My worst enemy.

It slowly slithers up to me. With one bite, it drains out all will within my being. I breathe in this monstrous disease as it evokes in me a sudden pulse to runaway. "Why now?"  It drags memories and failures back into consciousness. I mentally stagger from this place to somewhere I can find comfort. Somewhere I can breathe.  But I fail. I back away into the corners of  solemn shame. "Here I am again."  My voice resounds against the fragile walls in my mind. Disheartened, I watch as another opportunity escapes from my hands.  
All to the cause of my worst enemy, all to the cause of fear. 

So many times I feel myself shrink as this immense world expands. It sickens me how one little sentiment can ruin my chance at succeeding at anything beyond breathing. It sickens me how I let such a monstrous disease invade my fragile and weak being. Why? Why?

Though I have no answer to this long over-thought question, I keep getting closer to where I want to get. 
I've started listening to this group called Fink, one of my favorite songs is "Fear is like Fire"... The lyrics intrigued me so much I even looked up for an interpretation of the song... Though I didn't find it, I came across this quote: 

"Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It's like fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you; it can heat your house. If you can't control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you. If you can control your fear, it makes you more alert, like a deer coming across the lawn."- Mike Tyson

Fear is my worst enemy. It has stopped me from saying and doing things I probably should've at the moment. It leaves me regretting and always hanging on to the question "What if?" . It's like when you meet someone for the first time, you don't really open up, all because you're scared of rejection. 

Or even now, at this very moment, fear is trying to take a hold of me as I'm about to click the "Publish" button. I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of what people will think.

 But for how long am I going to let fear overcome me? 

A time will come in every person's life when they'll have to choose whether to stand up for what they believe or fall into the crowd. We will have to choose between speaking up or denying the truth. When that happens, will we let fear invade us to the point we give up on everything we are and everything we believe?
 Or will we use it to give us even more reason to stand? 
 A little bit of fear does us good. Without it, we wouldn't have anything to overcome; and I truly believe that without any obstacles, we wouldn't have the incentive to wholeheartedly do what we are called to do. Whether that obstacle is fear, or not. 

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Never failing sunrise.

It’s a new morning. Before dawn and before the people rise, Heaven’s secrets remain hushed. Angels are sent from above and they fly throughout the earth. With their glorious melody, they awaken the birds and bloom the flowers. They pour out drops of dew and sprinkle frost. They give courage to the warriors, they add strength to the sick. They comfort the lonely, they celebrate with the joyful. As the sun rises, the angels dance; for they know they’ve prepared a new world of possibilities and chances: a path to choose and a light to follow. The journey has only begun, and the angels smile down as eyelids gently start to open. The sun rays reach the ends of the earth and the people know: a new morning has begun.

I wrote this a while back, astonished by a beautiful sunrise I saw one morning. 
Today I saw the same exact one. I witnessed the transformation of a gloomy dawn to a sky full of strokes of purple and orange. In a matter of seconds, the mix of the colors radiated on the clouds as a rosy pink. I gasped and jumped  out of the  bed. Here I was, 7.28 Am, looking out my window, mouth wide open at the sight.  First of all, I don't even tend to wake up that early, so the fact I was awake to see the sun rise is just another miracle I experienced. Second of all, the day was  foggy and promised rain... Why  would there be such a beautiful sunrise, as the ones you see by the beach or a bright  summer morn, in a plain November dawn?  There's maybe be some scientific or logical explanation to it.. Or maybe I'm just a lazy person who sleeps in through every sunrise and acts as if any sunrise I see is out of the ordinary...  But I'd like to think of it as another way God shows me  He gives second chances. He gives me a day full of opportunities, full of blessings and full of lessons. And even when the day turns out nothing like I expect it to be, He keeps promising a new sunrise. 

Lamentations 3:22-23 

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

    for his compassions never fail.

²³ 

They are new every morning;

    great is your faithfulness.

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He sees color in gray.

One of those days... Your alarm goes off, but still you manage to sleep an extra twenty minutes, getting late to wherever you have to go... You groan as you walk through the doors. The day hasn't even started and you're already worn out. You're overwhelmed with absolute nothingness, and you honestly can't remember the last time you felt so exhausted. Math class starts. You get the first answer wrong.. You sigh. Another thing to remind you of your failures. You look around the class, everyone seems to be getting it...You try and try again, you still don't get the answer... What's the point to this? I can't do anything right, why do I even try? Class bell rings and you rush out. The day goes by..You forget your homework, your consumed with worries, you bump into someone, say something you didn't mean to say.. Whenever you're left alone to your thoughts, your brain automatically shifts to melodramatic pasts and hurtful memories that only add more sighs and groans to your day... Someone walks up to ask you how things are going, you smile and say "Alright"...because there's no quick and clear way to explain how you're really feeling.. Besides, maybe if we act like we're okay, we'll eventually BE okay... So why not act like everything's good? Why not try to shake away the pain?

I think many of us  have a tendency to secretly live in our hurt. Outside we seem perky beings just living our "awesome" lives, when inside we're truly torn apart. We don't realize it, but the more we try to push it away, the deeper the wound gets, the heavier our days seem.We keep living our lives above the pain, because it's "easier", it's "better"..  It's as if we're afraid to admit we're hurt. Why? The cycle I see, in my life, and many people:  we're hurt, we shut down and we step away. We step away from people, from feelings, and sadly and sometimes even unintentionally, from God. 

A bible verse that has kept ringing at the back of my mind is Psalms 147:3 :

"God heals the brokenhearted, and bandages their wounds" 

God promises us healing...How come is it that He many times is the last one we run to when we're hurt? Why is it that we're afraid to let God in on what we're  feeling? 

I struggle to answer this question even now, when I'm supposed to be giving a conclusion to all this... 

In Art class the other day, we were to copy a picture and give color to it.. I chose a scenery of a mountainous area by a lake, with the rays of the sunset dispersing through the valley of the mountain...As you can imagine, I had to use several colors. I asked my teacher what color I should use for the area by the Sun. She said gray. Gray..? I thought it odd gray would make the picture look better, but went ahead anyway.. As I applied it by the sun rays, I began to see the contrasts, and I saw how the picture was coming together... 

Just as I finished,  I couldn't help but think of how the gray, though plain and tedious as it is, made the rays burst in color even more so than before...  I think God works the same way.  Sometimes it seems like many areas of our lives are painted in gray, we can't see the end result of our painting, we're confused by it and continue to remain in the hurt... But God uses the gray in our lives so we focus on the rays of Sun: His healing, His strength, His love. God uses gray in our lives so our final picture turns out truly and completely beautiful. We just have to keep moving, not letting our hurts stop us from truly living; and trusting that He knows what He's doing with his paintbrush, He sees how it'll turn out in the end. 

"You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light."- Psalms 18:28

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