Hope

I've talked about the first two concepts in the title of my blog. I've come to a point where I'm clinging to the last one.

I'm finding myself in awe, even while I'm suffering and persevering. Even while my character is being developed. Hope arises out of believing that there has to be more to life than pain and hard lessons. To hope for the ability to learn from our mistakes and not be crushed by them. To hope for redemption and transformation through our times of death.

I know that ultimately, wherever my life takes me that I am loved and cared for. I have potential to be developed and to learn about thing bigger than myself. My Dad sees my life in the next year as a win-win situation. Even though I'm scared that my investments may fade away or that something new may be brought to the forefront, I have hope that I will be refined and find peace in wherever I end up.

Everything

by Lifehouse

You are the light
That's leading me
To the place where I find peace again.

You are the strength, that keeps me walking.
You are the hope, that keeps me trusting.
You are the light to my soul.
You are my purpose, you're everything.

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

You calm the storms, and you give me rest.
You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall.
You steal my heart, and you take my breath away.
Would you take me in? Take me deeper now?

You're all I want

You're all I need

You're everything

Mental Overload

This quarter has taught me so much so far regarding academics, how to handle my future, adjusting to a long-distance relationship, and loving people.

God has granted clarity through my classes this quarter. HR is a frontrunner in a grad school program to pursue after I graduate from UC in December. I've always lived for making people comfortable and with a job like this I could do it in a professional way. My Organizational Diversity professor has been so helpful in making these issues in the workplace pertinent in my own life in addition to providing information about the real world and how to approach researching schools. It doesn't seem like I have ever learned and retained so much from classes before. I can recognize structural aspects about organizations, personal tendencies, and organizational reactions to issues. It's a fulfilling sensation.

Going along with researching grad schools, my future in general is a big question mark that is slowly getting smaller in size. However, as things are being clarified like my career, more questions stem from it. The point in our relationship has come to make decisions about moving forward because my grad school research will be extremely different if I'm only considering myself. Hopefully we can talk soon, considering I've been helping in the decision about which base he will start on after he graduates next Spring...

While I'm still at UC finishing everything out, entering the "imparting wisdom" stage of my time in organizations, I continually learn how to effectively love people and meet their needs so that they can make it through the day and succeed in their future endeavors. This is so important. Making people feel appreciated, loved, and informed helps to ensure the future of organizations and of the people who are so valuable in every context of their lives.

God never ceases to amaze me. I'm learning so much and I'm scared of so much. But I know that I'll never be alone and I never have to do anything on my own.

Trust

While sharing thoughts through Facebook, Twitter, and blogging is an interesting experience that leaves room for a lot of knowledge and fun, I have to remember that I am being followed and watched by a lot of people. It seems like no one else can see it sometimes.

I have problems when people take things the wrong way, read too far into things, and assume the worst in me. This happened twice today with people who are close to me. One felt excluded from a statement I made about other people who were emphasized for a particular reason. The other one held onto selected things I was saying as though they are everything going on in my life.

How do you handle having the worst assumed in you and also, keeping yourself from assuming the worst in others?

Trust.

Red is Out

For those of you who attend Crossroads or are going through the Free* series with a church, I am a Red person.

For those of you who are not: A stronghold in my life is anger and bitterness. I always thought of it as rejection issues or abandonment since past men in my life have left me on a whim or went away at crucial or difficult times. Instead of wallowing, I have harvested a mindset of bitterness and a feeling of being wronged, leading to being unable to forgive easily or at all. This mostly manifests in not being able to forgive myself for some mistakes I've made, but I've noticed I approach unpleasant situations with anger and frustration rather than patience and compassion.

With that, I'm sorry if I've ever been impatient with you when it seemed to be unneccessary. I realize that many of my behaviors have been uncalled for and should have been more carefully considered, more gentle, more compassionate.

Noticing that I immediately react in frustration rather than understanding, my plan of action is to be slow to anger and abounding in love. Now that I can identify the source of my stronghold, I'll be better in controlling it and eventually getting rid of it. This will take so much dependence on God, something that I'm really excited about.

I have a feeling that this will lead to a transformation in the way I handle myself and in the way I view myself. I will come to a more full understanding of what grace is, which will then allow me to offer grace more abundantly. Then someday, I can forgive myself and those around me, even the people who have hurt me the most.

I'm ready to be free.

The Resilient Life

I checked out an update on my recovering paralyzed friend's CaringBridge page and his family has been reading The Resilient Life by Gordan MacDonald. People who are truly resilient to what life throws at them find success and push through challenges by possessing 5 characteristics:

1. They are committed to finishing strong
2. They run inspired by the big picture view of life
3. They run free of the weight of the past
4. They run confidently, trained to go the distance
5. They run in the company of a happy few

My friend's parents posed the question:

Do you face your life challenges with a sense of anger, disdain, and resentment at the world?

Or do you look straight ahead, decide not to deviate from your game plan and look at this as a challenge to shape the rest of your life?

Forgive Yourself

"Be not the slave of your own past-plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience, that shall explain and overlook the old."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Decompressing

People can't read your mind. I've expected people to do this so many times, mostly in relationships and a lot with my current relationship.

It's not fair to assume that they know exactly how to comfort you or what exactly you need them to do. It's okay to ask for the kind of support you want/need because if the person cares about you, they'll listen and offer that to you.

I catch myself doing this when I have a crazy day and I would hope that he would love on me and comfort me, give me a hug or rub my shoulders. But instead of holding something against him that he didn't even know I wanted, I can simply ask for a hug, a shoulder rubbed, a few minutes to hear me out.

He helped me understand that I decompress from things by relying on him and whoever is around while he decompresses alone, then talks about it later. I externalize while he internalizes. I like being alone and handling stress internally a lot of the time, but more and more I see that having support and knowing that people love me for who I am when I'm burdened really means a lot.