Cursed Blessings

"Our greatest passion coincidently is also our greatest curse." It is eerie how spot on these words were for me today. This has been one of the hardest struggles that I have encountered and it's been only more of a challenge in the past year. The truth is that I love my love for people, but there are times where I wish I could have control over that love for people.

We all have those gifts that we have been blessed with that often times we wish we didn't have. Mine just so happens to be the gift of empathy and to be honest it is such a burden most of the time. It's hard for me not to feel for the humans who surround me whether I know them or not. It's harder for me to not feel even deeper than they do themselves (or so it seems). It's this heart throb burden that I wish I could turn off but apparently I do not have a controller to do so.

As I had this conversation today, I was just continuing to think of the purpose of this gift that fills me up but also makes me so miserable at times. The reality is that it only frustrates me because the people who surround me do not think the same way that I do. They do not process the same way that I do and they don't quite understand this part of me. This has only sent me into the frustration of why I have been "blessed" with this. I can't explain it and often times it seems like I am just being a pansy who is emotionally unstable. I feel like some kind of freak until I have conversations like today where I realize that I am not the only one.

The conclusion that I have come to from this conversation today is that we often times feel like we are alone in our everyday struggles. This is a common conversation among most people, but that doesn't mean that it isn't continuously forgotten. Every single day I forget that I have other humans who are going through the same things or that struggle with the same thoughts that I do. Especially when it comes to the thoughts about this burden that is heavy on me. It is hard for me to talk about because I feel that it is worn down especially because I am a verbal processor (and an over processor at that) but my closest group of friends are not. However, even so, I am not alone. There are others out there who do think in the same way that I do and that is a comforting thought.

This whole thought process isn't a shot at my friends because I do have an incredible group of friends, but it is more so a thought through the human mind. We all have those things that we think we are alone with and we all are careful to speak of them, but the truth is that there are people to listen. It's the understanding of how to convey information and learning to work together through struggles. There is that tension of learning other people's communication skills while not losing how you communicate yourself. These gifts that we have been blessed with have purpose and meaning, but the truth is that they do suck sometimes. The goal now is to figure out what to do with them and where to go from here. My goal is to find purpose and joy even in the most burdensome times.

Spring Break: Life's Truth Serum

I never thought I would be one of those girls to be a part of a social media dating/hook up app. I have far too much pride and am far too scared of what others might think of me. However, these feelings ceased as the black hole some might know as loneliness started to suck me in. I got to a point where I wanted to be wanted or at least feel wanted and I did not care the means to get there. The obvious decision in my mind was to download Tinder and see what all the hype was about. The truth is that going into this self medicating situation was a bad idea and I knew it from the beginning.

The reality of my life is that I am surrounded by beautiful human beings. This isn't going to be one of those things where I get down on myself or make it seem like I don't see the beauty in myself, but I am just going to state the facts. I am surrounded by beautiful people and it is extremely hard to fight the comparison game. It's hard to look at them and see myself as an equal to them or that I will ever be as wonderful or beautiful as they are. Part of this is because when it comes down to it, there is a part of me that doesn't care to be. There is a part of me that likes being the "bro" in the circle of my guy friends, but there definitely the girl in me that wants to be wanted.

And then the app gods finally made this feeling of being wanted possible in such a "harmless" way and its name was "Tinder." At first it all started out as a game. I played it like the lottery or like the slot machines, it all was a game of luck. Then, I started to get matches. The first few I was quite impressed with, but then I continued to get match after match. It created this feeling in me that was exactly what I was desiring. I was searching for some sort of validation and this was exactly what I was feeling. Boys really did like me and they did want to get to know me. They paid attention to me and they had some sort of interest in me. Even though it was all virtual, it was real to me.

As the time went on, I only became to feel more shallow with this Tinder app. The cuter the matches were that liked me, the less likely I was to "swipe right" for a less cute one. I now had a scale to compare the others to and they better be good enough to make it on to the "match list." I was no longer finding validation in their matching of me, but instead was feeling only more powerful. My confidence continued to grow and I became more prideful within this. Finally, I noticed how much time this was taking up and that's when I got a swift kick to the face. I finally came crumbling back down to reality especially as I realized that I was finding my value in fake relationships.

It's not very often that I get that kind of attention from the opposite gender and the power was overwhelming me. However, it was also all fake. I wasn't actually getting real attention from these men and they only likes me based on a few photos and a few words. I was placing myself in a place to be judged in the most shallow of ways. I only was selling myself short because I knew how to manipulate the system to make guys "like" me. Aside from all of that, matching only leads to dumb decisions and dumb fantasies that lead to pain. When it comes down to it, is feeling "liked" worth it? It most certainly is not. If I can't pursue all yet hear things with a real live human in front of me, I am only opening myself up to pain.

With all this discovery only comes more challenges to loneliness. The first is trying harder to get over the comparison game. Sure, my best friends are beautiful human beings, but I can't let that play into the thought of my eon beauty. The second is finding confidence and being able to live independently within loneliness. Third of all, it is truly understanding that shallowness only leads to hollow feelings.  Being liked is nothing but a feeling when there is no substance to back it up. Here's to fighting all that BS and moving on.

The Truth of Love

There are times in our lives where we walk into situations that we know are going to be rough, but we didn't know that they were going to be this rough. The truth is that when we walk into those situations it is quite easy to have a positive attitude at first. However, as it goes on and our lives get harder, positive attitudes start to disappear. Positivity turns into apathy and annoyance. Hope disappears and escape plans are starting to be mapped out.

I have found myself in this place of apathy lately when it comes to a specific life scenario. God has brought someone into my life that isn't the easiest to love because of a myriad of reasons. As God is showing me what it looks like to love her, the devil is showing me why I shouldn't. My life is a real life tug of war between God and the devil and to be honest...the devil is winning. It's much easier to not love or to "surface love" a human being when times are rocky and that is what I am being pulled more towards.

However, as I read through the Gospels and even witness other human beings in my life, I see the truth of love revealed. First of all, God doesn't use clean people for his purpose. He uses those who are messed up and who have a past. The reason I acknowledge this is because when it comes to loving another human being it so easy for me to compare my life to theirs. The life they live may not be as clean as mine and I may mess up, but at least I don't mess up that much. This is the point where the humbling hand of God knocks me upside the head. Who am I to look at another human's life and think that God can do nothing with them? Who am I to look at their life and think that he is not doing anything with them right now? It's easy to have a skewed view of God's plan when we are stuck in our own minds of comparison. We must remember that we are all on the same scale and that nothing we do is bigger or lesser than that of other humans.

It is easy to lose hope in people when we see them continually make wrong decisions. We all continue to make wrong decisions. I continue to the same mistakes every single day even when those who love me tell me that I am in the wrong. Not only do the humans in my life tell me, but the Holy Spirit continually convicts me on my decisions. The truth is that even though I continue to mess up, I have a God who continues to love me and push me through that. Hope is not lost in my case and I should not lose hope in those "difficult" people in my life. If we have no hope in those around us that we care and love for, who will? And even more so, why should they have hope in themselves if no one else does? Hope is a simple thing to instill in another human beings life and to be real it doesn't always look like it's there at first, but it is. Hope is one of those things that takes a little bit of time to grow inside of a person because there is a great chance that it has never existed previously.

Love isn't an easy action all of the time nor is it meant to be easy. Love is continually challenging to the person extending and receiving. The truth is that until we allow ourselves to be humbled and to move past our own selfishness, we will never understand love. We have to look at the people (even the difficult one) who surround us and love them with a much deeper love. We cannot love through a human love, but only through the love of Christ. We all have our stories and we all have hit a sort of rock bottom, but we are continually loved. If we are continually loved, why should we not extend the favor? People will never change if we don't allow them to change. We only continue to chain them down with our lack in faith in them. With that being said, here's to a new challenge of true love...even in the hardest times.