Last Thanksgiving, during the few days before heading home, I was facing serious temptations to cut my life short. Every fiber of my being wanted my time here on earth to be over. Upon arriving home, my ability to see life for what it really was was clouded by the focus I held on life's negativities, disappointments, and on the hurt that I had previously experienced. I was unable to recognize the true beauty of life, the many, many, undeserved blessings that had been poured out over my life in surplus, because all my negative mindset could do was complain. I'm embarrassed by how ungrateful I was.
The woman that I was a year ago today was one of negative outlook, scathed by life's disappointments, bitter in resentment, miserable yet unwilling to make effective changes, and trapped in her own anxieties and stubbornness. The Lord was doing incredible things with my heart during that time, and I attempted to cling to his words and what I knew to be true, but I was prideful and unable to see my own failings. Thankfully, this was all apart of his plan; He was molding me into a beautiful story for His own purpose.
A year has now past, and, though I fail daily at reading my Bible, (it has remained untouched for some time now), and though church has been a very evident struggle in my life lately, I know that I am still His precious child. I know that He saw me through the hardest days of my life and that He saved me from my own self-hatred and called me worthy and beautiful. And though, I sin and fail him everyday; I am unbelievably stubborn, I curse under my breathe and out loud in drunken stupor, I choose frat parties over FCA nearly every week; not any of this makes me any less qualified to praise the Lord for the progress of my life.
Some of you may laugh, "what progress? It seems to me you have backtracked..." Well, maybe that is the way that you see it. But the way that I see it, I am surrounded by people who have taught me to laugh at myself. Who have looked at me without any judgment, who have clearly and openly identified with my struggles, who are not, by any means, afraid to admit their struggles. This year has been an unbelievable year. A year where I have met so many people instead of sitting in my room frowning upon their recreational activities. A year where I have made mistakes, many, and learned incredible amounts about my character from them. I have learned what kind of woman I want to be and taken evident steps to eventually progress into that woman. I have looked at the mirror and accepted what I saw, more than accepted, I have been confident in who I am.
So, in terms of progress, I absolutely am in love with my life. I enjoy every minute of it. I smile more, I have more people that I know personally. And these, they are all successes. My morals and my beliefs that I so heavily focused on last year have spilled over into the way that I relate to people and carry myself this year. The Lord has done a great deal in teaching me how to be humble and not think of myself as better than anyone.
It's purely simple. I'm not. I am by no means qualified to preach at anyone and have a great deal of cleaning up to do, but I do want to emphasize that I am celebrating the fact that I am free from my depression, I am free from my self-loathing, and I do plan on riding this precious life of mine out to the very last breathe. I hope that this post has inspired you. I hope that you realize,
"you don't need to be perfect to inspire others. Let people get inspired by how you deal with your imperfection."
-Wilson Kanadi
"So count the ways He loves, a thousand, more, never stop, that when you wake in the morning you can't help but turn humbly to the east, unfold your hand to the heavens, and though you tremble and though you wonder, though the world is ugly, it is beautiful and you can slow, you can trust, and you can receive each moment as grace. Eucharisteo."
-Ann Voskamp
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