A Team Sport

I've just felt an immense urge to write about this, and I can't hold it back, so I'm just going to let my fingers fly across the keys, and let God lead them.

The above song, as well as this quote (from the To Write Love on Her Arm facebook page), popped up on my phone right in a row "I needed someone to tell me 'you're gonna get through this' . . . to mean it, to really want to help me." and I think that this is God speaking to each of us. We need to be there for the people around us. No matter how close we are to any given person.

I think that sometimes it can be easiest to forget to be there for the people who we are extremely close to. We just grow to expect things to be a certain way, and we don't think much of it. We expect everything in a usually optimistic person's life to be fine and dandy, and we tune out the negative complaints of a usually pessimistic friend because we think everything they are complaining about is really no big deal. But what if we listened? What if we honestly asked our friends how they were doing? Would we get the answer that we expected?

I don't know. I'm sure that sometimes we do get an answer that we would expect, but I'm also pretty sure that too often we would get an answer that we didn't see coming. Do we really know the people closest to us? Just knowing someones favorite color and shoe size, what makes them laugh and what makes them cry, doesn't mean a thing if they are dying inside and we miss it.

And sometimes we are sure that our friends would come to us if they really needed us, but I don't believe that that is always the case. Maybe they don't want to put more weight on our shoulders, maybe they don't want to show any signs of weakness, maybe they, as I had done for so long, thought that they needed to be perfect, and letting down their defenses was equivalent to messing up. We can't always trust that the people who we are closest to would come to us when they needed us.

There is another side to that, as well, though. When you are falling apart, and you feel as though nothing is ever going to go right in your life, talk to the people around you. Don't go through all of the pain in life alone. God put us here together for a reason, He didn't want us to live this life on Earth alone. And that brings us to another point, don't ever lose hope, because even when it seems like all is lost, God is still there, cheering you on, wiping your tears away, telling you that you can do it. We just need to listen.

Listen to your friends, and let your friends listen to you. This thing called life is a team sport.

If Today Was Your Last Day...

I find that very often we all get caught up in the difficulties and stress of life, myself included. We all have different things going on that need our time and attention, things that we need to do, things that we want to do. We are often trying to do what we think is right, most times making mistakes and getting things wrong. I know that when I make mistakes, regardless of how big or small they are, I am constantly stressing over them, constantly trying to figure out how to fix things, even if nothing is broken.
Another issue that I find myself having is constantly looking at the past and wanting it back, but I never realize that it's in the past for a reason, that things are different now for a purpose. I'm sure that I'm not the only one caught up in things that cannot be changed, caught up in memories that cannot be brought back, so I thought that I'd post lyrics to a song by Nickelback. The song is called "If Today Was Your Last Day".

It isn't always a bad thing to think about the good things in your past, it's when your past begins to take over your present and future, begins to make everything seem bad because something has changed. I know this is something that I've struggled to remember, and I know that I'm not alone.

So if today was your last day, would you be able to say that you lived it to the fullest? Would you be able to say that you have no regrets? Would you be able to say that you weren't too busy in living in the past to realize that this could be your last day? To realize that what's done is done, and the only thing we can change now is the present?

Gratitude Journal-Day 3

Gratitude Journal-Day 3

Today I'm really thankful for people. People who I don't know, people I do, I'm just thankful that God put us all here in this world together. Today I went to a flea market with two of my best friends, and there was a man there selling phone cases, he had cases for all three of our phones, and he was really nice. It made my day seeing somebody in such an upbeat mood!

I'm really grateful for the ability to solve conflicts. God sends us little trials to get closer to Him, and He also gives us the ability to overcome the trials. It's not always noticeable, but there is always a way out. "This, too, shall pass"