Today this is my gift to you.
This is a rather long gift but one that I hope you will read, find meaning in.
It's a gift that is given to you in hopes that you will actually feel and think while reading it.
I give this to you as a girl who was once bitten by a spider.
To Write Love On Her Arms
LOVE IS THE MOVEMENT!
(This was posted on the To Write Love On Her Arms myspace page, it was written by a girl named Renee who the organization was started after. Please if you want more information visit the site, visit their myspace page)
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
From Renee.
Renee has been doing some writing on the TWLOHA Street Team page.
She has a gift and we're excited to be able to share some of that with you.
More coming very soon.
From Renee:
I just wrote five paragraphs about hope, and I also just deleted them
all a million times faster than it took me to write them. I deleted
them because I think there is something underneath hope. There is
something that feeds it, and keeps it alive, and perpetuates it. I
believe that everything is undeniably intertwined, such as purpose,
hope, love, redemption and healing...specifically those things, are on
my heart tonight...
Many of you do not know me. Perhaps most of you do not know me.
You know the story, the image, the picture of the girl in that video you
saw that one time...or maybe you know what I desperately long to
represent. Here is a little window into my heart and mind these days.
These are the days after the digging and burying. This is the part
where I stop running and fight every part of myself to slowly turn
around and look into the mirror. This is where I fight to feel, where
the ones that I love get clawed up in the process and my heart has to
learn how to apologize. It has to learn how to allow itself to be
weak and vulnerable as opposed to calloused and hostile. These are the
days that I have to choose healing. True healing, holistically and not
just where it hurts less. When we spend our lives trying preserve
ourselves, trying to escape, we build a dam. Sooner or later we have
to let it out, and the fear of that process knocked me down face first
in the mud time after time. My fear came from the belief that such a
weight would crush me, that feeling such pain after years of apathy
would kill me, and the unknown. What would happen to my heart if I let
it feel these things? What vices would I turn to this time? Would the
blow of such a burden wipe me out, put the running shoes back on my
feet...break me?
yes.
it would.
it will.
break me.
it will break me so that the parts that healed wrong from being
ignored so long might have a second chance.
it will hurt my heart so that it may heal.
peroxide.
my fight is not for hope as much as it is for healing these days, and
it has taken me over five years of sitting on her couch to touch the
edge of this idea. of this new direction.
The other day my boyfriend thought he might have been bitten by a
spider. His foot was swollen and red to the point that he was sent
home from work. Despite the pain he was in, he didn't want to go to
the doctor. He told me he was afraid. He told me that if it was a
spider bite, the doctor would cut open his foot and squeeze all of the
poison out. I think that is what this is. I think that we fear per
suing help, healing, because of the pain we will have to go through to
get it. The pain might even be worse then the actual wound in the
first place. So, we are left with a choice. We can let the poison
fester and build, cripple, and potentially destroy us. Or we can
choose to face it, fight it, cut it out and let it truly heal. all the
way.
The other key component to this path, is who will walk with me. I, in
all of my determination and willpower, could not endure such pain on
my own. We aren't asked to do this alone, but our cruel little minds
would like for us to forget this. I know mine would. It is my mind
that would like to destroy me, it's the place upstairs that is driven
to destruction, and on it's own it would surely succeed. However, when
I choose to go there, and I invite someone else in with me, to hold my
hand, to carry me when I am beaten down, that is when healing is
possible. This is where I believe we find community and its value in
our lives, and this is also the role we are asked to take part in. We
are not asked to be the doctor, or the scalpel, we are asked to be the
ones who will stand by and hold your hand, when our hearts are not on
the table themselves.
We were never meant to live with poison. We aren't asked to walk
around with it determined not to let it impede us. We are not intended
to be crippled from our wounds, but we are left with the option of
accepting it, or biting down and getting dirty and feeling our pain in
all of its awfulness in order that we may be restored. This is one way
that bloodletting is good. Maybe that's where I got onto the wrong
track. I took that concept in my life and literally tried to cut out
my pain, I was a terrible doctor! But here, two years later, I'm
handing the knife over and asking my God to help me let out the
poison. I will not walk away this time, in shame or isolation. I will
move forward in love and community and with a new found strength, a
new kind of hope to offer. I want this healing, first for my own
heart, and secondly so that I might offer it to you, my dear friends,
dear hearts out there, walking around with spider bites, desperate for
healing and afraid of the pain. I spend my Mondays on a couch with a
blanket fighting to hurt, to heal, and it is my hope that you might be
encouraged to do the same in your own way.
So, hi. This is me. a human being, in all of my frailty. laying myself
out for you, that we might walk through this beautiful, awful, strange
thing we call life, together. I have exchanged my knife for a pen and
some dead trees. I am fighting to turn my will over and put myself on
the table. To not just admit that there are some things that need
fixing, but to see them for all that they are. It is possible. to
heal. to walk away restored from trauma. to acknowledge pain without
letting it own you. it is OK to be weak. it is OK to be powerless. it
is OK to be afraid. as much as we love to hate anything that isn't
pretty and presentable, sometimes we need permission to just, be. as
messy as it may seem, as sticky and heavy and slow as it may be, we
have to remember to be patient and gracious with our hearts. It is
worth it. There is so much more than merely surviving, and that is far
more beautiful than any cleaned up pretty version of ourselves we'd
like to walk around with. This is my where my heart is, and this is my
hope for you.
I spent the past five years of my life writing out my pain, my joy, my
struggle and the drive to find a new life on paper. Part of recovery
is finding new solutions to our problems and this has continued to be
one of mine. I always thought I'd be your modern-day Emily Dickinson,
that some tragic event would take place and I would die and people would
find my journals and publish them... instead I am still alive and happy to say
that there are some very exciting things in the works...but I'm pretty
sure Emily would have me beat any day...anyway, stay tuned, there
is definitely more to come.
From Renee.
Renee has been doing some writing on the TWLOHA Street Team page.
She has a gift and we're excited to be able to share some of that with you.
More coming very soon.
From Renee:
I just wrote five paragraphs about hope, and I also just deleted them
all a million times faster than it took me to write them. I deleted
them because I think there is something underneath hope. There is
something that feeds it, and keeps it alive, and perpetuates it. I
believe that everything is undeniably intertwined, such as purpose,
hope, love, redemption and healing...specifically those things, are on
my heart tonight...
Many of you do not know me. Perhaps most of you do not know me.
You know the story, the image, the picture of the girl in that video you
saw that one time...or maybe you know what I desperately long to
represent. Here is a little window into my heart and mind these days.
These are the days after the digging and burying. This is the part
where I stop running and fight every part of myself to slowly turn
around and look into the mirror. This is where I fight to feel, where
the ones that I love get clawed up in the process and my heart has to
learn how to apologize. It has to learn how to allow itself to be
weak and vulnerable as opposed to calloused and hostile. These are the
days that I have to choose healing. True healing, holistically and not
just where it hurts less. When we spend our lives trying preserve
ourselves, trying to escape, we build a dam. Sooner or later we have
to let it out, and the fear of that process knocked me down face first
in the mud time after time. My fear came from the belief that such a
weight would crush me, that feeling such pain after years of apathy
would kill me, and the unknown. What would happen to my heart if I let
it feel these things? What vices would I turn to this time? Would the
blow of such a burden wipe me out, put the running shoes back on my
feet...break me?
yes.
it would.
it will.
break me.
it will break me so that the parts that healed wrong from being
ignored so long might have a second chance.
it will hurt my heart so that it may heal.
peroxide.
my fight is not for hope as much as it is for healing these days, and
it has taken me over five years of sitting on her couch to touch the
edge of this idea. of this new direction.
The other day my boyfriend thought he might have been bitten by a
spider. His foot was swollen and red to the point that he was sent
home from work. Despite the pain he was in, he didn't want to go to
the doctor. He told me he was afraid. He told me that if it was a
spider bite, the doctor would cut open his foot and squeeze all of the
poison out. I think that is what this is. I think that we fear per
suing help, healing, because of the pain we will have to go through to
get it. The pain might even be worse then the actual wound in the
first place. So, we are left with a choice. We can let the poison
fester and build, cripple, and potentially destroy us. Or we can
choose to face it, fight it, cut it out and let it truly heal. all the
way.
The other key component to this path, is who will walk with me. I, in
all of my determination and willpower, could not endure such pain on
my own. We aren't asked to do this alone, but our cruel little minds
would like for us to forget this. I know mine would. It is my mind
that would like to destroy me, it's the place upstairs that is driven
to destruction, and on it's own it would surely succeed. However, when
I choose to go there, and I invite someone else in with me, to hold my
hand, to carry me when I am beaten down, that is when healing is
possible. This is where I believe we find community and its value in
our lives, and this is also the role we are asked to take part in. We
are not asked to be the doctor, or the scalpel, we are asked to be the
ones who will stand by and hold your hand, when our hearts are not on
the table themselves.
We were never meant to live with poison. We aren't asked to walk
around with it determined not to let it impede us. We are not intended
to be crippled from our wounds, but we are left with the option of
accepting it, or biting down and getting dirty and feeling our pain in
all of its awfulness in order that we may be restored. This is one way
that bloodletting is good. Maybe that's where I got onto the wrong
track. I took that concept in my life and literally tried to cut out
my pain, I was a terrible doctor! But here, two years later, I'm
handing the knife over and asking my God to help me let out the
poison. I will not walk away this time, in shame or isolation. I will
move forward in love and community and with a new found strength, a
new kind of hope to offer. I want this healing, first for my own
heart, and secondly so that I might offer it to you, my dear friends,
dear hearts out there, walking around with spider bites, desperate for
healing and afraid of the pain. I spend my Mondays on a couch with a
blanket fighting to hurt, to heal, and it is my hope that you might be
encouraged to do the same in your own way.
So, hi. This is me. a human being, in all of my frailty. laying myself
out for you, that we might walk through this beautiful, awful, strange
thing we call life, together. I have exchanged my knife for a pen and
some dead trees. I am fighting to turn my will over and put myself on
the table. To not just admit that there are some things that need
fixing, but to see them for all that they are. It is possible. to
heal. to walk away restored from trauma. to acknowledge pain without
letting it own you. it is OK to be weak. it is OK to be powerless. it
is OK to be afraid. as much as we love to hate anything that isn't
pretty and presentable, sometimes we need permission to just, be. as
messy as it may seem, as sticky and heavy and slow as it may be, we
have to remember to be patient and gracious with our hearts. It is
worth it. There is so much more than merely surviving, and that is far
more beautiful than any cleaned up pretty version of ourselves we'd
like to walk around with. This is my where my heart is, and this is my
hope for you.
I spent the past five years of my life writing out my pain, my joy, my
struggle and the drive to find a new life on paper. Part of recovery
is finding new solutions to our problems and this has continued to be
one of mine. I always thought I'd be your modern-day Emily Dickinson,
that some tragic event would take place and I would die and people would
find my journals and publish them... instead I am still alive and happy to say
that there are some very exciting things in the works...but I'm pretty
sure Emily would have me beat any day...anyway, stay tuned, there
is definitely more to come.
aesirr:
Interesting.
schuldig:
hmmm. Dn't quite know what to think of that.