My thought for the day comes from the venerable Mary J. ...
"Just take me as I am or have nothing at all"
I know...its been awhile. I promise to do better, blogworld.
You know, as you grow up, lessons get learned...painful lessons. These are lessons that hurt, but ultimately help...because like all gems, a little friction is needed for them to shine more beautifully. I keep telling myself this so that I can look beyond the learning for the lesson involved.
My lesson for right now seems to be learning who I can trust...I have to remember that even though I tend to be an open person who shares all of what makes me tick (including my shortcomings and insecurities), others aren't always like that...and even worse yet, there are people out there who cannot stand the sight of a happy, contented soul and will do whatever they can do to crush joy. Even if it means preying on the aforementioned insecurities.
If anyone out here knows me, you know that at times I have had issues with my self esteem...I don't always consider myself attractive. Even though my family tells me that I am pretty. Even though I have a "friend" who tells me that I'm gorgeous. I still wake up some days and think "ugh".
But I have made my peace with that...I am slowly getting over it. But what I cannot get over is when people that I thought were in my corner strike out and try to undo the effort I have made to be unequivocally in love with myself.
I know...no one can make me love or not love myself. It is up to me...but it is still hard not to internalize what other people think of me.
I cannot make people love me. I cannot make people accept me for who I am. I cannot force people to understand and appreciate the woman that I have become. But what I can do is lean back. Observe from a distance. Not be so eager to share all of me straight out. Because what I have learned is that the people who deserve to be in my inner circle will show themselves eventually...and the rest will lean back and fall by the wayside.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Be Still...He Is Speaking...
Thought for the day: "Be still and know I am God"
It's been awhile since I have blogged on here...and life has indeed been busy. I have been running around, trying to wrap my head around all these different things happening...but today is my day to be still and listen to what God is trying to tell me.
I feel like God is a whisper at first...He gently speaks into our spirits, trying to get us to perk up and listen without exerting too much energy; energy that could be better spent doing other things. But us humans are hardheaded...we hear His voice and feel those subtle nudges, and for whatever reason, we don't listen.
And thats when God, like the Daddy He is, has to yell to get our attention.
God has had to raise His voice at me a little, lately. For several different things.
I guess the first thing has to do with school, again...or rather, work and school.
I started college directly out of high school...which in hindsight probably wasn't the best idea...not because I wasn't intelligent and academically prepared...I was and I am. I just wasn't mature enough to go away from home and start trying to live on my own based on what I knew then. I was sheltered and naive, and it was those qualities that landed me at what turned out to be a party school, miserable as all get out. I didn't understand at the time how to stay focused on me. I didn't understand that being ostracized hurts, but it is not as bad if you are alone because you are following the path that you know is right. It took me coming home to learn this.
I want to go back to school, but I found a steady job, and it was never the right time. Deadlines passed without my knowledge, or other circumstances took place, and I kept saying "okay, next semester I'll go back" But more and more, God is telling me that NOW is the time for me to finish what I started.
I think it first started as a whisper...when I wasn't happy with the methodology used in my classroom...when a co-worker said something to rub me the wrong way...when I sat in a staff mtng and listened to a woman who has plenty of early childhood experience from textbooks and from behind cushy office desks but NONE from in the classroom lecture me and my fellow teachers on developmentally accurate curriculum...this was God whispering..."you don't belong here...if you got your degree, you could have your own classroom and try your own methods."
Then He whispered a little louder when I read an announcement in the paper about a school district in MD having a teacher recruitment fair next month, a fair at which they plan to hire 100+ new teachers on the spot..."had you finished on time, you could be graduating in May with a job offer already under your belt...get it together so you can take advantage of the next opportunity!!"
But here is the kicker...last week my job started cutting hours...I haven't been affected...yet. My job and my hours are still intact. But out of the three other teachers in my classroom, 2 have had their hours cut and the other has been on leave with a back injury the past two weeks, so truthfully, she might be coming back to some news as well...nobody knows...God is making it very plain that I am not where I belong...that I need to go back to school and get my degree so that if, in this uncertain economy, I ever were to lose my job, I could go to another school district with confidence and start anew.
God. Is. Speaking. And I am going to be still and listen, and I am going to finish what I started.
The other issue is the house. I admit that I was becoming exasperated with my mother, because I was trying to be supportive and proactive about this move and I felt like I was trying to herd mosquitoes...all my efforts were futile. But in the midst, God was speaking...He was working on my mother's mind and her heart, and frankly, He didn't need my help.
She has gone from doing absolutely nothing, from taking a "lets bow our head and see what happens" kind of approach, to truly being fired up. She has signed up for a home ownership readiness seminar, is researching properties, making wish lists, getting her credit reports, making preparations to go to the bank and get her money thing straight...everything. And I am sitting back, and I am allowing myself to dream about walking into a house that is OURS, and deciding that I want to change the color of the baseboards in my room to FLAMINGO PINK and knowing that I don't have to ask anyone's permission, and knocking a nail into our living room wall one day to hang a piece of artwork...and in my dream no one can barge in and say no to any of these things because it is OURS and they have NO SAY. But what I am not doing is getting frustrated with my mom...because this was a process that was between her and her Daddy...it was not my battle to fight.
God. Is. Speaking. And she was still and she listened, and she is doing all that God told her that she could do.
So with all the situations in my life, with all that is changing, with the fact that I will more than likely see Memorial Day from the window of a new home, with the fact that I will be pursuing my degree in the fall, I just have to trust my Daddy and be still and let Him speak. It is in my stillness and my silence that He does His best and most miraculous work.
When I don't understand the things that happen at work.
Be Still and Listen.
When I feel that my friends are taking my kindness for weakness.
Be Still and Listen.
When I am unsure.
Be Still and Listen.
When I feel left behind.
Be Still and Listen.
When I wonder if I will ever find someone "equally yoked".
Be Still and Listen.
When I am confused to the point of tears.
Be Still and Listen.
All I have to do, in the words of that esteemed child musician named Raffi, is STAR...Stop, Take a deep breath, And Relax...and just BE STILL AND LISTEN.
Amen.
It's been awhile since I have blogged on here...and life has indeed been busy. I have been running around, trying to wrap my head around all these different things happening...but today is my day to be still and listen to what God is trying to tell me.
I feel like God is a whisper at first...He gently speaks into our spirits, trying to get us to perk up and listen without exerting too much energy; energy that could be better spent doing other things. But us humans are hardheaded...we hear His voice and feel those subtle nudges, and for whatever reason, we don't listen.
And thats when God, like the Daddy He is, has to yell to get our attention.
God has had to raise His voice at me a little, lately. For several different things.
I guess the first thing has to do with school, again...or rather, work and school.
I started college directly out of high school...which in hindsight probably wasn't the best idea...not because I wasn't intelligent and academically prepared...I was and I am. I just wasn't mature enough to go away from home and start trying to live on my own based on what I knew then. I was sheltered and naive, and it was those qualities that landed me at what turned out to be a party school, miserable as all get out. I didn't understand at the time how to stay focused on me. I didn't understand that being ostracized hurts, but it is not as bad if you are alone because you are following the path that you know is right. It took me coming home to learn this.
I want to go back to school, but I found a steady job, and it was never the right time. Deadlines passed without my knowledge, or other circumstances took place, and I kept saying "okay, next semester I'll go back" But more and more, God is telling me that NOW is the time for me to finish what I started.
I think it first started as a whisper...when I wasn't happy with the methodology used in my classroom...when a co-worker said something to rub me the wrong way...when I sat in a staff mtng and listened to a woman who has plenty of early childhood experience from textbooks and from behind cushy office desks but NONE from in the classroom lecture me and my fellow teachers on developmentally accurate curriculum...this was God whispering..."you don't belong here...if you got your degree, you could have your own classroom and try your own methods."
Then He whispered a little louder when I read an announcement in the paper about a school district in MD having a teacher recruitment fair next month, a fair at which they plan to hire 100+ new teachers on the spot..."had you finished on time, you could be graduating in May with a job offer already under your belt...get it together so you can take advantage of the next opportunity!!"
But here is the kicker...last week my job started cutting hours...I haven't been affected...yet. My job and my hours are still intact. But out of the three other teachers in my classroom, 2 have had their hours cut and the other has been on leave with a back injury the past two weeks, so truthfully, she might be coming back to some news as well...nobody knows...God is making it very plain that I am not where I belong...that I need to go back to school and get my degree so that if, in this uncertain economy, I ever were to lose my job, I could go to another school district with confidence and start anew.
God. Is. Speaking. And I am going to be still and listen, and I am going to finish what I started.
The other issue is the house. I admit that I was becoming exasperated with my mother, because I was trying to be supportive and proactive about this move and I felt like I was trying to herd mosquitoes...all my efforts were futile. But in the midst, God was speaking...He was working on my mother's mind and her heart, and frankly, He didn't need my help.
She has gone from doing absolutely nothing, from taking a "lets bow our head and see what happens" kind of approach, to truly being fired up. She has signed up for a home ownership readiness seminar, is researching properties, making wish lists, getting her credit reports, making preparations to go to the bank and get her money thing straight...everything. And I am sitting back, and I am allowing myself to dream about walking into a house that is OURS, and deciding that I want to change the color of the baseboards in my room to FLAMINGO PINK and knowing that I don't have to ask anyone's permission, and knocking a nail into our living room wall one day to hang a piece of artwork...and in my dream no one can barge in and say no to any of these things because it is OURS and they have NO SAY. But what I am not doing is getting frustrated with my mom...because this was a process that was between her and her Daddy...it was not my battle to fight.
God. Is. Speaking. And she was still and she listened, and she is doing all that God told her that she could do.
So with all the situations in my life, with all that is changing, with the fact that I will more than likely see Memorial Day from the window of a new home, with the fact that I will be pursuing my degree in the fall, I just have to trust my Daddy and be still and let Him speak. It is in my stillness and my silence that He does His best and most miraculous work.
When I don't understand the things that happen at work.
Be Still and Listen.
When I feel that my friends are taking my kindness for weakness.
Be Still and Listen.
When I am unsure.
Be Still and Listen.
When I feel left behind.
Be Still and Listen.
When I wonder if I will ever find someone "equally yoked".
Be Still and Listen.
When I am confused to the point of tears.
Be Still and Listen.
All I have to do, in the words of that esteemed child musician named Raffi, is STAR...Stop, Take a deep breath, And Relax...and just BE STILL AND LISTEN.
Amen.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Stuck Like Glue
Thought for the day: Ecclesiastes 3:1 " For everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heavens.
A subject that has been coming up repeatedly for me and for the people in my inner circle is transition. Change. Renewal. However you want to phrase it, when its put in laymans terms, life is moving, and like Sam Cooke said...a change is gonna come.
But how can transition come about when all of the players in the saga seem stuck? I must admit that I have been feeling stuck lately...I didn't make the best choices academically in the past, and because of that instead of graduating in May with a bachelor's degree like I should be, I will be starting back to school in August with at least another year and a half left on my degree...and more than that if I choose to add a minor. I will be going from making my own money (like I have for the past 3 years) back to being a broke college student with my hand out...unless I take classes at odd hours so my work schedule doesn't suffer...and I don't know if I am up to that...all of this because I didn't ask for help when I needed it. All of this because I let the whims of a few vapid college girls affect me deep down. All of this because I veered off track. So yes, I am feeling stuck...while the friends I grew up with are applying to jobs and grad school and trainee positions and talking about what they will wear to their senior formals...I am here. Stuck.
And then there is home life...we are in the process of looking for a house...and I feel like my mother is stuck where this is concerned. She doesn't want the responsibility that comes with owning a home, whereas I feel like taking 10 years of living in a home and cramming that into an apt is just a gigantic step back. So the date is looming for us to move into our next season and we have no clue as to what we are going to do...all we know is that we have to go.
So I have school and work, and mom has this house thing, and I have friends stuck in relationship and economy issues, and we all have this common lament that things just aren't moving as fast as we would like. It csan be frustrating and discouraging as all get out, but then I look at the scripture at the top and things start to make sense...nothing is solved, but I gotta believe that neither me nor my mom, fam, and friends would be in our present situation unless there was a reason. For everything there is a purpose...and I for one cannot wait to see how my purpose presents itself.
Until next time.
A subject that has been coming up repeatedly for me and for the people in my inner circle is transition. Change. Renewal. However you want to phrase it, when its put in laymans terms, life is moving, and like Sam Cooke said...a change is gonna come.
But how can transition come about when all of the players in the saga seem stuck? I must admit that I have been feeling stuck lately...I didn't make the best choices academically in the past, and because of that instead of graduating in May with a bachelor's degree like I should be, I will be starting back to school in August with at least another year and a half left on my degree...and more than that if I choose to add a minor. I will be going from making my own money (like I have for the past 3 years) back to being a broke college student with my hand out...unless I take classes at odd hours so my work schedule doesn't suffer...and I don't know if I am up to that...all of this because I didn't ask for help when I needed it. All of this because I let the whims of a few vapid college girls affect me deep down. All of this because I veered off track. So yes, I am feeling stuck...while the friends I grew up with are applying to jobs and grad school and trainee positions and talking about what they will wear to their senior formals...I am here. Stuck.
And then there is home life...we are in the process of looking for a house...and I feel like my mother is stuck where this is concerned. She doesn't want the responsibility that comes with owning a home, whereas I feel like taking 10 years of living in a home and cramming that into an apt is just a gigantic step back. So the date is looming for us to move into our next season and we have no clue as to what we are going to do...all we know is that we have to go.
So I have school and work, and mom has this house thing, and I have friends stuck in relationship and economy issues, and we all have this common lament that things just aren't moving as fast as we would like. It csan be frustrating and discouraging as all get out, but then I look at the scripture at the top and things start to make sense...nothing is solved, but I gotta believe that neither me nor my mom, fam, and friends would be in our present situation unless there was a reason. For everything there is a purpose...and I for one cannot wait to see how my purpose presents itself.
Until next time.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Reaching Out To My Nineveh
Thought for the day: "The will of God will not take you anywhere that the grace of God cannot protect you"
Amen.
Today in church (shout out to Mother Anjel and St. Luke's in Baltimore!!), the homily had to do with Jonah and Nineveh...how Jonah was being sent into this unfamiliar place, this hotbed of dissent and destruction, and far from being the kind of eager saint who jumps up and says "SURE!!"...he did not want to go...
I mean, he did not want to go AT ALL. And Mother Anjel went on to say that each of us as Christians has a Nineveh. We all have a place that we are being called to do God's work, a place that for one reason or another is giving us reason to be like "oh HELL no...I can't do it"
But how many of ya'll know that not only CAN we do it, we WILL do it if God has anything to do with it?
I started thinking about my own Nineveh...and its not somewhere that I don't want to go necessarily...its just somewhere that has taught me to augment my thinking...I am an assistant teacher at The Jewish Community Center in Baltimore, and while I love all 12 of my children to pieces, working with my head teacher who has a completely different belief system when it comes to disciplining children, causes me to chafe sometimes.
I enjoy teaching. I enjoy learning, but Lord knows there are days where I have literally been praying for inner strength up until the point where I walked in the door. I have had to learn to be humble, moreso than I have ever had to be before. I have had to learn to be gracious, and slow to anger, and patient. I think the biggest thing that I have learned inthis is that I am called to be a teacher...I am being trained and all the anger and resentment in the world at the stripes I have to endure on the way to having my own classroom can change the fact that God designed me to work with his smallest angels.
So I understand Nineveh...I understand reaching out to something when every fiber of common sense wants to say screw you and move on, and I definitely understand being covered by Jehovah Shalom as He prepares me to do bigger and better things.
Amen.
Amen.
Today in church (shout out to Mother Anjel and St. Luke's in Baltimore!!), the homily had to do with Jonah and Nineveh...how Jonah was being sent into this unfamiliar place, this hotbed of dissent and destruction, and far from being the kind of eager saint who jumps up and says "SURE!!"...he did not want to go...
I mean, he did not want to go AT ALL. And Mother Anjel went on to say that each of us as Christians has a Nineveh. We all have a place that we are being called to do God's work, a place that for one reason or another is giving us reason to be like "oh HELL no...I can't do it"
But how many of ya'll know that not only CAN we do it, we WILL do it if God has anything to do with it?
I started thinking about my own Nineveh...and its not somewhere that I don't want to go necessarily...its just somewhere that has taught me to augment my thinking...I am an assistant teacher at The Jewish Community Center in Baltimore, and while I love all 12 of my children to pieces, working with my head teacher who has a completely different belief system when it comes to disciplining children, causes me to chafe sometimes.
I enjoy teaching. I enjoy learning, but Lord knows there are days where I have literally been praying for inner strength up until the point where I walked in the door. I have had to learn to be humble, moreso than I have ever had to be before. I have had to learn to be gracious, and slow to anger, and patient. I think the biggest thing that I have learned inthis is that I am called to be a teacher...I am being trained and all the anger and resentment in the world at the stripes I have to endure on the way to having my own classroom can change the fact that God designed me to work with his smallest angels.
So I understand Nineveh...I understand reaching out to something when every fiber of common sense wants to say screw you and move on, and I definitely understand being covered by Jehovah Shalom as He prepares me to do bigger and better things.
Amen.
I Want A Me Thinking Of You Thinking Of Me Type Love...
Hello blogworld.
This might be a strange, TMI way to start this blogging experience, but I truly do miss being in love.
Now let me explain. I can be quite the hopeless romantic...I am a poet, and I think loving happy endings is quite the stuff of sappy poems, but I truly do miss being part of a twosome. I miss dinner dates and long walks holding hands...i miss having a surefire companion for the theatre and dances and such...I miss going on double and triple dates with friends.
I want to fall in love, and part of that process means differentiating love from sex in a world where they tend to go hand in hand...sex just isn't something I'm interested in at this point in my life (weeelll....LOL). Thats a depth that I can't do, not until I am married, and while a lot of guys in my age bracket TALK a good game and say that they can handle falling in love with a person who practices abstinence, they either cannot, or else they don't take me seriously and believe that with time and a few well placed words, the boy briefs will come flying off. (Excuse my crassness, but if I can't be real on here, then damnit, where can I be?)
What people have to understand is that I grew up around both the best and the worst examples of men...on one hand you have my absentee father, who took it upon himself to declare a do-over and pretend I never exsisted (God Bless him anyway)...and then you have my grandfather and my uncle, both strong, hardworking, upstanding men who worked/work their behinds off to make sure that the people that they love have the best of everything. I am a better woman because of all three of them, and it is because of them that I have such a stringent idea of what I can and cannot deal with when it comes to who I choose to love.
I must have intelligence, spirituality, faithfulness, reliability, honesty, respect, a conscience, a deep and profound love for life and the people who inhabit it, and a sense of worldly wisdom. The rest is just icing.
So, to answer all of the friends and associates who wonder how hard it must be to be a 21 year old virgin...yeah, its hard...but I imagine it must be even harder to be in a relationship in which toes stay curled and sheets stay being clawed at, but thats where the magic ends. It is the nature of an only child to want it all or to not want it, and this is one of the few areas of my life where I choose to be choosy. I would love to be married with a child by 30, but unless I can have that "Me Thinking of You Thinking of Me" type love, that nuturing, secure, all around satisfying, everything I've ever wanted love that my grandparents and some of my friends and some of the adults that I look up to the most have...well I don't want it.
This might be a strange, TMI way to start this blogging experience, but I truly do miss being in love.
Now let me explain. I can be quite the hopeless romantic...I am a poet, and I think loving happy endings is quite the stuff of sappy poems, but I truly do miss being part of a twosome. I miss dinner dates and long walks holding hands...i miss having a surefire companion for the theatre and dances and such...I miss going on double and triple dates with friends.
I want to fall in love, and part of that process means differentiating love from sex in a world where they tend to go hand in hand...sex just isn't something I'm interested in at this point in my life (weeelll....LOL). Thats a depth that I can't do, not until I am married, and while a lot of guys in my age bracket TALK a good game and say that they can handle falling in love with a person who practices abstinence, they either cannot, or else they don't take me seriously and believe that with time and a few well placed words, the boy briefs will come flying off. (Excuse my crassness, but if I can't be real on here, then damnit, where can I be?)
What people have to understand is that I grew up around both the best and the worst examples of men...on one hand you have my absentee father, who took it upon himself to declare a do-over and pretend I never exsisted (God Bless him anyway)...and then you have my grandfather and my uncle, both strong, hardworking, upstanding men who worked/work their behinds off to make sure that the people that they love have the best of everything. I am a better woman because of all three of them, and it is because of them that I have such a stringent idea of what I can and cannot deal with when it comes to who I choose to love.
I must have intelligence, spirituality, faithfulness, reliability, honesty, respect, a conscience, a deep and profound love for life and the people who inhabit it, and a sense of worldly wisdom. The rest is just icing.
So, to answer all of the friends and associates who wonder how hard it must be to be a 21 year old virgin...yeah, its hard...but I imagine it must be even harder to be in a relationship in which toes stay curled and sheets stay being clawed at, but thats where the magic ends. It is the nature of an only child to want it all or to not want it, and this is one of the few areas of my life where I choose to be choosy. I would love to be married with a child by 30, but unless I can have that "Me Thinking of You Thinking of Me" type love, that nuturing, secure, all around satisfying, everything I've ever wanted love that my grandparents and some of my friends and some of the adults that I look up to the most have...well I don't want it.
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