they're only words with a tidal wave of heart behind them

Hold onto the progress you have made.

It says that in the bible somewhere. It's an important command, especially considering how often we fail, and fall, and lose.

Imagine yourself walking from San Francisco to Wilmington to visit your grandmother. Imagine how much you love her and how happy that she'll be to see you. Think about looking at your feet, watching them take each step. You can see the ground beneath you pass by so quickly. You look up. There is so much beauty around. Such a drastic difference from the beauty that you saw yesterday, let alone last week. Mountains. Fields. Old cities. New cities. Families on farms. Places that humans haven't touched. Blue skies. Grey skies. Night skies. Dusk skies. So you imagine the satisfaction of seeing so much of the beauty of the journey you're on, and how much more beautiful it's getting as you near your destination.

Now imagine if every time you had to stop and rest, or every time you had to stop and eat, or every time your leg got a cramp or you got sidetracked by a cool souvenir shop or stone carving or car accident that you saw..... anytime this happened...... you suddenly were back at the beginning. Like an instant teleportation back to the start. Sure, you'd get to enjoy that part of the journey again.... but you wouldn't be any closer to the goal. Your grandmother would be missing out on what you have to give.

So hold onto the progress you have made. Don't allow yourself to buy into the idea that you get warped back to the beginning each time that you mess up. Hold onto your progress. When you stand back up, stand where you were, and walk where you were going.

Axe to Throat

This may surprise you, but one thing that I hate more than almost anything else is writing. Not writing really, but the act of forming sentences. I often don't write on paper because I know that eventually my frustration will lead me to stab through the pad with a pen. While the price of a computer seems to prevent me from doing anything physically destructive, it really only perpetuates the problem by forcing me to suppress all of these emotions. And yeah, there are a lot of emotions, although most of them are related to anger and a feeling of worthlessness. The funny thing? 

it's that when I'm not writing, I think that I love it. I think that I'm good at it. I think, 'I should become a real writer.' 

Maybe I should become a real writer so that I can always remember how much it upsets me. But alas, I cannot afford that computer to break or those pads to stab.

a life lesson in one sentence

"Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours." cs lewis

There's a devil on my shoulder

I've noticed a very strange thing tonight, and perhaps many times along the way. It's called CORRECTION. "What is it for," you may find yourself asking. Well, dear friend, correction is a tool that is used to help somebody to become correct. The funny thing about being corrected is that when you're strong you invite it... but when you're weak you despise it and fear it. Sadly, it's when we are weak that the correction is most vital to moving us forward.

edit: I typed that paragraph earlier only to get frustrated and delete it. . . . . . . because I felt that it wasn't good enough.

Let's talk about not being good enough. Better yet, let's talk about feeling like we aren't good enough. That disabling feeling where you slowly subscribe to the idea that anything that you do will fail or be frowned upon or even just be noticed by people that we are suddenly afraid to interact with. Yeah. I hate that feeling, but I know it well. I've felt it many times. I've indulged it many times. On many occasions, I've allowed it to dictate where I went in life.

Do not buy into this lie. Feeling worthless is not the same as being humble. Feeling worthless handicaps you to the point of immobility. Your worth is proven by the fact that God loves you.

So KNOW it.

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