My Unedited Life

My Unedited Life

Last week was just one of those weeks. You know? The ones where life just comes at you in a million different directions. You think you can handle it, until you can’t.

By Thursday of last week, my mind was just done. It was tired and wanted rest. Tired of trying to hold onto everything that was happening around me. I feel. My mom, sister and I have this gift. We feel others pain and emotions. We feel each other’s pain. Not just a, “oh, I feel yah pain sista” type pain but a deep, heartfelt, agonizing pain. I not only feel their deep pain, but I feel others and I feel my own. Sometimes it weighs so heavy, it clouds my mind. The only thing I can do is to release it to God, and that is exactly what happened last week.

What was weighing heavy on me last week? Well here’s a few of the things that popped into my head:

Feeling others pain. Two weeks ago today, my best friend was in a car accident. When my sister and I found out, we felt so helpless. There was absolutely nothing we could do but pray. Not just any prayer but falling on hands and knees type prayer, begging God that she was okay. I’m sure God heard millions of prayers that day for Alyssa.

I could feel Alyssa’s pain. Not her physical pain but the emotions that go with it. I could feel the pain it was causing her family, friends and co-workers. Not only her pain but my moms and sisters as well. I was scared to death that my childhood friend might not be okay. It weighs heavy on my heart. It’s not something that you can use money to buy and fix. It’s just life and it’s painful. God is healing her as we speak and I am tremendously grateful.

Caring what others think. Writing is this crazy gift God has given me to use and almost 99% of the time, I just don’t want to use it. Crazy, right? I don’t want to use a tool God has given me because of the fear of what others think. Writing is painful. It shows pieces of myself that I don’t want anyone else to see. It makes me vulnerable-if I let it. The fear of sharing and writing sometimes stops me dead in my tracks. It paralyzes me. I stop creating, I stop writing, I stop sharing my story, I stop sharing others stories, I stop doing the things I love because I am to consumed with what people think of me. Why am I so afraid for people to see who I really am?

Someone the other night posted on one of my Facebook status and said, “my beauty was evident in posts like this”. I needed to hear that. Sometimes it’s so much easier for others to see the beauty in ourselves than for us to see our own. God was showing me that a piece of my beauty is in my writing. I know my true beauty is in Him, but one way I can show a piece of God’s beauty is through my writing. If I stop using his gift, I am not showing his glory that was mean to be revealed. I am holding back and not using it to its fullest capacity.

Last week, God wanted me to write. And I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to feel the pain that could potentially emerge within. It’s painful to write but it’s more painful not to. So here I sit, writing out my thoughts and emotions that come to mind from deep within.

The thing is, most of the posts or stories I share, it’s the ones that I am most fearful of end up being the ones that seem most encouraging to people. It results in encouragement for both me and them. I know my writing is making a difference and if it takes pain and sharing my story, then I will continue on.

Perfectionism. When it comes to my work, or anything creative, I do it above and beyond to the best of my ability. I give 110% and more. I want to do my best in everything I do no matter what it is. Okay, maybe not laundry or doing dishes, ha! Really anything creative that I enjoy doing like photography, projects at work, designing, crafting, this blog or writing. I sometimes drive myself into the ground because I set such high expectations that I can’t even meet and I also compare myself with others. I wish I was a pro in Photoshop in Illustrator and could create beautiful images, or how to work my fancy camera better. I am aiming for perfectionism and it’s impossible to achieve this.

Last week I got to a point, I was holding onto too much. Too much pain, worry, fear, caring what others think, feeling inadequate, comparison, and an idealistic form of perfectionism. Life seemed to get bigger, and God seemed to get smaller. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.

Why do I feel the need to edit my life so much and to care what others think? I am not perfect. I have good days and I have bad days. My life is real and I am human. I write this because I know there are people out there who can relate and who need to hear this- I need to hear this. To show people that beauty is painful sometimes. Life is painful but true beauty lies in Christ.

By Friday, I was able to give it all to God. He took it all away and constantly carries my burdens for me. This is the verse he showed me:

Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is there anything to hard for Me? Jeremiah 32:27

If I am to afraid of show who I am, then I am telling God I am to ashamed to show who he is. If I withhold my writing, I am not using my gift God entrusted to me to fully show who he is.

But I am not ashamed, because I know who I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day. 2 Timothy 1:11.

The reason I chose these pictures is because I originally planned to do this DIY sidewalk chalk project with my little nieces and nephew. Thinking it would be easy and fun, I decided to experiment with it before we did it together. It was a DIY project fail. The chalk looked lumpy, ugly, and resembled colorful poop. The plaster chalk never actually hardened because who knew that in Florida it was to humid for it to dry. This is my life unedited. Imperfect, messy and not at all how I planned. Just the way I like it.

Enough serious talk, check out this funny e-card for a good laugh!