Consuming fire

So, yesterday I received a bunch of facebook messages from numerous people in X{LR}:8.
Prayers, requests for prayer, general information... and the hard truth. We don't talk. We promised that we'd talk and keep eachother updated so we could help eachother through life. We spent an entire weekend learning that we could and SHOULD rely on eachother to hold us up and hold us accountable, but that weekend is in the past, and it's like those rules only applied then, or at SYC. At youth group, when Shawn made us think back to a moment we were truly happy, told us to think back on the sights anf the smells. There was one obvious one, the one with my mom on her last "healthy" Christmas, when everything smelt like cinnamon and pine needles and love, but another one kept trying relentlessly to nudge itself into my mind. It was at X{LR}:8, it was pouring ran and Vangi and I had just run through the storm to the warmth of Gooding Hall. We were soaking wet and laughing and we started riffling through the music that had been left out from Worship early that morning. Together we sat there holding hands singing "Consuming Fire" over and over and over again. Nothing else mattered in that moment but the words escaping our mouths and the spirit inflating our hearts. All I can remember from that moment was pure joy. I wasn't thinking of my mom or my dad or loneliness or feelings of inadequacy, it didn't even matter that I'm not very good singer. All that mattered was that moment. Of course, that was probably tied with screaming worship while wading in the ocean during a thunderstorm and spiritual warfare with Vangi and Joanna.
So I guess if it was to choose a time to freeze in and not go forward with my life, (even though the whole point of the bible study was AGAINST doing that) that didn't involve resurrecting someone, it'd be that weekend.


There must be more than this
oh breath of God come breath within
There must be more than this
Spirit of God we wait for you
Fill us anew we pray
Fill us anew we pray

Consuming Fire
Fan into flame
a passion for your name
Spirit of God
fall in this place
Lord have ur way
Lord have ur way
with us

Come like a rushing wind
Fill us with power from on high
Now set the captives free
leave us abandoned to your praise
Lord let your glory fall
Lord let your glory fall

I'm awake in the infinite cold but you sing to me over and over again

Sometimes I wonder if you're looking down on me.
If you see how I've grown, what I've learned and the stupid, stupid mistakes I've made.
Sometimes I convince myself that it's just a dream... a long, painful, pitiful dream, but I never wake up. Sometimes I can't believe it happened. That it's all still happening. It's never going to stop, is it? I'm going to keep living out your death. Everything that happened and has happened since and will happen in the future is a continuation of your untimely end. Sometimes I wish people understood, that they could FEEL how bizarre this entire thing is.
It's like for your entire life, for fifteen years, you're one person, and you know that person, you've master being that person, living that life, sometimes you even LIKED that person, and then one day it all changes and there's no going back. Sometimes I wonder if I could have done something differently. I wasn't just a kid, I think that was my favourite excuse at the time; it wasn't happening, that doesn't happen to me, it happens to other people... I'm only a kid.
But I could have told you to go to the doctor, I could have nursed you back to health, I could have at the very LEAST, held your hand in the hospital. Instead, I stayed home curled up in a ball under my covers and waited for it to end. I prayed for it to end.
It ended, you ended. My life as I knew it ended. Be careful what you wish for.
It's not that my life now is so painfully unbearable, it isn't. I'm lucky for what I have and what I've learn and for my stupid, stupid mistakes... but that doesn't mean I can't miss you sometimes. It doesn't mean I can't squeeze my eyes shut tight and pretend you're still here... for at least a little while.
Vangi told me that she knows you'd be proud of me, and that you loved me and still love me. I know that, I KNOW I was your little girl and I know that Jacob and I were your entire world, but the more I think about how much you loved me, the more I ache for that love. I yearn for you to physically be sitting beside me and hugging me. To hold my hand and hold me when I cry.
I miss you so much Mom.
But I'm not going to think of the rest of my life as living out your death, but maybe a continuation of your life.
I'll try to make you proud Mommy.
I'll try to stay your little girl.

When we're still holding on to how things were, our arms aren't free to embrace today"

I find it a major miracle that he bible study topics are always things that relate to what I am dealing with the day before. It's so profound and such a blessing.
Tonight we talked about living for today. How you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, and by living in the past, you can't move forward and accomplish a thing. After we watched the video Shawn made us close our eyes and envision the time when we were happiest.
Immediately, I thought back to that Christmas I was thinking about yesterday, the year before we found out my mom was sick. It was in the big house on Allsbrook, and everyone was there. Oma and Opa came with Aunty Carol and Chelsea, Helen (my mom's best friend at the time), Sam (the husband) and their daughters Alice and Joanne (MY best friends back then) were there... everything was perfect. There was christmas music blasting for days, the house always smelt like eggnog and cinnamon and at night I'd fall asleep to our crackling fireplace.
That's what I've been holding onto; the memories of my mom, and how I can't go back.
I guess in a way, it's easier than it would be for most. I can't hold onto the past, I can't stay there and attempt to stop it from changing, because I can't. My mom's death forced me to move past it. What I'm worried about is how my life is going to start changing dramatically very soon. Michelle is starting nursing, Mike and Tyler are going away to school, Carlye is moving to Langley... and I'm heading off to start my life God knows where... I do have the opportunity to stay, to try and freeze time and keep everything the way it is. To become a static representation of myself and not accomplish anything at all, but be safe.
With my mom, I had no choice but to move on and grow, now I have a choice... I just hope I make the right one.

Sing me something soft, sad and delicate, or loud and out of key... sing me anything

So in no time it'll be Christmas again.
That holiday always seems to sneak up on me. When I least expect it, it's just right in front of me and I have to deal with it. It's been almost 3 years now; well, 3 years on December 10th.
Part of me is angry at, well, myself... for not being over it. I don't want to be a downer or anything, but it seems like every year my mood starts taking a nosedive around this time.
The other part of me is guilty for trying to forget. If I try to move past these feelings, does it mean I'm forgetting my mom? I know that everyone will argue that it's not the same thing and they'll use those cliche lines about her always being in my heart and being happy that I'm moving on. Now that's all well and good, but it's not that easy. My mom was this amazing ray of sunshine in everyone's lives, and I want to be that for everyone as well; I want to throw big christmas parties, and wear jingling earrings and play christmas music from november through til april... but what if that means I'm not moving on? If I'm trying to be her? What if I'm nothing like her at all? What if all we share are matching smiles and vertical-impairment? I mean, I don't have her gorgeous singing voice, I don't have her tenderness, I don't have the same thirst for life that she always seemed to be overflowing with.
It seems so backwards that 4 christmas' ago she was overflowing with life and now she's... not.

Gardenstate

You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? ... that idea of home is gone ... Maybe that's all family really is; a group of people who miss the same imaginary place.