God is with her, she will not   fall. God will help her at break of day.

You ever have those days where you just do not care? Today is one of those days for me. So I decided I was going to write a blog, just get some of this stuff out of my mind. So excuse me if this is just a whole bunch of random stuff, but this has been a long time coming.

Let’s see… Where did we leave off… We still have no idea why I had the seizures, we have done every test that you can think of, and everything came back normal. I am still on the anti-seizure medicine, (which I am pretty sure I am having an allergic reaction to. I have been popping Benadryl like candy) and my doctor wants me to continue taking it until I meet with him in June. He said that we will reassess everything then, and make a new game plan.

This semester I started out taking like 16 or 17 hours. (I registered early in the Christmas break, before I had the seizures). Just this past week, I realized that I had to drop biology, because with all the stress I was having with my body trying to kill me...it just wasn't happening. No matter how hard I tried, how many hours I spent studying the material, it was not getting through to me. I spent every day of my spring break re-watching the lectures and constantly going over my notes. I thought I knew the material, but after I got the grade back for my test, I realized how wrong I was. I really need to reevaluate what I want in life, and how realistic it is. After I dropped it, I felt like such a failure (even though everyone else dropped it too pretty much) and I just felt so discouraged. As of right now I am taking 9 hours this semester, I will be taking 6 hours over the summer, and over the fall I will be taking about 14 hours. We will see how it goes.

There are two things that are going on right now that I am pretty excited about. One of them is that I auditioned for a part in a movie called Loveland (www.lovelandfilm.com)and it is about disability rights. It is a narrative story that centers around this girl Ivy and her and puts her in an institution. She does not want to be associated with “the special people.” So she keeps trying to find ways out of it. It is really hard to explain, but it would be an amazing experience to be able to contribute to it. The writer/producer said that my audition went really well, and I should find out when the next week if I have a part in it.

The second thing that I am excited about is that I may be getting a car and my license soon. My mom and I went and met with people who do the modifications of cars for people in wheelchairs to be able to drive. I am just now getting the ball rolling for that, so it might be a little while until everything is said and done. Nonetheless it is still very exciting. I just keep thinking that I will not be left out of the little things that everyone else takes for granted. This might sound bad/bitter, but I am not intending for it to… I have the most amazing friends that have stayed with me throughout all of my health issues, but it is the little things like randomly going to get some frozen yogurt and not getting the invite to go that kind of bothers me.  Right now my parents or someone has to drive me wherever I go, so before I make any plans, I have to make sure everyone else's schedule is clear so that way I will have a ride. If I get my own car that I am able to drive, I will not have to ask, or clear anyone's schedule if I want to go somewhere. I will have my independence back.

The last thing that I have really been struggling with, is my faith. I guess it was two weeks ago now, I went to church, and I was reading this person story (each week they have a little postcard with someone story on it) and the second paragraph said, "As I grew older, I began to question my own faith. However, in spite of my doubts, I continue to participate in church activities. I kept my questions to myself, never letting on that I was secretly struggling with unbelief. I played the part of the perfect Baptist church kid, but I was only pretending--- there was no true belief behind my words or actions.” After I read that I just kind of sat there thinking about it. I just kept thinking how true it kind of was for me. But I think I have known it for awhile, I just never wanted to acknowledge it, because when you acknowledge it,it makes it real. And I did not want it to be real. When I got home from church, I Skyped one of my best friends, and as soon as I saw his face on the computer, I just started crying. I told him all about the story, and that I have not really felt God's presence in a while. But I just kept ignoring the feeling, thinking that maybe one day it would go away. Then I remembered a quote, “A Bible that is falling apart, usually belongs to someone who is not.” I literally cannot remember the last time that I just sat down with my Bible and read…He told me that having doubts, means you have faith. That was the second time in my life that I have heard that. So we made a deal. Every Friday we will send each other encouraging Bible verses, or something that we think the other person needs to hear. So far, I am getting a little better… But I am not quite where I once was, or anywhere near where I want to be. The two things I really need to work on with this are one, reading my Bible and reflecting on what I read. And two, listening to God. I need to learn how to listen to him, how to “be still and know that He is God.” I need to learn the difference between what He is actually saying, and what I want/think He is saying.