"Failure - When your best just isn't good enough."
Man... Larry Kersten sure knows how I'm feeling today. I am exhausted. The past week I have run around like crazy, busted my butt, and used every ounce of my energy trying to get everything done that is needed, and trying to do it to the best of my ability. Yet, last night while laying in bed, I felt worthless. I was going over my week and realized that while I felt like I did well this week, it seemed no one else even noticed. Then my mind got going, and next thing I knew I was awake at 1:00am crying.
I thrive on "thank yous" and "great jobs." Not because I know when I do a good job, but because I feel like I never do good enough. I constantly feel like a failure. I could spend five hours on a project that would normally take two just so that I can be sure it is perfect, and if I don't hear a "thank you," I will spend the evening trying to figure out what in the world I did wrong. I know that I am too hard on myself... I've heard it for years. In middle school, I wasn't allowed to take the advanced classes because I "think too much." What the crap!?!? Who knew you could think too much! Back then, I got upset because I wasn't allowed to jump ahead and take the classes I knew I could handle. But now I know why they wouldn't let me. I spend so much time trying to please everyone else, including my teachers in school, and don't pay any attention to me or my relationship with God.
After thinking for a while last night, I realized that I am insulting God by thinking I am not good enough. He made me... "fearfully and wonderfully (Psalm 139:14)" By wanting praise from the world in the form of "thank yous" that seem to never come, I am forgetting that I am rewarded everyday for the things I do. I am rewarded with the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins, even the over-thoughts in my head. He allows me to be here and have the experiences I have because I am glorifying Him by doing His work to the best of my ability. Even if I feel like it isn't enough.
So, Mr. Kersten... You are wrong. You may have gotten me thinking what a failure I was for a short period of time this morning. But then God showed me that I needed to stop dwelling on my "worthlessness," because it doesn't exist in His eyes. So when you don't feel good enough, remember...
"There is time in which to be, simply be, that time in which God quietly tells us who we are and who He wants us to be. It is then that God takes our emptiness and fills it with what He wants." (Madeline D'Engle)
Monday, August 31, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Time Traveler's Future???
**Warning... If you are planning on reading this book, there are some spoilers throughout this blog...***
I just finished reading "The Time Traveler's Wife" this week, and really enjoyed reading a different type of book than usual. From seeing the previewsfor the subsequent movie, I knew that I was just asking for a crying fest (and I got it!) but I had heard it was a good book so I scooped it up, ran home, and started reading away. It was a great book, but it got me thinking...
For those of you who have never read/heard of the book (or movie that has just been released) the story is about a man who travels through time with no control over when he travels or where he goes. He just randomly leaves the present and shows up in different times of the past/future, and after some sort of experience he gets shifted back to the present time. During his travels, he revisits the day his mother passed away, meets his wife and a few friends, visits his younger self, and even sees his future daughter. Because he cannot control his paths, he isn't able to make himself move into the future as often as he would like. About 3/4 of the time he is spending his travels in the past, so during his future travels he is very intentional about taking in all that he can to learn what may happen later in his life.
Due to the fact that time traveling isn't really typical in our world, he is not able to tell many people about his experiences. He shares the information with his wife, his father, a couple best friends and doctors. When those close to him find out they are always eager to know the future. They already know the past, so there is of course no need for him to recite to them what has already happened. There is a point where his wife is insistant on knowing what happens in the future. The have not been able to have a baby and do not know why, and she finds out he has traveled to the future and he knows what happens. Over and over she tells him she wishes she knew, and over and over he does not tell her. He feels it may change the future to know it.
I know this wasn't a book that taught on Christian values, or one that instills morals in a person, but there were points that still hit me really hard.
I constantly want to know what is going to come in my future, and I'm sure most of you do also. We sit and wish we just knew where it was all headed and what God has in store for us. When we are in the midst of trouble, we just want to know that one day it will be okay. When life is great, we want to know we something will ruin our "high." But God never called us to know our future. That is for only him to know! I know God's will is already laid out for us before we are even conceived, but what if there is a possibility that the time traveler is right in his thinking that if you know the future you could possibly change it? If you found out at 18 what your future career would be, wouldn't that cause you to do things differently than if you just blindly pursued your life? Even more serious, what if you found out that your best friend was going to pass away in within days... Wouldn't you want to spend more time with them... Want to intervene somehow so that you could keep them longer.
There are reasons why we don't know the future. If we knew everything that was going to happen in our life, everything would change. We would only pursue those things that we knew would happen and not have the experiences along the way that we feel are unnecessary. Worse yet, what if we became angry because of something we knew would happen in the future and because of that we decided to never come to know this God that would do that to us.
We were not called to know our future... We were called to live intentionally for the future that God has laid out for us that we do not yet know. If we knew things that were to come, we would have no reason to trust God.
So instead of wishing we knew what was to come, perhaps we should just remember to trust God and live a life of intentional pursuit. That, in my mind, is a million times better than knowing the future. Because if you are trusting God, you at least know the end result of your life... And that sure is enough for me.
I just finished reading "The Time Traveler's Wife" this week, and really enjoyed reading a different type of book than usual. From seeing the previewsfor the subsequent movie, I knew that I was just asking for a crying fest (and I got it!) but I had heard it was a good book so I scooped it up, ran home, and started reading away. It was a great book, but it got me thinking...
For those of you who have never read/heard of the book (or movie that has just been released) the story is about a man who travels through time with no control over when he travels or where he goes. He just randomly leaves the present and shows up in different times of the past/future, and after some sort of experience he gets shifted back to the present time. During his travels, he revisits the day his mother passed away, meets his wife and a few friends, visits his younger self, and even sees his future daughter. Because he cannot control his paths, he isn't able to make himself move into the future as often as he would like. About 3/4 of the time he is spending his travels in the past, so during his future travels he is very intentional about taking in all that he can to learn what may happen later in his life.
Due to the fact that time traveling isn't really typical in our world, he is not able to tell many people about his experiences. He shares the information with his wife, his father, a couple best friends and doctors. When those close to him find out they are always eager to know the future. They already know the past, so there is of course no need for him to recite to them what has already happened. There is a point where his wife is insistant on knowing what happens in the future. The have not been able to have a baby and do not know why, and she finds out he has traveled to the future and he knows what happens. Over and over she tells him she wishes she knew, and over and over he does not tell her. He feels it may change the future to know it.
I know this wasn't a book that taught on Christian values, or one that instills morals in a person, but there were points that still hit me really hard.
I constantly want to know what is going to come in my future, and I'm sure most of you do also. We sit and wish we just knew where it was all headed and what God has in store for us. When we are in the midst of trouble, we just want to know that one day it will be okay. When life is great, we want to know we something will ruin our "high." But God never called us to know our future. That is for only him to know! I know God's will is already laid out for us before we are even conceived, but what if there is a possibility that the time traveler is right in his thinking that if you know the future you could possibly change it? If you found out at 18 what your future career would be, wouldn't that cause you to do things differently than if you just blindly pursued your life? Even more serious, what if you found out that your best friend was going to pass away in within days... Wouldn't you want to spend more time with them... Want to intervene somehow so that you could keep them longer.
There are reasons why we don't know the future. If we knew everything that was going to happen in our life, everything would change. We would only pursue those things that we knew would happen and not have the experiences along the way that we feel are unnecessary. Worse yet, what if we became angry because of something we knew would happen in the future and because of that we decided to never come to know this God that would do that to us.
We were not called to know our future... We were called to live intentionally for the future that God has laid out for us that we do not yet know. If we knew things that were to come, we would have no reason to trust God.
So instead of wishing we knew what was to come, perhaps we should just remember to trust God and live a life of intentional pursuit. That, in my mind, is a million times better than knowing the future. Because if you are trusting God, you at least know the end result of your life... And that sure is enough for me.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
I'm Giving up Chocolate...
So I'm reading through "Blue Like Jazz" (I know... I'm going slow on this one... I've been busy!) and what I read yesterday made me laugh. "... the Bible is so good with chocolate. I always thought the Bible was more of a salad thing, you know, but it isn't. It is a chocolate thing."
As I was sitting on the couch reading that, and eating Butterfinger minis (ironically) I laughed. How cute of a statement to make. The Bible is good with chocolate. But then again, what isn't good with chocolate?
I just went on about my business, reading and snacking, and made it all the way until today before something hit me. I was trying to read my Bible this morning, and for some reason I just could not make it through even a chapter. I kept getting so distracted, looking at this, thinking about that. So I went downstairs and started reading my book instead. I whizzed through a chapter in no time. Then I shut my book, and sat there and felt so guilty. I know I'm reading a book that is at least about Christianity, but I still felt horrible. How was it so easy to read my book when I struggled to read one sentence in my Bible?
I think we are conditioned to make it hard on ourselves. We don't enjoy the parables in the Bible like we do the stories in our novels. It's because our novels are chocolate-coated. We feel like we are in the stories... Like we are characters in the books, or like we have strong attachments to the plotlines. We don't feel like we can relate to the Bible as much. Sometimes we can only completely focus on the Bible when we have something else, like candy, keeping us occupied as well.
I hate the days when I look back at my Bible to what I read the night before and don't even remember a word of it. When I'm so distracted that I just skim over the pages, like I'm fooling myself (and God) into thinking I've read and want to apply the Word to my life.
So I've giving up chocolate... Not literally, of course, but figuratively. No more distractions. No reading the Bible in front of the T.V. My phone will be on silent. My door will be shut. Because being single-minded and focused is the only true way to be able to hold the Word in your heart.
As I was sitting on the couch reading that, and eating Butterfinger minis (ironically) I laughed. How cute of a statement to make. The Bible is good with chocolate. But then again, what isn't good with chocolate?
I just went on about my business, reading and snacking, and made it all the way until today before something hit me. I was trying to read my Bible this morning, and for some reason I just could not make it through even a chapter. I kept getting so distracted, looking at this, thinking about that. So I went downstairs and started reading my book instead. I whizzed through a chapter in no time. Then I shut my book, and sat there and felt so guilty. I know I'm reading a book that is at least about Christianity, but I still felt horrible. How was it so easy to read my book when I struggled to read one sentence in my Bible?
I think we are conditioned to make it hard on ourselves. We don't enjoy the parables in the Bible like we do the stories in our novels. It's because our novels are chocolate-coated. We feel like we are in the stories... Like we are characters in the books, or like we have strong attachments to the plotlines. We don't feel like we can relate to the Bible as much. Sometimes we can only completely focus on the Bible when we have something else, like candy, keeping us occupied as well.
I hate the days when I look back at my Bible to what I read the night before and don't even remember a word of it. When I'm so distracted that I just skim over the pages, like I'm fooling myself (and God) into thinking I've read and want to apply the Word to my life.
So I've giving up chocolate... Not literally, of course, but figuratively. No more distractions. No reading the Bible in front of the T.V. My phone will be on silent. My door will be shut. Because being single-minded and focused is the only true way to be able to hold the Word in your heart.
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