Life is A Beautiful Struggle
"You have come from God, you are a spark of His Glory. You will get peace only when you again merge in Him."
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2016 has been a whirlwind – I feel like I’ve aged 10 years this year because this year has felt like it’s taken 10 years to be over! 2016 has just been beautiful and enchanting but also so awful and chaotic. There have been days where I’ve felt like I was a glass doll that was on the verge of breaking. There were days where I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders and couldn’t…
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{one..} He’s the one that holds the keys. He’s the One that holds the keys to overcome the grave. He takes broken peices and makes a masterpeice. He takes things that are insignificant and makes it singificant. {two.} My life is too short not to love the story God has for me. {three.} Our lives are a collection of stories. Truths about who we are, what we believe, what we came from, how we… -
God’s plans will always be greater and more beautiful than all your disappointments.
Most of y’all know how much life has challenged me this year. My plans have changed and my life have changed within the time span of a week – I’m no longer on the path to become a nurse. Upon realizing that my life was changing in such a drastic way – a path that I’ve been planning to succeed in for the past 6 years is just suddenly gone – how God could suddenly change my life around with the… -
In every storybook, the story and the ending is always the same. The girl dreams about her perfect man, a perfect proposal and the white dress. She dreams about what her soulmate will look like and how so swept up she’ll be in his love. It’s not something new when a girl tells you that she has a list of qualities that she wants to have in a guy. Someone who’s not only handsome, but respectful.…
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Hey everyone,
Because of the way Tumblr changed their layout, and I can’t do a lot of the stuff that I used to do, so I have a new site. I promised a lot of y'all that I would continue this blog, and I’m not one to back down on my word. I’ve listed my new website below so if any of y'all are interested in checking it out, you can just head there. Thank you so much for being such a blessing to me. I’m so excited that I’ve gotten the opportunity to reach your lives through my blog, and I am even more excited to have the opportunity to continue being that person for you. I will stop by every now and then to check messages and stuff, so please don’t hesitate to send me a message. I love reading all of your encouraging words. (: I hope that y'all will love it and that you’ll continue to read it.
Love you all,
Life is a Beautiful Struggle
Here is the new website for any of you that are interested:
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1. Darling, the world’s not really against you. The only thing that’s against you is yourself.
2. There is something beautiful about all scars, whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.
3. Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your life…you give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness so simple a phrase like “maybe we should be friends” turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
4. I feel like everything in my life has led me to you. My choices, my heartbreaks, my regrets. Everything. And when we’re together, my past seems worth it. Because if I had done one thing differently, I might have never met you.
5. It’s crazy because I don’t even know when you became so important to me. It’s like watching a snowstorm. You see the flakes falling, but you don’t realize how they’re adding up. Then suddenly, your whole lawn is covered. All these little things have added up, and you’re my snowstorm.
6. God causes things to happen at exactly the right time! Your job is not to figure out when, but to make up your mind that you won’t give up until you cross the finish line and are living in the radical, outrageous blessings of God! The more you trust Jesus and keep your eyes focused on Him, the more life you’ll have. Trusting God brings life. Believing brings rest. So stop trying to figure everything out, and let God be God in your life.
7. You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful and then you actually talk to them and five minutes later, they’re as dull as a brick? Then there’s other people, when you meet them, you think, “Not bad. They’re okay.” And then you get to know them and their face just sort of becomes them. Like their personality’s written all over it.And they just turn into something so beautiful.
8. Our willingness to wait reveals the value we place on the object we’re waiting for.
9. Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.
10. Today, forget your past, forgive yourself, and begin again.
11. A heartbreak is a blessing from God. It’s just His way of letting you realize He saved you from the wrong one.
12. Someone once told me that some of us are actually afraid of the dark; we’re scared of what it conceals from us. We’re afraid of having something with the potential to hurt us standing right before our eyes and not registering it as a threat. People can be like that too.
13. Sometimes, I think that the stars are actually a huge connect-the-dot puzzle, and if we could only find the right pattern in which to connect them, then maybe we could figure out what they’re trying to tell us. And I think that there is a different pattern for every living person, every person that has ever lived, and every person that will ever live. So in a way, we’re all written into the night sky. And we gaze up at the sky, lying beneath our fears and dreams, and futures, and if we could find the right pattern, we might be able to know where we’re supposed to be. But the night sky is bigger than I can even begin to grasp, so I lay down on the damp summer grass amidst laughter and sips of wine, and I trace my finger along the brightest stars I can find, and I smile. The stars can keep the burden of knowing where it is that I will end up, because I am happy with where I am right now. When they twinkle, I think they’re winking at me, like they know something I don’t know, but I don’t mind. Sometimes, I like being in the dark, and right now, I don’t mind at all.
14. Sometimes, we are so busy chasing the sunlight, that we forget that the darkness is chasing us.
15. I am and always will be- the optimist. The hoper of far-flung hopes. The dreamer of improbable dreams.
16. Dear best friend, I love you more daily. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you and I wish you could love yourself the way I love you. And above all, I wish your life is everything you deserve because, in my opinion, you deserve the world. I will stand by you forever. My heart will always belong to you.
17. How do you look at someone you love and tell yourself it’s time to walk away?
18. Be contented. Yes, there are people greater than her. There are people who are more attractive, more intelligent, more caring, and more fortunate. That’s life- full of temptations. But don’t be deceived by those things. Because didn’t you ever realize that there are people who are also greater than you? Yet she chose you.
19. You are loved. You are valuable. You are crafted with beauty and purpose. I treasure you and this world needs you. There is no one like you. You don’t need to look like the rest, or talk like the rest, or be like the rest. There is no truth in the lie that you don’t mater. The world needs you as you are. You are loved and you were put here for a reason. You were not an accident. You are not a mistake.
20. Dear future husband, I hope our love is the kind that I don’t even have to think about. I hope I never have to convince myself to love any certain part of you because I hope it all comes naturally. I hope our love is the kind that is quiet on the outside, but loud on the inside. I want to love you like the space between lightning and thunder- electrified and alive, but silent and knowing. And I want you to love me like clouds love the rain. You’re going to have to let me go on my own sometimes, but I will always come back and we will always be two parts of the same thing.
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So, I’m trying something different tonight. For some reason, I’m getting a little bit of inspiration to just write. No quotes, no pictures, just words on a blank sheet of paper.
I’ll admit; I’ve never been a writer. I’ve never been a person that’s totally comfortable writing about myself or about the things I’ve been through. Maybe it’s because I’m not totally comfortable with myself or maybe it’s because I have a really hard time just letting go and learning how to trust people. I feel like people get really frustrated with me because I have a really hard time letting people find out who I really am. Sometimes, I feel like if I give everything away- my thoughts, my fears, my feelings- that once that person decides to leave (which they always do at one point or another), I won’t have anything left to myself. I love my best friends, and I have no earthly idea what I would do without them, but they don’t know everything about me, and sometimes, it’s really hard because I want to feel like I can tell them everything. I’ve been told so many times that I just have an absolute perfect knack for pushing people away. Maybe the reason why I purposefully push people away is because I’ve been burned too many times and I’ve learned to just keep it all in.
I’ve learned a lot this last year- who I am, who I want to be, what I want out of life, what my deepest fears are, what makes me so happy, and who I am in Christ. There are still a ton of things that I have yet to learn, and for me, life is constantly showing me that I don’t know everything. I’m still learning. I’m still learning how to be a better person. And how to be a better friend. And how to be a better daughter. And how to be a better student. I’m not perfect- far from it. It frustrates me when people think I’m perfect or that I try to act like I’m perfect because I don’t smoke, drink, or throw my body at men. People always ask why I’m not a typical college student that goes out and drinks and seamlessly flirts with guys, but the thing is, I’m not trying to be perfect. At all. I feel like people won’t respect you unless you have respect for yourself. People should love you for your heart, not because of what you look like or the things that you’ve done. You shouldn’t have to get drunk or smoke or have sex with random people just so people will like you. If you show people your heart and how much you care about them, people will like you for you. And if they don’t, well it’s their loss. I think that one of the biggest things that I’ve learned this year is that there’s so much to people than meets the eye, and people are so much bolder and so much more beautiful than they give themselves credit for. Just remember, that sometimes, the way you think about a person, isn’t the way they actually are.
None of us are perfect, and we’re trying; constantly trying- and struggling- to make sense out of this crazy world. We’re expected to know exactly who we are and who we want to be, and what we want out of life. We’re expected to know whether we want that white house with the picket fence or how many kids we want; or even if we want to get married. We’re expected to have that 4.0 GPA in college and get into medical school (or law school) and become as successful as we can. There’s so many struggles and so many pressures that constantly weigh down on us. But the reality is, we all make mistakes. Every single one of us. Even me. But there’s only one person that I can think of that doesn’t make mistakes - and that’s God. God created you for a reason. And God doesn’t make mistakes. And if there’s one thing I know- I am perfectly content with not being perfect.
I’m sorry for just kind of jumping around with my words tonight. I’m still kind of new to this whole “writing out your feelings thing.” I hope that what I’ve written tonight makes sense, but if it doesn’t, I promise I’ll get better in time! I promise that my next post will be more organized and clearer! I am so blessed by every single one of you and I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to read my posts-it means so much to me. I want you to know that I’m so overwhelmed by the messages that you’ve sent me, telling me how wonderful my posts are and how life-changing they are. I’m so incredibly glad and I’m so in awe that I can be that person for y'all.
To my incredible best friends who read these- you make my heart so happy when you let me know that you read these. I’m so blessed to have such wonderful, incredible, BEAUTIFUL people in my life. I’m so grateful that you have always been there for me, even though I’ve given you every reason in the world to not be friends with me anymore. Thank you for being there through all the frustrations, jealousies, fights and anxiety attacks- I am so grateful to have you in my life. I promise that I’m trying and I’m learning how to be a better friend to all of you. Thank you for the ups and downs, and most importantly, for the good times. I miss all of you, and I hope to see you soon! I love you all more than you’ll ever know. Y'all are my rock.
Last, but not least- to my wonderful family- thank you so much for supporting me and loving me everyday. I’m so blessed to have such an amazing family that really cares about me and constantly encourages me to fight for my dreams. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family that has molded me into the person that I am, and I love each of you so, so, so much. Y'all have been my light in times of darkness.
“For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalm 139:13-14
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{one.}
All relationships have one law: Never make the one you love feel alone, especially when you’re there.
{two.}
Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.
{three.}
Yes, I am a Christian. Yes, I can be the biggest hypocrite ever. I backslide, I stumble. I fall. I stray onto the wrong path. But God is working in me. I may be a mess, but I’m His mess. And He is slowly straightening me out. And the day will come when I will be by His side, His work in me completed. And until that day, I will take His hand, and let him do in me whatever needs to be done, no matter how painful it will be for me. When He is finished, it will be all worth it.
{four.}
You’re going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it’s always their actions you should judge them by. It’s actions, not words, that matter.
{five.}
The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you.
{six.}
And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you. Because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.
{seven.}
What defines us is how well we rise after falling.
{eight.}
In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
{nine.}
Sometimes, God lets you hit rock bottom, so that you will discover that He is the rock at the bottom.
{ten.}
If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.
{eleven.}
Our lives are storybooks that we write for ourselves; wonderfully illustrated by the people we meet.
{twelve.}
No matter how many times you’ve blown it, God’s grace is bigger than your mistakes and His plans for you are perfect.
{thirteen.}
We are the silver lining in any and every dark cloud we could ever find. There is no need to go looking for the light when you bring it with you.
{fourteen.}
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, and don’t put up with people that are reckless with yours.
{fifteen.}
People think that being alone makes you lonely, but I don’t think that’s true. Being surrounded by the wrong people is the loneliest thing in the world.
{sixteen.}
I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.
{seventeen.}
You’ll meet only a few people in your whole life who are truly abandoned houses- rundown, worn out, collapsing at the seams. I’m not asking you to take a hammer and nails and pin up their rafters, fix their leaky faucets, or put new panes of glass in their broken windows; I’m asking you to simply open their door, and spend a little time memorizing their floor plan. Get to know them. And when the time comes, I want you to draw back their curtains and, once and for all, let the light in.
{eighteen.}
Guys should have to touch your heart and mind first, before he touches your body.
{nineteen.}
Religion is man, searching for God, but Christianity is God, searching for man, which is why salvation is freely mine, forgiveness is my own. Not based on my efforts, but because of Christ’s obedience alone. In every other aspect of life, you know that logic is unworthy. It’s like saying that you play for the Lakers, just because you bought a jersey.
{twenty.}
God doesn’t love a future you, He loves you today. Because our whole lives, we’ve feasted on sin, and we couldn’t pay the tab. Yet, Jesus walks over to our bill, and says “I’ll take care of that.”
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1. Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics. You are all stardust.
2. Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.
3. Maybe you don’t see people looking at you because you aren’t looking at them. Maybe you don’t hear all the good things people say about you because you’re too focused on the bad. Maybe you’re a lot more wonderful, beautiful, and special than you ever give yourself credit for.
4. Sometimes, I wonder why things happen the way they do.
(Johnny Cash’s love letter to his wife)
5. To those who stay put, the world is but an imaginary place. But to the movers, the makers, and the shakers, the world is all around them, an endless invitation.
6. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed to shore.
7. The ball is suspended there to remind us before we pop the champagne and celebrate the new year, to stop and reflect on the year that has gone by. To remember both our triumphs and our missteps, our promises made and broken. The times we opened ourselves up to great adventures or closed ourselves down for fear of getting hurt, ‘cause that’s what New Year’s is all about- getting another chance. A chance to forgive, to do better, to do more, to give more, to love more. And stop worrying about “what if?” and start embracing what would be. So when that ball drops at midnight, let’s remember to be nice to each other, kind to each other. And not just tonight, but all year long.
8. I’m starting to believe that society has tried to condition every single one of us to feel as though we must be categorized in order to feel accepted. Peel back the layers of someone’s ethnic background, gender, sex, skin color, opinions and so on. At the end of the day, they’re nothing less than human. And every human is born with the need to laugh, the capability to fear, the tendency to love, and the inevitability to die. So why are we wasting our time allowing these convoluted labels and socially constructed notions interfere with the fact that we’re essentially the same? We all know how to feel. Let that be enough.
9. If you want someone to like you, then be yourself. Show them who you really are, and not one ounce less. Because if you want someone to love you, then they should love all of you. Every imperfection, every past mistake, every awkward moment. Everything. And if they don’t stick around because of who you are? Then they really don’t deserve you.
10. You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.
11. Some things don’t last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there.
12. I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.
13. Save your heart for someone who loves it.
14. If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light, take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.
15. Try not to confuse “attachment” with “love.” Attachment is about fear and dependency, and has more to do with love of self than love of another. Love without attachment is the purest love because it isn’t about what others can give you because you’re empty. It’s about what you can give to others because you’re already full.
16. Sometimes what you’re looking for comes when you’re not looking at all.
17. For God to teach you how to love people, He must bring unlovely people into your life.
18. Because His death was a proposal, He wanted you no matter the cost. Where some guys propose on their knee, Jesus proposed on a cross.
19. God’s “no” isn’t a rejection- it’s a redirection.
20. Sometimes, loneliness is God’s cry for friendship time with you.
