Hello all

Hello, Soasa. You selected a good name for me to read wrong, so as a... thanks for the explanation. I'll take it that you are a fellow introvert that reads like an extrovert on paper. There are a lot of us here. Welcome to CC.

Welcome!

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Yeah. I have always been this way, but I am much more "this way" than normal these days. I used to really enjoy getting up and talking... into a microphone that is. "How can that be," you ask? Because if you are standing up in front of a crowd that is so large that you have to use a mic, chances are that they won't be talking back. I could pretend to scan the faces as I spoke, but it was a trick. I scanned the aisles... not the people. It was like I was talking to myself.

That has changed these days it seems. I have had to beg off when I get asked by my pastors to lead everyone in a prayer or a "good morning all" type of thing. All I can think of is, "how am I going to get up on stage?" And I have a borderline panic attack! The lead pastor has asked me to film my testimony and air it on our website, but so far, I have begged off that as well. My testimony is LONG... like nearly 26 pages typed out. (Yes, it is complicated. I wrote it out one day to show it to my pastor and he didn't think I could shrink it down any.) With that much to say and with my mouth always not wanted to say what my brain said, that would take hours! So I am comfortable being a mouse hiding in my row of "PLEASE DON'T SPEAK TO ME!!!" section.

Welcome to Christian Chat 😊
Wow!! That is a lot of people at the church you attend. I am glad that you stayed even though you did want to go. What kind of church is it?
My niece used to play Star Wars Galaxies when ever I went round hers. She loves the Star Wars movies. My mum knitted her the characters from the movies she has them all on her bed so cute 🥰

And this is the part that requires an explanation although I didn't actually know about this. Since I can't work because of my stroke, I spend everyday up at the church volunteering. One of the guys that I closely work beside made the comment that sometimes he gets awful looks when he tells what type of church he attends. It is a Church of Christ by the way. What he says and what I say now is that we are not the typical Church of Christ.

When I decided to go back to a church after I healed as much as I was going to heal in my body and mind, I sent emails to most of the church around Amarillo saying who I am and what I was experiencing. Most churches didn't even respond. A few surprised me and said I wasn't welcome there because "your type of condition will run off some of our members who want to preserve our image." What??? Then I emailed Southwest Church of Christ and I got emails... that's right... emailS... back in MINUTES! All said, "We don't care what you look like or what you think you look like. We are broken and we welcome others who are broken." It has been 3 years and I still tear up just thinking about it!

Oh... about the testimony. I will post it on here in our testimonies section. Later though. Time to have my quiet time with God and then go to work.

I will just start out with a basic "hello." I usually have a lot to say but slowly over time, I got really shy and quiet about even posting on websites. Over time, I will loosen up and post more... probably more than anyone will want to hear (or see as it were). I will say this, and it is part of why I am now so quiet. I had a stroke nearly 14 years ago. My speaking voice, while it works, is now... slower than it was. There is nothing wrong with how I think, but I just can't get out what I want to say. I used to get (brutally) teased without end about that which lead me to stop talking altogether. My right leg is only about 40% and my right arm is less that 1%. From my right elbow to my hand is 0%. I can feel... just not move. I just now got home from Church and we had a lot of visitors there (like normal for Easter). We normally have about 400-500 people there on any given Sunday and that is almost too much for me. We had over 1000 people there today and I almost ran (if I could run, I would have!) out of the sanctuary after we were finished. Now I am sitting alone in the dark trying to settle my breathing.

Oh... a little bit about my name on here. I tried everything I could think of when I was setting it up, but everything was already used. I remembered when I used to play a game called Star Wars Galaxies, I created a guy who was based off a guy from a movie at the time (the name of the movie was "The Usual Subjects" and the guy's named was Kaiser Sosa). I took the name "Sosa" and added the extra "a" and it became "Soasa." When everything else failed, I tried Soasa and it worked! Pretty boring, but hey!

In the past year I had surgery for mouth cancer, followed by radiation therapy. I went perhaps 9 months without speaking. I'm only recently beginning to start talking again. A lot of changes happened inside my mouth and face, which makes speaking harder for me now. So on that front I can relate. It's rough, to say the least.

I will just start out with a basic "hello." I usually have a lot to say but slowly over time, I got really shy and quiet about even posting on websites. Over time, I will loosen up and post more... probably more than anyone will want to hear (or see as it were). I will say this, and it is part of why I am now so quiet. I had a stroke nearly 14 years ago. My speaking voice, while it works, is now... slower than it was. There is nothing wrong with how I think, but I just can't get out what I want to say. I used to get (brutally) teased without end about that which lead me to stop talking altogether. My right leg is only about 40% and my right arm is less that 1%. From my right elbow to my hand is 0%. I can feel... just not move. I just now got home from Church and we had a lot of visitors there (like normal for Easter). We normally have about 400-500 people there on any given Sunday and that is almost too much for me. We had over 1000 people there today and I almost ran (if I could run, I would have!) out of the sanctuary after we were finished. Now I am sitting alone in the dark trying to settle my breathing.

Oh... a little bit about my name on here. I tried everything I could think of when I was setting it up, but everything was already used. I remembered when I used to play a game called Star Wars Galaxies, I created a guy who was based off a guy from a movie at the time (the name of the movie was "The Usual Subjects" and the guy's named was Kaiser Sosa). I took the name "Sosa" and added the extra "a" and it became "Soasa." When everything else failed, I tried Soasa and it worked! Pretty boring, but hey!

Be kind and gentle to yourself always.