

I turned eighteen on Sunday.

Eighteen years, full of brightness and color, hurt and sadness, joy and discovery, betrayal and letting go, dancing and laughter...eighteen years full of grace.

Recently, I heard someone express pity for non-Christians, as the pain of their memories is truly all that there is for them, it's all that they see. But, as Christians, we are graced with the ability to see God at work, even in our toughest moments.

So I have taken to thanking God for the painful moments in my life. Not just the kind of painful, hard moments...but the kick-in-the-stomach memories, the ones the knock the wind out of you and bring tears to your eyes even after all of these years because the things that happened were genuinely wrong. The hurt that you felt was real and you weren't just overreacting or overly emotional...those times when you were shaken to the core and wondered what the point of anything was.

I have a tendency to just shove those memories away under the guise of "here God, take my life!", when in reality, I'm just holding on even more tightly, because what is He going to do with them? Do I just have to forget? I want to forget...but I don't want to let the person go unpunished. I want to keep being angry and bitter and hurt, because that's how that person deserves me to be.

Especially when the pain isn't acknowledged, when it's side stepped with a "get over it" or a "you just need to forgive and focus on your own faults"...especially when no one is there, when no on stands up for you...so you feel like you have to battle on your own. I have felt like it's just me against the world, and God is there to be the cheerleader. It's up to me to fight and get all bloodied up.

When in reality...it's me fighting against myself. My actions aren't affecting the people who have hurt me...I'm the one who is dealing with them on a daily basis. They are just causing more and more hurt.

So, within the last month, I have intentionally been going back to those moments when I've felt my weakest. And I have been asking Jesus to just flood those moments with His grace...for in my weakness, His power is strong.

Through His grace, I have been surrendering more and more each day. There is something so validating about our pain. We cling to it and nurse it, but don't do anything to eradicate it. In a sense, we want it to define us. We like to feel bad for ourselves and to be justified in feeling badly about others who cause hurt.

Friends, we are children of God. We were not created to suffer. God allows it because He gives us a free will and there are merits and graces that come from suffering, but this kind of suffering is ridiculous and self-centered. Jesus Christ was BRUTALLY MURDERED so that we could be free of our identity of hurt...and come to cling to our true identity as His bride (the Church!), as God's children.

We don't need to hold on to our pain. We can surrender it to a God who is in control. He knows our pain, He sees it...and He feels it, right along with us. He cries with us. He doesn't tell us that our hurts don't matter...He tells us that He's sorry. He tells us that He loves us. His promise of "it's going to be okay", isn't empty because He literally died so that it would be even more than okay...that it would be true, good, and right.

So, let's let go. We don't have to battle. He fights for us...and He has already won.

1 Peter 5:7 tells us to "Cast your cares on Him, for He cares for you." What a beautiful truth.

Every moment of my life, every pain, every joy...it's grace. It's through the grace of God that I'm here right now, that I was created, that I'm surviving. Every single moment of my life has been flooded with His grace, whether or not I've seen it. Moments of pain are made beautiful in the light of unending, explainable grace.

God's grace is alive and well...God is on the move and He has been working in my life since day one. Because of grace, I can call pain and suffering "beautiful" because I know that my Daddy has a plan. More than that, I know that He cares for me. He loves me.

This moment, right now, this is grace. These words...they are grace.

Eighteen years of grace. That is the story of my life, ultimately. I am the beloved of the Son and the daughter of the Father and my life is grace.

So is yours.

I'm praying for you.

Using Writing As Revenge

Sorry I'm posting a day late (again) but birthday festivities consumed most of the day yesterday.

Seventeen. I'm so old.

Not really.

Anyway...today's, I mean yesterday's, post is on Using Writing As Revenge. As you would know if you read the title. Which, no doubt, you did. Anyway, this actually coincides quite nicely with celebrating my life.

Revenge is such a slippery term. I don't like the word. Or perhaps, what I dislike is what the word means. I've never been a big one for revenge.

I became close with someone last year, which was a really rough year. We weren't close for very long, due to the fact that he decided that, for some reason, he wasn't going to talk to me anymore. This literally tore me apart. I liked this kid, a lot. We definitely shared some awesome times together. I think what killed me the most was that I had been waiting all year for someone to let me in, to be okay with me, with who I really was. When he finally showed me this time after time and I'd begun to believe him, he completely threw me aside.

Wow. Thanks.

My immediate thought was why, accompanied by feelings of sadness and guilt. Eventually, I got sick of why because I couldn't figure it out. There simply was no answer. This made me mad, oh, it made me so mad.

The fact that he could just come, be well on the way to being my best friend, and then stab me in the back and silently walk away, a smile still etched on his face...whoa. Like, dude, no. There's never a good reason EVER to do that to anyone. But the fact that he did it without a reason...or maybe he had one and I'll never know. Still.

I wanted to have revenge on him, oh, I wanted to get back at him. I wanted to break him like he broke me. But I couldn't. I didn't even know where to begin. And after everything that this guy had put me through, I still had respect for him. Deep down, I wanted to forgive him. This desire prevented me from truly wanting bad for him. That made me angry, too. How I couldn't be properly angry with him.

The thing about revenge is that it promises to fix our problems. It promises to make it better, make us better, make the situation better, and make the person who hurt us pay. We want to force the other person to feel what we felt, to be punished. Revenge is a twisted desire for justice. And the thing is? That desire can never be quenched. We want to exact revenge because it gives us a sense of power, of control. But we're not in control.

Eventually, I learned that there was nothing I could do to this person to make me feel better. I still had to wrestle with feelings of guilt and hurt and rejection. Okay, so if I could hurt him? Then what? It made me just as bad as him. If there's anything I know about heartbreak, is that it's unlimited. There's not some weird equality thing that's like "oh, well, now he has a heartbreak so she doesn't have to."

The only thing I could do with the pain was give it to God. Give the friendship to Him. Give my feelings to Him. Yes, it hurt so badly to forgive this person. But I did, eventually, by the grace of God. And not only that, I forgave myself.

We are given pain for a reason. We are allowed to go through tough times and God is right there with us. You are not alone.

After everything with this person fell apart, my friends and I concocted various schemes to "make him pay". We literally thought of everything and, not going to lie, I wanted it. So. Bad. All of it, every single revenge plot. But God taught me that revenge is not mine. I am not in control. He taught me humility in letting go.

But God gave me so many talents. He gave me the gift of writing.

So I took the feelings from the friendship. I took the stories, from when we first started talking to when he stopped. And I poured all that out into my novel. I let the pain drip my fingers onto the pages, I let them absorb my laughter. God used my writing to heal me. With each word I typed, pieces of my heart shifted back into place.

Use your writing as revenge. Again, I hate the term. Revenge does nothing for you, and that's what it's for in the first place, isn't it? It's a selfish desire to punish someone so that you'll feel better. But it never makes you feel better. What you really want is to be whole again.

Since everything went down last year, I've experienced more intense pain and way more intense joy. God is so good and it is so good to be alive and to be able to love. With each big event in my life, though, I turn my hands towards heaven.

"God, what do you want me to do with this?"

And I always end up back at my computer, typing away. Or with a notebook, pen flying across pages.

So write. Write your pain, write your joy. Make your stories more realistic by pouring in your real pain, your real joy.

...and just imagine sending a copy of your published book to the person who hurt you. The person your villain is based of off ;) Let it go and let God work. He'll use your pain and He'll use your words.

A-Z Challenge: THEME REVEAL!

Guys, I've done it. I've excepted the challenge.

*gulp*

ARE Y'ALL READY FOR THIS?!?!! Because I'm not!!

This April, I'm doing the A-Z CHALLENGE. Time to get alphabetical! I'm so excited about this, however daunting blogging every single day seems to me. Oh well! I'm a writer, I live outside the comfort zone. I'll take it one day at a time.

I'll be honest with you, if coming up with a theme is the easiest part of this whole blogging thing, I am so done. For weeks, I couldn't come up with ANYTHING. Finally, though, I had a light bulb moment and figured it out.

Don't get too excited. Please, stay in your seats.

THE THEME OF AM STATION FOR THE A-Z CHALLENGE 2015 IS...

*drum roll*

*deep breath*

*cell phone goes off*

*more deep breathing*

*ahem*

WRITING!

I can practically feel your thoughts right now.

Wow. Original. 

*bows and hastily exits the stage to avoid tomatoes*

BEFORE YOU JUDGE...well, one, you shouldn't be judging because this is a blog about writing. It's a blog about a lot of things, actually, but most posts usually circle back to the writing aspect of my life. It's right there in the description.

TUNE INTO THE LIFE OF A CATHOLIC TEENAGE WRITER.

(MAN I AM ON A ROLL WITH THIS CAPS LOCK STUFF TODAY.)

I am going to be blogging about things that inspire my writing, rules I follow, my writing challenges and how I deal with them, and much, much more. Hopefully, I'll be able to provide you with fresh insights and make you laugh. Or at least smile. Or snort air violently from your nose. I'll settle.

SO! Be sure to check back on APRIL FIRST for the first post! I was going to tell you the first topic, but nope, you'll have to wait and see.

Oh, get over it. Stop biting your nails in anticipation. You'll survive.

Or maybe you won't. If not knowing is truly affecting your health, please drop me a line and let me know. I probably still won't tell you. JOKING! Maybe.

Also, slightly unrelated...

BIG THINGS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD OF ANNE MARIE NEXT MONTH (A.K.A. APRIL):

1. Easter! 
2. Family visiting from where I used to live! (BEST. THING. EVER.)
3. Finally making a TEC Retreat! (I am so so so so excited! Going back to my hometown for it!!!!)
4. Share-a-thon fundraiser at the radio station where I intern!
5. There was one more thing...what was it...

OH RIGHT. MY 17TH BIRTHDAY! Woot woot. April 24, darlings!

Okay, that's all for now, folks. Thank you for putting up the major sass queen that is Anne Marie. Y'all rock, can't WAIT for April!

A Round of Happy Birthdays!

*HARRY POTTER SPOLIER ALERT!* Just so you know=)

Happy birthday to Harry Potter, JK Rowling, and my baby-sister-who-isn't-a-baby-anymore!!!!

JK Rowling has seriously touched millions of lives and inspired millions of writers with the Harry Potter series. There are honestly very few books that have had such a strong emotional hold on me.

Afters months and months of pestering Catherine to read HP, she finally picked it up and fell in love almost as much as I did. And, actually, here's a picture of her reading it:

Appearently, we both get very emotionally involved with HP. She had just read about Lupin and Tonks dying. Poor kid.

What I wouldn't give to read HP again for the first time. *Sigh.*

Anyway. . .

I'm so blest by Catherine's life. I had to wait four loooong years for her=) She turns eleven today, which is way too crazy and makes me feel old. Before she was born, I would always tell my mom how unfair it was: she shared a room with my dad, and my brothers shared a room, but I had no one to share a room with!

After Catherine was born, we moved to a bigger house and my wish came true. I finally had a sister to share my room with! And then, about a year later, another sister came along and I had TWO sisters to share a room with! Wasn't I lucky?!

I was a strange child.

. . .years later, we would fight over who got to have their own room in our new house. . .naturally, being the oldest, I won. Isn't it funny how much we change?

But I did share a room with her for ten years. She's a neat freak (like, a crazy neat freak. She looooves cleaning anything. Even like a bathroom or a kitchen.) and she's kind-of-sort-of rubbed off on me.

Catherine inspires me. So much.

She's one of the most giving people I've ever met. She will seriously drop whatever she's doing and listen and help with whatever problem. She has a beautiful smile. She has a beautiful voice. She loves to read and make up stories. She loves watching Pride and Predjudice with me. (BBC-- there is no other watchable version as far as we're concerned.) She read the first chapter of my book and is constantly asking me question after question about it.

Catherine encourages me to press on with life, even when it's hard. When I have bad days, she makes me feel better. When my best friend and I resolved a very long fight we had, Cate was so excited for me. Everyone in my family couldn't believe that we were friends again, but Catherine told me how happy she was.

And sure, we argue just like sisters have since the beginning of time. We fight over the bathroom, over hair ties and bobby pins. . .typical girl stuff.

We were arguing about something a week or so ago, and I was clearly winning the argument, when Catherine exasperatedly threw her hands up in the air and said as she walked out of the room:

"FINE. But I get to marry SNAPE then. So THERE."

Isn't there a saying about how those who you love the most and who love you the most can also annoy you the most? Because if there isn't, there should be.

Anyway. . .Catherine rocks. And I'm so glad that she was born.

Happy birthday, baby sis. I love you forever<3

Easter Pictures=)

I hope that you all are having a very blessed Easter season!

(Back: Catherine, 10, John Paul, 12, Me, 15 on Wendesday!: Front: Joseph, 13, Dominic, 8 next month, Grace, 9)

(Of course, me=D)