Not forsaken pt. 1

#Notforsaken

Have you ever heard something that even though it wasn't directed at you, you feel it is meant directed at you. Well this Sunday I had that moment. My church had a sermon today on the words Jesus cries out on the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46 or Mark 15:14)

I know on this blog I  have spoken about some of the harder times I am going through right now in my life and I have often wondered "why is this happening to me?", "why am I going through this pain?",  "what is this all for?".

Before I get to the sermon (part 2). I have wanted to share this prayer I wrote the other day... then I will get to the sermon (and I will explain the picture).

Read Psalm 88

Dear Lord, 

I know you have not rejected me or left me in a pit. You are here with me. You have have not hidden yourself from me. I have turned from you. I have pushed you out so far I cannot feel you. Oh Lord my God I know you will not abandon me. I know you hold me close. Lord, I am suffering and I feel my world is falling apart and I can't get anything right... Lord, I am sorry for my doubts. Oh Lord as much as I know your ways are perfect and as much I know your for me. Lord I felt you placed certain desires in my life and those desires are so far from me. Lord and the thought that they may not come has left me in this pit of questioning the point of my life. Lord, I know you make no mistakes, you created me almost 27 years ago for a reason. you had a design and a goal for my life but I have no clue what that is... Lord and having no clue has left wandering and feeling helpless. Lord in all this I have pushed you out. I have pushed you far away from me. I have taken all these negatives and tried to fix them on my own... I keep thinking I can fix things but I am so far from able. Lord I need you.

Lord I need your light and your presence to guide my feet. I need strength to hold on to me when I am weak. Lord I need your love to remind me I am not alone. All those aspects you have in abundance. Oh Lord my God save me. I do not want  to walk through pain. Lord my God, save me from my doubts, save me from my loneliness. Lord you are perfect. Shape me and mold me. 

Lord thank you for all the blessings you have given me. Thank you for all the support and love you have given me. Lord I know I am not ever truly alone. 

Amen

God is Near

By: Rend Collective Experiment 

I have been listening to this song a lot and it is a great reminder of how God will never leave me.

Thankful for

If you have been reading my "Dear Anne" letters you will know I have been in a kind of negative place. Well at the advice of my dear friend who I call my "Boston Mom" she reminds me of the things I am thankful for... So to share them with you I wanted to make a collage. I couldn't post all the pictures I wanted but this is a good reminder....

1. My family: They have always been supportive of me and it wasn't until I moved to Boston that I realized how much I need them. 

2. My friends: The random dance parties, our trips together, going to the movies, and being a shoulder to cry on.

3. My older sister: Who has always been looking out for me. 

4. My relationship with my dad: We weren't that close during my teen years but now I feel I can turn to him for everything.

5. My relationship with my mom: We have our ups and downs but I know she loves me and is always supporting my dreams wherever they can take me.

6. Being an aunt: I love being an aunt to my sister's kids and my best friend's baby. I have been told I will love my kids more than my niece and nephew but I love them so much and they have brighten up my life. 

7. Hope: No matter how dark things might get there is always hope. 

No fight left

No Fight Left

By: JJ Heller.

Dear Anne,

I am sorry it has been so long since I have written. I could easily blame Grad-School but considering I have had no motivation to do anything in school, I cannot really say that. The last couple of weeks I have felt my life going down hill. I even wrote you about how I was focusing on the good things in my life, I thought that letter would keep me up-beat. I am sad to say that it has not. I have even reached out to my "support team" (close family/friends) for them to pray for me and the response I have gotten has been so heart warming, I have felt truly loved but some how my heart an mind keep dwelling on the bad and I just see my life as a downward spiral (as much as I smile and pretend to be all right). I even questioned if I belonged to him since I kept having these times in my life where I was low and discouraged.


Well over the past couple of weeks my church has been going through the book of Jonah. He is mostly known for Jonah and the Whale but that is so little part of the story. When Jonah goes to Nineveh (the bad guys) and after little convincing they repent and our saved from destruction. The story goes further but I am going to stop right there. Both Jonah and the people of Nineveh had turned away from God and both were saved by God's never ending grace. At the end of the sermon my pastor said "there is nothing you can do to out run God's grace". As awesome as that statement is I will admit I didn't go right home and immediately go to God (as I should have done) but later Sunday night as I was brushing my teeth I read the verse taped near my mirror.

"Find rest O my soul in God; my hope alone comes from Him" (Psalm 62:5)

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And I thought, "how little do I consider God my hope." I have this verse written in multiple places and I never really consider God my Hope. I know God has saved me and I know God wants the best for me but how little do I actually think about God's hope and grace. Then as I was sitting and \
praying, I realized I keep underestimating God's grace. God's majestic saving and healing powers. 

I wrote that first part and then during my weekly phone date with my dad, I just couldn't hold back the tears anymore. He was just talking about how I was doing so well, I was climbing Mount Everest (in Grad-School) and I am at the last 10% and this is the hard part. I told him I didn't feel I was climbing Mount Everest I felt I was going a downward spiral to no where. I hate standing some days and I just want to hide and cry. 

I realize I am much like Jonah in the whale. I am going through a hard time and as easy as it would be for me to just retreat and sulking in my distress. I need to turn to God and  find my hope in him. Right now this is easier said than done.

Today I read Psalm 86 and it was exactly what I need to read. So while I am still in this low place, I need to remember God is with me. I just wish I felt Him more. 

I liked verse 5-7
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Sorry this letter is a bit scattered... it reflects my state of being right now. 

Thanks for reading.

Yours,

Blaire
P.S. Is it bad that I just want to spend the day eating chocolate and staying in my PJ's?

Some descriptive writing

"A desire to write grows with writing"-Desiderius Erasmus 

In my last post about my story (which is still untitled) I wrote sharing my story with you my loyal readers it kept me inspired me to continue writing my story. So I hope to continue sharing bits of my story with you. I may not be able do to so regularly as I find I write better when I write with my hand and then I type it up. It is a very long process but it is so far the only way it works for me.

As much as I love writing plot, I love more the moment where I can get out a few good sentences of descriptive writing and make my characters or my setting seem more real. I am just at the beginning of my story so I am really working on some descriptive parts so my characters come to life for me and for my readers. So I wanted to share those parts with you...

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This wasn't a journey this was a new beginning.

            Parts of this narrative I remember as if they were yesterday even though they happened years ago. Some parts of this story I have conjured up out of my imagination to make sense of the outcomes. Therefore, I cannot call this a true account of my family but it is the truest account you ever hear.

           

            There was a time when we were all joyful and innocent to ever changing. Before the war and the destruction that followed in its wake. The war had changed our family in so many ways as it had for so many others. Before the war it didn't matter that Parker was heir to Cranston Court and best friends with Shane Gray, who was the oldest son of Cranston's head cook. Daphne would be happy to wear a daisy chain necklace and Marcus dreamt of exploring the deep jungles of Africa. Back when we were children we would spend our summer afternoons in the Back Woods wading in the creek that divided Cranston Court from Southerton Greens. I remember her we could be a thousand miles away from everything and everyone with only our dreams to play out. But that was before the Great War. The Great War that had killed Shane and made our poverty known. It was all due to the war. It was the reason our lives had changed forever.

Summer 1909

Those were the grand days for us children at Southerton. Without mother and father there we were under the care of Nanny Alba. Every day after lunch she took a long nap  and expected us to do the same. Instead as soon as the weather turned warm we would run all the way to the Back Woods not stopping for any breath. It was here we all plotted out the grand adventures we desired for our lives. I wasn't old enough to plan a grand escape. I still loved our home. It had been a part of our family since King Charles II. It wasn't grand compared to Cranston Court but it was a prized estate. I was still finding nooks and crannies when to hide in for hours. My ancestors took Southerton Green from a simple hunt lodge to its grand scale built in the a modern architecture in the Georgian style. My grandfather used to tell me of the grand days of Southerton when they would throw lavish parties on the scale of a Duke and Duchess. I promised him I would recapture those grand day and bring them back to Southerton.

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Dress Inspiration #1
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Lady Welford was perfection itself. She had delicate features from her ivory skin, her gentle hazel eyes and her fair auburn hair that seemed properly placed as a crown on her head with no strand out of a place. Her dress was done in the stylish 'Empire' revival fashion that was coming back into style with lots of subtle lace and beading on the top, then a large cherry silk ribbon that had a large flower pin on in it, fading to a soft pink with deep inverted pleats at the back which went down to a little train. One would think that the dress being so subtle in would wash her out but it didn't. Lady Welford was true beauty. Her figure was particularly graceful and it was a style in which elegance reigned. A beauty like I had never seen before in such a way that one could tell the outside was due to reflect the inside. She looked down and saw little Georgiana looking almost lifeless and had overwhelming compassion.

            "Oh my goodness is all right?" Lady Welford asked with watery eyes.

            "Yes your lady. She is fine now thanks to Mrs. Gray, she probably just needs some rest," Marcus said.

            "Well of course. We have several guest rooms she can stay in. Mrs. Banks," she called the house keeper over. "Will you make sure to find the little girl a place to rest and get some food for the children and have them take it into the nursery. Then when we are done with our guest in the library."

            "Elizabeth!" Lord Welford stunned by her.

            "And maybe some dry clothes for the young ladies."I did feel a little embarrassed by my outfit. "Also Mrs. Banks we might want to fetch the doctor. And all of you will stay here till your sister is all better. Mrs. Banks make sure to also write Southerton we would not want Mr. Harrington to worry."

            "Our mother is not home your lady," Marcus said.

            "Well then it is settled, you shall all stay the night," it was almost as she could feel her husband getting mad. "Now Welford, I want you to smile and remember we need votes."

Dress Inspiration #2
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            All what Lady Welford asked to be done was done in an orderly fashion. Her manners reflected her charming beauty for they were winning and never commanding and she show complete empathy to those around her.

            I would find out years later as perfect as her world seemed she terrible lonesome. Her husband would spend months away at a time her some was away at school, and while Lord Welford brought her back a nice broche or a new necklace it never replaced her heart's cry. By the time I learned this would be too late for me to do anything about it. I put this now so you would know the whole story and it will impact future events of this narrative.

            Cranston Court stood as a relic to the Tudor years with a lookout tower and lots of outset windows and it always had a feeling that a knight on white horse would be coming about any moment. Though it was a Tudor relic on the outside on the inside it looked more like a French Chateau done highly in the Rococo style that was ever so popular at the end of the last century. Lady Welford was an American Heiress through and through coming from a family who had their money from mill factories and investments in both railroad and a shipping industry. She had insisted for many modern improvements to be done to the house including new pipes, fitting windows, and dumb waiters so the food would be warm when it reached the dinner table. Most importantly she had the money to back up her insistence.

Painting of Derbyshire
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Side note: I have changed the date from 1906 to 1909 to bring them a little closer to WWI. I also changed my heroine's name to Rose... I couldn't really get attached to the name Esther.