"God hasn't forgotten you. God will never forget you. He says he will never leave you comfortles, and he won't. You can't use him up or wear him out. Hang on to him, Kim. He's the most powerful force for good you have. He won't forget you. So please don't forget him."
- Kim & Krickitt Carpenter with Dana Wilkerson, The Vow
Showing posts with label truth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label truth. Show all posts
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Sunday, October 28, 2012
All I Say
Dear,
Hey...I want to apologize. Lately, I've been sending you tones of texts, even when you can't/aren't responding. I'm sorry if this makes you feel smothered or makes you wonder if I'm kind of a creep. It's just, that, well, I trust you.
I know you may be sick of me. I probably say too much between the texts, posts and letters, but sometimes I just need to get things out of my system. You are my safe harbor, my sounding board, and when I find something beautiful and worth sharing; you are who I want to tell.
Hopefully the mix cds don't make you uncomfortable or bored. Maybe they're not all the kind of music you'd typically pick, but they're the songs that write out my stories, letters, words to you, if you listen.
I'm sorry if I call the women you fall or care for idiots. It just makes me crazy when you're chasing a girl who clearly can't see you like I do. No woman alive is worth your time if she doesn't see how incredible you are.
Do you really realize how I see you? I see you for the good you truly are, and the man you are working to become. You are kind, brilliant, witty, honorable (even in unlikely circumstances), even poetic when you fight, interesting, musical, talented, inspiring, a romantic (to your very core), and incredibly handsome (even if you can't always see it).
You see, I adore you. This is why you receive this insane plethora of words, ideas, secrets, hopes, and dreams whether they flow or not, because, I guess, my bigger hope is that you want to know my secret worlds as much as I want to know you, and I am sorry if this is not the case.
However you feel, I have never meant anything but the best for you, and I hope we can always joyfully be a part of one another's lives. I will keep dreaming, and I will do my best to lift you up.
Even if I never get a chance to become a deeper part of your life, God put you in my life for good reasons, and I intend to cheerfully see it through.
With love,
J
Ps. Did this just make it weirder? Eh.
Hey...I want to apologize. Lately, I've been sending you tones of texts, even when you can't/aren't responding. I'm sorry if this makes you feel smothered or makes you wonder if I'm kind of a creep. It's just, that, well, I trust you.
I know you may be sick of me. I probably say too much between the texts, posts and letters, but sometimes I just need to get things out of my system. You are my safe harbor, my sounding board, and when I find something beautiful and worth sharing; you are who I want to tell.
Hopefully the mix cds don't make you uncomfortable or bored. Maybe they're not all the kind of music you'd typically pick, but they're the songs that write out my stories, letters, words to you, if you listen.
I'm sorry if I call the women you fall or care for idiots. It just makes me crazy when you're chasing a girl who clearly can't see you like I do. No woman alive is worth your time if she doesn't see how incredible you are.
Do you really realize how I see you? I see you for the good you truly are, and the man you are working to become. You are kind, brilliant, witty, honorable (even in unlikely circumstances), even poetic when you fight, interesting, musical, talented, inspiring, a romantic (to your very core), and incredibly handsome (even if you can't always see it).
You see, I adore you. This is why you receive this insane plethora of words, ideas, secrets, hopes, and dreams whether they flow or not, because, I guess, my bigger hope is that you want to know my secret worlds as much as I want to know you, and I am sorry if this is not the case.
However you feel, I have never meant anything but the best for you, and I hope we can always joyfully be a part of one another's lives. I will keep dreaming, and I will do my best to lift you up.
Even if I never get a chance to become a deeper part of your life, God put you in my life for good reasons, and I intend to cheerfully see it through.
With love,
J
Ps. Did this just make it weirder? Eh.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Tiger Lily
When I was growing up, we had this tape from a group of nationally known story tellers. I don't remember the name, but many of the stories have stuck with me and I still think of some of the lessons they taught from time to time.
One of my favorites has always been this story told by a woman about when she was growing up. She never quite felt comfortable in her own skin, and she spent a lot of her growing up comparing herself to her cousin who was known to be beautiful. One of the lines from the story was, "She had a waist so thin men could wrap their hands around it...and they did." I, even as a kid, could relate to this sentiment. I was picked on for being chubby from kindergarten on. And this woman talked about how she had tons of freckles whereas her cousin was fair skinned. I am covered in freckles, again, I could relate.
As a girl, the woman's grandfather would tell her she was beautiful, that she didn't have to look like her cousin. Every person was their own different kind of beautiful, and she was her very own beautiful flower. She didn't believe him.
So that summer, she sent away for a cream that claimed it was going to get rid of her freckles. She kept it hidden from her family because she didn't think they would understand.
She had a summer job out working in the fields near her home, so before she got up she slathered the cream all over her body. Then she went out to the fields.
By the end of the day, her freckles were much darker than they had been and there were more of them. When she got home, she realized she hadn't noticed that there was a warning not to use this product and spend a lot of time in the sun. It just about broke her heart. Here she'd spent all this money on something that she believed would change her into what she wanted to be, fair skinned and like her cousin, but it just made her freckles more a part of her.
Her grandfather figured out what had happened and tried to comfort her. He reminded her that she was her own beautiful flower, but she didn't want to listen. She told him, "You've never seen a flower with FRECKLES!" She cried herself to sleep that night.
But in the morning...she found a tiger lily on her pillow.
I tell you this story because it reverberates deep in my heart and soul. I have spent years and years and years...practically all 25 of them thinking I was not good enough. That I am not pretty and that I am not worthy of dreaming my dreams and achieving them. My parents, like the girl's wonderful grandfather, have tried to remind me that I am something beautiful. My own kind of beautiful, but I have never really believed it.
Recently my best friend in the universe, Nikky, pointed out to me that I really needed to have a goal, a dream, something to work towards. I have been thinking about this for probably about a month and a half now with no real success. I realized I no longer had anything to work towards. I have given up on most of my dreams because I am afraid to fail or because I don't feel like I am good enough to accomplish them.
Are you noticing a pattern here?
I am not good enough.
I gave up.
I am not beautiful.
I can't.
I won't.
I don't believe.
There is a pattern. And it is one I want to break. I have never liked myself, and it needs to stop. Today while I was at work I was trying to figure this out what I could possible set for myself as a goal. It's been driving me crazy and keeping me up at night, and people have tried to give me suggestions: get healthy, learn Italian (that was one of my thoughts), plan a trip, get out of debt, lose weight. All of these are good suggestions, and they do all kind of fall together at some point, but I needed one goal. Just one.
So here it is:
I am going to learn to love myself.
I would say like myself, but I want it to go beyond that. I want to love myself enough that I stop doubting myself all the time. I want to recognize my beauty and worth. One of my favorite quotes talks about how God didn't create us to play small. He created us to be fantastic and beautiful and powerful. We can't hang back and hide in the shadows. How could that benefit God? It can't. And that's not what I want. I want to be someone who knows her own worth so that I can, in turn, bring out the best in others. To show them that they are their own kind of beautiful too.
I want to believe that I am something good so someone else can believe that too.
One of my favorites has always been this story told by a woman about when she was growing up. She never quite felt comfortable in her own skin, and she spent a lot of her growing up comparing herself to her cousin who was known to be beautiful. One of the lines from the story was, "She had a waist so thin men could wrap their hands around it...and they did." I, even as a kid, could relate to this sentiment. I was picked on for being chubby from kindergarten on. And this woman talked about how she had tons of freckles whereas her cousin was fair skinned. I am covered in freckles, again, I could relate.
As a girl, the woman's grandfather would tell her she was beautiful, that she didn't have to look like her cousin. Every person was their own different kind of beautiful, and she was her very own beautiful flower. She didn't believe him.
So that summer, she sent away for a cream that claimed it was going to get rid of her freckles. She kept it hidden from her family because she didn't think they would understand.
She had a summer job out working in the fields near her home, so before she got up she slathered the cream all over her body. Then she went out to the fields.
By the end of the day, her freckles were much darker than they had been and there were more of them. When she got home, she realized she hadn't noticed that there was a warning not to use this product and spend a lot of time in the sun. It just about broke her heart. Here she'd spent all this money on something that she believed would change her into what she wanted to be, fair skinned and like her cousin, but it just made her freckles more a part of her.
Her grandfather figured out what had happened and tried to comfort her. He reminded her that she was her own beautiful flower, but she didn't want to listen. She told him, "You've never seen a flower with FRECKLES!" She cried herself to sleep that night.
But in the morning...she found a tiger lily on her pillow.
Recently my best friend in the universe, Nikky, pointed out to me that I really needed to have a goal, a dream, something to work towards. I have been thinking about this for probably about a month and a half now with no real success. I realized I no longer had anything to work towards. I have given up on most of my dreams because I am afraid to fail or because I don't feel like I am good enough to accomplish them.
Are you noticing a pattern here?
I am not good enough.
I gave up.
I am not beautiful.
I can't.
I won't.
I don't believe.
There is a pattern. And it is one I want to break. I have never liked myself, and it needs to stop. Today while I was at work I was trying to figure this out what I could possible set for myself as a goal. It's been driving me crazy and keeping me up at night, and people have tried to give me suggestions: get healthy, learn Italian (that was one of my thoughts), plan a trip, get out of debt, lose weight. All of these are good suggestions, and they do all kind of fall together at some point, but I needed one goal. Just one.
So here it is:
I am going to learn to love myself.
I would say like myself, but I want it to go beyond that. I want to love myself enough that I stop doubting myself all the time. I want to recognize my beauty and worth. One of my favorite quotes talks about how God didn't create us to play small. He created us to be fantastic and beautiful and powerful. We can't hang back and hide in the shadows. How could that benefit God? It can't. And that's not what I want. I want to be someone who knows her own worth so that I can, in turn, bring out the best in others. To show them that they are their own kind of beautiful too.
I want to believe that I am something good so someone else can believe that too.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Truth
For the past 24 hours I have been thoroughly contemplating the meaning of truth. Not just truth, but honesty. What constitutes honesty? At what point is simply not speaking up telling a lie?
I'm sure many people would argue with me, but I do believe that omitting what you know at some point does become lying. I think there's a huge amount of pain and heartbreak caused simply because we don't step up and say what we mean when we realize that circumstances, feelings, situations, have changed.
Don't lie.
I'm sure many people would argue with me, but I do believe that omitting what you know at some point does become lying. I think there's a huge amount of pain and heartbreak caused simply because we don't step up and say what we mean when we realize that circumstances, feelings, situations, have changed.
Don't lie.
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