The things we don't say

Recently I thought a lot about words that are never spoken, secrets that are never spilled and truths that are hidden behind lies. We are not talking about harmful things or bulling, but those tender moments that happen so often that we might miss them; those words between the lines that need to be looked for in order to be found.

First of all, I think nice things should always be said. When I was younger sometimes when I couldn't sleep I imagined having a terminal illness. I don't know why, it's the stupidest any healthy teenager can come up with but I kind of had this scenario in my head. I always wondered what I would do and I imagined writing letters to my loved ones. Soon I realized though, that when thinking about that I barely thought of my family. I love them and they know that. I wouldn't need so many words to explain them because it is plain visible. The people I thought more of where the ones I couldn't just express it as easily: the girl in my class who was funny, good looking and creative. My crush who I knew had many issues in his life, my dearest friends that I would never be able to thank enough for all the memories, this guy who literally is my best friend and so on.

Of course I never wrote those letters, I kept those thoughts to myself and stored them, only releasing tiny bits once in a while. When I grew older though I realized just how much it meant to me hearing similar words that I thought but this time about me. Being truly appreciated for little things, being acknowledged, even cherished... It feels amazing. I started taking screenshots of cute messages, word documents full of texts, pictures of gifts and so on. For a change I wanted to store good things said about me, to take them out again when I didn't feel good, during those though times that will find you every once in a while.

On the other hand I've decided to tell the people around me that they are brilliant. Sometimes I will not use the words "you are cool" or "I like you" simply because that might not always be the way to communicate. I have friends who I'm mostly using sarcasm with, so sometimes "You are a twat/idiot/stupid" means "I really appreciate your existence". I also assume that for some people around me it's exactly the same. A while ago I had a short talk with a friend of mine and she told me about her fear of missing out and having lost friends due to missing out in the past. I told her to look around and realize that even though she was away for a while, she still gets teased and made fun of from our friends, which clearly is their way of saying "it's like you never left", maybe even with a pinch of "we've missed you".

Someone once told me that behind every word of irony, there is a hidden agenda; something bad that we are afraid to show. At first I shrugged it off, knowing that I have used sarcasm multiple times for nothing more than a joke. On the other hand I do remember times and times when my words where true, but hidden behind irony. Maybe it's true that we are afraid to declare our admiration for someone because it might sound cheesy, but it could also just be that after a while the words "I like you" have lost so much value that we don't feel comfortable using them anymore. It could also be that we say some things that way, in order to conceal what we feel. It's not always appropriate to express your opinions; it can actually make people uncomfortable. I used to have this habit with my best guy friend in school to write each other the cheesiest birthday messages whilst not saying things like that during the year. I have found one of these messages recently and it made me so happy.

Yes I have tried to hide things behind a wall of sarcasm "of course I have a crush on him" would probably be the most used in high school (my classmates would not stop bugging me about this guy and I didn't want to talk about it so by adding a pinch of irony I made them think it wasn't true). Maybe it also was "I'm fine" (which is plain stupid. I started being honest about how I'm actually doing upon hearing this question, feels way better).

My life is an open book and that's the way I want it to be. There are very few things that I wouldn't share with my friends and even fewer that I keep all to myself (at least as long as we speak about my things. I don't spill other people's secrets). Still, sometimes it's not what you say; it's how you say it. It might be better to let action speak, or it might just be about the packaging, how you express your thoughts. Whatever you do, try to speak out the good words, keep the nice ones you receive and forget about the rest.

Maybe this was just my way of saying "sarcasm is good", or between the lines I just wanted to express "I freaking love the people around me so much, they make my life so lovable" without sounding too stupidly obvious. It's also possible that I just thought too much about those words left unspoken, that I really wish I could say, but probably never will ;)


Cheerio.

To the men in my life

I thought for more than a week about writing this post or not, as it's quite personal and it might come across a little strange. Truth is I love my female friends. They are cool, intelligent and loving. When I want to give them a compliment I just pick up my phone and text them, whether it's the fact that I have thought about them or if I just want to have a quick chat. A simple "I like/love you" is no big deal. With the male specimen around me it's different. It feels weird for me to say that to a guy, except if I say it very ironically, in which case I don't mind. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate my male friends, they are all pretty rad, I just can't say it in any way that seems socially acceptable or doesn't feel way too awkward. Besides, maybe they actually don't even care, so I don't want to make them uncomfortable. 

There's the thing about me where I actually like people to know how I feel about them, especially when we talk about positive feelings. My friends, male and female, make me very happy and they can pick me up very easily when I'm having a bad day. I wouldn't be who I am right now without them, which makes me grateful for having them in my life. So eventually I decided to just make this post. It allows me to express my thoughts without intimidating those manly men around me ;)

The first man I want to speak about is my dad. He was not always the best father, but we have had several good moments lately and it makes me very happy to be able to admit: I love him. He screwed up sometimes, but so did I. Deep down I know that he loves me, no matter what he says, and maybe someday he might be able to express it. Until then it is enough to know that I love him very much and that I won't lose hope.

The second one is of course my dear brother. We've always been close and he is the best brother anyone could ask for. He cares for me and even though I never saw him as a big brother when I was younger, I do nowadays. I'm proud of him and I love spending time with him. He is great!

Now you know talking about family and how you appreciate and love them is not the hardest thing to do. Let's move on to my friends. First of all, my closest guy friend at the moment. The thing with him is that sometimes I wonder how we got so close. He is one of my brother’s best friends and they went to school together. I think we write at least weekly and it's always fun. I'm also allowed to stalk all the girls that he is interested in and I can ask him all the weird psychological questions that I need to portray guys correctly in novels. We call each other sweetheart out of pure irony and I love that ;)

The next guy is another close friend of mine. I'm very comfortable around him which I still find to be rare with males. We don't see each other much or text a lot, but he is very cool and I like him a lot, even though our opinions seem to be rather opposite most of the times.

The next category of people is "my" church guys. They are twats, idiots and nerds. That's part of their charm I guess. No seriously, I can't count the amount of times that having a play-fight (that in my opinion counts as a complete workout) made my week a whole lot better. Sometimes being silly is very calming. Also I can be my sarcastic, cynical self around them which I find to be very liberating. I initially wanted to write about each of them, but I decided against it (that would be too much, even for me xD). If you think they are stupid now, then you are wrong. Those guys are wise, intelligent and loyal. They might complain about chaotic structure in youth group a lot, but they are also willingly to help when you need them to (as seen on new years eve and other occasions). They are fantastic lads and in my opinion really really cool!

My fellow leaders: I kid you not; my biggest concern when becoming a leader was that the rest of the team really were not my cup of tea, especially the male leaders. Now after a year I have to say: I'm sorry. Yes they are machos and talk about working out a lot, but their hearts are in the right place. They are passionate for the cause and they can even be funny (when they are not busy being annoying of course). I appreciate their work and I have to say: it's a pleasure working with them.

The youth pastor. Sometimes it might be very chaotic around him. He overthrew quite a few structures in our group and we are still working on the new ones, but you know what? We have benefited a lot from him. We are growing, we do exciting things (I mean a mission trip to mallorca is pretty exciting to me). Besides, he is more than a youth pastor, from my perspective he is an awesome father to his three boys, a great husband to his wife, a mentor to the guys at our youth group and a friend to a lot of us. Let me just tell you: Chaos is a possible output of work in progress; we can deal with it as long as you keep being inventive and passionate about whatever you do!

There is one man who in my opinion did a lot for me last year. Not only did he support me financially for my trip to mallorca, he also prayed for me and challenged me several times. Thank you so much, words can not describe how thankful I am and I will never forget those things. May God bless you the way you blessed me.

To the one guy who gives me constructive feedback whenever I do something: Thank you. I said it to you before but I’ll gladly repeat it: People might see your age, but hopefully they'll see the truth behind your words. You are a very very cool guy and I can't wait to see what you are becoming!!

Finally to the kiss emoticon guy. Again irony is a cool thing. I really enjoy texting with you, you inspire me. I hope that your adventures will be great and I'm happy to know you.

Oh and before I forget it: To all my former crushes: Thanks for the life lessons, thanks for helping me figure out what I look for in a guy, without most of you knowing about my feelings. To my actual crush: same thing, in addition to secretly making me very happy on various occasions. Of course all involuntarily but I don't care ;)

To the one guy who was my best friend, my crush and the only guy I ever opened up to, you taught me more than any other guy, even if those were painful lessons. I appreciate all of it as it was very important for my personal growth.

Last but not least, thank you to the only guy to ever confess his feelings to me. It's very good to know that there once was a guy as courageous as you to be open about it. It's still something that helps me built some self-esteem to know that there might be other guys like you, even though we were not meant to be.

Jup those were the mayor people I wanted to talk about. I'm surrounded by a bunch of amazing guys and I'm happy for that. I still think this post is very cheesy, but I used to have the habit with my former best friend that being cheesy was allowed on Birthdays because that's when we ignored how weird it was to talk about these things and just said what we always wanted to say. My birthday is over but I don't care, especially since it's not like most of them are going to see this anyway ;)


Cheerio.

Don't forget the copyright

So here comes the third part of the series, I hope that after finishing this post you will understand what the title has to do with it.

"You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses the name" (Exodus 20:7)

So firstly let’s talk about some Names that God has. There is a whole list, but I’ll pick out some in order not to write too much. For example we have ‚JEHOVAH-ROHI‘ (Psalm 23:1) ‚The Lord my shepherd‘. This name is beautiful because it shows how much God wants to look for us, how much he cares. Like a Sheppard he doesn’t want any of his flock to get lost. A  second one is ‚JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH‘ (Ezekiel 48:35)‚The Lord who is present‘ which says that, unlike Nietzsche said, God isn’t death, but Nietzsche is instead. And last but not least ‚EL-SHADDAI‘(Genesis 17:1,Psalm 91:1) ‚God Almighty‘, which sums ist up pretty well.

But let’s talk about what the verse really means, because this is really bad for me. It means every time I say something like 'oh my god', or 'holy shit' or anything along those lines, I do wrong, and God can hold me responsible for that. The thing is, I'm not really good at holding back such things, they slip out of my mouth without me even realizing what I just said. God wants us to respect him, respect his holy name. I wouldn't shout 'Oh my Carolina' either, would I? To know his name, to say it out loud, is a privilege and we need to honor him with it, which usually is just really hard.

I thought that this was the end, that I couldn't say more about this part when a different thought hit me. What if God not only wants us to keep his name out of some things, like swearing, but wants to be credited on others? Maybe it's not just we should not misuse it, but on the same time use it when it should be used. In the name of the Lord there is so much, a song says there is freedom, love, acceptance... The list could go on forever. Plus God wants to be involved with us. He is the creator of everything, he made you and me. Is it impossible that he wants to hear a thank you from time to time? He had a lot of work in making this earth, so maybe he wants us to acknowledge what he did. Sure, he doesn't need it, but I don't need compliments either, but still you can make me happy with it. As we saw earlier, his name is more than powerful and so we should stop talking about coincidences or even fortune, because in the end it’s about God’s plan, it’s on his purpose. He should be given the credit for it.

Isn't this part of worship, giving honor to the one who deserves it?  I guess so. For a long time worship to me was just singing, or maybe playing an instrument, but there is much more behind that as I found out in a conversation some weeks ago. Maybe I’ll write about ist in another post, but I guess that we now have finished what I had to say about the third commandment.

Cheerio

No pictures allowed

To be honest I'm already pretty sick of my little series, but I should learn to be committed to something, and obviously I need a little practice to do so. So let's talk about the second commandment.

"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me but showing love to a thousands of generations of those who love me and keep my commandments" (Exodus 20, 4-6)

So in order to talk about this properly I will divide the verses. First you shall not make yourself an idol. I guess this applies as well to any kind of imaginary picture, at least that's what I was thought as a kid. The thing is, as soon as I hear those words I can see how God is portrayed in the Simpsons, an old man, long beard, but you can never see his face. I guess most of us see God as some kind of old man, as he is revered to as 'the father' in the bible. In fact, God doesn't have a gender, he is genderless and by having images we limit his possibilities to be more than just a human being. There is this book called 'The shack' by William P. Young in which God looks like the typical Gospel singer, a not very slim black lady. In another, he is a 17th century English woman. I guess that has shaken up the image a little. On the other hand I get where those wrong pictures come from, I mean it says in Genesis 1, 26-27: "Then God said: Let us make man in our image, in our likeness... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God who created him; male and female he created them". The question that comes to my mind is, did he create man physically like him or mentally/ emotionally. As human beings it's difficult for us to accept that certain things we cannot understand. We want to know how God looks like, even though we can't get it right anyway.

I really like how the Arabians have solved the problem. They don't have pictures of any humans in their mosque, just flowers and ornaments. Essentially I think they won't give you any room for wrong inner idols, unlike the old masters who draw Jesus and Moses in their paintings.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was the past when God admits to be jealous. I mean that's what I'm talking about when wondering if we are emotionally made after him, as seems to be having feelings. He is jealous, get's sad or happy, and shows love. He is definitely having those emotions in a greater range than we do, but still, I can see how we connect. Plus I want to add, and correct me if I'm wrong, that through Jesus' blood we can get set free of God's anger punishing our children and up until the fourth generation. He died for our sins, so we can escape our parent's mistakes.

Cheerio

The truth comes out eventually

Sometimes I feel like I only post here to make myself feel a tad less insecure about myself and to confirm that I'm not an awful human being. That's why I want to talk about a huge part about my personality, meaning the fact that I like to say things straight to people.

So at first I wanted to be honest with people because in the bible it says, you should not lie. But I'm not the person to just listen to such a rule; I could never make it without a good reason. When time passed I found several reasonable ones. 

Firstly, I really want my friends to know me for who I am, for example they need to know how much I love them, that's why I love to tell them, like to hug them and to complement them. I appreciate those people so much and I'm grateful to have them, that's as easy as it gets. On the other hand I want them to just know me, for me to be real, so sometimes I show too much I guess.

Secondly, I'm not the person to keep stuff down. When I had a crush on my best friend and I couldn't tell him, it was terrible for me. I used to get sick whenever he told me something about a girl he liked because I couldn't handle it, but on the mean time I had to be the cheering, bubbly best friend. That was so hard and sometimes I really wanted to hit the wall with my head, or even better, I got sick from hiding it. Yes I've spent several month having the urge to puke every time I even thought about being in any non-friendship relationship with that guy, just because he hurt me so much and I had to keep that all down. So now I have to confirm I've never been so relieved about telling someone something, as I was when I confessed to him that I used to have feelings for him (even though by that time I was completely over him, I still really needed to tell him.)

Thirdly, my father had a problem with someone once. About two years before I was born, my father was at a camp and somebody did something and he was not pleased about it. But instead of going to that woman and tell her "uhm sorry, but I'm mad at you because what you did was stupid" and her being mad afterwards too and them both knowing what was going on and finally, getting over it, he sucked it up. He never talked to that person again, and it's been twenty years. As it was a church camp it ended in him, a) losing his faith and b) starting to drink heavily. Maybe you can see why saying this out loud is so important to me.

I really wish I could say that I only tell good things, or that  at least I know how to say negative things the best, but most of the time I have no freaking idea how to say it properly. Usually it's just me being awkward, telling weird stuff and making a fool out of myself while creating a conflict where there wasn't one before. It's not always good, it's hard a lot of times, but I prefer being an open book. It makes it easier for me to survive knowing that I have friends who accept me with every flaw I have, that there is no need to hide my true color, as the song says.

To end this I really think that in a world where a lot of things are shallow, a little bit of truth adds zest to life, doesn't it?