Love

Jealousy.

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I had a crazy last week guys, so I didn’t post.

Fun fact: My out of state friends tell me that you don’t refer to girls or mixed groups as “guys” in some states. Maybe that’s going out now that we share so much media, but apparently it marks me as a West Coast gal.

Now, you’re seriously going to wonder about it the next time you see someone use it, right?

Anyway, I have a myriad of weighty subjects I could write about, and probably will, but I’ve been considering for a while that I should write a post about Jealousy.

I’ve mentioned it before, that there’s good and bad jealousy, but I apparently ave never devoted a whole post to it. So here goes…

Guys: You need to get more jealous.

Yeah, I said it.

I’ll cut to the chase, according to the Bible, Jealousy is a godly quality.

“Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” (Exodus 34:14.)

I saw in some comment section somewhere that this person was talking God down for being described as jealous. God has been criticized for this declaration.

It certainly can be annoying, if you are trying to devote yourself to other things besides God, to have Him always interfering with it. A lot of trouble in life happens because we chase after false gods, and the Lord destroys them, much how H destroys their idols and altars in the Bible.

Jealousy is a consuming fire, as God describes Himself to be. But we should be grateful for that, because int he same way that fire destroys what we love and idolize, it also eats up the things we find ourselves in bondage to.

God will not have us enslaved to fear, doubt, and depression any more than to pleasures. He is just as jealous that the darkness will not have us as He is that false light will not.

There are some movies and shows and books that have beautifully portrayed this with human relationships. Often ones with a bit riskier of a plot. A character had a love interest that had a darkness or flaw that they can’t seem to shake, the character proceeds to love with a fierce kind of love, ready to go to any lengths to deliver them from their darkness.

The infamous Luke and Darth Vader example isn’t the most poignant for jealousy specifically, but it shows a little bit of it.

I really love that type of story.

Often we do not think of that as jealousy.

Jealousy is a fierce hatred for something that steals away your beloved. Anything that takes what you feel is rightfully yours from you.

It gets a bad rap because people are so flawed that they take jealousy to an extreme it shouldn’t be taken to. They want to own more than they should.

In an odd paradox, you really can have someone belong to you completely, yet belong to themselves at the same time. The more free they are, the more yours they are. Good jealousy exists to protect that freedom form outsiders who might try to steal it away be deceit or by force.

Jealousy, in romance, is a sign that the relationship is real, usually. There are petty people who will be jealous over nothing. It’s also not right to be jealous of someone who’s already committed to another person. even if you can’t help the feeling, you shouldn’t act on it.

Yet, I really can’t stand the thought of being with a guy who wouldn’t get at least a little upset if he caught me with another guy, or another guy was hitting on me in front of him.

I’ve liked someone for quite a while, and I got surprised by the amount of jealousy I felt over the thought of him dating someone else. (We’re not together, sadly, but the idea made me mad anyway.)

I am no stranger to jealousy of other types too. My emotionally abusive father liked to make me jealous on purpose. Plenty of parents do it by accident, he would deliberately provoke me.

Oh, yeah, people can be provoked to jealousy.

We all have heard a story about the girlfriend or wife who messes with her husband to get him to prove a point.

I actually don’t think that is always wrong. Don’t set someone up for failure, but to reasonably test their loyalty is sometimes appropriate.

“Set me as a seal upon your heart, As a seal upon your arm; For love is as strong as death, Jealousy as cruel as the grave; Its flames are flames of fire, A most vehement flame.” (Song of Solomon 8:6)

In this verse, a new bride is telling her husband to put her as a seal on his arm, and heart, warning him that love and jealousy are like death, relentless.

Love is relentless trying to do good to the beloved, and if the beloved wanders from that, ceases to receive it or to be around for it, Love will be painful like death. The loss and grief of love is a lot like losing someone to death, as you who have had very painful breakups can attest to.

On top of that, if the beloved goes to another source for what he or she should only get form you, jealousy will seek to remove that source by any means necessary.

And yet, the bride warning her groom is done in a pure and passionate tone that I find very compelling. It is not said in cruelty or bitterness or even in distrust. The Bride simple recognizes that her beloved is precious, and others besides her may want to steal him away.

There’s a desire in women, and I think men too (I’m not one) to protect someone by the sheer act of loving them. AS if all the love we pour into a person could be like a shield to them from evil.

The truth is, it can be. Love will not stop you from suffering, but if you’ve received it and let it sink deeply into your heart and soul, that love can protect you from suffering destroying who you are.

Love is joy even in the worst of circumstances. Peace in the face of trouble. Hope when there is nothing else to hope for.

If anyone can love us, then, there must be something worth living for and waiting for. Love itself proves the existence of better things. Nothing so wonderful could exist if the world was all bad.

And we should protect that with all the jealousy we can muster. It’s why toxic relationships have to be ended. Protect your ability to love and be loved above all else, people.

And if you meet someone who’s as fierce about that as you are, you stick with that one.

Well, that’s all I have to say for now, until next time–Natasha.

Why I got into Anime (not just fangirl-ing, promise.)

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I wrote my last post on Sunday, and the blog site says it was Monday, my sister asked if I learned time travel…

Yeah, no, maybe it’s a zoning thing?

I think maybe a more lighthearted post after all the serious stuff would be nice, so I thought I’d talk about why I got into anime.

Contrary to the norm, I only got into anime in the last year, and the last 6 months or so of that year is when I got into watching more than a select few.

I have friends who like it who encouraged me to check out more after I got into RWBY, and my sister eventually talked me into watching My Hero Academia, and since that blew my mind, I tried Cells at Work, The Great Passage, The Quintessential Quintuplets, Toradora, Kaguya-Sama: Love is War, Konosuba (not recommending that one), Tsuredure Children (cute one), The Rising of the Shield Hero (really good), Naruto, and now Fairy Tail, I’m still working on the last two. I prefer Fairy Tail, but both are good in a different way.

I also finally watched Avatar on my other sister’s persuasion, and enjoyed that, though I liked RWBY more, but avatar is really well-paced.

My absolute favorite is still MHA, I don’t think that will change unless the unthinkable horror of the show drastically changing its tone happens in the future. I mean, I know season 4 will be dark, but I know plenty of light and funny things that are also going to happen. And best boy Bakugo will be part of them.

Don’t fight me if you watch it and prefer Todoroki, he’s my second favorite. And really, I almost couldn’t choose. If you asked me which I’d rather see in an arc, I’d quote that vine where the girl says in Spanish “Why can’t I have both?”

And best girl Momo too, still waiting for the three of them to all work together, and if you think it’d be boring, watch the Jump-fest OVA, and it’ll blow your mind.

But, hey, if you don’t watch anime, that’s fine. I refused– well to be accurate, I just didn’t know it was a big thing–for years.

I watched Ponyo back in gradeschool, and one episode of Dragon Ball (Z, I think) without really getting it. Maybe Yugio once too. I’m not sure what it was.

See, my mom wouldn’t let me watch TV unless it was at someone else’s house, or unless it was the wholesome kids channels. I don’t have any hate for that, since if I had watched anime as a kid it would have been way too intense for me. I think now is the perfect time in my life to appreciate it.

Anyone who thinks anime is for kids has not watched any of the popular ones, Naruto is supposedly a kid’s show, though maybe the fans wouldn’t say so, and I’m two seasons in, I would not show this to a kid under 12 at least.

I’m not going to shame people for not liking anime, the format is weird. I find it charmingly weird, now that I’m used to it, but it took at least the first season of mha for me to get used to it. And MHA is a little lighter on the tropes than other ones, because it’s supposed to appeal to more people, I think.

Also the pacing in many anime is strange, even if you’re fine with the yelling. The humor is just as much visual as verbal. I have never liked visual humor all that much. In all honesty, I don’t laugh a lot at most of it. And sometimes an arc can take, no joke, 8-10 episodes to set up, and 2 episodes to finish. The movies are better for that.

All this is reason enough to frustrate some people, I couldn’t blame them.

But I also understand why it’s such a huge craze now.

I’ve spent most of my life frustrated by the messages TV and movies in America send to kids and adults alike.

I don’t like how idiocy is portrayed as funny, cruelty is portrayed as funny, and often as not, a show has no real point besides cheap gags, and character stereotypes that the writers seem to assume are funny to the masses.

I guess it works. From what I hear with the people around me, they pick which shows they will ignore the bad stuff with, and which shoes they will criticize, based on a few superficial differences.

You like vampires? Then you ignore how stupid the movies and shows are. You like zombies? Ditto. You like both, then sure, but if the same problems show up on a show with normal teenagers, then you can hate on that.

Anime still has its problems with stereotypes. People who have been watching it for years find it more annoying than me because it’s all still a novelty to me, I’m already sick of harems, the pervy characters, the fan service, and…well dragging out romances and never just letting it happen.

But to the accusation that all anime is light porn, or hentai, if you’re into the lingo, I would respond that shows in america show people having sex on camera, stabbing each other, and being creepy, and it’s not animated, it’s real people, and often teenagers.

The amount of anime that actually show sex or anything coming of the innuendos are very few compared to the ones that just tease it.

I don’t mean that I think it’s right, but I at least don’t get as bothered by it as I do by seeing real people do it like it’s nothing.

You have to pick and choose too.

What outweighs the negative stuff, in my opinion, is that anime do not hesitate to tackle moral issues, and often heavy ones.

Contrary to America, the favorite message, form rom-com anime to shonen (action) anime is that hatred is bad for you, and that you have to be willing to forgive, and to forgive yourself.

Anime combines this with an holy respect for sometimes needing to deal severely with the person who hurt you. Or to have your friends help you deal with it.

And the message usually concludes with the need to move forward, and letting love back into your life.

Anime is as full of lonely characters as most media is, and they are often  stereotypes. But the stereotype includes good qualities. Cold characters learn to care, rougher characters can have a heart of gold, meek characters learn courage, and the protagonists are often extremely noble and kind.

The villains are quite awful, even in the non-shonen type ones, but often they are redeemed even so.

Friendship and love are often the answer, the overwhelming power, even on the lighthearted shows.

And no matter how lighthearted it is, I’ve yet to see an anime that did not tackle the deep things in life.

You can’t go 4 episodes into most of them without it, you can go whole seasons of our shows without any significant change in tone or characters.

Say what you will about people just watching it for the action, action without conviction is empty and boring and wouldn’t be any different form watching sports. People get hyped over the anime battles where the hero confronts their demons and wins.

Basically, it’s the kind of stuff I’ve always wished existed, and I only just now found out it did.

Admittedly, I watch it probably more than I should—said every fan ever–yet, I actually don’t feel guilty, because it’s just that good. It encourages me to face the real world bravely.

Not because I think it’s real, but because I think it’s right. Real or no, the messages of overcoming your problems and not letting the darkness get to you and helping your friends, those are important things. No matter who’s saying it.

In fact, Fairy Tail goes even further with that idea, by making slightly pervy, crazy, or dumb characters often be the ones to spout the deepest truths. The idea being that even with our besetting sins, we are still capable of understand profound things, and everyone has something to offer, even if most of the time they are a jerk.

(Sadly, that means I can’t count Mineta out yet, MHA fans, sorry, but with this writer…you know it’ll happen.)

Anyway, so that’s, in a nutshell, why I’ve come to appreciate this genre. and why I’ve turned into a weeabo, or maybe an otaku, or maybe both…whatever I am, learning all the Japanese words is fun for a language buff like me, so

Arigato, until next time–Natasha.

Heart recovering after abuse.

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It’s been a month since my dad moved out.

Things are slowly beginning to feel different.

Yet, it surprised me how little changed at the same time.

My dad has been so far removed from my life for so many years, that I lost no more substantial contact than the toxic words and an occasional family game night that went okay.

I wonder, if I knew anyone who’d go through this already, I’d ask them if they felt the same, or if the abuse was so involved in them that it was an immediate release.

Slowly, feelings of relief have begun to creep in, but only small ones so far. My mind still hasn’t really grasped it.

My friends have been great about it though.

I also, surprisingly, almost feel like I miss him.

I know it is not so unusual for people on the receiving ends of abuse to feel sympathy for the abuser. It’s not, I think, wholly bad. If you can still see how that person has real needs and feelings even if they are cruel, you are less likely to dehumanize them by being cruel in return.

Though, perhaps never standing up to someone is a form of dehumanizing them, because it keeps them on a pedestal of fear.

I tried to pity my dad so that I would not hate him. Hate would turn me into a person I do not want to be.

I’m not willing to pay the price of hatred, the loss of everything I can feel joy and gladness over, and every other relationship.

I find myself thinking a lot about new beginnings. I had begun to wonder if my dad would hold me back for many years yet, out of fear of me breaking free. My dad never, perhaps, knew he was doing this, but his insecurities did it for him.

I also still feel like he’ll get at me somehow to punish me for this, I think that is also common to people like me.

It’s not, however, completely unfounded, he’s the type of person to do it. I wonder if my success ever depends on him again, if he’ll try to sink me on purpose.

These anxieties keep bugging me, though I do not take them especially seriously.

It’s hard to move forward. I must rethink everything about my life, in a sense, and ask how much of it was affected by the toxicity.

That I still enjoy things at all, and am even able to open up to people, I credit God with.

God has ministered to me through people, often people are imperfect about it, they give up too easily, put their own spin on it, or push too hard when you most need them to ease up and let you breath, but even so, that there are some who try is encouraging to me, because I can hope that I will learn to trust them.

I have trust issues. My dad proved himself untrustworthy many, many times. Every time I needed him, pretty much, he failed me. Then, he blamed me for never relying on him.

I ended up with a very weird complex due to this. If I ever do open myself up to someone, I usually feel like they are just bearing it out of a sense of duty. I tend to withdraw, and then push forward in strange ways.

I tend to not put myself forward just when I most want to be noticed, and then to not set enough boundaries when I am asked for help.

In one way, it’s because my idea of giving is that it is limitless, even if as a human I must rest from it sometimes, but it’s also because I see my services as worth so little.

On top of that, I am confident most of the time, and then I have very poignant insecurities on certain things that surprise people.

Overall, I believe the Holy Spirit has healed me enough that my stronger side is the good things, and the insecurities, while they give me trouble, do not rule me. But they influence me more than I thought.

In the absence of my dad’s abuse, I almost seem to be trying to invent it, to recreate the same feeling, since it was my normal…at the same time, I’m fighting it.

I think, I want to defeat it once and for all, and I could not defeat it in him, so I want to pick a fight with someone I can defeat it with, and finally win.

I could prove I was worthy of more by being strong enough to stand up for myself, or I could plead until someone finally took pity on me like I wanted my dad to.

It’s strange to no longer be the victim. I wanted someone to hear my case for so long, and now it happened, it felt so short, and I am no longer a victim.

In a way, I stopped being one in my mind a long time ago, but the marks of it remain on my soul, where only healing can remove them.

I basically sent my dad the message: NO, you cannot do this to me anymore.

Now, all that remains is to receive the deliverance that came, and move on. Build a new life.

Someday, I hope my dad can come back into it, when he’s had a change of heart.

Can I move from fighting for my own survival to fighting for other people?

Thought I never let my heart die entirely over the years, by giving it to God, it could not help but take damage form this. Now I’ve been looking at it, wondering how it’s doing…

Hello my old heart, how have you been? Are you still there inside my chest? I’ve been so worried, you’ve been so still, barely beating at all…

Hello my old heart, it’s been so long, since I’ve given you away. Every day, I add another stone, to the walls I built around you to keep you safe…

Hello my old heart, how have you been? How is it being locked away? Don’t you worry, in there you’re safe, it’s true, you’ll never beat, but you’ll never break.…Cause nothing lasts forever, some things aren’t meant to be, but you’ll never find the answers, until you set your old heart free…

I began the process of taking down the stones around my heart years ago… by which I mean, God began to heal me. Yet, I had an active role in it too, we choose our path.

Still, I knew that there was more, my capacity to give and receive love is far from full. I seem to have shut down a good portion of it, sufficing on a little bit from time to time.

Like how my dad would occasionally be amiable, never really loving, but not hostile.

I went through a phase years ago of feeling I could be loved all the time, and loved deeply. I’m not sure what happened. I think as people failed me more and I got distracted by adulthood, I stopped tending to my needs as much.

It’s really hard to come out of that. My mind still thinks it’s true, but my heart has a much harder time committing to it.

So, I want my old heart to come back alive again.

Until next time–Natasha.

Love is War.

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103 followers! You guys are awesome!

Sorry it’s been so long, but I had the craziest week you can imagine. I’m not sure I’ll go all into it until it’s over, but it’s quite a story.

Keeping up with my quest to finish MLP, and to watch new animes was the most fun part of a very difficult week.

I checked out Fruits Basket, Konosuba, and there’s more to go.

Konosuba is really stupid, by the way, not recommending that one.

But one my sister and I finished was called Kaguya-Sama: Love is War.

Love is War was really good. It reminded me a bit of a book I read called Love And War.

Of course the latter is a reference to that saying “All is fair in love and war.”

I think as a kid that saying always bothered me, like that should justify everything. But as an adult, I do not think that saying means that love and war can never have moments where you need to be fair, or that there are no principles to either.

On the contrary, the saying means that both love and war create circumstances where what is normally fair just won’t work. It would be suicide in war to give up one’s advantage, and it would be foolish in love to always demand fairness.

But some of you might also agree with the statement Love is war.

On the anime the opening premise is that love is a war between the lovers. That relationships are ruled by one person. And that the two people both want to be the head of the relationship.

Rather than assume it should be the man, as is traditional, the show demonstrates how the woman can still dominate even if the man has to do the asking and take the outward leadership role. We all know married couples, or unmarried ones, where the woman clearly is in charge.

I mean, ladies, we let men think they’re in charge, right? But…

I’ll get back to that in a second.

However, the show also allows that the man may end up leading in actuality also. It is a battle of wills.

Our two lovers start out bullheaded and proud. I found it somewhat funny, but they were both kind of scary to watch, and their friends even thought so. Two highly intelligent, prideful people, duking it out over love is easily a nightmare.

But then the writer of this anime began to demonstrate an unprecedented amount of wisdom. This plot would have been so easy to make cliche, the set up was there, and people would have loved it regardless. Nothing like two feuding lovers to make people watch episode after episode of something.

Instead, the anime went a different direction. Both characters began to grow. We get to see them learn to appreciate their other friends, both of them having been rather lonely beforehand, especially the girl, Kaguya.

Interestingly, Kaguya is the name of a character in Japanese mythology who was divinely sent to a childless couple, and when she grew up had many would be lovers, all of whom she drove away with impossible tasks. One, an emperor, she remained friends with, and he actually cared for her as a person.

At the end of the story Kaguya is revealed to be from the moon, and she ditched earth to go back to it, forgetting all her ties to the people there. Making the emperor sad.

The significance on this anime is not that Kaguya is like the myth, but that the people in her life seem to be trying to force her to be. She’s actually quite affectionate and caring in her own way, but she has a family and servants who try to keep her isolated and cold. Her only real friend at her home is a rather questionable influence in my mind.

Kaguya’s pride, we learn towards the end of the season, is really a mask for massive insecurity. She won’t admit it, but she desperately wants love, but feels she cannot be upfront about it, because it is beneath her. In reality, she is really just afraid to put herself out there because no one else seems to give a rip how she feels. Certainly not her cold and distant father.

Shinogane, the male lead, actually comes to admit that the reason he won’t confess how he feels is because he’s afraid. It’s a little easier for him to admit this because he has a family and understands emotions a little better.

Even once he realizes he is afraid, he still has trouble overcoming it. Well, he’s only human.

But here’s where it got really profound.

In the last few episodes, a situation arises where Kaguya feels like what she wants is impossible. Like she can never escape her life of loneliness. She tries to put on a brave face, and focus on the future, but ends up finally breaking down and shedding some long-reserved tears over it.

After all, it is rather unfair to her.

But then, just when she’s given up (and to me it was interesting that her words here were first to pray to God, and then to despair and think “Right…there is no God”) Shinogane finds her.

The show ends with her finally chasing him to try to thank him, which means she finally humbled herself to show gratitude.

It was interesting to see the pattern throughout the show was that Kaguya’s scheming never got her what she wanted. But every time she or Shinogane put aside their wants to help other people, they got what they wanted too.

It made a strong case for these two belonging together, but needing to mature into it. They are closer by the end of the season to being ready.

And, what I concluded was that you could take the show’s hook a very different way.

Love is war. But it is not war between two lovers. It is war against the odds. Against the problems we face. Against all the obstacles to hinder love from happening.

As I mentioned earlier, women and men’s power struggle can often be complex. Women like to say we let men think they are in charge.

However, one might ask what the difference is between letting men lead and letting them think we do. Leaders are the face of the group that follows them, but they represent what the whole group wants. If they are good leaders.

A man in leadership has to represent what his wife or family wants in the same way. It would be fair to say women guide men in how to guide them.

And if the positions were or are reversed, the same would apply to women. If we are not thinking of what our man wants, we don’t deserve to lead either.

Unfortunately, women actually can have more of a tenancy to lead men for their own gain, in certain situations, than men do. It depends on the person.

I’ve listened to jokes from men about being “trained” by their wives. It always bothered me.

Leadership is not simply training, it is guidance.

The Bible says, speaking of marriage, as well as the church, that we are to submit to one another.

What that means is that each of us is in our way a follower, and each of us is also a leader.

In relationships, a follower may have more control overall, because they can cause the leader to rethink what they decide to do.

In the most ideal of relationships, you would hardly be able to tell which it was. Two people of good judgment, character, and humility can lead each other by turns without making it super obvious.

Though the Bible gives headship to the man, it allows for plenty of times when a woman has to take the initiative.

I don’t really need to discuss gender roles here. I think that any time we try to narrow those down to specific things, we end up making idiots of ourselves. You cannot sum up every situation in one rule.

I think the real thing to focus on is fighting each other’s battles, helping each other, trying to make each other happy or better; not to fight each other over who does what.

I mean this to apply to the practical things of course, in moral issues, there clearly does have to be a standard.

Anyway, check out the anime, and until next time–Natasha.

 

Fluttershy is a difficult character.

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Let me preface this by saying I love Fluttershy, she’s my favorite character.

It’s because of that I say she’s difficult.

I don’t mean difficult is a bad thing, I actually think it’s a good thing. It’s like when people say women are difficult to understand, but it’s good to not be easy to figure out all the time, we shouldn’t always get answers handed to us.

I have to say that Fluttershy from MLP (My Little Pony) is character that is a good example of a show trying to do the hard thing.

You can have a character with a really good flaw and growth arc, and people will love it, and you may never get criticized for it (though I doubt it) but ultimately, we know it’s unrealistic. Who gets over it that quickly?

I think of MHA (My Hero Academia) and the character of Todoroki, he gets a major arc in season 2, but in season 3 we find out he has not completely gotten over what his issues were. He relapses briefly into resentment and hate before snapping out of it, he realizes he has a ways to go still.

No one hates him for this because we recognize it makes sense.

I think of a different character on that show whose arc is similar to Fluttershy’s, Momo Yaoyerozo’s, she has a confidence issue that she confronts in season 2, she doesn’t seem to have that problem again later.

You could say she just completely got over it and moved on, and that the arc was contrived to begin with, and some people do say that.

But Momo’s confidence came initially from never failing, never really doing badly, even when she didn’t do the best, she was always close. Then she fails big time and begins to wonder if she only succeed before because she never was out of her comfort zone. When she regains her confidence, she realizes she can still try and do well even if she makes mistakes. Her confidence over the next season has a more refined feel to it.

It’s not the same as Fluttershy’s story because the reasons for a lack of confidence were different.

And I want to talk about Fluttershy because, though I am far more like Momo now, and sometimes like Todoroki, I used to be Fluttershy.

Watching MLP, I took a quick liking to Fluttershy, I have an affinity for sweet but sassy characters, who doesn’t?

But as I watched more episodes I began to understand why people found her annoying. She repeats her mistakes a lot. She is often irrationally afraid of things. Scared of her own shadow. It seems ridiculous.

What I think is funny is that I’m sure 50% of the people who criticize her for this are bigger cowards than her. I overall don’t think people are especially brave. They rarely do things that make them really uncomfortable, and not often with the grace Fluttershy can at least attempt to have.

It’s been said that courage is not a lack of fear, and just because you are not afraid of that many things doesn’t make you braver than someone who is afraid of everything. Fear is crippling condition to have, and Fear of One thing is just as likely to ruin your life as fear of many things, you just aren’t as likely to notice it.

I am now, at 20, the type of chick who likes hardcore music, fight scenes, and starting controversial conversations. I’m loud, not afraid of being on a stage, and able to stand up for myself.

But I remember that I was once pretty much Fluttershy.

My mom used to get frustrated with how anxious I was all the time, much like Rainbow Dash does. She’s try to talk me out of being afraid to go to social events. I was homeschooled, being around people was something I wasn’t forced to do a lot, but that had nothing to do with being shy, I know plenty of homeschoolers who are not shy. It’s just a personality trait.

I am not shy now. Few people guess I ever was.

I used to be one of those people who think their food or drink got poisoned mysteriously after being left alone for two minutes. I was afraid of mirrors sometimes. I was a hypochondriac. Ironically, I was not a socially anxious person about actually conversations if I had them, that came after years of being told I offended people by accident. But I was shy of starting any conversations.

I’ve always been opinionated, and that never changed. But it didn’t help much. I don’t think shyness makes you less opinionated, since you are less likely to be challenged on opinions no one knows you have.

Like all anxious people, I’d imagine a bunch of ways things could go wrong.

Saying it, it feels so surreal. This is so far from how I spend the majority of my time now, that I’ve almost forgotten I did it.

I think, actually, that that is why Fluttershy gets so much hate. She reminds people like me, who got out of that mindset, what it was like to be in it.

And people do not like to be reminded of it. Remembering being a coward is not fun.

Actually, I do not think Fluttershy is a coward, but it can feel like that to the person. Fear involves torment, even remembering a fear can make you start thinking like that again. Like triggering traumatic events.

I can say, looking back, I was fearful but I’m not sure I was a coward. I gave in to fear a lot, but sometimes I didn’t. A coward is someone who never ever pushes past it, and it is about more than being afraid, a coward lacks loyalty to something more important than fear.

Fluttershy has that.

A coward is selfish. Fluttershy is not selfish, just timid, but timid can be helped because timid can still find something more important than fear.

The cowardice is being afraid to care. Fluttershy has never been afraid to care, and that is her best quality to my mind, she is braver than most of the other characters. It takes major guts to care about Discord. She doesn’t bat an eyelash at that.

There is one more thing though, and that is how easy it is to judge Fluttershy. Even I sometimes want to. But there are so many people like her, should I judge them?

Sometimes I want to. I work with kids, and that kind of shyness is something I see a lot. I wish they didn’t have it because I remember how much I missed enjoying being I wallowed in fears.

But here’s the thing: I’m reminded that God does not despise people who have fears.

God does not like cowardice. But if you are genuinely afraid and wishing you weren’t, God does not despise that. In fact, through out the Bible, Fear is the vice God is shown to be the most compassionate and least harsh toward. Sometimes He gets fed up when people repeatedly disobey Him out of fear, but He’ll be more patient with that than with other flaws.

God knows it is hard to not be afraid, the truth is, not all fears are valid, but fear itself is certainly understandable. The world is dangerous. Without God, we all would be right to be terrified.

But with God, we don’t need to be.

As 1 John says, God is love, and perfect love casts out fear.

God is the only reason I do not live in fear anymore.

But I, who have been set free, still need to be compassionate to those who haven’t been. If I come down on them, I am only doing what I hated people doing to me when I was faird. Fear involves torment because it also involves guilt. Believe me, if you know an anxious person, they feel guilty constantly for their hesitancy.

Actually, those of us who were afraid once can be the hardest on people who still are. Because we got over it.

It’s pure stupidity, to be honest. We think “Oh, I kicked it. I snapped out of it. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps.”

Yeah, it’s idiotic. I’m pretty sure anyone who claims they got out of their fear alone is a liar.

No, we were helped. We shown compassion. Someone helped us stand when we couldn’t get up ourselves.

The reason to be bold is obvious once you have become bold, but never beforehand.

i still get scared, mind you. And I have to remind myself not to be like this. I have the power to now. But it took years and years of small steps.

Fluttershy eventually realizes it’s baby steps to boldness. And she has loving support.

Sometimes when I panicked as a younger Christian, it just helped to have someone tell me it was okay to be scared. That is was legitimate. But that it was false.

Looking back, I want to tell myself that there are always things to be afraid of, but fear doesn’t make them go away, and there is too much to enjoy to waste time worrying.

But I can only say that now because God made that a part of who I am. I didn’t start from that place.

So, Fluttershy is a difficult character because she is an honest one. Fear comes back over and over, but those who overcome it again and again with become Bold.

 

Until next time–Natasha.

Virtue vs. Holiness–Sister post.

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By my sister, from a class we were taking.  3/1/2017:

Lack of morality is running rampant in our nation, today. One only need turn on the TV to see the promotion of drugs, sex, abortion, lack of responsibility, and lack of virtue in general. Still, do we need virtue? Is taking back our virtue, our standard of acceptable morality, the way to fix things? Will it help us, as individuals as well as a nation, to recover from this moral dryness?

One Webster’s dictionary definition of virtue is,

“Moral goodness; the practice of moral duties and the abstaining from vice, or a conformity of life and conversation to moral laws . . .”

Virtue is like a moral code of conduct or the action of living up to that code. People’s “codes” may vary, but a few suggestions come to mind. Generosity, kindness, decorum, temperance, purity, marital loyalty, honesty, etc. Our country could use a little of that, right?

This brings me to my next question: Was Jesus virtuous? 

Whoa, whoa! Stop. Of course Jesus was virtuous! He didn’t commit one sin–not one! I can’t even go one day without sinning. How much more virtuous can you get? 

“As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:14-16 KJV)

You’ll notice the key word here is holy. Is there a difference between virtue and holiness? What is holiness?

John Eldredge talks about this in his book The Utter Relief of Holiness:

“For years I thought of holiness as something austere, spiritually elite, and frankly rather severe. Giving up worldly pleasures, innocent things such as sugar or music or fishing; living an entirely “spiritual” life; praying a lot; being a very good person. Something that only very old saints attain . . . Yet in order to make human beings what they are meant to be, the love of God seeks to make us whole and holy. In fact, the assumption of the New Testament is that you cannot become whole without becoming holy; nor can you become holy without becoming whole.”

He later goes on to cite Hebrews 12:7-13.

“‘Endure hardships as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ‘Make level paths for your feet,’ so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.’”

Mr. Eldredge then says something very singular.

“ . . . Severity is not the point; discipline is not the point. The point is the restoration of your creation. Whatever holiness truly is, the effect of it is healing. That’s what it does to a person.”

When Jesus took our sins to the cross, He also gave us something in return: His holiness. Now God sees us not as we are, with our sin, but as we can and will be as He continues His work in us. Our accepting His gift of eternal life and salvation allows Him to gradually change our sin and chains to righteousness and freedom. It’s not that we don’t experience freedom and righteousness when we accept Him as our Lord and Savior. He helps us to live it out through His holiness in us. Adhering to a moral code doesn’t do that for us. It doesn’t change us; it doesn’t make us good on the inside. 

A nation’s society is made up of people. You can hold a standard up for them to follow, but that doesn’t help them to follow it. I may have a list of characteristics I want to live out; that doesn’t enable me to do so. 

Matthew 5:20 “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Our righteousness has to be greater than the Pharisees’. They weren’t holy. They were concerned only with appearances, with outward shows of goodness. They adhered strictly to a moral code. They had virtue without holiness. Holiness is the true goodness that comes from God. God’s Spirit is called the Holy Spirit. The fruits of His Spirit are, “love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) What does this tell us? Holiness is the wellspring from which true virtue comes. It cannot be the other way around. We cannot acquire holiness through virtue. Anything less than God’s holiness is flawed–Pharisaic–and it’s putting a load on people’s backs that they can’t carry.  

Here’s another reason why holiness is superior to earthly virtue. It’s a relief. Eldredge, in his book, says,

“Look at it this way: Ask the anorexic young girl how she would feel if she simply no longer struggled with food, diet, exercise–if she simply never even gave it another thought. . . . Ask the raging person what it would be like to be free of rage . . . Take the things you struggle with and ask yourself, ‘What would life be like if I never struggled with this again?’

“It would be an utter relief. An absolute, utter relief.” 

Jesus didn’t struggle with sin. It couldn’t touch Him. His virtue came from an inner holiness that drew people to Him. Giving people a list of dos and don’ts will not help them become free from sin. Jesus helps them. He gives them His holiness. I consider holiness–Jesus–the answer to society’s problems today. He is the only way to be free–free from wanting to sin–free from even being able to sin. That is what I want for my life. Jesus’ freedom. 

Thanks sis for letting me post this–Natasha.