a blessed mess

The only way that we’re really going to have an impact in the world is when we stop just relying on services to reach the world. A lot of people never get there. It’s going to take some contact. We as believers have to learn how to look other human beings in the eyes & have a relationship with them. Not just yell at them from a street corner, but look them in the eyes, listen to them, hear about their lives & teach them how to center their lives around the God who created them.

Francis Chan, Multiply (via solideogloriaa)

(via erinelizascott)

Grace. Yea, Not So Much

If you ever want to learn a lot about your own character and personal limits - care for someone who is clinically depressed and suffers from chronic pain.

You learn how much patience you really have.

You learn how gracious you really are.

How giving and selfless you really are.

Sometimes, I think we discover we don’t have these qualities in as much quantity as we thought we did.

I learned that lesson in one evening. Caring for someone, being there for them, being their support system, their rides to the hospital, etc; It starts to become less and less about their problems - problems that seem insurmountable and unfixable, and it starts to become an eye opening lesson about you.

When your grace and patience are pushed to the limits, all of a sudden you start to realize, you need help too.

I found myself thinking: Is my lack of grace or patience any less ugly than my friends depression and hopelessness, or is it even worse? Are we just two people on opposite ends of the grace scale? He feels he has no hope, so he needs the most grace - I feel full of hope, so it’s my duty to disperse it to him.

I only needed to spend one day, that spilled over into the early morning, to realize a few things about my ability to help someone in need.

I started asking myself questions like: How could anyone do this for a living? Dedicate their lives to caring for people with a debilitating emotional illness?

I love the saying “we are only strong for a little while to help those who are weak.”

At the height of my frustration last night, I just wanted to go back to my little blessed mess of a life, with my little problems and stresses, and troubles that I felt in control of or could handle.

I didn’t want to spend one more minute watching my friend spiral out of control into the arms of this unforgiving mental and emotional anguish.

And then I remembered - this is his life every day.

I get to go back to my life, with my momentary bouts of sadness, while he lives in a perpetual state of self hate and defeat.

So, when he called for the 5th time, I stopped thinking I could help him and just tried to encourage him.

I let him know I understood the trials he was facing and that he’s not alone.

I have prayed for this man for more years than I can remember. I have asked God to heal him and have no idea why He hasn’t. I’m tired, but I will never give up hope.

Every life is valuable, no matter how messed up it may seem from an outside perspective. Every life can be turned around. People can regain their emotional and spiritual health. People can relearn what it’s like to be healthy.

I have to believe this. If I stop believing this, I’m afraid I’m going to end up stuck in a cycle of never ending darkness just like my friend.

(photo credit josielila)

Be able to walk away from a dating relationship with your whole heart intact so that your future husband/wife is not robbed of part of it down the road. Guard your heart.

(via selfless-kid)

selfless-kid:

Ladies…3 Reasons You Can’t Get or Keep A Man!!!

I Told God

I told God
I don’t want to work anymore
I just want to write stories all day
So He let me
then I ran out of story ideas

I told God
I was tired of being alone
and I was going to be with whoever I wanted to be with
So He let me
then those people broke my heart
more than it’s ever been broken before

I told God
I was going to starve myself
until I was rail thin
So He let me
then I gained it all back
now it’s twice as hard to lose

I told God
I wanted to worship Him
when it was convenient for me
So He let me
then a spirit of depression fell on me
harder than ever before

Then one day I asked God

What do You want?

How do You see me?

What do You want to do through me?

What do You want to do with my life?

I love you Father - I’m listening and waiting.

Choose love, even when love is the last thing you want to give, because absolutely nothing you are is your own. You are a product of grace and every single part of you exists simply because He does. He needs to be what people see every single time, especially in those instances when you’re feeling bitter or angry at someone. Especially when all you want to do is leave. Especially when you’ve been disrespected and ridiculed and let down. Always choose the beat of God’s heart over your own, because there are too many cold hearts in this world and not enough that beat to the rhythm of love. You were not created to react to things like everyone else does.

(via followandreblog)

(via thejoyfulelly-deactivated201211)

Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation. If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life.

It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS.

Depression is not a synonym for being sad or having a bad day/bad week.

It’s not a PHASE. It’s not a CHOICE. It’s not LAZINESS.

spread the word guys.

(via general-grievous)

(via maddmoll)

rbsummers:

This quote is the driving force of how I have been living lately.

marriage advice from a single girl

I love to read blogs. When I wake up at three in the morning and can’t get back to sleep, I just reach for my phone and start reading the latest thoughts, perspectives, advice, etc. from my favorite storytellers.

There is one type of blog though, that until recently, I always steered clear of.

Marriage advice.

I don’t know if it was just stubbornness or immaturity, but I realized something this morning, that I wanted to share with ANYONE who avoids reading marriage advice blogs.

Marriage advice is RELATIONSHIP advice.

Anyone with someone in their lives, that means anything to them, is in a relationship with that person.

Some relationships are more significant than others, some people have a handful, some have only one. Oh man, I feel a Pearl Jam song coming on.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m always thinking about how I can make my relationships with those closest to me better.

When I pray, I ask God to make me a better mom. I ask Him to make me a better friend, a better daughter, a better sister, a better servant, a better person.

Lately, I’ve been eating up marriage advice blogs and letting that advice soak into my life and relationships.

Not because I’m married, engaged, plan to be, or even dating someone for that matter. But because lately, I’ve been looking at marriage advice in a whole new light.

I’m applying it to relationships with guy friends (not because I intend on marrying them), but because I want to make that relationship better.

I’m preparing myself for the day I do meet “the one”, if it comes. If that happens, I want my marriage to be fn awesome! I don’t mind if I have to study in advance to make that happen.

Singles out there, if you avoid marriage advice articles like the plague - please rethink your reason for doing so!

Granted, not ALL marriage advice blogs are going to be helpful or easy to apply to your life, but the majority of articles out there are very eye-opening. They talk about patience, forgiveness, acceptance, being selfless and learning how to give, etc.

Marriage advice IS for single people!

When it comes to reading marriage advice blogs - I’ve been converted.

I used to have a very childish perspective on romantic relationships. I thought they were all romance and perfection and any bump in the road would be a tiny one and easy to overcome. And that I didn’t need marriage advice, because any relationship I had with someone would just naturally end up awesome and not need any real help.

I was so delusional.

We all need relationship advice. Even Disney princesses need it. There are no fairytale relationships.

Yes, I still believe two people can meet, be perfect for each other, fall head over heals in-love, and live awesome lives together, but I also believe that even those couples will face hardships and trials of faith and will need good Godly advice when that season of suffering comes.

So, whether or not I end up having an almost perfect marriage or something that is anything but perfect, I’m going to learn all I can now about how to make it healthy and successful.

Sort of like premarital counseling for singles. Hey, maybe I should start that.

Who’s in?

(photo credit: space whale)

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Ladies…3 Reasons You Can’t Get or Keep A Man!!!