- Listener
THESONGWRITER13
I used live thinking my life was horrible...was depressed, I had suicidal thoughts, I was angry at everyone who had hurt me in my life, and I thought I had to beg God for mercy every time I screwed up, but I didnt even think He forgave me anyway, so it never really helped...I never thought I could do anything good, I never thought about leading others, I didnt want anyone to know I existed...but that has all changed. Over the time of a year now, I have grown to learn more and more about this life, why Im alive, and that God really does love me. I have learned to listen to God, to trust him although life sucks at times, He is there, you just have to seek Him, call to Him, and He will answer, He will forgive you...I know this from experience...you have to look for Him in anything and everything, because He speaks to you through anything and everything, I mean, just go take a look out your window, then think about the fact that God hand-crafted all of that, the trees, clouds, leaves, mountains, all of it is His creation, and Hes given it to us...you can find Him in anything, from a beautiful day, to your favorite song, God can speak to you through any of it...just look for Him, and you will see Him
A little bit more about me...God has given me the gift of music, I dont play music as a self-glorifying thing, I just know its only a God thing to be fifteen and have been playing guitar for 8 years, and over that time also picking up drums, bass, and piano I play in 3 different bands at the time, my own band, Beauty Above The Thorns (look us up ;), my churches youth band, and once a month in the churches Sunday morning band. Im home-schooled and I also enjoy Gods world through things like hiking and camping and just talking to people...I was very shy for a long time, but God has led me not to be that way any more, but to stand up and be a leader in all areas in my life, both in the bands I play, and my everyday life.
If you want to understand me a bit better, read To Write Love On Her Arms by Jamie Tworkowski.
Ill wrap this up by saying no madder were youve been or what youve done, God will forgive you if you just ask and receive his forgiveness, Hes always with you just waiting on you to call to him...He will come.
Peace and Love,
-Christian
To Write Love On Her Arms
To Write Love On Her Arms
Please read all the way through this, this is how we should work with others as Christians, to not beat people over the head with a bible and tell them there going to hell because there all screwed up, but to simply love them and help them in a practical way, to point out there mistakes in a loving way because you have already proven you have there best interest in mind by constantly showing Christ love to them, this, helping them turn to Christ instead of the things there already into, to be doctors to the needy, to show love to the unloved. Jesus said "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I'm here inviting outsiders, not insidersan invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out." -Luke 31-32
We are called to simply love as Christ loved...
TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS by Jamie Tworkowski
Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."
I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.
Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.
She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "F*** UP" large across her left forearm.
The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.
She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.
I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.
Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.
She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies.
On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.
Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.
After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.
She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.
As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."
I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.
We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.
We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.
I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.
http://www.myspace.com/towriteloveonherarms
http://twloha.com/home.php
Last Ditch Remedy
found an awsome new band called Last Ditch Remedy, go check them out...
i just relized...
in the past month ive managed to have half my tooth shot out by an air soft gun and a black eye from a mosh pit at the Youngbloods prt. II tour, im kinda afraid to walk right now, because im so paranoid something else is going to happen...sory, this just kinda randomely came to mind...yeah, i leave now to go eat sugur...
im just putting this up so stupid purevolume will stop saying ive lived an univentfull life
just so you know i cant spell at all, so yeah, if you want to know more about me go to myspace.com/guitardedchris.
if you havent heard them yet check out my band Beauty Above The Thorns (purevolume.com/beautyabovethethorns)
so yeah... just message me if you want to know more
-Christian
Hannah777
What I really want is for you to be an old man and be
able to say, "My friend hannaHRose name my thyclops
Leroy Guadeloupe McGerdie". And then people will just
think you're a crazy old man. That is what I
want. We really do! I am starting to forget them
which is completely unecceptable.
posted Jun 06
Hannah777
So apparently purevolume still tells me when I have new
comments. Which was slightly depressing because I had
not gotten on here in a while and I had not gotten any
e-mails saying I had new anything in a while either.
Myspace is taking over I soppose. Don't you think it's
funny/weird/awkward/awesome/amazing(hah) that we talked
on here and myspace a long time before we met? Crazy
stuff, yo. Meanwhile I shall talkof things related to
your comment: You had better remember your
Thyclops' name! ..I like to poke my Thyclops, I like
to poke my thigh.. Hehe. I hope you are well tooooo.
andCaketoYou (watchaa!) -hannaHRose.
posted Jun 05
Under the Watchful eyes of Dr. …
Hello......CHRISTIAN! Wow, it's been months since i
was last on here...
posted May 08
the happy cyclops
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
thanks. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaa... soooooooooooooooooooooooooo, how is ya'll?
lol
posted Mar 30
Hannah777
HOLY SNAPS IT SAYS "BOOYA!" WHEN YOU POST A
COMMENT!!! Right. I'm leaving now.
posted Mar 14
Hannah777
WATCHAA! You Silly Little Christian Boy! I haven't been
on here in forever. New PV scares me a little though.
It's all.. Futuristic! I feel like there should be
robots serving me tea. CAKE to you aswell! -hannaHRose.
posted Mar 14
Under the Watchful eyes of Dr. …
Whoa, how did you staple your finger through??? I
haven\'t heard that story...
posted Jan 20
karpenter's kids
hiiiiii....remember me? :)
posted Dec 31