How I'm Made to Live: Encouragement

Encouragement has been on my heart, as of late. Not necessarily that I've been feeling very encouraged - in fact the opposite, - but just how important it is to me; how effective it is in life.

Last week at work was rough. I actually just felt extremely discouraged. I was pulled aside by my boss who never really talks to me about work, to tell me I should be doing something that I hadn't been. I like to do well; I like to know how to do something, and get good at it. Things that I'm not good at make me feel really insecure and if I don't quickly figure it out, I usually give up. (...character flaw much?...) Then the poo hit the fan, as they say and I got slammed. Needless to further indulge myself with detailing it; it was a bad week. This week, to follow was busy in the aftermath. I barely took lunches, I was working to catch up.

I had felt myself starved for encouragement that previous week. I haven't really given it much thought, until my eldest sister and I were having a discussion about personality and identity. She was talking about a conference she went to and how personality types and descriptors have a lot to do with your purpose. For example, she talked about how my type is the Champion, so I like to encourage people and lift them up, and if I was experiencing the opposite, I should recognize my nature and choose to remove myself, or speak up. Well just today I was thinking to myself about how much our gifts and tendencies can become a curse and a bad habit, if we let them. If we don't own those qualities or characteristics as ours, and begin to live in them, what are we even doing?

I think that's been a huge part of my struggle to find...place in the last, oh, year or so. If I am not living consciously, as the person I am and the version of that that I want to be - what is my life about? It's certainly not about doing mediocre things and watching a lot of TV shows. Which is what I feel like the last year has been, in summation. Of course, that's also an exaggeration, I've done some really worthwhile things, but I've wasted so much time, too.

After getting some encouragement this week in the form of a challenge to keep myself encouraged by simply reining my thoughts in, I was reminded. In a small way, (and through honestly months of building) I was reminded of who I am; what my purpose is, in part. When I was focusing on keeping my heart in a right place, what naturally sprung forth was encouragement. I felt a little sheepish, being so...gushy. I've quickly realized the only reason it feels silly is because it's not normal.

We're in a society taught to criticize, and to achieve, instead of to dream. To expect instead of to see. I've enjoyed just seeing again; things for what they are, but for the good of what they are. And I guess, that's what I did with myself this week, or maybe in these last few weeks. I know I can tend toward the negative and fall toward the judgmental, but it's only if I'm living loosely and not keeping myself in check; if I'm not aiming to strive in living as I'm made to live.

For as flippant a person as I may seem to the naked eye, I am a huge proponent of conscious living. And even if I'm not perfect at it, I've seen and realize that I am much better in life, if I am cheering people on, standing up with them, and building them up, rather than tearing down and apart. I have to remind myself that I do not live my life to live well, but to love well. Happy, healthy living follows.

Jigsaw

My tongue swells in my mouth
As the words fight to come out
Seems we're just
Falling down
And still we break
Without sound
Covering up already blinded eyes
Masterfully recreating devious lies
My heart drowns in blood and emotions
As you drown in pieces of yourself
And the pain will follow me
But I can put myself back together
You - a jigsaw - have no such luck
Mine commands respect
Yours doesn't merit it
I won't let you inherit it
My eyes, my nose
Start feeling sick as the pressure grows
My full veins course
As soul marries remorse
Hit the button - let's go back
Before I ever knew you
Before I ever grew you
Before I ever threw you
Truth is I can't undo you
And now I can't see through you
Or sing to you
And somehow I miss you
Just want to kiss you - feel you, but I can't
Other than I do every...day...
They told me that this would make it okay
It's best for me they say
That the pain will go away
And the memories will fade
Maybe I'll forget
The choices I made
The regret
An empty pit inside of me
Cries violently
May one day only weep silently.

You Have Me

On the drive home tonight, I had a new revelation on a song. Or maybe just a reminiscence. I don't listen to worship music often in the car; I have to be in the mood. And I was, for Christian music, but also good music...Gungor. I wanted the first track on the album I have and then decided to let it play out. I tend to get pensive on long, late-night drives alone. I was sort of just letting the music roll over me. All of a sudden the words caught my dazed, road-focused attention. 

"my faith was torn to shreds,

heart in the balance, 

but you were there, 

always faithful, always good,"

I immediately thought of the truth of those words; it was something I knew. I can think of a time (or two) when my heart felt in the balance, and I can really only attribute surviving the pain to the Lord. Then came the chorus,

"you still have me, you still have my heart"

and it hit me again. See, the Lord and I have been having an ongoing conversation about my heart. He has been pressing on it, loving on it, cherishing it, fixing it, growing it, teaching me how to make it more like His; He's been talking to me specifically about it. For months.

For four years I've had this heart tattoo idea and I finally got it this past Monday. Over the last few months, during this conversation, the Lord commissioned that tattoo. I really, truly believe He spoke it to me, that I could get it now, and it would be a mark of His love for me; and that my getting it would be, in a small way, giving Him my heart. Not that I won't fail, or run away, or forget...again.

Tonight, the words to that song just sort of pierced me, one after another. Numerous times I've heard it, but never really got it the way I did this time. And it served as a reminder of how good and loving the God I know is.

Originally, I wasn't going to say what I got, rather keep it very secret - and I don't plan to show it off, or post pictures anywhere - but there's beauty in the walk with Him. He is good, and intimate. And that's selfish not to share.

Buck Up and Try

I've been doing a lot less soul-searching than I normally do. Sometimes you find yourself in a phase of life where things just aren't where or what you want them to be. The thought of that might lead you to believe you would be soul-searching more than ever, but in reality it's likely you will wake up in the morning and lay in your bed thinking if you don't move, you won't have to go to work. Eventually the clock progresses to a point you can't deny, and you pry yourself from your bed and throw on something that sort of matches from the clothes pile, plod up the stairs and eat a piece of bread, get in the car and off you go.

I've found this phase is accompanied by this sort of vicious cycle: everything is so mediocre that by the time all the mediocrity is fulfilled for the day, the exciting stuff seems beyond your boredom-induced exhaustion. That may sound incredibly melancholy, but if you've ever been there you completely understand and feel for where I'm at.

This is my phase of life. I'm yearning for more, but find myself so exhausted from the current mundane and futile challenges, that sometimes I have to tell myself to buck up and do the things I love. How bizarre is that? The things that give life start to seem out of reach of my energy levels, because I have to put what I do have into things just to get by. (So if I blew off your party, or performance, or get-together, I'm sorry...I probably felt too tired that day.)

Things like riding my bike, writing, photographing, or socializing get put on the back-burner by an overwhelming desire to just...watch TV; for my brain to go into auto-pilot and put off the over-thought that I'm so disgustingly-prone to.

On the other hand of finding myself quick to excuse a blow-off, I also find that if I drag myself out, or get on my bike and go, or get that cup of coffee with my journal in hand, I sink right back into the life that it gives me. It's a deception, and I guess in a way - though I'm writing this to convince myself - I'm writing this to convince others: when something you love doesn't feel worth it, try anyway. I can almost promise you won't regret it.