My Christ in Christmas quote :)

"Without Christ in Christmas... it's just mas. What the heck is mas?!" ~ (c) Stephanie Josiah

Sleep

The body will not beat sleep... sleep comes for us all... so too comes death. When we sleep, our bodies practice death and when we dream, our souls practice life everlasting (c) "Contemplations in Shades of Night" - Stephanie Josiah, 2011

Facebook Status 11/30/2011

My Facebook Status 11/30/2011

 

Lord, thank you so much that you are strong when we are weak and bold when we show fear... Calm when we're a mess and that you have even more faith in us than we oftentimes have in you. How could you see such promise in us even though we don't always trust in your promises? You are mindblowing! Your love is unreasonable, unending, beyond all understanding. Thank you for each opportunity to praise your name!!! Thank you that you never tire of amazing us and that when we put our trust in you, and brag on you, you show off!!! ~AMEN! AMEN!!! Amen, Praise your name! ♥

‎"Prayer rolls out the red carpet but
Praise makes God the celebrity" ~S. Josiah

Catch Fire

By: Stephanie Josiah  10/01/2011

It is a frustration
trying to set
the world on
fire

don't need a burning bush
my body is ablaze
passion and emotion
hot to the touch

light shakes bone with
power
and friction leads to
flame

I have faith and hope
they cannot see
abilities they
do not know

Even their leaders are
wet
like them - soaking wet
with experience and reason

They speak flammable words
but snuff them out too soon wiith
doubt's cold
dampness

I try to ignite something in them
by action
by speech
but they are wet... they are so wet

I must decide
"stay or leave?"
Fire is snuffed by water
so too is passion by reason and

faith by fear
I should go find
dry people before
there is nothing left but steam

You Cannot Argue

By; Stephanie Josiah  10/3/2011

You cannot argue with a blind man
on what he doesn't see
Or a lame man
on what he cannot run to

Or the deaf
on what you've heard
You cannot argue with a mute
they have no words to give

You cannot force a hateful spirit
to love
or the judgemental
to have compassion

Or the learned
to go back to the basics
something or someone has gotta give
and that's you

You have to give up
or you have to decide to keep
giving anyway
until you lose the argument of your life

because, afterall, you cannot argue with death
it cannot know or understand or feel or touch or see
life and it does not discriminate
of that much... we all have death in common.

BENCHED!

BENCHED
By: Stephanie Josiah  9/27/2011

I'm so eager to play
I have all the skill and talent I need
but coach likes to bench me
he says my enthusiasm and heart
are just what the other team members need
I have a "go out and make it happen" attitude
but coach likes to bench me
he says there is a time and a place
and he's looking for a specific type of player to hit the field
someone who "looks" the part
someone with a knack for professionalism
someone who has the experience and the know how
I just have the heart... shoot, if he could put my heart
and my passion and my courage into the best team player
"it'd be a winning season!" he exclaims as if that's encouragement
to me
but in my mind I hear a voice say
"your heart and passion are all I need to make you
a most valuable player"
"you need no professionalism or experience to
hit my homeruns"
"I take kids and put them up against giants
and turn the game in their favor"
"I make wisdom bow down to the tongues of infants"
"I make lions sleep when they would rather feed"
"I make walls crumble at the sound of men's feet"
"I take the scorching burn out of fire and spare men's lives"
I am frustrated and benched and my heart is pounding
and my hands are shaking
and my efforts rejected
and my energies spent
I've dropped the things I loved
and accepted my seat at the back
I've swallowed the pill of invisibility and sit blue faced
and our team has all these players...
but when our coach
sends them out
they sit on the bench
with
me

Call CSI quote

"So often I tread softly... blend into the wallpaper... speak with teeny italic-fancy loving words... and people think I bleed freakin' rainbows and fuzzy bunnies.
They should see my poems or snip a page from my diary... that's where I do my bleeding... call CSI and let them figure me out, cuz I'll never tell them to their faces, just how much they killed me." Stephanie Josiah 9/26/2011

My FaceBook note, dedicated to my FaceBook people that kept bashing the President...

ENOUGH ALREADY with the President Bashing!

by Stephanie Josiah on Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 7:54am

 

I am not a very "political" person but every now and again it gets to a point where I have to speak out on someone's behalf.  No matter what your political affiliation is I want to talk about something that we should all have in common, and that is respect.

Not every day, but most days I can almost count on running into some kind of insult toward our President of the United States here on Facebook.  Usually some witty joke to have President Obama removed from office or a prayer request (scripture included) for his days to be few, which if you go on to read the rest of that passage, we're not just talking about removing someone from office are we?  It really does blow my mind how many of my Christian friends are posting negative comments about our president and I'll tell you why, and you can take it or leave it... just like you - I'm voicing my beliefs.

In God I trust... not in man.  As a Christian, I know that first and foremost is my trust in God and my respect for Him.  Second, is my respect for my neighbor.  And third is my ability to know the difference between those two beings.  I am not going to set myself up for disappointment by putting ANY president (I don't care what your name or background is) in the place of God, by expecting abilities that are only of God.  I don't for one second believe that ANY individual or group of individuals have the remedy for what is ailing this world and that goes into my next paragraph.

We are living in a fallen world.  Our nation is an awesome nation.  Don't get me wrong, I love this country I even love most of our history (certainly not all of it, but most) and I'll wave its flag all day long in celebration of what we try to stand for.  But, it is not reasonable or even possible for a person to wave a magic wand and cure this country or its people of what I'll refer to as the 5 incurables: 1. Waste, 2. Overspending, 3. Trying to fill the God-sized hole, 4. Selfishness, and lastly 5. Failure to love/respect our neighbors (all of them - not just who we like)

    1.  Waste ~ We as a country either throw everything out or hoard it and turn our homes into dumps.  Some of us recycle, that's awesome, but most of us don't make wise choices when we make purchases.  We buy something and then we let it sit in our house or our garage... or regift it and let's be honest... it ends up in the trash anyway.  We as a nation are even hoarding food.  We have the largest portion sizes this side of the universe... not to exaggerate to the extreme but imagine cutting your portions in half and putting them aside for a care package to a third world country.  A whole family living in a third world country would consider half of what each of us eats in a week "a feast".  Maybe we don't need to send a child 70 cents a day, let's assume the child is already starving and just send the money we would have used to buy too much food for us to consume in the first place.  But I guess waste and world hunger are part of the President's job to solve.

    2.  Overspending ~ Everywhere in the country there is at least one commercial playing for every second in the day.  Be it on the radio, or television, or even YouTube (sheesh, is nothing sacred anymore LOL) and for every commercial comes the message that we "need just this ONE MORE thing" to make us happy or to make us look fly, or to help us fit in, or to be cool, or to make life easier, and so on and so forth...  The only thing worse than being bombarded with all of these commercials and images of what we "need" is that the advertisements work!  They can count on us being in their stores to buy these "necessary" objects to add to our mantles of pride.  Doesn't matter if we had the money to buy it... we've got plastic now and PLASTIC BUYS EVERYTHING.  People get mad at the President because our country is overspending... but we all overspend!  (Go look in your closet and pick out that dress or that suit that you absolutely needed - notice the tag is still on and you didn't wear it yet?  Or what about that fly motorcycle sitting in your garage collecting dust ever since the movie Biker Boyz came out... cough really...)  The best that any president (and I don't care who you put in that position) can do is try to manage the symptoms of incurable diseases called "waste and overspending"... which as far as I'm concerned all go back to greed or pride or an attempt to fill a God-sized hole.  Which is my next number.

    3.  Trying to fill a God-sized hole ~ The real reason for most of the incurable diseases, that we're expecting the President to fix, if you trace their origins you'd find all lead you back to some feeling that you're missing something or someone.  That urge to buy a new car might not have anything to do with the car itself but the feeling of acceptance or having a bond with an inanimate object that (according to the commercial) is reliable, comfortable, and makes you look super sexy while driving it on the road.  Let's be honest, we could all use a little bit of that, huh?  LOL but seriously, we keep throwing our resources into a huge gaping hole that only God and God's abilities can fill.  A man, paying for pornography and going into debt because he can put money toward prostitution but not toward his rent, is searching for love.  Though his idea of love has become completely perverted, it all traces back to some feeling of being unloved.  Well, God is love and the only one capable of unconditional love, the author and creator of love itself...  We throw money at that hole because we are refusing to believe that God can fill that hole (even though the hole itself is entitled "God-sized hole" clearly labeled in red).  Well, so many people are frustrated with our President because they keep looking to him to fill that hole, in some way or another, they are putting him more in a place to do what God is only capable to do.

    4.  Selfishness ~ Humans are pretty selfish, sometimes unintentionally, but most of the time intentionally bent on making things work for them.  We can't get God to do what we want and how we want and to fix our economy and to fix our homes... like a genie in the bottle.  So we put it on our spouse to fix, or our pastor, or ourselves (and then get depressed because we fail every time) or our President... because he is after all OUR President and should be similar to a puppet.  Let's be honest... We all grew up and realized that Elmo doesn't work without a hand shoved up his wahoo, right?  Well, the President is not like an Elmo, guys.  The position of the president is filled by an actual living, breathing, human adult.  Capable of failure, capable of success, but not capable of solving every problem you have or doing exactly what you want done.

    5.  Failure to love/respect our neighbors ~ The President of the United States of America, I don't care who is in office, you will have some kind of complaint about.  Usually it will be over something that God Himself, can't get people to change in their mindsets... but all the same please, if you are a Christian man or woman... you should be the first to show GRACE and the first to show some RESPECT.  Because if you were in office right now.  Blink for a second and when you open your eyes, picture yourself the President of the "free world"... Now, how do you convince people that they are not "free" to spend foolishly, buy more than they use, save their money, etc.  How do you do what is best for a people that think they know best??  You can't!  All you can do is manage the symptoms of these incurable diseases.

And I will conclude with this.  If you are a human being, let alone a Christian, and you understand what any president would be up against, show some respect for the role that the man / woman is in and make the differences in your life that you need to make - for yourself.  No person is responsible for helping you out but Y.O.U.  Lastly, if you are a Christian... make sure you are not encouraging others to show a lack of respect for people in positions that command respect.  Because God is in the highest position to command respect and the way you show respect to the people He allows in positions of authority is a reflection to others of the respect that you show God.  We are commanded in the Bible to love God and to love others as ourselves... and I don't think God cares very much or believes that His words are dependent upon your political affiliations.

Have a blessed day!


Stephanie Josiah

Happiness Quote

"Happiness is fleeting. Joy and peace are gifts that, if you'll receive them, cannot be taken away. 'Happy' is overrated and 'Joy' is underestimated. Peace is knowing the difference." ~S.J. (MBBII)

Trick or Treat quote inspired by a facebook friend :)

My response to a facebook friend's comment about how basically 'there are plenty of women in the world who can bring a guy to their knees but how many (not many) can bring a man to his feet after a disappointment'.  I don't know if that was an original quote or not but it caught my eye and I had to spit some of my wisdom LOL...  First I replied to his question with this answer, "At least two women per man: dude's mom... and dude's wife... LOL"  But he said that nowadays not many even have two women who support/encourage them.  So that led up to this freestyle snippet that I gave him.  It was so funny the way it ran in my head, I had to edit the words a bit to make them more appropriate but I really feel it rings true.  :)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The Trick or Treat Quote:

‎"If a guy's mom can't encourage him then bump her and if a man's chick can't encourage him than dump her. But if a man only wants a trick... don't expect treats. Because u can't find moral support between the sheets!" (c) Steph lmbo Crazyhorse Josiah

We Had Another Name

"Before age and the cloudy grey of "know it all" puffed us up into the beast named "Adult"... we had another name. Our Father called us by it and we heard it clearly, while we jumped in muddy puddles and dreamt in every color, dancing feet of crayon outside the lines... He calls us still, and by that name I only hope to answer." (c) S.Josiah 8/13/2011

DENIAL QUOTE

For years I've been holding it up to them saying "this is some real bull"... & you would think they'd sniff it & say, "whooooh yeah, that's some real bull" & fling it down. NOPE! Instead they choose to hold it, pet it, call it a bunny rabbit, & give it a name. So what can you do? Look up "Denial" on wikipedia, shake your head, & back away slowly... (c) 2011 One of the realest chicas you ever met, Stephanie Josiah.


This quote and another "If someone loves you, don't make them hate you... and if someone hates you (for damn sure) don't make them love you" (c) 2011 Steph Josiah - are the types of quotes that you earn by going through some tough sh*t!  *Hey, I starred out one of the letters to make it appropriate for my more critical viewers, but at home, and in the car... and even sometimes out in public if the shoe fits and you walked through it... and it stinks, it's not poopy, it's sh*t!!!*  That there's another quote!!!  (c) 2011 Steph Josiah  LOL but I digress.

I got family, I'm sure you do too, and if you've lived for even a few years you've learned that not everyone who is family has the same thoughts and feelings about stuff.  But that doesn't give people a free pass to take a crap all over you.  There are kids growing up in households where they are singled out for being "the fat one", "the light one", "the dark one", "the imperfect one", "the black sheep", etc.  and nobody - not even family and especially NOT family, have the right to put those labels / those cheap little jokey, snide comments on you!  I grew up feeling unloved, even though my mom worked dayum hard at trying to over-compensate for my step-father's neglect and verbal abuse, and my sister's lack of interest in, well pretty much, having a sister... I still grew up isolated because I knew that the only person in the universe that really wanted me alive was my mom.  Shoot, I was teased in church, at school, and at home... and those were the only three places I ever was.  Nothing says "you don't belong" like not belonging ANYWHERE you usually are.  Sucks.

I won't go too far into detail, but what I will say is.  You can do NOTHING about your family of origin, status of origin, and the crap that was thrown your way... but you need to believe that it gets better.  By the grace of God alone, I'm still here.  I could have been another dead teenager (so many times) but I'm still here and looking back, I can say that it can get better and it will get better if you push forward.  You may not be able to take those people with you, when you move forward... and it may not be healthy to - in the first place, but forgive them for being absolutely horrible (so you don't poison yourself with bitterness) and let them kiss your dust.  Don't turn back around again, if every time you do... they end up hurting you again.  Forgiveness does not equal forgetfulness.  Protect yourself because YOU MATTER and you are LOVABLE.  Anyone who treats you as less than that, does not deserve to burden your life and keep hurting you!  Nobody deserves to hurt you, just like you don't deserve to hurt anyone else.

Just a little life lesson learned by me and shared to you.  I'll step off my soapbox now LOL


xoxoxo

~Steph

Forced Feeling Quote

"If someone shows you that they love you, don't make them hate you... and if someone shows you that they hate you, don't make them love you!" ~ Stephanie Josiah 4/18/2011

Oapey Meal

By: Stephanie Josiah 4/15/2011

My daughter, Ariana, calls Oatmeal "Oapey Meal"
and it's too dag on cute to correct her now

I'll wait until she's a little older

to set that straight

The boys are getting older

Nathaniel can say many things

mostly he says "no" and "Mommy"

but my favorite is "I yove looo"

It's been a crazy ride.
The past few years I've been battling
with demons
I'm not talking figuratively

My demons were "high risk pregnancy"
"little bugs" that
robbed me and my family of all of
our worldly possessions just-about
and my demons were "homelessness"

and my demons were "depression"
and "insomnia" and a "large grumpy man"

and a "leasing company with no compassion or remorse"

and an "awful feeling going into survival mode"
and a "where are all those friends that I thought I had from way back when?"

Even as I was in the storm and was screaming up to Heaven
fussing at God and His angels about how this was even worse

than the risky pregnancy that almost killed the twins

I was learning to stay in conversation with God

About anything... about the weather... about my daily frustrations
and I realized that as I've grown up, my words and His words
can be entirely complicated or heavy going back and forth
or they can be as simple as "Oapey Meal"

When I was a very little girl I saw God
He picked me up and told me I was in His family
and that He would be my father
and that was all I ever needed to hear Him say

So, Father, "I yove looo"

If love is blind quote... and "Flight Risk" poem

"If love is blind... I must have regained my vision," Stephanie Josiah 4/14/2011



FLIGHT RISK
By: Stephanie Josiah 4/15/2011


the sperm donor that created me
used my mother for *****
was stationed back in the USA
and became                                           a recluse

probably shooting rabbits in the woods
of virginia and sucking from
his momma's
bosom

I've learned to believe that
all men are                                             flight risks
combing over this world to find
their place or their status

from the businessman in suit and tie
to the crackhead with the crack pipe
they are all trying to escape from
that woman that they tapped for sap

that brok                                              en
responsibility
they would leave at the drop of
a pin

I've learned to leave first
no way do I want to be the one left
have me sitting here at the BWI
parking lot for over an hour thinking,       "Florida or California?"

men have only ever put women in cages:
abandonment, neglect, abuse,
sexual violation, a dumping
ground for their bodily excretions, low self-esteem

I thought I found someone who
didn't mind living in the cage
men made
for me

but he can't stand it here
doesn't matter if he helped to build it or not...

If he threatens to open the cage one more time
you know what I'll do...
I have become
what I hated

                                photo from Balletbase (c) 2006

You've Heard it Said...

LIFE IS HARD:

"The smartest people know that life is hard, but the most awesome people camp out in the worst of it.  Pitch your tent and know that you are just passing through whatever it is... wherever it is."  (c) Steph Josiah 2011



EVERYBODY POOPS:

"First off, this book lied!  Everybody does not poop on command.  Be grateful that your stuff is functioning properly!  You see, the truth is that everybody needs to poop, but like most things that we do regularly and take for granted... we only miss our water when our well runs... dry?  Ewwww!"  (c) Steph Josiah 2011

YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER BUT YOU CAN'T MAKE HIM DRINK

"Ohhh yesssss you friggin' can!!!  You can lead that horse to water and you can shove water down his throat, fill a water gun, smack his jaw, and squirt it in if need be!  You can always drown a horse... wait... what was the topic again?"  (c) Steph Josiah

ConStephcious Say:

1.  "Those who make honesty, compassion, and understanding their friends get visited by them more frequently."