A walk in my shoes for 30 days

“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday. “
-John Wayne

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”

-Robert Frost

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, far apart from Me you can do nothing.”

-Jesus Christ (John 15:5)

It has been one month today. What a difference 30 days makes. I am not the same person I was 30 days prior. I have accomplished 30 days more than I expected to. Today, my only goal is to remember what I have learned, that is what sets us free. So, 30 days later…

I am a stronger person, I have endured more pain than I had ever before and made it through. I am still just as broken as I was before, I want the same things and have the same needs. I have learned much including the fact that I have so much to learn.

I have put my tear ducts through a rigorous bootcamp and am proud to announce they are still intact, although I still try em out at least once a day to make sure they still work. I have learned new truths about myself, the extremely good (writing skills) and the painfully bad (what? I said it was painful, review my other posts if you want some ideas, I've already revealed so much, I kinda don’t want to rehash).

I've experienced love on a deeper level than I ever have in the support system of family and friends that I thank God every day I am so incredibly blessed to have. I have had the power and necessity for good music reinforced. But I have been taught that silence does not have to be a scary thing (or so they say).

New words have been added to my inside joke slang vocabulary: p word, quash, & Alice...if you know what these mean, you are the most dear to my heart & most likely one of the reasons I survived that 1st week. Comedies and laughing don’t hurt either. Also, there’s a Garden of Eden in Texas and the forbidden fruit is peaches, just fyi.

I have learned (but not necessarily successfully mastered) that it's alright to not be ok, to stop living with and by my expectations, that I can survive if things aren’t the way I expect them to be and just because I'm a controlling person, doesn't mean I have to control every situation. That feelings aren’t facts and just because I am an emotional person, doesn’t mean I have to be ruled by my emotions.

That God has put so many wise people in my life (of all ages), I can only hope to attain a fraction of that wisdom. That my nephew's laugh is the cure to (almost) all things-being an aunt is really fun (but steer clear of oreo’s, there is nothing but mess when you go down that path-seriously, he only had half and it was like a chocolate explosion)!

I have learned life is never the way you think it will be. That you can't escape pain. To be careful the choices you make, no matter how right they seem at the time, you can't go back and fix them. Don’t burn bridges, God puts you in each other’s paths for a reason and it may have nothing to do with you.

I have learned there are incredibly kind-hearted & cold-hearted people in my life but God calls us to treat them both with love & respect (even if those cold-hearted people deserve bad things, arg...lucky for them there is a merciful God).

I have learned that just because God chooses to be silent does not mean He is absent. That accepting who I am is the first step to understanding what I want & more importantly what I need. That until I learn some of this acceptance, I will just be looking for fulfillment in all the wrong places.

I have learned we need each other. God created people to need other people and He also uses people to rescue people. How you love on people is the greatest definer of your character and your love for Christ.

I have learned it requires constant work on my part to cultivate my relationship with Christ in addition to my need for Him. It requires constant pursuit from Him to give me the ability to work at all.

I have learned that I will spend the remainder of my life trying to surrender it and will only accomplish it by pursuing Christ as if that life depends on it (which it truly does).

It may have been 30 days I didn't ask for or want, but it's been 30 days I needed.