Fear is something I deal with a lot. I’ve talked about it before and probably will again after today. It’s frustrating dealing with something you want to get rid of so badly but no matter how many times you push, pull, or pray it’ll leave, stupid fear seems happily lodged into place. Lately I seem to have a mix of quick everyday fears and bigger more important ones. I worry about tests and plans and making a schedule. Little things that eventually fade away. And then bigger fears like where I’m going to go to college and what will I do for a job, where will I end up? Those are just some of my fears and I’d guess you probably have some of your own. Fear can very much have a big place in our life.
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In life, I find it is so easy to build off of other people’s struggles. It’s something I think we all do, potentially some of us more than others. But unfortunately, we live in a world where this is so encouraged and normal. I’ve been thinking about it, I mean it’s like every time you turn on the news or check twitter or Facebook someone’s talking negatively about peoples mistakes and struggles and mostly these are people they’ve never even met. I think sometimes people feel better talking about and criticizing other people’s struggles because it makes theirs seem more valid. We read articles about celebrity drama in hopes of feeling better about our own lives or feeling entertained for a couple minutes at the least. We talk bad about people to our best friend in an unfulfilling attempt to feel superior. We build off the struggles of others. But what we should be doing is building off the successes of others.
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We live in a world in constant stride for perfection. If you look at people from the outside most times, their lives look well arranged. There’s this dire need to make others think that we’ve got it all together and life is all good 24/7. Being honest though we all know that’s not true. But somehow, when we look from the outside we allow ourselves to believe that maybe they really do have a perfect life. And it becomes our goal to obtain that too. If you’re like me and have ever struggled with this, you know the attempt to obtain a life that goes according to plan rarely ever works and almost always leaves us unfulfilled and scrolling through Instagram, asking ourselves what we’re doing wrong. It’s a never-ending cycle of unfulfillment. I think a lot of that comes from social media but can definitely happen in our day to day interactions too.

Anyway, often in the pursuit of trying to appear like we’ve got it all together, we can forget that it’s so ok to ask for help and to admit that you are nowhere near perfection. That’s vulnerable though. Putting yourself out there and admitting that life doesn’t fit into an organized box means you open yourself up to judgement from anyone still hiding behind an idea of perfection. And so in this process, we so often tell ourselves that we’re fine. A saying that’s an occurring member of my vocabulary is “it’s fine, I’m fine.” Usually I’m laughing about something and use it as a joke, but I find deep down, that’s a truer realization behind those words.
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Forgiving people is usually hard. Plain and simple it just is. Trusting people and then having that trust broken is the kind of pain that you feel throughout you whole body. You feel betrayed and mostly just hurt. I’m the kind of person that can have a hard time letting people in. It’s not on purpose and most times I don’t even recognize I’m doing it. It’s just natural for me. Because I’m also the kind of person who cares deeply about people, especially about people I’m close to. And sometimes, people that I’m close to can hurt me. Just like people that you’re close to can hurt you. It’s a part of life. No one’s perfect and we all mess up. Though I find, quite honestly, I have a hard time forgiving sometimes. Even if I’m saying I forgive on the outside, usually I’m still holding on to some feelings of hurt.

One thing I’ve always particularly hated is being lied to. Especially if it’s by someone you trust. And when that trust is broken, I really have a hard time truly forgiving. But I am always amazed at how quick I am to forget about the one who constantly forgives me. Life is full of pain. Every day we all mess up and do things that looking back on, we wish we wouldn’t have done. We’re not perfect and we’re full of sin. But despite all of that sad news, we serve a God so full of love that he sent his only son to die on the cross for us, to forgive us of our sins. The sins of the world. And looking at it that way, it truly helps me to grasp the immense love our God has for us. He loves us and forgives us, sin and all.
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Hi Friends! This past week I worked at VBS at my church. I had a great time learning all the fun songs and hanging out with some pretty cool third graders. One kid in particular was able to remind me a little bit about what trusting Jesus looks like because I seemed to have forgotten for a second. So one of our activities was to cut a single piece of paper so that we could both fit through it. At first, I was thinking oh goodness this is going to be a mess. I couldn’t see how this was going to work. But the little boy was excited and wanted to start cutting. He was ready to give it his best shot. I told him to wait and let’s think about it for a second because I wanted to get it right. He was still eager to cut so I eventually decided to just let him go for it. He started cutting and I watched as he cut in a way that opened the paper so that we could both fit through it. I never thought of cutting it like that. We moved on to the next activity and that was that. Though today during church I kept thinking about this moment. And eventually I realized that God might have been trying to teach me something through that tiny little moment.

I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to mess up. Unfortunate since that does not keep it from happening. Messing up is a part of life. I just don’t like it. I don’t ever want others to be upset with me, which again is unfortunate because we simply cannot control others. I like to take things slow. I’m indecisive and I like to wait to know everything’s going to work out before moving forward. I’m not a quick decision maker, I like to know that ultimately, I know what I’m doing before I begin anything. In some ways, this is a good quality. It typically keeps me from making bad decisions, although it definitely still does happen. So while I trust the Lord, when I’m presented with a situation that seems a little risky I’m quick to step back and question God as to what the heck is happening. I’m so focused on getting things right and figuring out how this fits into the plan that sometimes I forget to just trust God and live. It’s really so simple looking at it like that, just trusting and living.
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