Uncertainty...

A few weeks ago, on my way to becoming a Graduate I was so sure of my completion of my degree. Today I'm no longer so sure.
A few months ago, I secured two part time jobs, I was so sure that this would be a great addition to my current income. Today I'm not so sure.
All summer my attitude was energetic, happy, and ready for the world. Today I'm not so sure.

I'm facing difficulties on my way to becoming, Butterflies, and it's hard. Have you ever been in that place where you future looks bright, you are always told that great things are ahead of you, and then you find yourself in that spot where it doesn't look so great?

I'm feeling like I'm at the end of the tunnel, the light, I can see it, but somethings obscuring my view. It's this feeling that I've walked through all of this darkness to arrive to a light that I can't touch. An end I can't see.

I always felt bad for Moses, who walked in the wilderness with such stubborn people only to get to the promise land, see it, and not be able to cross over in it. How dissappointing was that? To see the vision he'd been told of but not be able to experience it. He beheld it's beauty but couldn't touch it. In this story I'm sure going to heaven, being taken up by God was such a glorious experience.

Here in my time though, I don't think God will be catching me up anytime soon. (I don't know anyone's day or hour). I do believe God has plans for me on this earth. I do believe my life means something to this world. I have to use that energy up right!

But somehow I find myself in these places, you know. Maybe my past is catching up with my future. The choices I made way back when, or even a few months ago before things started going well, maybe those consequences are catching up with my current vision. I can't live with past mistakes right now though. I have to find a way to get to that light. I can't go back. I can't stomach it.

Question: How?

These are answers I ask people who've endured and who've made it. right now I suppose it was their hard work, their tireless days, and their sheer determination. I feel so disconnected right now, like I've been dealt a blow and I'm trying to re-orient myself with the world I'm in. I'm trying to find that fight when it feels as if my resources are being stolen.

It's like trusting God all the way through, and then he leaves you in the midst of the fight. It's like wait God, you said trust you, and then you dip! 0_o
You leave me, you take your hand off of me, you disappear and I'm lost. My end is right there in sight, I can't just walk to it, the obstacles haven't left, what do I do?

Fear causes you to scream out for help. When it looks as if this external things is to great of a thing for you, you scream help. Sometimes it seems no one can hear you. It can be sad....

Yet I still believe because believing is what got me this far.

So I'm walking with my head up. I'm praying all the way through. I know he's not completely gone,but I need to navigate this, I need to use the tools he taught me along the way and figure this out. It feels like he's playing a trick on me. Like I opened the wrong door, thinking it was the right one... but it's okay.
I'm no quitter. This process has surely built me into a stronger woman. I've seen the ugliest of days, I can't go back there so I'm pursuing the prettiest!

Butterflies I can't say this enough, NEVER GIVE UP HOPE.
If you quit, we all quit, and well we need us in the world.

We can't keep giving up, settling, and taking the crap life throws at us. We have to keep pushing. Who will tell our story?
In a war, whose remembered?
The people that won! The people that led the army to victory! The regiment that stuck together and fought til the death. Even if we died, came to the end of all of our efforts, let us die in victory because the next life or the new venture we try will be NEWNESS and LIGHT! And we start again. At least when you start over, you've gained your battle scars and you know what to expect.

DON'T GIVE IN, AND NEVER GIVE UP!

Good day butterflies!

Encouraging YOU. Encouraging MYSELF.

Today as I type... I'm in my feelings.
You would think that after all I've been through, all that I've seen, I've endured, persevered through, and made up my mind about... You would think that this moment would be something I pushed through with great might and strength!
Well I'm in my feelings. I thought of my blog, the encouragement of random people deriving from my everyday experiences, and I smiled. I'm inspired when I inspire.
It makes me happy. It gives me peace and it reminds me that I'm worth something. I am of value. I am a tree.
I want you all to be encouraged as I encourage myself. We are shaken, tossed about, thrown away, made to think we are less than, and we are torn down but only, ONLY, to be built back up again. Only to be reconfigured into something greater.
Think of it as a computer, downloading updates, being reconfigured, made to manifest better actions than before. We are becoming greater through our struggles.
We must learn, or take that update.
I think of how many times my computer says "installing updates", "postpone or shut down".
Depending on what I'm doing at the moment I hardly ever shut down when the update is ready. I wait until I'm ready.
I never know the validity of that update though. I never know what it's going to help my computer do.
We never know what a trial will do for us. We always see it as a upset in our plans. We never grab hold of the trial and fly with it. We fight against it often times until we are shut down, until we can postpone no longer.
What I'm going through at this present moment is huge in my eyes, but with the guidance of Spirit I think it's not as huge as I think it is. My commitment is crucial. I see light at the end of the tunnel but when the trial becomes tough I want to leave. I have to fight that feeling to give up. It's quite easy. It has it's consequences to though. We have to think of the greatness that comes from enduring metamorphosis. We have to think about what our end will look like.
We have to think of how it will feel to have fought and won!
We also may need to know what it feels like to have fought for something and lose.
Either way, we are getting updated.

Shutting down isn't bad. It's like sitting still long enough, thinking through it long enough, and listening long enough to get the lesson out of situation.
Sometimes people hate to hear something bad about themselves, as if it's the end of the world. We deny our mishaps, and sins. We pretend it's everybody else that needs updating and not us.

Everybody else needs to have "several seats" but not us.
But you sin, I sin. You make wrong choices that hurt people. I do too. You give up on something that you have control over. I have too. It doesn't make you any less of a person.

Stand up anyway and push on through and see what the end will be.

I listened to an Alicia Keys song today, Why am I here?
Great song.
It brought tears to my eyes. I've asked myself that question on lowly days like today.
It's a reminder that I'm here for you.
With all the things going on in the world, it can't only be about my struggle. It's about the everyone's struggle, hurt, and pain.
You can't believe that you are the only one. Sometimes people persevere through things for others, to show them that you can do it too.

I remember Tina Campbell and her journey through adultery played out before the media. She was strong. Some people thought she was a fool. I saw redemption and mercy in rare form. I saw the ability to see that people are able to choose out of their brokenness and in return hurt someone else. It doesn't mean that you abandon them.
 Maybe that's why we don't admit our mistakes, we are afraid of being abandoned.

Of course her husband had to show and prove his faithfulness but what I'm getting at here is the love for yourself and for others. If you can love yourself through, love others through it, I think it'll make it easier for you to get through whatever you may be facing that day.

No one is perfect. Being perfect is not  requirement for success. You can have success, of course you'll have to take those updates and quit putting them off, but ask yourself who do you know that is perfect in every way?
God please stand up! Right....

Today I'm loving myself in spite of people, circumstances, and my ability to downgrade myself when God is clearly trying to give me some updates.

Be blessed my butterflies!