Just a quick prayer request, sorry I meant to include this in one of my other posts, but I was hoping that you guys could pray for my parents, they can't really see the good that I've come to see (not like it's easy, though).  my dad is taking it especially rough, considering my grandma(my dad's last remaining immediate family member) was very sick for a year and died last summer, and right at fall I started getting seriously ill.  He feels like God's won't cut him a break (which is understandable), but I really wish he could see how this will strengthen his faith in God.  

Also for my Uncle, who I love dearly, he just got arrested for drinking and my grandmother had to bail him out.  He has been an on and off again christian, but he says every time he accepts, he doesn't feel anything.  Please pray that he will find Jesus, for real this time.  

Thank you so much, and all my love, peachy

For Kiahcat and Broken, I saw on BEP's prayer request list that you guys seemed to fall on hard times (unless it was other people you were praying for).  Either way, I wanted you to know that I am praying for you especially for strength, guidance, and love.  Depression is a VERY difficult disease (yes, disease), and it is so widespread these days it really concerns me.  I hope that this poem helps you a bit, I wrote it during a bout of depression, and thinking that, since everybody tends to write poems about anger or death (althogh those two emotions usually make pretty powerful poems), I wanted to write one about holding on.  

Road
The road ahead looks terrifying,
the road ahead looks long.
But how will I know for certain
unless I continue holding on?
I have passed through fire,
and I have witnessed death,
and as my soul trudges onwards,
what I wish the most is rest.
But how will I know where the path is:
the path to take off my load,
if I give into depression
and decide to give up the road?
There are too many future laughters,
too many soft leaves at my feet
to give up hoping for anything
and despair and wail and weep.
For I believe my sufferings:
my toils, my tears, my griefs,
int time will all be rewarded
because of my strong beliefs.  
Everyone hurts at sometime
and looses sight of all hope,
but how will you know what the good is
if you decide to give up the road?

I would love to hear from you guys, feel free to private message me.  

all my love, peachy.  

Okay, now I finally have time to respond to the hype I had yesterday.  While I am still out of my house and officially dropped out of school (I begin tutoring soon, and please pray that I will get to be a junior next year!), I am so pleased with God, I can't even put it into words.  My body still hurts, some days worse than others (the other day I could barely lift my arms to shampoo my hair in the shower, and mornings are still my mortal enemy, next to pimples), but there is not a day that I am not thankful for it.  I know it sounds to weird to say that this is a blessing and I am so happy that this has happened to me, but thats literally the truth.  I have come to a point where my soul is in a better place than any other time in my life.  I finally see how great, wonderful, incredible, amazing, and loving my God is.  I can't even describe it, let me put it this way:

There are over 150,000 words in the average dictionary, how can I explain how much I love God and how great he is with such limited resources?  

He is so good to me;  He has molded and weilded my soul, and I am so strong and SO happy now.  Sure there are bad days, and life definatly isn't easy, but I have come to a level of self-dependance and God-dependance that most kids my age never have to endure.  I have found that I no longer place my happiness on material things: boys, money, jobs, friendships, or clothes.  My friends will still be my friends if I don't call them every night, or do something every single weekend.  God will always provide for me.  My happiness is dependant on Him, and I find you never get depressed that way (He'll NEVER let you down, and that's so much safer than boys or friends lol)

"I tell you, do not worry about your life; what you will eat.  Or about your body, what you will wear.  Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.  Consider the ravens, the do not sow or reap.  They have no storeroom or barn, and yet God feeds them.  And how much more valuble you are than birds!" -Luke 12: something something...I wish I could remember that because I read it all the time. 24-26 maybe.  

I don't know what more I can say.  I love Him, I love Him, I love Him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love you all too! peaches

lol

Saw the Passion the other day, and absolutley loved it.  I was practically bawiling throughout the entire movie.  I thought it was interesting though that most critics seemed to hate it, or they couldn't say enough about it.  I noticed all teh good reviews were mostly from christians, and the bad reviews were strong athiests or from other religions....hmmm...
I think the Passion really proved a strong point that most people didn't want to believe (Christ was the real thing).  As one Newsweek article put it: "The torture Jesus endured was grewsome, it's hard to believe taht anyone could lvie through that kind of beating."  That was the point though....he didn't.  lol, anyways, I was just thinking that christians will always be under attack ("And they will hate you because they hate me," I think that's somewhere in Matthew or Luke...), mostly because I think people don't believe, it's that they don't want to believe.  

Also wanted to point out that Satan was played amazingly evil, and that the baby he was holding in his arms as Jesus was being whipped was the anti-Christ.  Cool little detail, in case you guys didn't already know.  

All my love, peachy

Hey all sorry i haven't been on in a while, but my hotel doesn't get internet.  I can't say much right now but AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH GOD IS SO GOOD!!!!!!!
Love you all!!! peachy.  

I have also read the first two books in the trilogy, The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife.  The third, The Amber Spyglass, is the only novel out of the three that is said to be anti-religious.  Since I was young when it came out, I decided against reading the third book for fear that it might change my mind about christianity.  However, the first is a facinating story, well thought out and addicting, although I thought the second one was a bit disapointing.  It deserves a re-read though.  I spoke with a friend who is also christian about The Amber Spyglass, one of her favorite books, and she said there really wasn't enough to really damage the christian faith, they were more like subtle hints about the author's own beliefs.  However, it deserves first hand reading.  It's not like LOTR for many reasons, but it still is a good yarn.  

hello all, i hope you are all doing well, my thankfulness has not decreaced for all your prayers.  Sorry this is a long one.  

I know its so hard to stand any more bad news, but thats exacally what I've gotten in the past two weeks--bad news.  Heres the good part:
We think we know what is making me sick.  
There is a toxin called mycotoxin (i think thats what its called) that is one of the most toxic substances in the world.  While it is released from a lot of things, one of the most common things is black mold.  Living in Texas is practically living in a swamp, and consequentley, there is black mold all over my house.  
The good news is, medicine can treat my symptoms and my family and I will move out and I can get to feeling like myself in a year to two years.  
Heres the bad news:
i've been breathing in the toxin long enough for some really serious effects to start taking place.  One, it explains all my symptoms: exhaustion, muscle pains, headaches, and low blood pressure.  The toxin was literally aging my body, attacking my muscles, making my brain swell, causing the headaches.  However, theres a couple more symptoms or reactions too.  The toxin is also attacking my pancreas, which explains my hypoglycemia (I've eaten pretty well all my life, it seemed peculiar that I should get it, out of all my friends).  However, it's very likely to turn into type II diabeties, even if I do all that I can to prevent it.  The toxin also could have really screwed up my thyroid and even ruined my petuitary gland which starts the thyroid process.  Also, now that I've been exposed, I'm at a higher risk of getting cancer, and since I've been around it for so long, its a very real possibility.  Basically, in a sentance, I've been dying for a very long time.  Just like I might have said in earlier posts "I feel like I'm dying" and I really am.  I'm out of my house now and staying with a friend, but its a terrible feeling to think that I have no real home to go to.  I can't take a lot of things with me except what is cotton, plastic, or wood, and a lot of my stuff I will probobly have to loose.  My conentration problems and depression can also be explained.  My brain has been attacked with this resulting in some form of ADD, OCD, and post traumatic stress syndrome.  My doctor described it as this: When I would have a panic attack, I would go into a flight or flight reaction, for example: if a dinosaur were about to eat you, you would either stay and fight it or run away like the Monty Python boys.  However, since I could not see what I was fighting, I became kind of traumatized because I would have doctors telling me I was crazy and it was all in my head.  My body, on the other hand, would not respond possitivley to their medication because the problem was still there.  One doctor actually put me on an anti-psycotic and told me not to gt too stressed, like I was crazy.  Lots of nights I would tell my parents "I need to get out of the house," for an unexplained reason.  I would just have impulses to go for late night walks.  Needless to say it freaked out my parents, but it really was my body telling me what was wrong, or entering the flight stage.  

We're checking my petuitary/thyroid problem now, and expiramenting with different medications.  Heres what I'm really worried about:

If they find a serious mold problem in our home, it can be 400,000 dollars to decontaminate it if its bad enough.  Home Owners Insurance doesn't cover any form of mold in Texas, and we don't have that kind of money.  We'd probobly end up tearing down the home I've spent my whole life in and half the things we own, decontaminate the dirt, and sell the plot, and move into an apartment until I finish high school.  However, the mold could be at my high school too, so switching schools could also be in the works.  If so, we'd probobly leave the state and move somewhere on the east coast and I'd never get to see my church or school friends.  Right now, however, my parents and doctor are trying to pull me out of school for the rest of the semester.  The last thing I want is to be a sophmore again next year.  Not when I've been trying so hard this year.  Somedays I can't even stand up, and I shake so hard I can barely type, write, or drink a glass of water.  Other days I'm just slightly tierd.  Either way, my doc wants me free of stress and wants time to expirament with medications that will treat the symptoms I have and test for more.  Missing school really scares me tho.  Teenagers my age arn't really concerned why your sick, but love poking fun at you if you are.  Will I loose my friends since I'll only see them for two days (at most) a week?  What about my education?It's great to have a solution, but its like God's saying "okay, you can get better now...at the cost of your home, your clothes, your friends, your flute, and your school."  I know material things, like homes, shouldn't matter, because Jesus never had a home and God always provided for him.  But I'm still a kid.  I'm not ready to set off on my own missionary.  I just want to graduate with the class of 06' and have my own bed to sleep in.  I was prepared to give anything for an answer, and it feels like now, I really am giving everything.  I'm so frustrated with God right now because I feel like I've been tested enough.  Give me a break already, I'm 15!!!  I'm not ready to be treated like I'm 50. I know this is "going to turn me into a beautiful person" and "mature my soul" or w/e, but somedays I just need to feel carefree.  I need to jump on my bed, and throw my clothes on my floor, shop with my friends, suffer through algebra tests, all without having to worry if I'm gonna pass out or mess up the home I'm staying at.  All the other kids at my school are deciding things like: escalade or navigator?  OU or LSU? drugs or no drugs?  braids or ponytail?  musician or author?  chemistry test or spanish project?  I hate to sound so immature but it's not fair that I have to decide stuff like: stay in school or miss half a year?  do my laundry or make my lunch?  angry with god or accept it?  It's just like getting lukemia, I'm finding a new problem everyday, feeling worse and worse, not responding to the medication, and quite literally dying slowly.  

sigh.......i'm sorry
That was a lot of rambling but i really needed to get it out.  i should be selfless and trusting god, right?  Have you ever just reached a point where you don't want to anymore?  I know God will deliver me.  I nkow this is all in his great plan and that if I keep fighting it, he'll reward me spiritually.  But a lot of days I just don't see why it has to be the best part of my life and why it has to hurt so bad.  I'll understand in time, but man...It hurts now.

I could use all the prayers or advice you've got!  Thanks for reading!!!

I hope you don't mind some of my attempts at humor, and some might not call it humor. I found that laughter is truly one of the best medicines. Amen! lol

Death indeed, is a hard thing to face, and I think everyone fears it for a while.  I'm so glad you don't, however, I'm just now begining to grasp the meaning of death.  If indeed the worst (or the best, depending on how you look at it) should happen, I think your daughter would find a lot of strength in God, but also in literature.  Some fabulous things have been written over the years including some beautiful quotes and ideas.  "Death is but the next great adventure" after all, and it is a passing that not even the richest, smartest, or prettiest can avoid.  I would recomend the following if you wanted to help her get a grasp on the idea of death.  These have helped me with my grandmother's passing last summer:
Harry Potter (#5) And the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (with the passing of a main character towars the end of the book)
LOTR: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien(With the death and rebirth of Gandalf the Grey)
The Chronicles of Narnia (#7 The Last Battle) By C.S.Lewis (This is really more like the Apocolypse, but it paints a good picture of heaven.  
Holy Sonnet 10 by John Donne (the Old English is a tad confusing, but it is a beautiful sonnet)
Other than that, I will be praying for you constantly.  God has a reason for everything, he could be trying to tell you something now.  God Bless You!

God has been SO good to me the past couple of weeks.  He has been teaching me so much, making me humble and selfless, and really just healing all of the pain I caused myself inside.  In a way, I know I'll always have those scars inside of me.  I'll never forget how alone I felt.  But another part of me knows that what I felt was nothing compaired to what it felt like for Jesus.  I'm begining to really, truly be thankful of those scars.  Its like proof that I've gone onto a battlefield and refused to give up until my enemy was defeated.  And I was never alone.  While God continues to test me (as he does everyone), I am begining to love the tests.  Change is a good thing, it brings new horizons and growth.  And as Frodo Baggins says, "there is no going back."  There will be many more low points in my life, I know.  Times I want to despair and give up and wallow.  But there is always God, and somehow you will find strength.  I am finding more and more strength each day, and I honestley don't know where its coming from (meaning definatley not my own personal strength).  We're still toying with the idea of Fibromyalgia consdiering the symptoms are only getting worse, but I'm not unhappy with it anymore.  Thank you, truly for your prayers and support.  They're working  .

Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart for all of the prayers and advice and patience you all have had with me.  This has really been a light in dark places, and probobly the only thing that kept giving me faith.  I'm still growing and I know I'll never stop, but I'm loving the change.  And now that I look back on all that horrible, horrible testing, the testing I'm still going through today, I realize I wouldn't change a thing.  It's still hard, I still cry and fuss a lot, and to put it lightly, lets just say I don't exacally hop out of bed full of energy, and health, and life.  I'm still feeling physically sick.  But not emotionally.  Spiritually, I feel fruitful again, and clean, mature, and free.  

It still hurts, don't get me wrong, but I'm glad for the pain.  I'm happy for it.  Its a burden I'm willing to carry.  A burden that I know God's gonna help me carry, and even carry for me most of the time.  This is gonna sound weird-but I'm glad I'm suffering.  I love the fact that I can wake up knowing that God is turning me into something beautiful.  But then again, doesn't mean I don't wake up and groan and moan too.  God's gonna help me thro this, isn't he?  I know he is.  Thats the best feeling right there.

Merry christmas  

Hello All, sorry I haven't been on in a while--it's been one epic battle after the next.  I still feel physically tortured, but my soul is a different story.  For the first time in a very long time, I feel on top of things and in control.  I feel close to God, and I'm begining to remember what kind of person I was and want to be.  While my body isn't improving much in health means, for the first time EVER I feel okay with it, like I can deal with it.  But theres a bit more than that.  Okay, let's start at the begining.  Thanksgiving week.  My parents had the brilliant idea of vacationing in Ixtapa, Mexico, just the three of us, instead of all the holiday stress of making turkey and pie and the begining of christmas sales, etc.  Before leaving, I made a secret promise with myself that somehow I would go on this trip and talk to God again.  Somehow, I was going to get better.  And somehow, I was going to be alright again.  Of course, I had made these promises to myself countless times before, but I was begining to get really fed up with the way I felt.  The way I felt meaning--completley isolated from God to a point where I could not feel him anymore, not even in prayer; physically worn out, exhausted, and streched "like butter spread over too much bread"-billbo baggins; and emotionally sick and alone and pretty darn annoyed with myself.  So anyways, I leave for the trip, have some fun splashing in beautiful blue water, shopping in a village across the street, and reading junk books by the pool.  But somewhere around midday I find myself wandering into a shadded area with hammocks, holding my bible.  I guess you could say I knew what I had to face.  Before opening my bible, I prayed that God would show me everything I needed to know--why was I sick, why was he doing this, why did he leave me (so pretty much why), what was I sick with, was there going to be a cure, and how come he is making me feel so alone?  So I do one of those things where you just open up your bible and read what wants to be read.  

Let me just say right now, it was the most amazing thing I have ever done.  What God told me that day has not left my memory once since I opened that book.  Not only did God answer all my questions, he told me what he was doing, why he was doing it, and whats going to happen.  He gave me every bit of information I could've ever wanted to know.  He expanded my heart, my mind, and my soul.  And then, something woke up inside of me.  The happy, healthy, I-know-what-I-want someone I once was jumped out of the depths of my heart and began to speak up again.  It began to shout out instructions and ideas that had never occured to me before.  And in the end, it was myself that grabbed the reigns out of my sickness' hands and began to steer my own life again.  What happened that day has only been the begining of a reverse spiral effect--instead of spiraling down into this unavoidable, deadly darkness, I am spiraling up, gaining more and more speed, getting closer and closer into the light I once dwelled in.  But the best part is that I know I'm not going to stop at the happy place I once was at, but I am going to keep spiraling up and up and up until my life has reached this ultimate happy place that I have never been able to reach before.  What is my happy place, you might ask?  I didn't know either, until about  a week ago I sat down and wrote it out.  I wrote out what I wanted and who I wanted to be.  I sat for an hour and enscribed a peice of paper with my emotional goals, physical goals, mental goals, and spiritual goals, and then how to join these 4 parts of me together.  So my happy place?  Turns out my happy place is becoming a woman of God.  Turns out that all I ever wanted and all I ever want is not to make the best algebra grade in the school, or become a Seventeen Cover Model, but to become someone who can make her immortal father happy.  Turns out, I just want to serve God, every single day of my life until I die.  Suddenly, this sickness doesn't seem so bad.  Suddenly, my life isn't so hard.  And suddenly, I don't hate myself anymore.  When you realize what you want, and you realize how easily it can be obtained, life immediatley stops being this 6 ring circus and starts becoming one big show.  It's not about my mom's sickness, nor my own.  It's not about how cool Pirates of the Carribean is, or how bad your chem grade may be.  It's not about your spouse, or your job, or your dog, or your house.  It's honestly about you and God.  Its about spending each day on Earth like its the best day you've ever had, and every person like the best friend you've had for years.  It's about being happy, and knowing that God's idea of sucess is the happiest, easiest, greatest definition of success.  And it's about knowing yourself.  It's about conquering your fears and becoming the person you were born to be.  This is my meaning of life, and I have learned it all from a few lucky chapters from the Bible.  and while my life is going to continue to be hard, and I will have to constisantly be reminding myself of what I'm working towards, I know that in the end, I will be happy.  In the end, I will be working for God in whatever way he needs me.  In the end, I WANT to be a servant of God, beause that is when I truly know myself the best and when I truly know what I want to become.  And maybe, just maybe, in the end, I will have accomplished all of these goals and all my other goals, and God will say to me "Well done, my good and faithful servant."  

So now I want to challenge you.  Please read my testimony, and rest assured there will probobly be MANY more, and think about your life.  Are you happy?  Are you making God happy?  And what are you working towards--a better life, or a better after-life?  And just remember--God is the most important thing in your life, so just make sure he makes the A-list  

well, i hope someone made it thro this long peice, and if you're reading this, thanks!!!

i'll put in more about the chapters i read later, for now, its Isaiah 54-58, 60

<3

"Dishonest people you can always trust to be dishonest.  Honestley, its the honest ones you have to watch out for."-Capt. Jack Sparrow

"You've got to be the worst pirate I've ever heard of"-Commidor Norrington
"But you have heard of me"-Jack Sparrow

--Pirates of the Carribean-LOVE THIS MOVIE, awesome action, johnny depp is hilarious, and orlando bloom is REALLLLLLLLLY cute!

Thank you so much BEP!  I cannot wait to tell you all the message God has given me, and amazing by how much has already happened. I feel change on the wind and I'm ready to breathe it in and embrace it.  I promise I'll spill everything but it'll have to wait until this weekend......

Hi all, sorry I haven't been on in a while.  I've been spending the last week (Thanksgiving holiday) in Ixtapa, Mexico, and its really given me a chance to relax and breathe.  This week has been wonderful, but I'm begining to feel the school stress come back upon me.  Right now, I'm really spiritually confounded.  If you could pray for spiritual clarity, I would greatly appreciate it.  I'm praying very hard and frequently nowdays, but I still have a problem of feeling God.  Its kinda making me go, "where are you?"  Also, I feel like God has really directed me to Isaiah 54-58 and 60 and the promise of Jerusalem/Zion.  I really feel like God is compairing me to Jerusalem.  On this trip I recently went on, I feel like God wrote out a sort of...table of contents for me.  Kind of like, 18 steps to get me out of this spiritual rut and back into God's arms, deeper than I've ever gone before.  My point is, basically, if BEP would allow me...I would really like to turn this topic into a kind of journal for what God is telling me.  It could help a lot of people, plus it might even be a miracle written out, recorded, and proven.  It would just basically what I feel is happening in me, like the re-awakening of Christ in my heart (if he was ever dorment-but I cetrainly drowned him out plenty a time).  I'm really hoping that (if it were allowed) that it could hold a figurative, or literal meaning to all christians who are suffering, sick, wandering, or dying.  I'm just really excited to spread what God has told me over the holiday, as well as wondering if my test could help the tests of others.  well, thanks for reading!