Sometimes when you're being a kinesthetic learner and, to the perception of the outside eye, not paying attention in class (Zooey Deschanel quotes on Pinterest do the trick), inspiration strikes. That's my current situation and in a few minutes my Econ professor will be less than pleased with the volume level of my typing, but it's fine. [sidebar: I really am not suffering, I know how to filter him]

For all I know, this post is redundant, but I couldn't tell you for sure because I've stopped doing that cute thing where I spend hours reading back through my own blog. Life is doing that equally cute thing where it allows me zero time for things like blogging and reading and especially blog-reading.
Moving on:

All too common the thought (especially in women) that we are "not enough" is a common denominator in every moment of day-to-day life,

I fail to take proper care of my body. I am an insufficient employee. I don't produce high enough grades. I am a failure as a mother, wife, girlfriend, sister, daughter.

and it is so easy to read a self-help book or an empowering article and tell ourselves that we are sufficient, put on our big kid pants, and face the day with a brave face and an overloaded mental back-burner. The number of times a week that I go through the motions of pulling it together is probably pretty high, but to most of us it is second-nature. It is a learned habit that no longer affects us regularly, only when life hits extra hard.
But now that I have learned how to handle feeling inadequate, a new weed has taken root and begun working its way through the cracks in my thought wall.
I am too much.
I spend too much time on my body. I work too much. I worry too much about my schoolwork. I am too outgoing. I am too emotional. I am too involved.
I am too much.
Now, to say that I know where this thought came from and I know how to tackle it would be lying to myself. I have absolutely no clue. One would think that in conquering my misconception of inadequacy, I should be able to find confidence and even joy in believing my own adequacy to conquer the terror that is daily life. Cruel trick of fate: contentment stopped by for a visit and then went off on vacation again and although my life is in a happy, positive place, I somehow am not properly geared for it. I have compassionate, invested friends, a caring family, and a happy, simple relationship, and somehow I am constantly terrified by the idea of my unbridled self tearing my own life apart. How does that even make sense...?
I am scared of my personality overwhelming my family, of my needs overwhelming my friends, of my emotions overwhelming my boyfriend, and leaving me in a place of loneliness with nowhere to invest the excess that is me as a human. The result is the locking up and concealing of that personal excess and leaving myself in the same place of loneliness that I'm trying to avoid. Trust me, my mind is a place that no one wants to inhabit or investigate right now. It is more often than not a pit of chaos where I tuck away all of my feelings and thoughts and needs so that outwardly I can keep it together-outwardly I can care for others and complete daily functions without affecting anyone else with my needs.
But what does it actually mean to be too much? Excess is defined as an amount of something that is more than necessary, or a lack of moderation. Excess often holds a negative connotation; it is an undesirable trait. We trim the excess fat off our meats, we remove excess words from our writing...excess is something we don't want, it is something we are not inclined toward or prepared for. But excess in and of itself is not a bad thing-excess can be channeled and utilized.
Excess passion can be distributed into action, excess emotion can be translated into compassion, excess involvement can warrant productivity. Because life was meant not only to be lived, but experienced. There is the opportunity to witness beauty in every breath, and a little excess capacity to be affected by life's little moments may be just what some of us need.

"Don't let someone steal your tenderness. Don't allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to be affected by things...feel it all-look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love."

Upward Falling

The past month has been one hit after another.
A month ago I was in a wreck and told to lay low for a week or two.
A day later I underwent a pretty not-awesome relationship loss.
The following week, my dog's health declined and for a few days his death was almost imminent.
A week later, I came down with a virus that tore up my throat and respiratory system.
My mom's health took a hit a week ago and I spent the week between hospital and home, scrambling to make sure she was okay--to make sure everyone else is okay.

Since the day of that wreck, I have been a wreck; when people ask how I am doing, I find it harder and harder to respond with the peppy, expected: "I'm great". For a few days I spent every second alone in tears, asking myself and God why He just kept taking from me when I thought I was at my peak. I had lost everything but my joy and I was terrified that even that could start slipping at any second.

But today I woke up and rolled over and decided to do something about it. My shoulders aren't tight anymore, I'm no longer disoriented, and this mess stops now. So I took a run, to clear my head and to kind of kick start myself back into a routine, and goodness did it hurt. It was the kind of pain that breaks you, it was weakness pain. My body wanted to quit, my mind wanted to retreat, and my spirit wanted to lie down, and when I was finished, I felt the full displeasure of my legs and my lungs.

Life has been a mess, I have been a mess, and that is still the case for the time being. You know how a lot of times we have revelations of God? "But God moments", if you will. Well that's not a thing for me right now. And after eating and stretching, I sat on my yoga mat and just pouted for a minute. Where is my moment? When does this get better? Why can't life just cut me some slack?

"My heart beating, my soul breathing, I found my life when I laid it down.

Upward falling, Spirit soaring, I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground."

Hillsong United, Touch the Sky

I don't need a moment, I've got a lifetime. I don't need to just snap out of my trials, and the fact of the matter is that I'm not going to. And that's okay, because when my life crumbles, the pieces are falling upward and every time I need to be rebuilt He constructs something stronger and more beautiful and more powerful than my own vision. 

{I have seen the task that God has given people to keep them occupied. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11}

Held.

Sometimes life just hurts.

Sometimes I feel weak, alone, and empty.

Today was one of those days. This morning I was drenched in God's presence, but as soon as I stepped out of the church building life smacked me in the face simply because it was April 19th and April 19th is an emotional day. I spent most of the day angry. Angry at my family for having the nerve to address me on a hard day. Angry at my friends for not responding immediately to my texts. Angry at God for taking away one of my biggest inspirations and forcing me to live the past two years, and the rest of my life, without her. I ugly-cried way more than I like to believe is possible, I screamed at the top of my lungs, I slammed my fists on my steering wheel. I lost it. I was overwhelmed, I was exhausted, I was broken, and I thought that I had completely drained myself of the God-connection I had fed and prayed for and soaked in only hours earlier. So I did the only thing I could think to do-I wrapped myself in a blanket, I turned off the lights, I turned on our then-favorite worship music playlist, and I read three years worth of old messages. Tear-jerking, gut-wrenching messages that reminded me of how difficult her journey was and refreshed my anger because she didn't. want. to go. But then I turned my focus. I read my messages to her. Heart-breaking messages that reminded me of how broken I was.

You know, it's amazing when we just take a second and gain some perspective; when we step back and look at the bigger picture. Because throughout those thousands of confessions and rants and breakdowns, the healing was palpable. Just by her listening and loving and being. One of the last messages I have from her is a whole description of how she shared her story with someone to encourage self-forgiveness. She opened herself up and made herself vulnerable. She let her story speak for itself and do its work in someone else's life, and "through that talk...I am now able to say...it is well with my soul...."

He knows us and He meets us. He met her right where she was, every time. She found God in her pain and her failure. That's where He met her and that's where she allowed Him to hold her-right in the middle of it all.

Here I sit in the wake of hours and hours of grief and confusion and here He holds me. Here He wipes my tears and here He speaks into me. Here in the middle of my ugly and my angry and my screaming and crying, I feel held and I feel at peace. This day may never get any easier as the years continue to roll by. This day may always be filled with crocodile tears and gruff sobbing and hysteric screaming. And that's okay because He can take all of those things and in the midst of it all simply hold me to His heart.

It's okay

Okay is not a good word in our society; in fact it is generally a bad one.
Okay is the last acceptable answer before someone asks how they can help.

Okay means not good, not good means bad, bad means not good, so on and so forth, and Heaven forbid something not be good.

I am the actual queen of not being okay with just okay. I've come to terms with the impossibility of perfection, but good isn't perfect. Good is just better than bad--better than okay. Good is the in-between. Good is the healthy medium where I have found peace in not being able to please the masses. Good is my comfort zone. Good is good for me.
Bad is not. Bad is uncomfortable, it's judge-able, it's frowned upon. Bad is ugly and ugly is bad and bad is not good--it's a sick cycle.

But sometimes it's okay--even good--to just be okay, or even to be not okay. Not okay usually hurts. Not okay usually involves some rejection and some ugly thoughts and ugly conversations and, on occasion, some ugly crying. We aren't perfect, we aren't expected to be perfect; we are just so incredibly human, and nowhere in any definition of that word will you find correspondence with perfection. It's okay to ugly cry yourself to sleep, it's okay to let things hit you a little harder than they should, it's okay to be a little dramatic, it's okay to rant, it's okay to scream and yell and hit things. Because on days where internally I feel nothing but ugly and not okay and consequently angry, I stumble across old messages and notes from the first person in my life who taught me that being okay {and not okay} are in fact, in the truest sense of the word, okay.
I miss her and I wish that I could say that she would fill every one of my many holes.

"you know I love you more than yesterday and somehow less than tomorrow"

But the fact of the matter is that I'm a mess. In the deepest parts of me I am a mess and will always be a mess and know how to be nothing other than that, and that's okay with me and it is okay with God and it was okay with her.

"keep your head up princess...or the crown falls"

She knew it. She understood it. We were matching messes.

"I love God...I love him in my darkness. More so in my light. But when it's dark...when I can barely breathe...sometimes I will just sit in my driveway and light up a cigarette and stare into the night sky and spill my soul. Because for once I'm not afraid of not being loved back."

Because for once I don't have to be afraid of rejection.

Because for once I don't have to be afraid of okay.

He Gets It

I by definition am a worrier. I am 100 110% type A. I want control of everything. I need to plan, to make lists, to maintain 4 different calendars (true story)--just to feel like I have things in order. Organization is my life blood (second only to coffee) and the more structured my days and the further in advance they are planned, the happier I am. That's how I've always been, that's probably how I always will be.
Surrendering control has, from the beginning of time, been my biggest struggle and continues to be. That's just how my brain is wired. I like nothing less than to rely on others, because that takes the control out of my hands. My emotions and probably my sanity are locked in a glass case that only I have the key to--and so help me if someone does something that may take a piece of control from me and drops a little rock on my case. It's a world-shaker for me.
Sorry for sounding like a crazy person, but c'est la vie.

All of that being said, I had this really interesting breakthrough today. I'm not going to get crazy and say that I had an entire revolution and all in a moment dropped control of my life at the feet of my Father and experienced a weight lifting off my shoulders, because that is hard. And a really difficult, painful process for me that I have to relive constantly, day in and day out. Life change sucks when you're like me and this past week a life change presented itself. {world-shaking}

Side note: finding jobs is N O T easy or stress-free when you have an awkward class schedule and no degree.

Anyways, my glass case has been shaking pretty hard. Like, imagine a rock slide coming down on your iPhone and that's about how my crazy brain sees the idea of a "what-if?" in my life. My emotions might show. I might be seen as not having it together, as not knowing what I'm doing, as unsuccessful. And THAT would be the end of the world, right? That's how it registers for me.

See, I am in a relationship with a God who knows me more deeply than the deepest ocean and loves me more fervently than any Nicholas Sparks character has ever known. And in these moments of shock and disbelief and hidden terror, He whispers in my ear a reminder that He's got this. He's got me. But I'm me and a) I don't like when things get too close to my face and b) I have a habit of disregarding things I don't immediately agree with. So I pull away from those whispers and they fall on deaf ears. That's when I am reminded of just how well He knows me. Because if someone doesn't get the whisper, they're sure to get the shout, and shout He does. Today was one amazing thing after another. I had a super productive morning and in the middle of it received a call about setting up an interview, which is crazy because I literally just started job hunting 20 hours prior. I got so many reminders from friends and family who are so crazy good at allowing Jesus to use them to be His voice when He really needs to get through to me (Thanks, Jessie Chamberlain).

Ya know, I think we I have this skewed view of encouragement where I confuse it with uplifting. Sometimes encouragement is just a reminder that everything is fine. That maybe I'm not sure and maybe I'm not going to be sure for a while and that's okay. And just like that, I felt peace. Peace that was inexplicable and overwhelming and just washed over all my stress and worry and took over my mind. Maybe it's just for today. Maybe this job won't be the one for me. Maybe nothing will happen for me yet. But amidst the maybes, there's a resounding definite--I will definitely be okay, and God's perfect plan will definitely come about.