Gratitude

 How grateful, thankful, and relieved am I for the love of Jesus? Let me put it to you this way; I love Jesus but do not like every single aspect of His character. Does He understand this? Certainly. And for that I could never properly express how much I appreciate His understanding. Does the aspect of Him that I don’t like make me view Him as less in my eyes? I pray that will never be the case. I’m only human and a fault I find in Jesus is a flaw in me; not Him. He understands all the complexities of my flaws in ways I could never express or comprehend. Some days are harder to bare then others but there is an unexplainable peace that happens when I remember how much Jesus understands and cry from the simple truth of that understanding. Not until I really started to walk with Him did I learn that there are tears of sorrow, tears of pain, and tears of frustration; but also tears of gratitude. 

The Road

 

As a child I was prone to anxiety and impatience. Worry WAS a friend of mine and I didn’t even know that I was doing it. My impatience would turn into anger very quickly. The anxiety that I felt was brought on by pressures. Pressures from family and from my own thoughts, expectations, experiences, etc. Time made me anxious to the point that I would look at the clock constantly. Being so young I didn’t know that this was not healthy, especially since everything is so fast paced nowadays. The impatience that I felt was from frustrations. Frustrations that also centered around time. In a world always playing beat the clock, I couldn’t hear what God was tryin to tell and show me at an early age. Balancing these two took, ironically, time and persistence. And was well worth the effort. 

A Lifelong Truth...

Church

 As a child church was more of a stress than a haven or joy. There was always the stress of getting around for services because we had that "image" to maintain. Then, since my father didn't go to church, usually some kind of fight because it was only the two of us going. Church was another place I never seemed to fit in and not simply because I was a loner. Although we didn't move homes, we moved churches A LOT. My mother would find a church and at first it would be the best church ever but with time that would always change. She didn't like how they preached or what they believed or one church I remember us leaving because she didn't approve of the songs they sang. Even if I told her I liked one church or the other, still we switched. Eventually I fought her one church attendance and didn't go back until my older years. I love God and the purpose of His House, yet in my earliest years I felt more of a connection to him outside than I ever did inside.

First Crush

 

Everyone has they're first crush. That first spark of feeling for someone because they find them attractive or funny etc. My first crush, we'll call him DL, was a boy in my class. Oh how much I liked DL lol. He'd walk into a room and I knew it, everything else seemed unimportant. He was cute and the fastest runner in our grade. Blue eyes, blonde hair, and a killer smile that made me jealous of anyone or anything it was directed at. I was hooked and when it came to him I was shy. And looking back I now feel dumb as hell whenever I think about him. We rarely talked and he never knew I liked him. Here I was, smitten over this boy who I didn't know more than two or three things about, calling it love. Foolish? For sure. I didn't learn that until much later and in a hard way. But that was usually the case, my family didn't talk about boys or girls unless it was juicy speculation or events. I remember asking my grandfather at sixteen what love was and soak in his words like a dry sponge. Anything else from anyone else, well "we just don't talk about those kinds of things." But DL moved away and I moved on to a new crush that crushed back lol.

"Siblings"

Siblings. It's a word that speaks for itself for anyone who has them. However, all of my siblings are half and were out of the house by the time I entered this world. So I won't sit here and say I know all of the ups and downs of sibling-ry. Did mine tell on me? Yup. Did they fight? Yup, still do. Did they call me the baby? Yup. Were they there for me? Bare minimum when I was a child and only on the surface now, especially since it's the christian thing to do. Back then you could almost call it a recruitment for who's side was who's later on down the line. Each one has their own life separately and content to live it out so. Unfortunately, any encounter with any one of my siblings in the present is either short lived or regretted. Was it always that way? No, but things change.

"Daddy's Girl"

For whatever reason children either favor one parent or a parent favors a child. In these terms I have always been a daddy's girl. If ever I'm spoiled it's usually because of him. Where dad went, I wanted to go. If it was interesting and dad was doing it, I wanted to too usually. A lot of myself is like my dad and I'll say that with both pride and shame. I mistakenly saw him as different from the rest of his side of the family or maybe it was wishful thinking mixed with blindness. There was always a disconnect. We seemed to be complete opposites on most surface things. And thats how, what I call, the Gap began. And once that Gap started it only ever seemed to grow.