#asksutra

Hi!

Sure, I can tell you my understanding of it. It’s from a psalm in the Bible which you would have to read in full to get the picture, but: I highlighted that line because the poetry of it stands out to me. If we back up a few verses, from v31, it says:

For who is God, except the Lord?

And who is a rock, except our God?

It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect.

He makes my feet like the feet of deer, 

And sets me on my high places.

He teaches my hands to make war,

so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

It’s a passage that focuses on the provision, strength and reliability of God. It resonated with me because I have been in a place where I felt weak, frustrated, fatigued and useless.  That I could be told that God can and will make my feet ‘like the feet of deer’ is a miracle to me because in my circumstance the last thing I was was light on my feet and able to run this race of faith. That He can and will ‘set me on my high places’ amazes and encourages me, because it means He can do what I can sometimes feel is impossible, that He has given and knows my high places and purpose and calling. And finally, to learn that ‘He teaches my hands to make war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze’ is a powerful comfort. My hands that have felt weak and purposeless and unruly, can be taught to carry strength (’bend a bow of bronze’ - bronze is very strong! To bend that with one’s hands is a metaphor of the strength God can give us to deal with what we are facing in our lives and overcome it). That line in particular, is one about defeating the odds.

In short, it’s a metaphor for not relying on yourself, but on God. Remembering who He is and will always be: God. Rock, healer, comforter, redeemer, faithful friend. When we face trials we need to declare who God is to remind ourselves and those against us (For who is God….? And who is a rock…?) . When we remember, we gain comfort and beyond that we can rely on him to give us the strength for breakthrough. 

Does that help? Definitely have a read for yourself and see what you understand by it. You could also email me (contact details here) :)

Have a good day.

Honey,

I’m glad to hear you feel inspired by some of what I do. That’s dope. So, thank you for sharing!

I want you to know this, though: seeking influence will get you no where substantial. You will end up depressed, compromising on yourself and your worth if you start a journey on the basis of what other people will give you (i.e. attention, agreement, praise, fans, followers).

So, when it comes to your creativity, don’t wish to be influential…ever. Simply wish to create, and with time…as you get better…you will begin to create to not only share with others, but to teach and to provoke questions. To effect change. To connect. To heal.

Tips for you besides that:

Start. Beginnings are small things, sometimes quiet and sometimes loud. Treasure yours and be patient with your process(es). Try to write often and explore your own way of doing things. Everyone creates differently but you have to learn about yourself in the first place. A blog is a good way to get out there if you write often - with writing, i’m on both tumblr and wordpress. I think Tumblr is more fun to get into early on.

Get your heart right. I believe that any form of art is sacrifice. Realise early on, that if you’re serious about this you will be opening yourself up for the good of everyone else before yourself. If influence or a good name comes with it too then well, take it. But if it doesn’t, you need to already have the sort of heart that will keep you creating anyway. Review your motivations for what you want to do and how you want to do it.

Put yourself out there. Try new things e.g. reading out your work at open mics, submitting for prizes or magazines, linking up with people with similar interests. Always ask, ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ Rejections build character.

Read other people’s work. I used to read and read and read…I read anything I could get my hands on. Now, I don’t get to read stuff as much (medical textbooks have kinda filled up that space :( ) but i’m still reaping the benefits of all those years of reading different stuff. It’s never too late to start. Books are a treasure. Libraries excite me. :)

Writers have a gift, just like dancers and musicians and painters etc do. It will take some discipline to nurture it (e.g. try to commit time each week to writing if not every day) but also, you will need to take breaks from time to time. If you don’t, it will turn into a chore and you will grow to despise it. So sometimes, step away from your journal/notepad/computer and experience life. Be poured into. Get inspired yourself. Do some growing. And then come back to the process.

Hope these tips help a bit. The biggest thing I would say to do is to believe in yourself and just go for it. Also, don’t play by rules or try to make your writing a copy of another writer’s. We can admire each other’s styles of expression, but leave some room to do things your way.

All the best with it!

Love,

Aaah my reply was deleted!! Sorry, I just realised.

Thank you so much for your message, friend :) I appreciate you. Really glad to hear you felt you could connect to the story ‘Hide’ tells! :) Hope to meet you some day.

Much love,

Cool question. 

Mine is this: Is there a form of love that doesn’t require sacrifice? I don’t believe there is. The mother who leaves work early, the father who gets 2 jobs to support his family, the child from a poor background who leaves school so their younger sibling can also have a shot. Or easier examples: the random girl who shares her lunch with you, the couple who sit with you and miss their bus so you can pretend you’re with them and not get harassed by the boys calling out to you at the stop (lol).

Love is a sacrifice. And you can love in small things or in big ways. But to love, you must be open. The very act of loving, is placing your needs secondary to another’s. And when that person reciprocates, it’s perfection.

Those are my thoughts, anyway.

1. i’m working on tagging as many questions as possible that people have asked me since i started this blog, so it’s easier for you to read answers and be encouraged. it’s a big task, since my blog was started in 2011…but, making progress. if you type ‘#asksutra' or 'asksutra’ in the search tab (left sidebar), you should find some you can start reading.

2. i’ve received so much goodness over the last 24hours, from releasing ‘hide’ :) ..thank you. you can download it now on bandcamp by clicking here if you want. otherwise, continue listening right here on my tumblr.

3. i told you i’ve got a surprise coming in a couple of weeks. it’s still coming, and it’s going to be great. i ask only that you keep me in prayer for what’s to come, and i’ll share with you in due time <3

You are so sweet! <3 <3 <3 You don’t have to be anon for this, surely? :) And, thank you. I’m so glad to have helped in some way! 

Flo and I did a song over a year ago, called Raindrops. It was on her first mixtape (Rhymes & Kicks) via soundcloud - but we’ve both grown a lot since then so expect a difference if we do another track ;) 

Bye, honey. Haha

Honey, your story is creepily familiar to me. To know that you are unfound, is actually the first step in the right direction. 

The answer to how we find ourselves, is long and personal and complex. But I want you to understand this first: to find your self you have to ask your self who you think you belong to. If I place overwhelming importance on the opinions other people or my family have of me, I am teaching myself that my being belongs to them and should therefore strive to please them. I look to them for confirmation, and for acceptance. When they offer me neither of those things, I become depressed and hopeless as a result.

So then, who do I belong to? Myself? No, not even. If I place overwhelming importance on the opinions I have of myself, I am teaching myself that I belong deeply to myself alone and will strive solely to please myself. This is a lonely, selfish existence, one that ends in ruin. You cannot look to yourself for confirmation or for acceptance because you had very little say in the circumstances that brought you where you are today, and there are lies you have been taught about yourself along the way, which you probably still believe to be true. The self is finite, the self has limited perspective, the self has limited power on its own.

The correct answer to the question of belonging, is God. You belong to God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Not in the way a pet belongs to an owner, but in this: your being, your heart and mind are set up to be the resting place of a King. You have the option to choose to use them for alternative purposes, which come with consequences. But summatively, this is what you were created for. To display the glory of God. To be streamlined with the heart and mind and being of a mighty, transcendent Creator. If we can understand the power in this, we start to refuse to conform to anything that is clearly not who we know we should be. We also start to refuse to live a life below what we know we are called for. We start to fight battles we never knew we had been prepared for. We start to love other people and ourselves as He does. We can look to God for confirmation and for acceptance because He has already accepted us. 

Do you understand?

John 3:16 in the Bible tells us that 

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 

When He died on the cross, He bridged the gap between us and Himself. A gap that we had ourselves created. At the end of the day, it’s your heart that matters. Who do you think you and it belong to?

Think through these things, and please email me if you feel lead to [email protected] because you’re not alone. For real. I have found God and it’s the most indescribable completion. But I am still finding myself; I do not think that will happen until I have come to the end of my life. The most practical advice I can give you, besides all the thinking you need to do etc, is to STOP.

Stop trying to fit in.

Stop trying to please everyone.

Stop being afraid.

Stop condemning yourself.

Stop running from God.

It’s likely that at the stage you’re at now, God is calling you to sacrifice something. You probably already know what it is…if not, it’s something that you know is holding you back. 

To trust God is to take risks..that is the core of faith. My advice to you would be to not give up on yourself, and ask Him for the strength to seek Him through everything and to do whatever it is He is asking you to do. Listen. 

Once you let it go, you free up the space in your life that He should have occupied long ago. There is no recipe to this process, my love. It might be messy, it will be likely to hurt. But know this:

1. To know your self, you must know God first. Let Him be enough. 

2. To know God, you must find Him. He is nearer than you think, and He is found when you choose to listen. In Revelations 3:20 He says to us, 

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

Allow Him in. 

The irony I have found is that you find God when you begin to search for your self. He is the only one that reveals your self to you. But do not begin the journey, solely to find your self. Begin it to encounter God in His glory. The life change, the deliverance, it all happens along the way.

I will pray for you.

Love,

Honey, i’ll be honest with you. I have cried over all those things but somewhere along the way, I have also begun to rejoice. Pain is an inevitable part of the human experience and unlike what we would desire it to be, it is an uncontrollable aspect of living on earth. I choose to rejoice because I serve the God of completion, and I know that whatever pain I have will not be the end of me so long as I continue to trust Him with my heart. 

The hanging on by a thread…where do you think the strength to hang on even comes from? The strength to be, to exist? In a way…your pain is teaching you what you are made of. Each new day, while hanging on to that thread, is a victory. I don’t have any other answer for you besides that you must keep trusting that He who keeps you hanging on (God), will keep you for today and the next day. And the day after that. Celebrate the victory of living, with humility. Healing will always be a process. The key, is to daily (a) acknowledge your weakness and fallibility, (b) surrender your struggle i.e. ask and then allow God to take the reins, and (c ) take each day as it comes. 

Were I condemned to spend the rest of my entire life breaking at mine and our brokenness, I would still place my trust in God. But there isn’t any chance of that being mine or your story, because God assures us of the temporary nature of ALL sorrow. ‘Joy comes in the morning,’ He says. These too He also says:

I get it. Hebrews 2:18 ‘For because He Himself has suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.’I am by your side. Psalm 34:18 ‘The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.’I am enough. Psalm 18:2 ‘The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I rake refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.’

On the hope we can place in the future, we can be encouraged:

Revelation 22:4-5 ‘They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.’Romans 8:18 ‘For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.’

On the universal nature of pain:

1 Corinthians 10:13 ‘No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.’

Do not put your pain on the pedestal where God should be. But do not ignore it either. Embrace it and remember that pain is a lesson which leads us to repentance. And repentance leads us to where we are safest, in God. In Him is where the strength comes to overcome everything. If you are truly trusting Him with what you are going through, believe this: There will be an end to it, and He knows when that time will be, and He will see you to that end. Be patient, remain faithful and remain open. Learn the lessons in this season, and be good to yourself as best you can.

You can email me [email protected] if anything.

Love,

-S.

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Here are some amazing quotes on pain:

I am not a theologian or a scholar, but I am very aware of the fact that pain is necessary to all of us. In my own life, I can honestly say that out of the deepest pain has come the strongest conviction of the presence of God and the love of God. — Elizabeth Elliot

I am certain that I never did grow in grace one-half so much anywhere as I have upon the bed of pain. — Charles Spurgeon

Pain removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul. — C.S. Lewis

Pain is no evil, unless it conquers us. — Charles Kingsley