THE BOYS!!!!!

I guess I’ve put this off for far too long, since some of you are highly confused about what is happening in my life.

1.       My friend Stephanie and I moved into a super awesome rent house.

2.       She/we (mostly she) is now power of attorney and caregiver of these two boys.  Yes everything is legal and we are working closely with CPS to make sure these two have the best possible life. With or without us.

Marcus, 9 and Ivan, 10 have become my joy. They get me out of bed, the make me go to work, make me play, learn, and grow.  I never ever thought that I would let them weasel their way into my heart the way they did. Its killer. They are my kids too now, no matter what. I have  GET to be at every baseball game, piano recital, break dance, sword fight, weird minecraft discussion and graduation for as long as I'm able, though that fact terrifies me deep down it makes my heart smile.

Being a parent is hard. Becoming a parent mostly overnight is wack. This hasn’t been easy for me, or Stephanie. These boys have not had the best upbringing and we are learning it’s hard (impossible) to reverse 10 years of damage. I’m thankful for my depression at the moment because It allows me to get on their level and let them know I know how they feel when they are out of control and lock them self in a closet or a corner. I’m thankful I’m a fatty cause these boys can eat me under the table… I have no idea where they put it.  Part of me thinks they are still in the “not knowing when their next meal is” mind frame. With my depression being as bad as it is sometimes I just can’t be as active or involved as I want to me. 

That is gradually getting better ( praise Jesus). The boys saw me head bang and play air guitar on the couch the other day and said woah you really are fun. I cried myself to sleep that night, praying that God would just teach me to be a better mom. Just slap me in the face with mom skills and the ability to be gentle and caring. Sarah used to be sweet. She used to be FUN. She used to love children and playing and laughter. I can't find that sarah right now... I know she's there because she jumped on the couch and head banged. She gave piggy back rides and tickled. Depression has hidden that Sarah from me.... but these boys are forcing her out.

I’m so so so so so so SO thankful for the friends and family that Stephanie and I have. We cannot do it without them/ you. From the financial help, feeding them, playing,  wresting, reading, feeding us ;), making sure they have the best Christmas possible, letting me take a nap and just praying and supporting us. 

Thank you for letting our boys into your hearts. 

The gym scares me.

I'm hiding in the locker rooms at the gym. Every treadmill is full and it's 85 degrees in this place. How do you tell your friend that you can't breath and your not just being lazy but you CANT deal with all the people. Not today. Not this week.  I was like I'll just go walk outside around the building for an hour while your in here yet I got upset because I just can't be normal. It's bad enough that I just can't run. I can jog a bit but I'm just too heavy to run. 

So why am I putting myself through this torture? Because somewhere there is a little fat girl who is terrified of the people at the gym, suffering from depression and anxiety trying to prove to herself and everyone else that she can have a 13.1 sticker on her car no matter how "fat" she is.

 

Did you know?

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States (18% of U.S. population).

1.8 million people finished 13.1 miles last year.

It should comfort me to know that 40 million people feel the same way I do .

I'll try again tomorrow.

What if we treated every illness the way we treat mental ones....

My social media postings will most likely get me in big big trouble and have already caused riffs because of my oh so brutal honesty but whatevs, I think these are funny.

http://www.addictiontreatmentmagazine.com/addiction-news/mental-health/when-the-stigma-of-mental-illness-keeps-christians-from-getting-treatment/

Grocery store fun

Sometimes I wish it were socially acceptable for me kick and scream and holler just because.... I mean I hate the grocery store as much as anyone but no one wants to see a fat girl crying on aisle 4 cause she can't push the basket. 

I was that person today in the store. The one I hate who just lets their child hit things and people and not say excuse me as they run on an 86 year old mans Velcro shoes. The one who is like why yes ma'am they can have a sample or 8 because I'm broke and they have eaten a hole box of cereal for a snack....That parent who knows their kid is roaring 5 aisles over but to busy on her hunt for breadcrumbs to bother going back. 

I forced the boys to come with me to the store to instead of play outside as a semi punishment or consequence

Jokes on me.

Break Time

I was reading a blog the other day in which the girl was saying her church family and therapist loved the SH#* out of her. As in loved her through the muddy rough times, and wouldn't let go. My problem with that is that people say that, then let go when it gets really scary and messy.
Then where does that lead me? Even more broken than I already was.
So you have to bare with me as I don't believe you when you say you'll be there ( insert spice girl song here)

I was told I needed a break, so I went ahead and took one from twitter and facebook, mostly because my mouth/brain betray me quite often. I'm sure I'll be back. But until then I'm going to keep being honest on here because.............. its the only place I can be.

Compass- Lady A and Happyness

I've been trying to remind myself of thing that once made me happy or do and I just can tell because of my black rain cloud. I love Lady A and Garth. alot. I haven't listened to much music lately but while trying to make myself feel something besides despair I actually listened to the words of this song. :) sooooooor good.

Yea it's been a bumpy road

Roller coasters high and low

Fill the tank and drive the car

Pedal fast, pedal hard

You won't have to go that far

You want to give up cause it's dark

We're really not that far apart

So let your heart sweetheart be your compass when you're lost

And you should follow it wherever it may go

When it's all said and done you can walk instead of run

Cause no matter what you'll never be alone

Never be alone

Never be alone

Forgot directions on your way

Don't close your eyes don't be afraid

We might be crazy late at night

I can't wait til you arrive

Follow stars you'll be alright

You want to give up cause it's dark

We're really not that far apart

So let your heart sweetheart be your compass when you're lost

And you should follow it wherever it may go

When it's all said and done you can walk instead of run

Cause no matter what you'll never be alone

Never be alone

Never be alone

You want to give up cause it's dark

We're really not that far apart

So let your heart sweetheart be your compass when you're lost

And you should follow it wherever it may go

When it's all said and done you can walk instead of run

Cause no matter what you'll never be alone

Never be alone

Never be alone

When it's all said and done you can walk instead of run

Cause no matter what you'll never be alone

** warning if you want "Fluffy and Positive" stop reading here**

Its hard to function lately. I'm so busy filtering how I feel. I keep monitoring my facebook, twitter, and pinterests in order to keep other from feeling uncomfortable by my emotional crazyness. Sometimes I just want to be honest and say I hate wakeing up, I hate my job,, I cry alot lately or the complete opposite and have no feelings when I should cry, I don't like my new therapist or my old one, I avoid social situations, I have backed out of most of my bible studies and dread church because its exhausting to smile all the time. I can't tell my friends how I feel because it 'bothers'  them, heck I don't even have my best friends phone number any more, and my family has a tendency to freak out or compare their mental issues with mine which does nothing but make it worse. so I figured I could at least be honest on my blog..

Rant over... back to remembering what makes me happy.

I need to blog

I need to blog.

I need to talk about how much I want to go to Kenya.

I need to talk about August church and how awesome it is to be partnering with the Grove.

I need to blog about my half marathon training or lack thereof.

I need to talk about how my depression may be the worst it’s ever been.

I need to say how much I miss Australia

and how GREAT it was to see David last weekend.

I need to talk/blog but I just can’t.

Half Marathon

So today marks week #1 of Half Marathon training complete.

Some of you may be thinking Woah!! I didn’t know she could do that, well I might not be able to but I’m sure going to try. The truth is I love to walk. Finishing those 5ks were the most exciting, hard, and rewarding thing I’ve ever done.

Even though everyone was so encouraging during my 5k training and such, I was debating not telling the blog and facebook world about my half marathon endeavors because I could so easily fail.  Yesterday changed my mind though.

Some people from church were talking about running and doing 5ks and half marathons. The look on someone’s face when I said “yeah I’m actually in week one of my half marathon training” was priceless. 

They were obviously shocked. I think I played it off well but deep down it hurt.

 I want someone to look at me and not see just the fat girl with a black rain cloud. I guess I need to see myself as more than that before I can expect others to view me that way.

So here’s to trying, my goal is to have one (I have 2 in mind) compeleted by the end of the year :)

just some thoughts...

Do not conform to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…

Romans 12:2

I’ve been thinking about the verse a lot lately. Maybe because if I could change one thing about myself it surprisingly wouldn’t be my weight… it would be my mind.
My mind is a battlefield. ( thanks Joyce Meyer)

This verse has come up in my Biblical Womanhood studies and some sermons/ lectures I’ve been listening to on Spiritual warfare. I know these two don’t go hand in hand but in my life they do. They are both something that I’ve chosen to not study in the past.  I know there is a battle between good and evil going on out there (& around me so it appears lately) and personally sometimes I would prefer to stay in my little bubble with my fingers in my ears rocking in the corner.

Yet sometimes I feel like I have to get up and fight. Maybe I don’t have a “quiet and gentle spirit” for a reason, someone in Oz once called me a Warrior, what the heck does that mean, should I be thankful I don’t have a husband or kids to think about right now while I get my junk in order? People used to tell me how strong I was … am I? did God make me that way for a reason?  So many thoughts and questions swirling around in my head at all times it’s exhausting. I just want to yell too much change, too much change!!!!

I’ve thought so much this week about the “ would you want to date you? Or have your future children date someone like you” I kept saying NOOO  then proceeded to write down this long list of all the reasons  why I would never date me and never be good enough for a Godly man…  

It says that satan is the Accuser (Rev 12:10) and the Father of Lies (John 8:44) well I turned back a few pages in my journal and saw a list, a giant long list of lies that I believe about myself…. Some of them have been there since childhood others I didn’t even know existed. It made me so sad to see that I don’t believe some basic truths that are listed in the bible. Instead I have this warped view of myself and assume that everyone else sees me that way too……Which is another lie from the pit of hell as my friend Jenna would say.

So here I am going way way back to basics and trying to “renew” my mind. I need to change my way of thinking on many a topic, not just biblical womanhood. Deep down I’m thankful that God didn’t leave it up to me to change myself.

Romans 12:  1-2

I heard (does listening to an online lecture mean I heard it? I couldn’t think of the correct word to use here) Mark Driscoll say Satans lies don’t have to be true to destroy, they just have to be believed. What lies do you believe about yourself right now?

All because I ate a salad.

Once upon a time I ate some bagged salad. Unfortunately my choice to eat something heathly had consequences.  I apparently  had a salad  with a parasite in it.

The month of July and early August were awful. Cyclospora spread rapidly throughout the US. So it's only fitting that I would catch it. I "catch" everything ( but a man)

Apparently the parasite wrecked havoc on my already crappy immune system leaving me open to infections.

I currently have strep, both ears are infected, an upper respiratory infection, early pneumonia , a bladder infection and dangerously low iron. 

All that being said its not "just nerves" or "just satan" Or just my depression. It's just a weak immune system brought on my choice to eat a salad. So excuse me while I eat a Popsicle covered in chocolate :)

All of this because I ate a salad.

"Biblical Womanhood"

 The terms "biblical and womanhood" scare me when they are alone, when used together the fear is enough to send me cowering in a corner. 

When I hear those term I automatically picture the bubbly mother with multiple kids in her impeccably neat home serving a meal she just made( from scratch) for her loving husband who jus got home from work. I think meek, mild, gentle women who say bless her heart and ill pray for you and actually mean it. The ladies with the perfectly teased hair, sparkly jewelry and never get antsy in the most uncomfortable of pews.

While I know that most  this is crazy talk and not what "biblical womanhood" means, its what I think about out of habit I guess.

How can I become this "virtuous" woman when I'm loud, über emotional, find bathroom humor hilerious and have the temper of a 400 lb lineman. Then there's my weight, the fact that my ovaries hate me, my depression  and the whole baby maker not working properly thing.

This is why I have kicked screamed and cried my way through the first few weeks of this study. Not to mention that it's on Thursdays smack dab in the middle of my other small group I've loved for the past year and a half ( I know sacrifice is important, it's only a few weeks, yada yada yada). 

This  study is hard. Hard for me. Hard for moms. Hard for newlyweds.  Just hard. If it were easy we would all be excellent "help mates" running around making perfect babies. After a breakup maybe I just flipped a switch that said broken. No more help mate potential here, just a shell. Or maybe it happened in Australia during the surgeries and such. Or it could be just life but somewhere I changed and convinced myself that I will never be able to be one of those women.  Which brings me back to this study being hard and uncomfortable for me. 

It's so much easier to stay in my funny fat girl shell than strive to become this "biblical woman." 

Fat and funny are easy, and taste good too.......

This weekend- August Church

When I was first approached about being apart of the church plant team I was apprehensive. I felt like I had nothing to offer plus I had just gotten comfortable and finally felt like I fit in with the people at North Village. For once since I've been in Austin I had friends. People I could enjoy the weekends and do things with without it being awkward everyone's single crap that goes on in churches these days. No longer was I spending every weekend alone in my room with a bag of chips....

I begged God not the make me leave or change when I had finally settled. Sadly after a few fits I shut up and listened.

It's not that I didn't love the church plant team, I just wanted the best of both worlds (sorry if I just got Hannah Montana in your head) and didn't want to lose my "family." I'd experienced it before after leaving Hillsong. I miss those people dearly and just don't like that feeling.

Well fast forward  through months of crazyness with jobs, cross country moves and back, emotional battles, and lots of laughs, heartache and tears.

August Church had its Charter and Commissioning service this weekend. It was powerful and emotional for me and God once again showed me just how much greater He is than I could ever imagine. Our elders were ordained, we were "sent out" with our Lights shining (candles), our Charter was signed and we were made totally official.

I also learned that my friendships here aren't based on what church I'm apart of. I had my small group supporting me from afar .  I know that God has allowed me to have the best of both worlds. I still have my friends and a new church family plus the greatest core team ever. Reid has said all along that he couldn't have hand picked a team like this and I now understand that it's just God. I feel like I finally got picked first by the best dodge ball player of all..... 

The Creator Himself. And he showed me tonight that I have the best of the best team mates.

And now pictures :)

Casey and I let worship on for our charter service hence the dressyness!

Crazy Morning

Sometimes I surprise myself with my stupidity.  

So because today is Friday I decided to make a big effort and do my hair and makeup. I mean why not  so I curled my hair the hip new way Abby taught me and make sure I looked refreshing and nice. I jammed to K-love and headed to work

At a stoplight downtown I realized I was cold.

After looking down I noticed that my legs were bare. Then trying to drive and look down I realized I was only wearing boy shorts and a tank top (pjs) To my horror I whipped into a parking lot and headed back home. By then traffic was horrible and the sun was coming up.

I straight up ran (more like shuffled) up the stairs into my apartment.  After realizing just how mortifying the whole morning was I sat in my living room floor and laughed/cried.

I then put on work appropriate clothes and headed back to the land of traffic.

I know they say some peoples brains don’t work as well as others when stressed. Considering what could have happened I’m thankful I noticed before I walked into work.

I’m going home and sleeping this evening!

"Slimming Down Sarah"

Someone told me the other day that I would never have my life under control unless I got control of my food issues.  They meant it out of love and I’ve thought a lot about it. 

When I look at the title of my blog “Slimming Down Sarah” I keep thinking there are so many other things I need to slim down before I tackle my weigh issues. My mental health is failing as much ( if not more) as my physical at the moment, as in there is no room to obsess about eating a cookie when I’m just trying to make it to the next day.  I’ve got to slim down some of the baggage I’ve been carrying around for years. I have to slim down some anger and resentment towards people in my life. I have to slim down the people in my life that do me nothing but harm. I’ve got to get some things in order before I can actually be ready to diet make a lifestyle change.

Before I left for Georgia I had a coupon for California Pizza Kitchen that you could win $100,000. When someone asked what I would do with the money the first thing I said was weight loss surgery. Get skinny then move to Australia.  How horrible is that? I didn’t think car, purchase a house or get out of debt first. 
All I could think of was skinny.

 Because if I was skinny then someone would want to marry me, and how could anyone love this fat, crazy, ball of emotion.

Its thoughts like those that I have to “Slim Down” if I’m ever going to go down the healthy path the Lord has laid out for me . Having a few cokes, or cookies, or Alfredo isn’t how I got 100+ lbs overweight…. It’s spending the past 10 years hating myself for reasons I can’t explain ( and tiny tiny bit of genetics)

                                 

In other news…

Some of you know I’m back in Austin. While I’m super proud of myself for trying something new I know that Georgia isn’t the place for me right now.

Georgia- Rain

So it's been a rainy week here in Georgia. As in it pretty much hasn't stopped.  I'm at a rodeo in Alabama sitting in the truck watching it rain and rain some more. I feel bad for laughing at the cowboys getting their trucks stuck in the mud- dad got stuck the other night and of course I got the giggles which didn't help the situation. But it was hilerious, I would love to be surrounded by cowboys covered in mud- sadly it's my dad and bro not mr mccowboy. Seriously I saw my dream man but didn't have enough guts to ask dad or will who he was and if he was married so I figured I'd admire from afar!

I'm also learning that as much as I wanted to marry a musical loving, God fearing cowboy I'm not cut out for this type of life. Some women are but I for sure am not.

I'm still not sure why God brought m out here, other than to see family. I'm still struggling with my choices and life. I know now that God isn't going to make it easy but he is wooing me. It sounded funny to me to but I can feel Him drawing me closer to Him. I had a horrible migraine yesterday and spent most of the day reading, praying or sleeping and came across 

this verse

“He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction......(Job 36:16 NIV)

What an awesome verse!

I have no clue what tomorrow will bring and am currently just trying to make it a day at a time but am taking comfort in the fact that I have a God who hears my prayers and loves me enough to let me go through storms of this life to come out stronger.

So I leave you with some pictures....

That's my brother and  dad you can't tell much by the picture but they look so so much alike!

Georgia on my mind....

Georgia is on my mind….

Why?!?

Cause I’m moving there on Saturday!!!!

Now is the time to place your “ how long will she make it bet” y’all. Just kidding (or am I)

I honestly have no clue why God is doing any of this but after a month of no job, no car, and no money it’s a wonderful option that lets me spend time with family and see if I can get back on my feet somewhere else. I’ve never really liked Austin and besides church and family I don’t have much of a reason to stay. So I’m going to try somewhere else.

I’ve had two songs on repeat during this “season”  Hillsongs “Oceans” and Jeff Johnson’s “Ruin Me”.
 ( look them up- soooooor good)

Ruin my life the plans I have made
Ruin desires for my own selfish gain
Destroy the idols that have taken Your place
'Till its You alone I live for,
You alone I live for.

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

 

Sounds to me like I should be careful what I pray for ;)

I’m so excited to go on this new adventure. I’ve spent the past few days crying and moping but I realized how silly that is. I should be excited to go on a new adventure not mourning my stupid apartment and friends…… I have no clue where it will lead me, I may find my forever home, stay a month- forever, this may lead me back to Australia (fingers crossed), seattle, or somewhere I’ve never dreamed of living. I can only hope that I will realize what I want to do with my life and become the person that God wants me to be.