One thing I promised myself when I started this new blog was that I was going to be honest in it. I am not going to sugar coat things and make things look like I am always happy and carefree. I have been told that I come across as the larger than life, confident person, and I believe a lot of that is true. I am fairly confident in most of what I do, but I want people who read this and know me to learn that even those who seem to grab the world by the horns and go after what they want have insecurities and fears. For a long time, I was scared to let people know those things about myself, but I know a lot of my students read this, and I want them to know that we all have demons; we are all afraid of things; we all feel insecure. I also think this is something that my adult friends need to know as well. The people who seem to have it all together often leave their houses with dishes in the sink and laundry that will have to be rewashed in the the washing machine. ANYWAY. . . .
For whatever reason I have never been a New Year’s fan. I don’t know why. It has just been on of those days when I have focused more on the things I don’t have than the things that I do. Despite all the people in this world who love me so much, for which I know I am so blessed and lucky to have, New Years just seemed to resonate in me a feeling of loneliness, of not quite having any place that was truly mine. Crazy I know, but we all have this moments. The low point of this being about three years ago when I spent New Year’s Eve by myself watching a marathon of the half ton people on TLC and feeling incredibly lonely and unwanted. (That is so the devil for ya.) However, the good that came from that night was it was the first time I set on a big weight loss mission and lost 40 pounds all by myself. Now, I gained 30 of them back over the next year and more, but I was going through some stuff with the sickness and loss of both my beautiful step mother and daddy. But needless to say, for a myriad of reasons, New Years didn’t seem like a new beginning to me, it felt like someone screaming at me through a megaphone yelling, “HERE YOU GO STARTING A NEW YEAR ALONE AGAIN. LOOK AT HOW PATHETIC YOU ARE!”
Now probably about 355 days of the year I know better, but on New Years those thoughts resonate through my brain and psyche over and over and over, and last night they started to do the same thing. I had quite a lovely evening with some of my favorite people, but when I got home, I started to hear the voices again. Their screaming started as a whisper. I could feel the sadness setting in. But this time something different happened. A stronger, louder voice began to yell over the demons. These voices, which I am still hearing now, so I know they are telling me the truth, started saying, “Not this Year. THis YeAR IS GOING TO BE FANTASTIC!”
And you know what I believe that, wholeheartedly. I mean as miserable as New Years has been for me over the past several years, the track record of my almost 37 years on this planet has gone to show me that all of them have been pretty awesome. We all have hardships. We all cry. We all hurt. We all feel like someone or something is pulling our insides out at one time or another, but that is part of what makes this ride called life so great . You have to go through the valleys. You don’t grow through happiness all the time. You don’t appreciate the sun if it never rains. One of my favorite quotes says, “I wish you just enough clouds to create a beautiful sunset.” This is so true. Look at the sunsets in the evening. It is the clouds that make all the colors in the sky so beautiful. Another compares life to a piano. It says, “Life is like a keyboard. The good times are the white keys (which there are more of) and the bad/hard times are the black keys (which there are less of), but it takes both of them to make the most beautiful music.”
This past year has been emotional for me. I have learned a lot about myself and others. I have had my eyes opened to some of my faults, which we don’t want to ever talk about and experienced having my insides ripped out in a whole new way. There was a while I basically fell apart. I mean fell. a. part. complete with big ugly alligator tears and banshee sobs (If you don’t know what a banshee is, google it.) I felt used, betrayed, pathetic, heartbroken, ashamed. Then one day, as I was (and still am) beginning to heal a very special new young lady was going through something similar. Her insides were being ripped out and God sent her to me for comfort. As I began talking to her and giving her words of encouragement I had a true epiphany.
I knew her day at school was going to be hard, so I wrote her a letter to help her through her day, and I was writing it God spoke to me and told me, “See, this is why you are going through this. I have always told you that you have a special mission for Me as you work with these young people, and this pain is helping you help someone else in a way no one else can.” It is was literally that clear when He spoke to me. As I sat after the morning bell rang on the benches in the courtyard finishing her letter, I began to cry again. This time though they weren’t sad tears. They were tears mixed with a smile and a joy that filled up my heart. I am so fortunate that I get to know the glory of God like that. I am so thankful He is my friend and talks to me in a way I can hear Him. I am so thankful I get to realize He uses our pain to glorify His magnificence.
I don’t know where all that tangent came from. This is clearly a blog of free association, but those are the best.
Anyway, I know this year is going to be my best ever. I am starting the New Year in a better frame of mind than I have in years, and if the ones that have transpired that started with the blues ended up so great, I know this one is going to be marvelous. I am so thankful for the things that transpired in 2012. I have a new job that I love. I have made new friends who have filled my life with joy. I have been welcomed back home with these open arms and love. I have more friends who I truly know I can count on and who love me than one girl should have. I am even thankful for the hurt because from it I have grown. I have learned to love myself more than I did before. I have been able to help others through my sadness. And I am just so thankful that God has blessed me to the point that I can see how He works in the most infinitesimal ways. His hand is in every single thing, and if you listen and follow Him; if you have faith in His plan and love for you, He always uses it for good, just as promised in Jeremiah 29:11.
So here’s to a new year: 365 days, 525, 600 minutes of new feelings, experiences, memories, friends, moments that will shape your life and take you somewhere so far from where you are sitting at this moment that you might not even recognize who you are. My prayer for you and for myself is that God grants you the ability to tread through the hardships of the year and wrap your mind around them to help you grow so that when you sit somewhere on December 31, 2013, or January 1, 2014, you can be thankful for where you are and all the moments you experienced in 2013. Traditionally 13 may be seen as unlucky, but as I set here already more than half way through the first day of 2013, I have the feeling deep inside of me that this is going to be my best year to date. How I love the joy and feeling of unscathed optimism.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
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