honest thoughts

this past week has been a really difficult one for me. I stumbled and floundered and struggled a lot more than I expected. it was growing pains, really, because if there’s one thing I avoid, it’s mistakes. i hate making them, because they mean that you get yelled at and people get disappointed in you and you’ve got to admit them and say sorry and own up to your incapabilities.

                sometimes you get stuck in this frame of mind where all your faults are illuminated, and you walk with shoulders slouched forward, head to the ground, practically breathing in the dirt, believing you’re hardly worth it. the only thing you can focus on is the clumsiness of your feet.

                can I be real about the thoughts that run through my head? I’m not sharing them to earn pity or to hear your encouragement. i want you to know that we’re battling the same garbage. some days I think I’m a sorry excuse for twenty- college drop out, only held one job (as a cashier, much less), lived with my parents, had easy/little responsibilities, not at all well-versed in the adult world. I screwed with not only my own head but another’s as well, another who meant more to me than the ocean, for two straight years, refusing, again, to take responsibility or look at the titanic damage I was doing in two people’s lives. seriously. for the last half of my life, I have only been telling parts of the truth, only showing pieces of me that were safe or not-so-deep, not wanting to expose anything a shade darker than gray. the reality is I have a tendency to lie so I don’t get in trouble, so people still think I’m real enough to be human but still good enough to be a Christian. for my entire life I have always tried to make everyone happy by being funny. If I can make them laugh, I think, then they will like me. No wonder I wind up feeling shortchanged half the time- it’s because I’m never willing to be serious. I’m never willing to get real. Never willing to be open and vulnerable.

these are the thoughts that run through my mind; the thoughts that so often assault us. 

and what i must always remind myself of is, that quit floundering in your mistakes, in your shortcomings. there is a God that makes up for it all, infinity times over. He wants where you're at- He gets that you're human, but He also knows how the incredible potential that is sleepily awake inside. this is why these thoughts come, because Satan as well knows our incredible potential, and will try to destroy that in any way he possibly can. our thoughts are so easy to intrude and manipulate and they can destruct us so simply and effectively. 

awaken, my soul.

 it's not me...

                    it's Him.