I grew up listening to these songs. I love them, so I thought I'd share.
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Even when things go right, sometimes it's hard to focus on the good things and not on the bad. I find that even on a day where things go fairly good, at the end of the day I find myself focusing on the bad things and all the things that went wrong, so later that's all I can think about, and I feel like the day was worse than it actually was. I know that I've probably said this before, but in this blog I tend to write about the things that are going wrong in my life, and when things go well, I neglect to write about it. I'm trying to change that.
So, here is a list of things that are going well in my life right now: -my brother's health has improved massively, after our family and our church praying for a long time -may father is alive and relatively healthy -I am alive and healthy -I feel like I am going somewhere with my relationship with God -I am happy, much happier than I imagined I could be -I have hope of a future -my family is together -God is answering prayer -I'm learning more about God and about how much He loves me -I have a supportive church family ...keeping this short, 'cuz I have tons and tons of work to do. :( Life right now is up and down. It's really not easy.
I think I've been so used to being alone, by myself, without having friends that I've forgotten how to talk to people, to be myself around them, to start conversations and feel comfortable around others. I've forgotten how to make friends. It's hard to be alone. When things are tough it's hard not to wish that you have a pair of arms around you, squeezing you tightly. It's hard to be alone and have no one you can make yourself understood to, someone who sees the other side of you--the side that others can't see. It's hard not to have someone on your side who understands why things went badly for you one day, or to encourage you when you think you've messed up. I so badly miss having friends. I miss being part of a group. I miss fitting in so easily that it's not something to even think about, it's something that just is. I can't sleep worrying about tomorrow. I'm hurting, and worried and I don't feel like I can take much more of this. I know it's wrong to feel this way, and I should trust God. It's just hard. It's so hard. I don't know why I'm going through this. I can't see the end, and I want this to end soon. I've been going through a painful situation for a while. Recently, it has gotten much better, thank God, but it is still difficult. I haven't been dealing with it very effectively; on days that are tough, sometimes I just plug my headphones into the computer and just try to block everything that is bothering me from my mind. Sometimes I just don't want to think anymore, because then I feel the pain again. I know, though, that this is not productive, and that it's only wasting time, and not really dealing with the situation. I know that the right thing to do is to go to God with the situation, but that means thinking about the things that hurt me and trusting God with my pain. It can be a very hard thing to do. This week though, I got so tired of retreating back into my old habits, of trying to just forget everything and drown God out. I asked God to help me make it through this week doing things the proper way, and last night, when I climbed into bed and I started crying and talking to God, I just felt His warm, comforting, and loving presence. I was reassured of God's love for me, and I felt much better. The experience is beyond words. The thing is, it takes going through a little pain to get to that place where you give your hurts to God instead of trying to bury the issue. But when you finally surrender your will, it's all worth it in the end. Today was tough, but God is with me. I don't have to be the same anymore. O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and my uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways...I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfullly made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. (Psalm 139:1-3, 14) It's true what this song says. It's not until we are weak and made aware of our weakness that we understand His strength. The good thing about going through tough situations is that we have more space to allow God to be everything He was meant to be in our lives; we learn more about Him, about how good He is, and about His love for us.
I can be too selfish sometimes, in my thoughts and in my actions. I'm too caught up in my own problems and my own situations that I don't remember others and forget that they need support and prayer. I sometimes become caught up in such a cloud of anxiety and worry about things that I have no control over that I lose sight of the importance of other people's struggles. I need to be more patient. I need to be more forgiving. I need to demonstrate my love for others more in my actions. I need to become more selfless. I need to pray for others more. I need to stop focusing on me and my problems and finally see the bigger picture.
We have one chance at life, and time flies too fast for us to be more concerned about ourselves than about others. We can forget, sometimes, that this life does not last forever, that we are in control of so little; that at any moment,our lives can veer off the road we expected to travel and head off into some place we never thought we would go. Since the last post was kind of a downer, I have decided to make this post a little more cheerful. Well, kind of. More nostalgic than cheerful, really.
A few minutes ago, I took a break from studying and got up from my desk. When I came back, I looked down at my desk and the textbooks lying open there reminded me of the afternoons I spent in my mother's room, poring through her books. I was always interested with the books my mother had lying around the house, textbooks and medical books about health assessments and health care. I remember how I would flip through them, fascinated with the pictures inside. Now I'm doing the same thing, but doing it to work towards a degree. It's ridiculous how quickly time flies. Today was horrible.
I realized that I can be too trusting of people, and I automatically see them in a good light. Which is not really a bad thing, but especially when people are fake, and you catch glimpses of their true self but keep believing that you are just interpreting something they said in a wrong way and keep telling yourself that their intentions are good.... Some people are fake and put on a good appearance, when they may be more biased and judgmental underneath their masks. I don't mean to be so judgmental myself, and I know I may be biased about this because I had a tough day, but I think it's true. ... It seems that the only things I write in this blog are negative. Writing is one way I deal with negative emotions; it's like an outlet for me. So the good things exist in my life, but all the overflowing emotion that I have no other outlet for flows into writing and some of it makes it into this blog. I have no one to talk to. This is how I deal with overwhelming situations. ... It's only the second day of school, and I'm already burnt out. I felt like passing out a couple of times, I was so tired. And I'm so alone. I'm sick of this already. I was looking forward to going back to school. For the first time in years. Usually I'm so anxious I can't eat breakfast, but I had a good breakfast the first day, and felt .... I can't even finish writing this. All I will say is, that now I'm under a ton of stress, I feel like crying, I hurt so much, and I'd forgotten how much this hurt, I don't know how I forgot. Someone once told me that I knew myself really well. It's not true. I find myself ready to cry over things that I didn't know still bothered me. For example, in class today, I found out that next week in lab, we'll be doing something that requires exposure of the upper body. So I can wear a tank top maybe, but my shoulders will still be exposed. And there's no way I can make up a story about how they got so scarred. No one has seen my shoulders. No one but me knows what I've done to myself. And now some stranger, one of my peers, will see it, make the connections, and then look at me differently from now on. As soon as the instructor mentioned that we would have to expose our upper body, I felt like crying. I didn't know I would feel that way. Obviously I wouldn't ever be comfortable with it, but I never realized how much I don't want someone to see that part of me. They don't even know me. |