Proceed with Caution

I'm only slightly kidding with the title. I'm hoping this is the last shlumpy post of mine for awhile (or ever, actually.)

I've been in down-and-out moods before for a day or two, but I'm running on like 2 weeks straight right now. I'm waiting for the day I wake up and just feel better, but I realize it doesn't work that way.

Do I know what my deal is? Not entirely. I know a lot of it is that I've been really hard on myself lately, for who knows what reason. Instead of embracing everything about myself, I'm kicking myself for it. There's obviously no reason for that. 

At the Mount today, Alyssa and I had lunch with one of the sisters, just the three of us. We caught up on a few weeks worth of life since she was away for a little while. As per usual (and one of the reasons we love her) she started grilling us on how we're adjusting and really honed in on how our spiritual lives are coming along since moving out. I'm not too proud to say that mine has been floundering a bit. It's hard to keep up a regular, daily commitment to your spirituality when it's not literally scheduled into your day. It was easier at the Mount- I won't say it was just easy, because if keeping up your spiritual life is easy, you're probably not doing it quite the way you should be.

Naturally, upon hearing from both Alyssa and I that we're slacking in this area, we marched right to her office and were handed some books. I picked out two. Each has a short daily reading and meditation. One is just general topics of spirituality, the other is geared more toward someone going through a hard time. The intro of one of the books states that the meditations are there "to help you spend a few moments each day remembering what you know." Perfect. Nothing new or scary, just reminders to set you back on the right track when you feel yourself straying. Or slumping, in my case.

As usual, God likes to hit me right in the face with things sometimes. Today's meditation was exactly what I needed: my reminder to get off my own case and embrace who I am, flaws, perfections and everything in between:

"Practice tolerance....tolerate your quirks, feelings, reactions, peculiarities, your humanness. Tolerate your ups and downs, resistance to change, struggling and sometimes awkward nature. Tolerate your fears, mistakes, natural tendency to duck from problems or pain. Tolerate your hesitancy to get close, expose yourself, be vulnerable. Tolerate the way we progress- a few steps forward and a couple back. Tolerate when you sometimes forget to trust God or occasionally get stuck...learn that all the humanness you're tolerating is what makes you and others beautiful."

Is reading this little passage my miracle cure to get me back to my usual self? No, but it's the reminder I really needed. I'm hoping that committing to reading these reflections everyday and spending some time journaling about them will help me out. I need to get back that little piece of normal that was wrapped up in daily prayer and meditation like I had at the Mount. Daily reminders that God is good, in control and loves me no matter what.

So I can be obnoxious, loud and goofy. I have a short temper, I'm shy and awkward. You'll probably never catch me getting all dolled up or doing much of anything in front of a crowd of people besides sweating and stuttering. I get embarrassed way too easy and I'm going to kick myself about it later.

But I'll tell you what else: I'll be the first one laughing at a joke and I'll do anything to see someone smile. I don't hesitate to help out another person or make their day a little better. I love and value the people in my life beyond measure and I love with every inch of my heart. I've got good people in my life who love me just the way I am and uphold me everyday. I've come a long way from the awkward teenager who hated every second of high school. I try new things, I challenge myself and try to stretch out of my comfort zone now and then. I've come into my own as the woman I want to be, even if I'm learning still everyday how to embrace every part of me. I'm proud of who I am and all I've done, no matter what.

If you've hung on this far into this post, congrats! I should give you a balloon or something. Sorry for the total spillage of...whatever this is. I don't want a million e-mails about how awesome everyone thinks I am, trust me I didn't write all of this for sympathy. I wrote it for me to release all this pent up negativity and, in a way too, to help out the people who have gotten a response of "I don't know" when they ask me "what's the matter?"

So what have we learned today?

I'm not like anyone else and that's not only OK, it's flipping awesome.