Monday 30 March 2015
One foot in front of the other
"When you can't sense what God is up to, may you trust even more his heart towards you. When your journey is different than you would choose, may you see His invitation to make you new. When the storm rages overhead, may you know with everything in you, that new mercies are on the other side. And when you're tempted to overstate your problems and understate his promises, may you step back and find your footing again"
Okay. Deep breathes. This is going to be a long, rambled piece of writing and I am feeling quite vulnerable putting this out on the world wide web, but I have an urge to publish it. I havn't written a "downcast" blog for a few months now, but I have always used this as a place to express everything & share my hearts concerns and maybe it will help/bless someone else...
These past 3 months, I have been in a high state of anxiety. For a reason that is my own doing and my own fault. I was putting someone in creation before God and it has caused me to worry and feel anxious about many things and I feel I have wasted opportunities and I am feeling the repercussions of it now. You see worry is a distracted and divided mind. My mind has been this way for a good few months. It has affected life and choices I have made. I don't really want to go into too much detail but lets just say all my efforts and thoughts have been set on one thing for a few months, and my mind has been divided also because I have been battling between choosing a human and choosing God. I was starting to build a new life on something completely unstable whilst knowing all along it wasn't entirely right to be doing so and now its all collapsed and got pretty messy. I know for some people reading this, that will be the most stupid reason ever to feel anxious, but anxiety comes in all shapes and forms and reasons and whatever your anxious situation it can overwhelm you, paralyse you, make you feel hopeless and cause a heck of unnecessary paranoia.
Growing up in a Christian home and being a Christian myself I have constantly heard the words "do not be afraid" and "do not be anxious about anything" but these words used to just be words to me. But, God literally is telling me to NOT be afraid, and he isn't saying this is in a condemning, angry way, but he is saying this because he's got me, he's with me & nobody is going to attack me (be that psychologically or physically) Everything has been in my head. And what I and those of us creating these anxious states for ourselves need to do is get out of our heads, stop having conversations with ourselves and start having conversations in a vertical direction with the One who has got your situation in hand. We all talk ourselves into these crazy situations in our heads & make things worse whilst if we talked to God about our problems they would seem so small.
God has got whatever you are going through right now and he is doing a new and beautiful thing within you.
In my last blog I talked about making mistakes and I have made a huge one; but once again, you fall you rise, you live, you learn. I've been hurt, but I'm alive and it is a precious thing to be alive, because I get to breathe and think and enjoy things and chase things I love. And sometimes there is going to be sadness in our journey's but there is also going to be lots of beauty. And we must keep putting one foot in front of the other even when we are hurt, because we never know what is waiting for us just around the bend.
Thank goodness for forgiveness and second chances eh?
Thursday 19 March 2015
A catch up
I can't believe I have not written a blog post so far in 2015 & that it is already the middle of March! This blog took me to so many places in my gap years & I feel I have abandoned it quite abit... A lot of stuff has been happening the past few months at university but now I am home for the Easter holidays, and then I only have 5 weeks left of my course until I have completed my first year. I thought it was time to write a little life update on things that university has taught me and let me experience so far...
I find it laughable that 2 years ago in my blog I wrote that I didn't think I would ever go to university because I didn't see the point, I thought it was a waste of money & didn't know what I wanted to do anyway. I still have my moments of wondering if I am really made for university life and doing a degree (especially with social work being so challenging) But what I have come to realise through going to university is that it is so much more than just getting a degree. My mum always said this to me when I was in my "never giving university a chance" phase but I guess I didn't believe her until I started experiencing it for myself.
University has taught me to be incredibly independent; not just with catching trains from the south to the north, or having to cook for myself and do my washing but in ways that I had never considered independence before. At university you are literally fighting for yourself, you have to push yourself to work hard, you have to grow up and look after yourself when you are feeling poorly but mainly you have to be more than ok with who you are as a person and be comfortable in yourself. You have to realise that its ok to say "no" when you don't feel like going out/or doing whatever and you don't have to give a reason. No in itself is a full sentence.
University has also taught me a lot about people, and the people that matter.The people that matter are those who give you an equal amount of love that you give them, those you can feel you can truly be yourself around & those who are there for you during your highest highs and lowest lows. You meet A LOT of people at university and are thrown together with people to live with & you form really strong and meaningful friendships because they become your family. But it has also taught me a lot about the people you leave behind when you go to university, or even some of the people you meet along the way during your time there (whether those people you meet be back at home or at uni) and I have learnt that some people are toxic. But that doesn't make them cruel or uncaring, and most of them have good intentions. But some people can be toxic to us simply because their needs and way of existing in the world forces us to compromise ourselves and our happiness. They aren't inherently bad people, but they aren't the right people for us. And as hard as it is, you have to let them go - life is hard enough without being around people that bring you down and as much as you care you can't destroy yourself for the sake of someone else. Uni has taught me that you have to make your well being a priority, whether that means breaking up with someone you really care about, or loving a family member from a distance or removing yourself from a situation that feels painful, you have every right to leave and create a safe space for yourself.
Throughout this blog I have always been open and honest about mistakes that I have made, and lessons I have learnt from those mistakes. I thought going to university for 3 years would mean for 3 years I was off the mistake/failure rollercoaster (hah!) because my life plan for the next few years was "sorted" but now I have learnt that making mistakes means that I am making new things, learning new things, learning, living, pushing myself. I'm doing things I've never done and most importantly, I'm doing something. Although I did a lot in my gap years, none of it was very fulfilling & it could be a dampener on the soul to not really be doing something that I thought mattered. So I am going to carry on making mistakes, gloriously amazing mistakes, and I am going to try and not freeze or worry or stop and think that its not good enough whether its in work or life or love.
Finally, my course is challenging me and showing me that sadly no, I cannot change the world (as one of my lecturers said to me the other day "You can't save everyone Bethany") but I'm jolly well gonna try. My course has opened my eyes to amazing, scary and new things and I am pleased I am doing it. It has also been really refreshing to go to university and meet other people who still have no clue what they want to do after university and it's got me thinking that maybe its okay to not know where you want your life headed at the age of 21, and maybe as humans we like to complicate things a bit too much. Maybe all we need is to find what it is that makes us happy, and who it is that makes you happy & we're set.
Until my next moment of inspiration,
x
I find it laughable that 2 years ago in my blog I wrote that I didn't think I would ever go to university because I didn't see the point, I thought it was a waste of money & didn't know what I wanted to do anyway. I still have my moments of wondering if I am really made for university life and doing a degree (especially with social work being so challenging) But what I have come to realise through going to university is that it is so much more than just getting a degree. My mum always said this to me when I was in my "never giving university a chance" phase but I guess I didn't believe her until I started experiencing it for myself.
University has taught me to be incredibly independent; not just with catching trains from the south to the north, or having to cook for myself and do my washing but in ways that I had never considered independence before. At university you are literally fighting for yourself, you have to push yourself to work hard, you have to grow up and look after yourself when you are feeling poorly but mainly you have to be more than ok with who you are as a person and be comfortable in yourself. You have to realise that its ok to say "no" when you don't feel like going out/or doing whatever and you don't have to give a reason. No in itself is a full sentence.
University has also taught me a lot about people, and the people that matter.The people that matter are those who give you an equal amount of love that you give them, those you can feel you can truly be yourself around & those who are there for you during your highest highs and lowest lows. You meet A LOT of people at university and are thrown together with people to live with & you form really strong and meaningful friendships because they become your family. But it has also taught me a lot about the people you leave behind when you go to university, or even some of the people you meet along the way during your time there (whether those people you meet be back at home or at uni) and I have learnt that some people are toxic. But that doesn't make them cruel or uncaring, and most of them have good intentions. But some people can be toxic to us simply because their needs and way of existing in the world forces us to compromise ourselves and our happiness. They aren't inherently bad people, but they aren't the right people for us. And as hard as it is, you have to let them go - life is hard enough without being around people that bring you down and as much as you care you can't destroy yourself for the sake of someone else. Uni has taught me that you have to make your well being a priority, whether that means breaking up with someone you really care about, or loving a family member from a distance or removing yourself from a situation that feels painful, you have every right to leave and create a safe space for yourself.
Throughout this blog I have always been open and honest about mistakes that I have made, and lessons I have learnt from those mistakes. I thought going to university for 3 years would mean for 3 years I was off the mistake/failure rollercoaster (hah!) because my life plan for the next few years was "sorted" but now I have learnt that making mistakes means that I am making new things, learning new things, learning, living, pushing myself. I'm doing things I've never done and most importantly, I'm doing something. Although I did a lot in my gap years, none of it was very fulfilling & it could be a dampener on the soul to not really be doing something that I thought mattered. So I am going to carry on making mistakes, gloriously amazing mistakes, and I am going to try and not freeze or worry or stop and think that its not good enough whether its in work or life or love.
Finally, my course is challenging me and showing me that sadly no, I cannot change the world (as one of my lecturers said to me the other day "You can't save everyone Bethany") but I'm jolly well gonna try. My course has opened my eyes to amazing, scary and new things and I am pleased I am doing it. It has also been really refreshing to go to university and meet other people who still have no clue what they want to do after university and it's got me thinking that maybe its okay to not know where you want your life headed at the age of 21, and maybe as humans we like to complicate things a bit too much. Maybe all we need is to find what it is that makes us happy, and who it is that makes you happy & we're set.
Until my next moment of inspiration,
x
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