Learning to Live Again

For as long as I can remember I have tried to be a people pleaser. I tried my hardest to not upset anyone and would die unto self to make others happy. Which according to God dying unto self is a good thing, but when it was detrimental to myself or my children it wasn't a good thing. I have an old friend who for years has had an online presence and she created an online persona and she hid behind that. Recently she has decided to no longer hide behind that persona and it really made me think about if I was true to myself. The answer is no. I do what others want me to do, I have became the person other people think I should be.

So, I must ask myself how do I become true to myself? How do I enjoy life once again? How do I become less stressed?

Those questions remain unanswered but I am doing a lot of soul searching.

The questions I'm asking myself are those as well as: Do I depend on a man to make me happy? Do I  depend on friends to make me happy? I have learned that it is very hard to trust people and I find that is one of my biggest challenges in life. How can I trust when I've been hurt so many times. I built a huge wall when my mama passed away. I was determined to not let anyone over. It was 3 short months and I met Rocky, Fell in love when it wasn't in the cards. He was able to climb over that wall very fast and had captured my heart. I let friends over that wall and they held the knife very tightly as they jabbed it into my back. Rocky helped me with the heartache of loosing my mother, he helped bring joy back into my life and gave me another reason to live. When I lost mom I felt I had lost everything even though I had a precious 4 year old son who meant everything to me. Over the course of 6 years it seems Rocky has climbed back over the wall to the side he started out so now he is no longer on the side closest to my heart. All I have is my children and they are all that I need, or so I have told myself for a long time. I have recently came to realize that I must learn to trust again, I must learn to let people in and a least take that wall down into a smaller structure. I was angry with God for taking my mom. I had so much faith that He was going to heal her. I just knew that He would answer my prayers. I guess I didn't understand at the time that our prayers are answered in His time and in His way.  I was what I considered to be a very faithful follower, very actively involved in church, I had been a youth group leader, worked closely with the leadership of the church, Prayed very often, had faith, helped others, and did the things that I thought I was meant to be doing. I tried to follow God's footsteps, and I thought there was no way that My God would let me down and take my best friend from me. I didn't understand when I thought He had let me down.

In just a few weeks it will be 6 years since Mom has passed and to be honest I still don't understand. I know that He has a reason but I can't honestly say that I have understood nor have I let go of all resentment towards God for taking her. That has caused a huge problem in my relationship with God and I know that I can't fix that until I completely let go and ask for His forgiveness. But how I wonder? I don't have the answer. Maybe by putting it into writing it will help. Maybe someone who reads this will have some insight or some helpful words? Maybe someone will read this and they feel the same way? I honestly don't know why I'm writing this but I know there is a reason. I've got to find a way to start building healthy relationships. Fortunately recently I was able to recognize a few unhealthy relationships that I was nurturing and I was able to remove those people from my life and hopefully God will continue to reveal more of the weeds I need to remove from my garden of life. I don't want to be God's reluctant Daughter any more.
Ok, I have rambled enough, it's dinner time. Ribeye is calling from the refrigerator.

30 Days toward Who God Intended

In the life of a mother we normally forget about the small things in life and tend to focus on the larger, more important things. However often we don't realize that the things that seem so unimportant really are very important. For Example, mom's feed the children breakfast, lunch and dinner yet we often forget to eat until dinnertime or even after kids' bedtime. We make sure our children are bathed yet we manage to never have enough time in a day to actually shower longer than 2 minutes.  What if God felt that the things in our lives that we ask Him for weren't a big thing and He put it off? God doesn't put our needs on hold and we shouldn't either. This applies to men too, or even women who aren't mothers. Take time for yourselves. For the past 5 years of my life I have been so busy being a mother and trying to be the very best mother I could be to my children and children that I hadn't given birth to yet accepted into my heart and life that I some how lost track of who I really am. I forgot that I once had dreams, hopes, passions in life. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely am in love with my children, and wouldn't change a single thing. They make my heart beat and at times make my heart skip a beat.  My days are so focused on my children that I have forgotten to take time for me or to smell the roses so to speak. I love spending time with them, for so long I thought that was all that I was. I forgot I had other qualities in life, I had things to share with other people other than just the little people within my home.

I know that God has created me unique, and with a purpose. My goal now is to find out what that purpose is. I have to rediscover what talents I have, what I enjoy doing. For so long all that I have enjoyed doing is spending time with my children but I must broaden my horizons, and they can be right by my side along the way. I want to teach them as I learn. I want them to recognize their gifts and talents that God has given them as well. I don't want them to ever lose sight. People have asked me before "what was your dream growing up" and I replied "to be a mom" and thats true but I had forgotten that I also dreamed of opening an orphange, learning to figure skate, to make children smile, to travel, learn to play piano, and much more.

So for the next 30 days I'm going to do one thing that I enjoy every single day and take a photograph of it. I will share the photos with you. 

I challenge each and every one of you to look deep inside of yourselves and really find what makes you happy. I'd love to read or see what makes you happy. Seeing how I enjoy   love photograpy i'm looking forward to seeing your photos ;)

Here's to Discovering who God intended us to be. Cheers!