Birthday wishes...

Well... it's my birthday and I have posted on this blog for the past three years on this day so... here I am again.

I feel like for me the new year really starts with my birthday.  That always feels like the beginning of a new year to me, and my classes start today so it's even more of a starting point this year.  I haven't done "new years resolutions" for a while now, but I have been doing this thing where I ask God for a word for the year.  When I asked God for a word for 2018... I felt like the word I got was wish.  I puzzled over that because it didn't seem to be a particularly "godly" word, I guess.  But I decided that really was the word God had for me.

So as my birthday has drawn near, I have had several occasions where I felt that God was reminding me of my word and asking me what are my wishes, my dreams different areas of my life.  It seemed like such a fluffy word at first.  But as I have had these conversations with God about I have realized it's fluffy at all.  I feel like, through these conversations, God is reminding me of some wishes that I have sort of buried.  

I think we all have things that we once wished for, dreamed of, but have put aside because it just seemed silly... and maturity demanded leaving it behind.  Or because it felt impossible, and we argued ourselves out of even thinking about it.  Or because the pain of maintaining hope just became too much, so we boxed it away.  I think when a dream, a desire, a wish seems impossible... it's so much easier to place it in a mental box... and shove it far into a back corner... and convince ourselves that it's not that important.  That we never really wanted whatever it was anyway.  

Unrealized dreams can become a source of bitterness... as we watch what seems to be *everyone* else having the success we dreamed of, the children we wished for, the health we have prayed for, the (insert any number of other things) that we desired but never grasped. 

I know I can't be the only one who sometimes feels like I'm walking a tightrope... fall to the left, bitterness... to the right, apathy.  Bitterness is painful, and dividing, and just generally not pleasant to be around... I have grown tired of the bitterness that I carried around for way too long.  Apathy seems the least painful option, but it has a way of sneaking out into all the areas of your life and stealing not just sorrow but also joy, leaving you numb and disengaged.  But staying on the tightrope can be painful as well... keeping hope alive for a thing that may never happen, being honest with yourself about how deeply you desire this (whatever it is) to happen leaves your heart open for pain if it doesn't.  

I've talked with God some about that pain... because I don't believe that God causes us pain or wishes for us to live in pain... so why would keeping hope alive be painful?  Doesn't He want us to hope?  Have faith?  Well... I think part of that pain comes from the fact that - no matter how much hope or faith I have for a certain thing - I don't know for sure what will happen with my future, so there is a very real possibility that I am hoping for something that will never happen.  

But God has been asking me to remember things I have wished for... and asking me what I would wish for today, in this moment... and I think He is doing that for two reasons... to show me some of the wishes/dreams that I have squashed down and also to remind me that He cares - very deeply - about the desires of my heart.  No matter how silly or small I may think that desire is in the grand scheme of things.

So... on this birthday, at the start of this new year... I am being reminded of wishes and dreams.  Some that can be painful to hold onto... and some that I have let fall by the wayside without even realizing it... and some that I had never really contemplated before... but all of them are important to Him.  And while I cannot know for certain that some (or any) of the things I hope for will ever come to pass, I can know for certain that God will not leave me in a place of being unfulfilled.  He hasn't promised me that I will have everything I want, but He has promised me joy.

And since I'm not sure how to end this post... I'll end it with this...

As painful as it can be, I am choosing to hold onto hope for dreams that sometimes seem impossible... and when the unknown of the future becomes overwhelming I am choosing to cling to the promise of joy

Words...

Something has been rolling around in my mind for the past month or so.  I finished my first semester with really good grades... but I started the semester with so much anxiety and doubt.  And fear, add in a large portion of fear.  I was anxious that I would fail... or that my grades wouldn't be good enough to get me into clinicals next year.

Everyone around me was encouraging me and telling me I would do great, that they weren't worried because they knew I was smart and would do well in school... but I was not convinced.  I just knew that I was going to fail.  Fast forward to the end of the semester when someone said to me "See? I knew you had this... you had nothing to worry about."

When she said that, I suddenly realized one huge source of my anxiety.  When I was young someone told me repeatedly that I was stupid, that I would "never amount to anything", and that I would always be a failure.  Without really knowing it, I have allowed those words to cast a shadow on pretty much everything I have attempted - or not attempted - throughout my life.

So then I asked myself... why is it so much easier to let negative words affect me than positive ones?  If 20 people are encouraging me and lifting me up... why do I let that one person's words drag me down?  And why is it so hard to erase the tape playing those negative words?  I know that a part of it is that words can take root in childhood... it's easy to leave those tapes playing and not even realize they are anything other than truth.  You can become so accustomed to hearing those ugly words because they've "always been there" that you don't think to question them. 

In this situation I didn't have a conscious memory of those words every time I felt I would fail, and I certainly didn't associate them with my anxiety... but in one moment God showed me they were the source.  I know it's an issue that is common to us all, or at least seems to be.  But why?  Why is it so much easier to let the negative words affect us?  As to the why of it... I can't give my opinions in a concise way, but I want to make a more intentional effort to shut off the negative words and replace them with positive ones.

Lies are like weeds... they have to be uprooted or else they will begin to choke out the truth. They grow and multiply and then suddenly they are all you can see.  But God can replace the lies with truth, no matter how overgrown they may have become. 

God doesn't think I am stupid, worthless, a failure.  He created me... not on a whim but with thought and planning.  I wasn't an accident or a mistake. To Him I am amazing, wonderful, beautiful, capable, intelligent...  He doesn't ever look at me and hang His head in shame or disappointment so any words that make me feel like a failure or a disappointment are a direct contradiction to what HE says about me... and it's what He says that matters.