simple cutting to confidence.

Yes. It has been at least a month since I Am Second Mondays has happened.

But that streak was stopped tonight.

Last time I had made the commitment to patch things up with my family. We had been arguing and thankfully I had fulfilled my commitment. There are still some rough patches that need to be fixed but its better than nothing. This week I made the commitment to give everything to God and to write down one good memory of my cat, Dumpling. We had to put her down this past Saturday. She was 14 years old and was the one that slept with me every night throughout my high school career. I miss her so much and I have been struggling with the fact that she is gone but I know that she is not hurting anymore and that she is in a better place. I hope that writing down one memory of her will help my heart and maybe the pain will lessen.

This week we watched the video with Victoria Childress. Her story was that she struggled with family issues, moving around, scavenging for food, no place to sleep, etc. This started at a very young age and she didn't know how to deal with it properly. She turned to cutting her arms and even one time she carved S.A.D. into her arms. This was when she was 13 or 14. Her mother caught her one time and took her to a physician. This physician didn't try to diagnose her, he simply just like Victoria talk to him and tell him her story. At the end, he told her to sign a living contract, that she would live her life and that she wouldn't let things put her down. If she ever felt like she wouldn't be able to make the commitment she was to call him and talk to him. She started praying silently and asking God to help her to fulfill this contract. He came into her life and helped her to stop cutting her arms. She knew that she could go to Him anytime that she needed someone to talk to and to let all her emotions out. Once she finally moved, she started going to church and everyone there accepted her for who she was. She loved knowing that people would be there for her and help her anytime she needed it.

And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.

And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me." For he was saying to him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" 

And Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "My name is Legion, for we are many."

And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, "Send us to the pigs; let us enter them."

So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned in the sea. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened.

And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 

And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. 

And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. And he did not permit him and said to him, "Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you."

Mark 5:2-19