Hola amigos! Bienvenidos a Cantando!
Hello friends! Welcome to Cantando!
I used to blog on another account, but after awhile I began to neglect it on account of excessive schoolwork and the like. So, since I now am experiencing the increase in freetime that SUMMER brings along in its lovely little gift basket of wonders, I decided to start over with a new account. Although blogging is not a main priority in my life - summer or no summer - hopefully, I will have time to blog at least a couple times per week. I guess this will just be a matter of flying where the wind takes me. :)
Most likely, I'll be posting some journal-like stuff on here that I wrote a long time ago. No one who would read this blog should have seen any of it before, so it seems like as good a time as ever to recirculate some old thoughts I've found interesting.
As for now, I thought it'd be cool to kick off the new blog with what is basically my testimony: how I became the person I am today. It's actually a speech I wrote for my Honors Language 10 class. The subject was "This I Believe," which was originally a campaign from sometime in the 1900's - 1940's? 1960's? - which invited people to write an essay "in the language most familiar to you" about a particular belief that they had. The essays were then published and broadcast on the radio. Although our class didn't publish the essays or broadcast them on the radio, we presented them to each other, and each one ended up revealing things about the author that no one else had known before. It was a very interesting and insightful assignment, and I was grateful to have participated in it.
Anyway, here is my "This I Believe" essay. It speaks of one (of many) of the beliefs most dear to me, because... well, you'll see for yourself. :)
Nothing is impossible.
When you open your mind to things many people deem inconceivable, unattainable, too objectionable, too radical, too improbable or implausible, that can’t possibly exist within the realm of possibility – when you discard such vocabulary and ways of thinking, it's amazing what will find you.
When I was younger, I never thought that a fraction of the things that have happened in my life would ever be reality. I did not think once in my life that I would ever belong to such a wonderful family. Not a single time did I consider ever being so blessed as to have access to the freedom and joy I do today. That is, until impossibility found its way into my boxed-in, broken life.
When I was seven, I was diagnosed with having some sort of micro-seizure disorder for which I had to take medication. I took the medication for three long years and was eventually cured of the seizures, but just when I thought I'd finally be rid of the medication, I was diagnosed with anxiety/bipolar disorder. And, it just so happened that the medication I took for the micro-seizures could also be used to treat anxiety/bipolar disorder! So, I continued taking that, plus another stronger medication for anxiety/bipolar disorder. I started out with a small dosage, but between sixth grade and eighth grade the dosage increased as my parents were divorced and our family’s state of affairs crumbled. It seemed like as everything around me fell apart, the medication continued to tighten its grip on me, choking out my joy. Already shaken by my two-year-old cousin’s death a year earlier, and with my parents’ divorce on top of that, the ten year old me in her emotionally overwhelmed state just couldn’t take any more heartache. I gave up. I submitted to a lifestyle of constantly wallowing in grief and depression, and I lashed out in anger and fear at my family regularly. I was at an all time low. Broken. Done.
Then, there came a point in time during the summer after eighth grade when I decided I had to escape the mess I was living in. My deteriorating existence motivated me to start praying for dear life, because I felt like the walking dead. I prayed for hope. I prayed for freedom from anxiety and fear. I prayed for my family to be restored. I prayed for both physical and emotional healing, for an end to the river of bitter tears that seemed to never stop flowing. Though I didn’t know it at the time, my mom had been praying for the same things as well.
Finally, just as I was beginning my freshman year, my mom and I received a long-awaited answer. I had a dream one night that an angel came and took all the disorder in my life away under a red sunset sky. The next three days after that, without realizing it, I didn’t take my medicine at all. Neither I nor my mom noticed until the third day, because there were no side effects or anything, which is extremely significant because, since clinical anxiety/bipolar disorder medication is so strong, you can’t just quit cold turkey without withdrawal symptoms, especially at the high dosage I was at. I can offer no explanation other than a miracle; there is no way that I would have been able to suddenly go off the medication without major repercussions otherwise. And to top it all off, the evening that I realized God made me free featured a beautiful, red sunset, just like in my dream.
Today, I am in perfect general health. I couldn’t live without my family; I love them so much. If someone had told the ten-year-old me of a future where my family got along with each other and I didn’t take any medicine at all, I would have laughed and said, “that’s impossible.” But after all I’ve experienced, I now know that impossibility itself is in fact the only impossibility in existence. A broken family made new when all seemed lost, a girl freed of all medical issues in an incredible way, an angel in a dream with a red sunset as a sign of healing, God himself personally stepping into my life and transforming my hopelessness into unspeakable joy - how much more “impossible” could it get?
For everyone going through a terrible time in their life, when they think all hope is lost and that nothing could possibly happen to change their circumstances, know one thing: if the so-called impossible can happen in my life, it can most certainly happen in yours. Don’t give up. Keep your mind wide open and know no limitations, for this I believe: Life is full of miracles, the wonderful, unexplainable realities that change lives, and if you actively seek to change the negative areas of your life for the better, in the end, the impossible will become possible in the most beautiful ways.
~Rachel Lauren (Rayla)
God is awesome!! With Jesus, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). I thank him nearly everyday for what He's done in my life, or at least, I try to! Whenever I think about how blessed I am to be given the gift of life and aliveness I have in God, I can't help but sing and shout out in love and thanks and gratefulness!
God's love is indeed what gets me through the day. I honestly don't know how I carried on before, without knowing such great love. In fact, I didn't carry on. God carried me close to his heart, cradled in His loving arms the whole way, just waiting for me to look up and see his bright, shining face, longing so greatly for a glance in His direction. Just like in Song of Solomon, where the man representing Jesus says, "You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace." Everytime we even so much as take a fleeting glance at Jesus, it makes His heart beat faster, 'cause He just loves us so much! It's His heart's desire for Him to be our heart's desire. And although my relationship with God is still a work in progress - I don't know the bounds of His love completely; I don't think I ever will! But I want to know him as much as I can. I want to go where no man has gone before, deep into His beautiful and glorious presence. After all, He's the only one who can and does completely understand me and know who I really am, He created me! I want to know Him like he knows me, and I want to love like him with all that I am and more. As the song Strings by Misty Edwards says, "Lord, you have my heart.. you have my thoughts.. and I am searching for yours!" That's what being in a relationship with God is all about. (went off on a long rabbit trail there... I do that a lot. I always try to come back though.) - my heart still cries out, "Seek his face!" every moment, whether I am paying attention to it or not. I could think of a thousand songs that elaborate upon that subject, but I won't even try to capture the essence of the love my heart has for its King in words, which can be so freeing in some times and yet so limiting in others.
If the reader has not yet noticed, almost every reference I make in life, and therefore on this blog, will be to a song, either that or parts of God's Word. They are both such significant parts of my life that they seem to incorporate themselves into every area of my life on their own accord. I like that very much. :)
Well, I feel I've blogged enough for one evening. I shall now go take a nap - sleep off the remainder of the day's heat which still lingers in my body. I wish you, the reader, well. Have a lovely evening! Or afternoon, or morning, or night... whatever time of day you end up reading this. :)
Love, hugs and smiles! :) <3
