Currently Listening She Must and Shall Go Free By Derek Webb Wedding Dress see related

We're All Whores.

Wedding Dress by Derek Webb

If you could love me as a wife
And for my wedding gift, your life
Should that be all i'll ever need
Or is there more i'm looking for

And should I read between the lines
And look for blessings in disguise
To make me handsome, rich, and wise
Is that really what you want

(Chorus)
I am a whore I do confess
But I put you on just like a wedding dress
And I run down the aisle
I'm a prodigal with no way home
But I put you on just like a ring of gold
And I run down the aisle to you

So could you love this bastard child
Though I don't trust you to provide
With one hand in a pot of gold
And with the other in your side
I am so easily satisfied
By the call of lovers less wild
That I would take a little cash
Over your very flesh and blood

(Chorus)

Because money cannot buy
A husband's jealous eye
When you have knowingly deceived his wife

It's awesome that God calls us His Bride.  We're the Body of Christ, His lover. 

It's sad, though, that we're such a whore.

We've got the perfect husband.  The epitome of love.  Well, actually, He's not even the epitome of love because He IS love....He doesn't just "best represent" love...He CREATED love...Anywho..

So we've got this amazing love that we constantly sing about, but we don't give Him the time of day.

Derek Webb is amazing.

"If you could love me as a wife
And for my wedding gift, your life
Should that be all i'll ever need
Or is there more i'm looking for

And should I read between the lines
And look for blessings in disguise
To make me handsome, rich, and wise
Is that really what you want?"

So we're all engaged to God, and His wedding gift to us is eternal abundant life, beginning NOW.  But we're constantly looking for more.  How many times have you looked inside a birthday present, expecting a little somethin extra at the bottom of the bag?  We're DIGGING, SEARCHING, for something else.  WTF?

"I am a whore I do confess
But I put you on just like a wedding dress
And I run down the aisle
I'm a prodigal with no way home
But I put you on just like a ring of gold
And I run down the aisle to you"

So, you remember the "woman at the well" story, right?  Well, WE are the woman at the well.  We're whores.  There's no telling how many lovers we've given ourselves to even though we're engaged to God.  We put God on like a wedding dress.  Now, usually, that's a huge deal.  The wedding dress is so completely symbolic.  A bride wearing a wedding dress symbolizes her undying faithfulness to her husband.  The dress is usually white.  This is now simply tradition, but the white dress originally symbolized purity.  The white symbolized the bride giving herself wholly and purely to her husband only.  But what does that mean to a whore?  Absolutely nothing.  We go through the charade of a wedding, but a whore wearing a wedding dress means nothing.  Anyone can play the part.  We'll wear that wedding dress so we can say we're Christians, and we'll run down that aisle, anxious for the benefits of this "marriage" that we signed up for, but when the relationship gets just a little bit tough, we'll take off that wedding dress and cheat on God.  Over and over and over and over.  Whore.

So, you remember that parable that Jesus taught about the prodigal son?  Well, WE are the prodigal.  We go to God, demanding our reward for doing what?  Simply BEING His child.  Spoiled brats.  The prodigal son marched up to His father and demanded his share of the money.  Then he left home.  This is a slap in the face to the father, because asking for his dowry early was as if he told his father he wished he was dead.  So we tell God we wish He was dead, give us our money, then we leave, spending "our" money on cheap pleasures until we're sleeping with the swine, eating out of their troughs.  We buy it all: jewelry, sex, food, video games, cars, houses...until it's all gone.  But while we're buying and buying and buying, we put God on like another one of our rings of gold.  He's just an accessory, right?  Only to make ourselves look better.  Only a luxury.  Just another THING to buy?  We've got no way home. 

So we put on our wedding dress and our ring, and we "run" to God.  The whore and the runaway. 

"So could you love this bastard child
Though I don't trust you to provide
With one hand in a pot of gold
And with the other in your side"

Bastard- fatherless.  We don't have to be bastards.  We MAKE ourselves bastards by cheating on God and not claiming Him as our Father.  He loves us anyway, even when we don't even trust Him.  We can say all day long that we trust God, but we're still looking for something else, something more.  One hand in a pot of gold and the other in His side.  We're searching for something easier, something "in it for me."  While we're doing this, our other hand is in His side, His wounds.  It hurts Him that we're so openly cheating on Him. 

"I am so easily satisfied
By the call of lovers less wild
That I would take a little cash
Over your very flesh and blood"

First of all, I love that Derek Webb called God a wild love.  We get so comfortable with our "God-in-a-box" that we don't realize that God is constantly shaking up our lives and spicing things up.  But here we are, straying towards earthly matters that aren't half as good as the love of God.  Webb ties these lines up with the whole whore/prodigal thing...Whores settle for any kind of love...Even cheap, unexciting love.  Just because.  And prodigals?  We'll take payment/self-gratification over the grace and mercy that God poured out for us.  Why do we stray so far from the wonderful love that God has offered us?

I don't know about y'all, but I've experienced true love.  I am IN LOVE with Josh.  This love is overwhelming.  If the love of a human is so wonderful, shouldn't that of a God's be even much more amazing?  Love is not a feeling or an emotion.  It is a lifestyle.  God's love should engulf us.  It's inescapable.  I never settled for this "accepting God as our Savior" thing...That implies that He's only our Savior if WE decide He is...That goes back to the whole "I can do SOMETHING to get into Heaven..."  It's not gonna happen that way.  I prefer the phrase "surrendering to God" much better.  This implies a change in lifestyle.  Surrendering to God does not mean surrendering to every law in the Bible.  When we surrender to God, we surrender to His overwhelming love and mercy.  We surrender to the most beautiful wedding dress and ring we could ever imagine.  When we surrender to God, we say, "I do." 

 "In the name of God [hehe], I, ______, take you, ______, to be my husband/wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow."  

These are traditional wedding vows.  We take God to be our husband to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for porrer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death.  The beautiful thing is, we never die.

We surrender to living a life committed to serving our heavenly husband.  This means putting Him first, taking care of our family, and working toward the closest relationship possible.

We're whores. 

The most amazing thing about this, though, is that God is madly in love with us.  It hurts Him to see us cheat on Him, but He's so crazy about us that He'll never file for divorce.  He's solemnly sworn to have us, to hold us, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, til death do us part.  He'll keep His side of the bargain for sure.

Marriage is such a beautiful illustration of our relationship with God.
                                      And
God's love toward us is such a beautiful illustration of how earthly marriage should be.

Currently Listening United We Stand By Hillsong United Take it All see related

So...

Yesterday was an interesting day for me.
I did absolutely nothing, yet God accomplished much in me.

Yesterday completely sucked.  Like Josh said, you know you're having a bad day when you can list out what went wrong.  I woke up in a bad mood, my sister pissed me off quite royally for no plausible reason, I ran into my shelf and hit my funny bone, I picked up my purse and all my stuff fell out, bad hair day, my mom and I are already fighting and I got back from Florida just two days ago....et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, etc.

And you would think it would've been a great day.  I woke up late, ate lunch with my sister and two friends, swam, got to eat dinner with my girl friends, saw a bunch of people I graduated with; it was ideal for many people.

But God instilled revelation in my heart yesterday, and I'm still trying to sort it out.  Before I start, I'm going to go ahead and say that I am not typing this for anyone's entertainment or input.  I'm sorting out my feelings, and this is basically my way of journaling because I can't write as fast as I type [which is a shame because I've got a great journal waiting to be written in...].  However, all comments, complaints, concerns, and prayers are welcomed wholeheartedly.

I was very pessimistic yesterday, and I firmly believe I needed to be in that state of mind for any of this to occur to me.  Little things bothered me, but I realized huge flaws within myself because of them. 

I thought, "I'm sick of people walking all over me."  What the REAL issue is here is that I do not understand what truly turning the other cheek means.  Jesus was talking about during persecution.  I'm pretty sure Jesus was never a pushover.  He gladly helped people out, yes, but I'm not quite sure if Jesus was ever the errand boy for Peter.  I'm pretty sure he never said, "How high?" when someone said, "Jump."  I've realized I'm just a big pushover.  I don't stand up for myself or what's fair.  Now, I know that life isn't fair, and for that matter, grace and mercy aren't fair either.  However, when it comes to people manipulating me to get what they want, I just let them do it, and that's not fair to me.  It bothers me every time it happens to me, so why do I let it happen?  I'm a pacifist.  Possibly another flaw?  I've just realized that the only way I will be able to fully understand the concept of turning the other cheek while also not allowing myself to be trampled over is to be a true leader.  Yeah, sure, I've got good leadership qualities.  Yes, I held many leadership roles at school, but how much of school really means anything anymore?  I'm about to go to COLLEGE.  Nobody cares that I was president of student council, and I single-handedly pulled off a Sadie Hawkins dance.  That doesn't mean shit.  That's not being a leader.  That's just one leadership quality that I already possess: initiative.  However, I'm a firm believer that leaders are made, not born.  Yes, most leaders are born with qualities that others do not possess, but how one develops those qualities means a hell of a whole lot.  How have I developped my qualities thus far?  Am I TRULY to my full potential right now?  I sure hope not; that would be disappointing. 

Disclaimer: I do not believe that cussing is wrong.  Words are words, and if you're going to say it's a sin to call someone a dumbass, it's also a sin to call someone an idiot.  It's all about the motives behind the words.  So I daresay that over three fourths of what we say is wrong, whether there are words that society has deemed "unwholesome" that come out of our mouths or not.  With that being said, I shall press on.

I cussed a lot yesterday.  I mean, I cuss every now and then; no big deal [well, to some it obviously is because I now lack a home church].  The only problem I have with this is: it's not Melissa Kate Collier to cuss like that.  That wasn't me.  I conformed to who I was with yesterday.  And that makes me sad.  It doesn't piss me off; I disappointed myself.  I'm such an anti-conformist, yet there I was dropping an f-bomb?  What the hell [haha irony?]??  It's obvious that we're all hypocrites, but it's such a humbling experience to see the full extent to which I am a hypocrite.  It hit me like a brick wall as I was walkikng back to my car from Target yesterday.  This sucks.  I thought I was a leader, not a follower.  It all goes back to how I've developed my qualities.  If I can't even be myself around anyone, how the heck I'm going to be able to preach individuality, anti-conformity, and being truly set apart by loving others to my future youth ministry?  If I can't be transparent and real, why should I expect that of others?
Fake people get on my nerves.  You know, the ones who laugh really loud just for attention even when something's not funny, or the ones who don't laugh because they act like they don't get it.  Or the ones who smile when they're not happy, the ones who talk about other people and spread rumors to cover up their own flaws and insecurities.  Or the ones who act differently around certain people in order to fit in.  I did that yesterday [the latter of the long list].

These revelations processed in my head all day long, but it was only 3:00 p.m.  I still had much more to learn yesterday.

The bitchy exchange of words my mom and I partook in simply confirmed how much I hate living at home.  I honestly do not know how I'm going to survive for two months here.  Luckily, I got a job, so I'll be asking for as many hours as possible to keep myself out of this hellhole I'm supposed to call home.  I stay in my room all day long, or I'm out with other people.  I make sure to avoid my mom as much as possible because anything she says to me is bitchy, and vice versa.  I can't wait to move to Arkansas.  I'm not happy here at all.  I'm not even able to be myself around here because I am criticized for everything.  I'm interrupted, misunderstood, mistrusted for no reason, and handed the leftovers.  It's happened ever since I could remember, but now that I'm thinking for myself, I'm realizing the crappiness of it.  It's so hard to realize that the people that are supposed to love me are using me and walking all over me.  Whether they realize it or not, it's inexcusible.  I can't even tell them because they will interrupt me and LAUGH AT ME.  Yes, they do it quite often when I bring up valid points.  I hate it here.  I'm not heard in my own house.  It's sad when my home number is labelled "house" in my cell phone.  There's no way that can be home.  If it is, I'm screwed.  I'm sick of trying.  Should I seriously have to TRY to be loved in my own house with my own flesh and blood?  I'm crying out to them, and they laugh at me.  Literally.

So I went to a party last night.  Yeah, I said it.  MELISSA COLLIER was at a party with alcohol.  Well, it wasn't a party; it was more of a get-together.  I didn't drink.  It stinks.  The alcohol, that is.  There's no way I'd put beer in my mouth for fun haha. 

Another disclaimer: I am in no way judging the people who were at the party.  If I were judgemental toward them, I wouldn't have gone at all.  I'm not saying that people who don't go to parties are judgemental, but I AM saying that judgemental people don't go to parties. 

Yet another dislcaimer:  I am not directing the upcoming literature to any specific people.  These are blanket statements, and I am aware that there are exceptions to every rule.  I pray that no one is offended, but if someone is, I pray that they will see truth behind what I've said.  I'm not going to apologize for what I'm about to say, because I'm not sorry.  I'm speaking truth from my perspective.  These are my opinions, and this is my blog.  So if you ARE offended, and if you don't like what I'm saying, stop reading.  I didn't invite you to read this. :)

People are lost.  It's sad when people say they NEED someTHING.  Our world is so completely materialistic and...well, worldly.  Last night, I was asked why I am so perfect.  The term perfect to him meant sober and still happy and having a good time.  I simply told him that I didn't need alcohol to be happy.  Another girl told me that she needed the alcohol to loosen up.  I understand that some people are shy and uptight, but I am shy around people I don't know very well also.  I still don't need alcohol to loosen up.  What we really need is to GET TO KNOW THE PEOPLE. 

So last night, I was given the opportunity [and yes, I believe this was a divine appointment.  GASP!  No way God could use me at a party...psh!] to invest in people's lives.  I was able to help some people that I'd never really even talked to before.  Simply BEING at this get-together proved that I'm not judgemental to them.  I was told that I always intimidated people because I was so "perfect" and judgemental [oxymoron right there].  And I was able to humbly nod and admit that past flaw, and I actually APOLOGIZED to many people for being bitchy years ago.  I got to completely start over with a few people, and that was freakin awesome!  As crazy as it was, I was soooo completely set apart last night.  I'm a firm believer that the darker the darkness is, the brighter the light seems.  I was the only one not drinking.  The only one.  The peer pressure was CRAZY last night.  I was prodded at least 20 times to at least "take a sip."  I'm not gonna lie, I was tempted to take a sip just to get them off my back.  But God allowed me to be there and stay firm to be set apart, proving that Christians who don't drink are still able to coexist with "sinners" and have fun.  This could quite possibly be a breakthrough! :)

There is so much drama wrapped up in alcohol.  It's just not worth it to me.  I really can only think of one pro of drinking, and even that is relative.  People drink to get drunk.  I GUESS that's a pro?  I don't see how being disoriented is a good thing, but whatev.  I'll give that one to them.  Haha.  Other than that, people are constantly lying to save their butts, thinking up crazy schemes just to get away with crap...people do stupid stuff while drunk.  People hook up, make out, kiss, mess around, and the next day it's awkward because they're best friends.  There's so much regret, lying, and drama.  Definitely NOT worth it.

God allowed me to go through all this crap yesterday as a warning.  This is the path that I'll be going down if I don't stop conforming to other people.  Yesterday it was just cussing a lot.  But what happens the next time I go to a party?  The peer pressure is only breaking down my walls.  I'm fine being around it today, but the more comfortable I get with the presence of alcohol, I'll only get more comfortable with the thought of taking "just one sip."  I'm in no way saying that I'm going to drink, because I'm sooo highly completely against drinking.  I've encountered enough of it all my life, and can't handle the possibility of my becoming like my father.

In other words, God showed me the slippery slope that I'm flirting with.  It's scary and humbling to admit that I could slip and fall. 

With all that being said, I'm hoping it's quite obvious that I did not feel very comfortable at this get-together, and I won't be going back.  It's not my cup of...tea?  Vodka?  Haha.  I'd much rather spend my nights painting with Josh or hanging out at Starbucks partaking in deep philosophical conversations [dang, I really miss those...].

I just reread all this, and it all sounds extremely...conservative.  And now I'm cringing at the thought.  I'm in no way saying that I refuse to associate myself with certain people.  I consider everyone at last night's get together my friend, and there is nothing they could do to change that.  I do not pick and choose my friends according to their purity, godliness, or sinlessness.  All are welcome.  I AM a Christian, remember?  :)  I will continue to hang out with my friends, and no one can or should tell me that this is wrong or sinful because it's not.  All I'm saying is that the party scene isn't for me.  Please don't read too much into this and consider me a conservative.  I'm most definitely not.

I need prayer.  I need strength.  I need Jesus more than ever right now.  This is such an awkard stage in my growth process.  I'm realizing hypocrisy in others as well as myself, and it's weird.  I fear I've lost sight of my joy.  It's hard to find joy in such hypocrisy.  It's the pessimist in me, of course.  Yes, I do have joy that God is on my side and that I'm being used by Him in weird ways.  However, it's not that overflowing innocent joy.  It's sad growing up.  I know too much to be completely innocent and carefree anymore.  God, please bring me back to my childlike faith and joy.

Growing pains suck.

Currently Listening Americana By The Offspring Pretty Fly for a White Guy see related

Prayers answered slowly.

1.  I never prayed against anyone.

But I did pray for humbling to take place.  It's neat watching that happen.  Don't get me wrong: I'm not watching, waiting, and hoping for anyone's failure, but it IS interesting to watch how God is unveiling minor details, past and present, in order for others to see hypocrisy and judgement.

2.  Kasi is better and gets to go to Florida with us!!!

3.  I've been able to forgive much easier since I uncurled my fingers from my grasp of that aspect.

4.  My mom and I are talking again, at least.  Improvement's gotta start somewhere, eh?

Praying regularly has given me a heightened sense of closeness to the Man.  I've noticed that my prayers have been/are being answered slowly but surely. 

Realizing that my prayers HAVE been answered has given me such joy in knowing the Man who has the Power to listen to my bitching and whining...And he still loves me. 

Awe.

Currently Listening Spoken For By MercyMe Word of God Speak see related

Revelling.

Currently Listening Left of the Middle By Natalie Imbruglia Torn see related

Words for the Day:

1.  haughty- scornfully and condescendingly proud

     It seems as if the only excusable sin in the "church" is haughtiness.

2.  histrionic- dramatic or emotional; affected

     My senior year has been notably histrionic: both positive and negative instances have made it so.

3.  resolution-  a firm determination; a resolving to do something

     Melissa's life resolution: to love and forgive as Jesus does.