I was going to write a new blog post today - since it's my spiritual birthday - but then I re-read this one and felt that I had said everything I needed to say about my love for God, and for people, here.
Much love all.
It's been a tough couple of weeks. Who am I kidding, it's been a tough month, year, life. I praise God that I have Him, that I am gifted with my incredible, amazing husband. An incredibly loving kiddo. Friends and family that have always been and will always be there. I could not do it without any of you.
Recently however, I have allowed my view of myself to become something that I'm not proud of. It's taken some incredibly humbling experiences and some deep conversations for me to find that I have changed.
A lot of that change was necessary. A lot of that change I wanted and welcomed. The majority of that change was exactly what God had planned for me. However, I realized in the last month that a lot of the changing that I was doing was not for God, it was for others.
I have had months of praying for God to show me the right path to take, I have taken advice from people more knowledgeable about the Kingdom of God than myself, I have very seriously looked at my character, my personality, and my faith together and had a whole bunch of heart to heart discussions with everyone from God, to Christians, to Buddhists, to Humanists. What I realized was there is such a thing as too much input.
You see, the whole concept of leading a Godly life is based on, well, God. His word, His son, and the blessings and sufferings that come with that. It's simply that, the most important relationship in my life that I will ever have. Something that I continue to learn about, grow in, and allow God to direct the relationship while I learn to be more like Jesus and learn to love better. Learn to love EVERYONE better.
What I have found in my God-discovery, is that I am not better than anyone else. I don't know better than anyone else, and that I am flawed, imperfect, and sometimes downright horrible. Quite honestly, it's kind of a scary thing. But necessary for me to be able to allow God to work in my life.
But I hit a stumbling block, I was starting to allow other people, not God, not his word, and not his love, to define my relationship with Him. All I could see was what I did wrong. And when that started happening, I stopped looking for grace in myself and in others, and I saw judgment instead.
I saw well intentioned help as punishment, I saw accountability as judgment, and I saw my own imperfection in others.
So I have needed to step back from people who wanted to tell me who I should be for a while, even if they had the best of intentions, to take another look at myself through the eyes of God and weed out the truth of how he sees me from the truth of how others did.
I'm not impartial, I'm not perfect, and I'm not close to being ok with a lot of the people in my life, some will read this and love it, others will be saddened, and others angry.
But it's not about them. It's about God, it's about his view of me and how a while back I lost that. I stopped seeing that he loved me unconditionally and started thinking that their were limits as to how much He could love me, because I put limits on how much I could love me.
Then I remembered that sin, or issues, or problems, or whatever you might choose to call it, work out in one of two ways; either you grow something beautiful out of it, as painful and hard as that may be, or you sit where you are and wait for someone else to tell you that you are ok.
I decided to go with God, and his grace and mercy. To allow his grace to come and wash over me, because I believe. I believe that holiness still exists in me, that honesty is a deep part of my character, and that I am accountable to the people that I love in this world.
For a while I lost sight of who some of those people were and excluded them from the love that God fills me with to freely give.
I will never be able to fulfill my promises to God without fulfilling the need for love to those around me. I truly believe that love is God's preferred method of teaching regardless of the growth opportunities he presents.
So I have a new perspective, and it's hard, but it's according to God's truth, and my conscience that I learn it, I love and accept all that God gives me, amazing, horrific, tragic, and joyful. Because without all of it I could never ever get close to being the amazing creation I was intended to be.
Growth comes directly from experiences that don't give us a choice but to move in one direction or the other. And I will choose love every time. Judgment is my nature, but love is who I am meant to be.
Know that I love you, whomever you are reading this. And know that the love that I feel for you has increased daily since we met. If we have struggled together or apart, there is a reason. Know that I hope that it is love that brings us together every time we meet and that if it isn't I ask you to tell me when you aren't feeling my love, because that will allow me to grow in it.
May love be your resting place and mine as well,
K
