Facing Failure

When you fail at things in life, sometimes it can feel like the end of the world. It seems like everything around you is falling apart and you can't seem to stop it. You don't know where you went wrong because maybe just a couple of years ago, you had a world full of opportunities. Opportunities that are now obsolete, or they seem to be in your eyes. 

So what happened? 

You fail to realize that there's more to life than what you can see. That's where faith comes in. It may appear as if everything around you is falling apart, but really God is working to tear down the old house that you're currently living in so that He can build you a new one. But you can't see that. All you can see is everything that you're losing. You don't see the new foundation that is waiting to be laid. You don't see the wood that's being treated to give the house a stronger frame than the one before. You don't see the new walls and the new flooring. You can't seem to let go of all of the old memories that were in the old house. 

You can't see that God is molding you to be the person He needs you to be. You don't think you're ready. 

One of my struggles recently is trusting God's timing.  In the past, everything has always worked in a seemingly orderly fashion and seemingly easy for me. But now He's taking things away and closing doors.It feels like nothing I do makes anything better. And honestly, most times it's really hard for me to sit and wait for Him to work. I always feel like there's something that I need to be doing or something that I should be doing so that I can fix everything that I feel like I messed up. But what if I really didn't mess up anything? That's the question I keep asking myself. The closer I get to God, the more I realize that everything happens for a reason. Although I may have acted irrationally or didn't prioritize like I should have and I feel like I've messed up everything because of the place that I'm in now, I'm exactly where I need to be. 

Sometimes God has to strip you of everything to mold you and to prepare you for what He has planned for you.  

So just wait and trust God and know that He's working all things out for your good. Believe that better is coming. Storms don't last forever, even if it's been months, or even years. It will get better! 

Romans 8:28 (NIV) "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." 

Dear Lost Jay,

Now that I've finally found you, there's some things I want to share...

You were so amazing. You had this greatness that everybody could see and that everybody loved. Why did I ever let you leave? Did I not realize how special you were? Maybe I was scared of the woman I was becoming because I knew that road would be a difficult one, so I let you go and I became something else instead because I thought it would be easier. I don't think that I was ready to work as hard as you wanted me to and so pushed you away. I wanted love, not to work hard and be better. So I chose love over you. But how silly of me to think that love would work without you. Because you complete me and I can't love somebody how they need to be loved if I'm incomplete.

I'm so thankful that God brought you back to me. 

Without you I feel so empty and alone, and I've been trying to fill that void, but it's you I've been looking for. You're spirit is what makes me who I am. When you left, I lost my touch. I was scared without you. I can't be great without you because you had this drive about you that pushed me to be great even when I didn't feel like being great. I lost my balance. I lost my focus. I couldn't even love properly. And it was all because I lost you... 

I wanted an easy life, and you challenged me to go after the impossible. But I'm not scared anymore because I live by faith, not by sight. I was so stuck on what I could see, not what I knew. I don't want an easy life because easy things aren't always worth it. As the saying goes, "Nothing worth having comes easy".

So I'm ready for this new adventure and I promise to not push you away and to always choose you. Because without you I'm not me...

My life is not about me

My whole life I've been taught that if you do well and you do what you're supposed to do, good things will come. Although that is true, I began to do what I "thought" were the right things just in an attempt to get what I wanted. But my heart wasn't always in the right place. I've been living this life, thinking that I was doing what God wanted me to do just so I could get what I wanted from Him. 

How wrong is that? 

It's not something that I ever realized I did until everything that I wanted got taken away and things started falling apart. I began to sit and reflect on my life and take a deeper look inside myself. I began to see that I was attempting to please God so that He would bless me and not because that's what He deserves. I wasn't doing it intentionally, but I was still doing it. I would tell God that I would give up certain things and that I would stop doing certain things if He would just give me things that I wanted. How inconsiderate of me? How dare I ask the One who wakes me up everyday and allows me to live that life that I live to give me more in return for doing what He asks me to do? He doesn't owe me anything. 

After 22 years of being on this earth, I finally get it. God will bless me however He wants to whenever He is ready. But in the meantime, I need to live a life that is pleasing to Him because that is what He deserves. I want to see Him one day and when I do, I want Him to be pleased with the life I lived. 

My life isn't about me. It's not just about the things that I want or that I feel like I need. Yes, there are things that I want that I don't have, and there are things that have been taken away that I don't understand why, but God's will is bigger than anything that I can see or understand. God is a God of restoration and He can do things that we could never imagine.

So for now I rest in Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

And with this I am finally able to understand the scripture that I've been replaying in my head over and over again for the past year and a half, Philippians 4:6-7. 

Dear old love

In a field full of roses, you're the one that spoke to me. 

You had this uniqueness about you that others may not have appreciated, but I loved. 

I carried you everywhere I went and you made everyday brighter. 

Whenever you would start to wilt, I would nourish you, and for a while, that's all you needed to pep back up and bloom again. 

But one day something changed, whatever I was feeding you wasn't working. 

It seemed like the harder I tried to keep you alive, the worse you became. 

Now I'm standing here holding onto your stem that's covered in thorns, while your flower has fallen off... 

I'm left with wounds that won't stop bleeding until I let go of your stem that once carried life into your body. 

I want to heal but to do that is to let go , so that's what I had to do. 

It's not easy because your thorns were embedded so deep that taking them out caused me more pain than I cared to experience. 

The wounds will heal and over time the scars will fade, but the pain....the pain is something I don't know if I can ever forget. 

So goodbye old love, always know that in a field full or roses, you were my favorite.