I’m not blogging as mcuh as I wanted, but that’s fine with me, because I havent been on the internet that much, which is wonderful! I have been enjoying life, and love, and friends. I have been breathing in fresh air and going on fun adventures. I have been trying new things, and making sure everyone in my life knows I’m thankful for them. So my blogging will be somewhat sporadic. Which is fine, because I am embracing life fully the way that I should be!  It’s wonderful!! Everyone who reads this! This week, try something new, do something that makes you happy, and find beauty is something simple. It warm your soul! : ) Maybe you will all hear from me soon…and maybe not!

They say peace is boring, if that much is true, Why am I always running toward some pursuit?

The past couple of days, I have been engulfed in the world known as The Hunger Games. I could blog about my love for the series, but then this would be the longest blog of all time, no actually a Vampire Diaries or Glee blog would probably be longer. I’m such a nerd sometimes, but I’ve accepted it.  So I wrote this song, a couple of days ago, this liberating and invigorating song, that kind of metaphorically talks about things that I went through, so I’m going to share the lyrics with you.

I see you sitting there so beautiful, so calm, and so poised.
I see them, laughing at your awkwardness, but they can’t see your strength.
 Oh little bird, with your wings torn and hurt, wanting desperate to fly, as you gaze at the sky.
When they open the cage, It is time to be brave. Stretch out your wings, and let yourself be free.
Look at them, poking at your broken wings, but they don’t see… you’re healing.
So let them prod. Let them stare on down at you, cause soon you’ll soar where they can’t reach.
Here it comes, doors undone.
Spread your wings and fly through the pain.
Feel the wind as you soar. The world is yours.
Oh pretty bird, flying strong and so sure.
You went after your dreams, and now we can be free.

Growing up, I struggled with a lot, like any normal preteen/ teenage girl. Like any normal woman. I struggled with self acceptance, body image issues, depression, peer pressure, the urge to make everyone happy, and at the root of  it all, anxiety. The first couple years of high school, I let my anxiety control me so much to the point where I was having anxiety “attacks” that consisted of hyperventilation, whenever I became too worried or too stressed. It was horrible. I was finally able to get past the craziness, and after 10^th grade I stopped having the attacks, but anxiety still seemed to follow me everywhere. I worried too much about what people would think if I did certain things.  I would hear sometimes that a person disapproved of something I was doing, or made a comment about a passion I was pursuing and it would destroy me.

This past year, I knew I had to stop letting my life be controlled by people, and by my doubts. It affected my health, my confidence, my actions, I couldn’t be me. I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin when I was around anyone that wasn’t Jen or Joe. I constantly found myself mentally beating myself up after every conversation I would have with people, asking myself, “why did I say that/ why did I do that?”  I knew that I needed to surrender all my problems to God, I knew that I needed to find peace. But knowing is completely different  then acting on  knowledge, although Knowledge of a problem is certainly the first step.

After letting myself be controlled and letting people’s opinions break me, and hurt me. After locking my personality away in fear of saying or doing something wrong, I finally found freedom. Yes, surrendering it all to God is definitely the first step. Knowing that HE is in control and that his plan is far greater than anything imaginable, knowing that he wanted joy for me was extremely comforting. Knowing that he died for me to be free, and that by not letting myself experience that freedom, I was being ungrateful, and throwing his gift in his face. By not being who I am, the person he created me to be, I was hurting him. The more I open my mind, and my heart to what God has to show me, the more he WILL. It is still a daily battle, not to let the stress take over. In the mornings, I have to sit and I have to be still. I have to close my eyes, and create mental images of me exhaling all of the negativity, and inhaling all of the positivity. It used to take a second before I found the inner peace, but the more I find it, the easier it becomes to access. And now when I start to feel the knots twisting at my stomach, and in my chest, I just have to close my eyes, and breathe. Now all of my joy, my energy, my positivity, it’s authentic.

Authenticity to me, was always a battle. How are you supposed to always be who you are, if you don’t always know you are?  But God knows who I am, and he LOVES MW.  My husband, my best friends, my family, they know who I am and they love me too. So all this anxiety over people’s acceptance, over my own acceptance, is pointless. The people who love you…for you, are the people  who belong in your life. The people who support you when you want to make positive changes, God gave them to you. Writing that song was liberating for me, and so was writing this blog, because I know lot of people don’t know any of this. I had a friend tell me once that “nothing ever seemed to phase me.”, when hours before I had been crying. I know that in order to be  truly peaceful and authentic, and joyful, I have to be honest. So now after sharing all this, after writing all this, I’m free to truly let it all go. The peace that has engulfed me whole these past couple of months, it’s more groundbreaking and incredible than people realize.

"Be Still and Know that I am God" Psalm 46:10

 My best friend always called me a hippie because I truly do believe in love, peace, and happiness (I also love nature and animals an obsessive amount). I believe if we all let ourselves truly experience these three things, and explore what they are, then we can change  so many people’s lives, just by them being around us. We have the ability to inspire, and to not use that ability is wrong. So  to anyone with struggles (everyone), as Redeeming Love taught me, take a shoe box and cut a hole in the top. Every time you have something that you are stressing over, every time you have a prayer request, every time you have something in your life, that you don’t know the answer to, write it down. Put it in the box, and as soon as it is in the box, realize that it’s not your problem anymore. Every once in a while, revisit  the box, pull out the papers, and read through them. And throw away all the problems solved, and prayers answers, and if there are none, just know that God is working on them, and in us, and creating a better solution then we could even begin to realize. As I learned, we are stronger then we realize, and in the areas we lack, God’s strength is more than enough.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

"So I sing to my bird, to the beat of my pulse"

                We are all born beautiful. We have a creator who chose every fingertip, and strand of hair with such an indescribable love. We are born with a whole life ahead of us, unknown, and exciting. As we begin to grow into children, our beauty and our intelligence grow with us. The world is fascinated with little children and their boundless talent. We create for ourselves these big dreams, and hopes. We sparkle with possibilities and we view the world as an adventure. Our beauty is wild, and it is free. Our passions ignite fires inside our hearts and we are ready to embark on whatever the adventure throws at us.

                 But then as we grow, something inside us changes, and we start to know pain. Not the kind of skinned knee pain, but the kind of pain that stabs at our hearts, and our guts, and knocks the wind out of us. We begin to know true fear, and rejection, and betrayal. We begin to learn about statistics, and realism. The world begins to place rules on our behavior, you start to hear, “stop acting like that, you’re not a kid anymore.” and that spark inside you begins to die. Your dreams and hopes are now hopeless fantasies. You begin to work in lifeless places that eat away at your soul. We are birds that used to fly freely, but have been caged away due to our torn wings.

                There is nothing wrong with working, and trying to earn a living, but don’t let it change who you are. Enjoying life, having dreams, being goofy and fun, doesn’t make you childish, it makes you joyful, and that is what God wants for us! Don’t let ourselves be placed in a cage, to live the rest of our lives as safely and quietly as possible. When beauty is caged it begins to fade, because what made is so beautiful was that it was WILD and it was FREE. Don’t lose that. We can do so much. We waste our talents away; we waste our personalities and gifts away. Our smiles can change someone’s whole world. The spark inside us can be contagious, and if we put it on display, that it can spread to others too! 

              Don’t be selfish. Don’t let that beauty and that spark fade. Don’t hide it away, or cage it but let it fly free and run wild. Laugh, and dream, and hope. If you have passions, pursue them. I’m not telling you to go quit your jobs(but if that works for you, then go for it), but take the time to do something OTHER than work. Go for a walk, or a drive. Stick your arm out of the window, and feel the warm breeze through your fingertips, and remember what it was like to be a child. Remember that feeling that kept you so inspired and hold on to it.

 “All Good Things are wild and Free.”

-                                                     Henry David Thoreau 

Be The Change

It seems like these days, there is no black and white anymore. Lines are blurred, messy, complicated. Right and wrong has become a matter of opinion. Opinion is often formulated by peer pressure. People begin to lose sight of who they are, and start to become faces in the crowd. Trying to blend in, to fit in, trying not to be heard, in fear of being standing out, having their own opinion. Even the people who pride themselves in being different, in being “hipsters”, a lot of where they get their opinions, their style, their mindsets, it’s just based on stereotype. Staying “true to yourself” has become staying true to the stereotype you placed yourself in, and if you step out of your stereotype for just one second, then you are nothing but a poser.

We live in a world that subconsciously places all these expectations on people. We live in a world where people are expected to fail, and attacked when they do. We live in a world where people are quick to point the finger, and cast judgments, before they look at themselves. When people do look at themselves, they are filled with insecurities or even self loathing because we live in a world where people are so ashamed about truly being who they are, that they feel they have to hide it, a world where honesty isn’t quite black and white. We hide our feelings; we hide parts of our personalities. We have to be careful with our words, if you speak your mind, you’re “too honest”, if you hide your feelings then you’re emotionally screwed up.

We feel we can never win. We have all these secrets and are afraid that if people looked inside our heads, then they would judge us. And it’s true. They probably would. But we can’t live our lives in fear of people finding out who we are. We all have darkness inside us, we are all screwed up. But darkness spreads when you keep it hidden. God knows that we all have darkness, and he told us that he would be our lights. Sometimes God uses other people to shine his light, and if we can’t truly be who we are, flaws and all, if we can’t ever reveal our darkness, then how is anyone ever going to shine a light into it?

Now this may all seem like a negative view on the world, but it is actually quite the opposite. Sure there are problems in society, in our generation, but when isn’t there? We are humans, we are flawed, and most of the time we don’t really know what the heck we’re doing. But what we don’t realize is how much we are truly capable of. This world is truly beautiful. Yes it’s broken and full of pain, but it is also full of talent, and kindness, and so much beauty. There is so much that we have to offer people, and there is so much that we can learn from people, we just need to open our hearts to it. We all are capable of giving the greatest gift of all, and that’s love. We constantly wish that world will change, that people will change, but it all starts with you. Yes, it’s a lot to handle for one person, but we have to remember that we aren’t doing this alone. We have God at our right hand. We need to surrender everything to him, and I mean everything. Let him take the reins, or “the wheel”(Oh Carrie Underwood…). Once we give him control of our lives, then we can begin to as Ghandi says,

“Be the change you wish to see in this world” 

 We just have to care enough. We need to stop spreading gossip, hate, bitterness, dishonesty, and start spreading love and peace. We need to be united and not torn apart by opinions, or labels, or stereotypes, or grudges, or flaws. We are all better than this. We were created by the greatest creator of all time, and HE believes in US. So we owe it to him to believe in OURSELVES.

As I embark into this whole blogging world, I promise one thing to everyone, and that is to always be honest. You may not agree with my opinions or my beliefs, but I won’t let that stop me from being who I am. I can’t promise that I am always going to be right about things, I’m still learning every day, but I can promise that  I am always going to be up front about my past failures and mistakes, about my flaws, and about my opinions. Although sometimes it’s extremely hard for me to completely be myself sometimes, I promise to try my absolute hardest, and if that’s not enough, well then it is for God… so #winning ;)