I Hope There Are Days When...

I hope there are days when....
you fall in love with being alive,
you feel loved in an incredibly, deeply, beautifully inspired way,

I hope there are days when...
you see yourself for more than just human being,
but see yourself as an eternal soul,



I hope there are days when....
you can see past the now,
and you can see into the future; see who you are.

I hope there are days when....
you are so inspired to make a difference,
and you go out of your way to change someone else's life....

***

I hope there are days when you fall in love with being alive.


It took a long time for me to find out who I was; who I am.
I had those dark days where I didn't want to live. I had those long nights full of sobbing, and plaguing thoughts of self-doubt and self-hate.
It's taken a lot of blood, sweat and tears to even love myself.
It wasn't my body that I hated. I've never minded my shape, or my hair color. Sure I've thought about being "prettier". I've done the makeup, and hours of doing a hair up-do. But self-love is so much deeper. It's so much more than being comfortable in your own skin. Yes, that's a HUGE part, and body-shaming is real. But it goes deeper than loving your thighs, and butt, and waist line. Self-love is about going deep inside your soul, inside your personality. It's about going into your heart and your attitude and finding who you are as a human, and who you are as a child of God. And it's not an easy process. It's taken me years, and there are still days I am beating myself up and self-hating my own process.

I had to learn grace. Grace to give myself and grace to give others.
I had to learn how to give myself room to grow. Growing in my own personality, and growing in how I treat others.
I had to learn love. To love myself, and to love others.

Love was the hardest one to learn. Not the part about loving others, because I tend to give love more freely than I probably should. I get hurt, and I blame myself every single time. And instead of learning to hold back love from others, I held back love from myself. And there's a balance about learning how to let go, how to love yourself, and how to love others. It's a balance that's freakin' hard to find, but once you do, it's not so much a struggle of maintaining balance, but of maintaining focus on what needs to be balanced.

I've been there. I've hated myself. I've had harsh thoughts and negativity towards who I was as a person, as a woman, as a Christian and child of God.

And then the long darkness started to take a turn when I realized I was getting nowhere in life. When I wanted to be better, when I wanted to be okay. Mental illness is real, it's strong and sometimes you never break the bondage of it. And I don't think mental illness ever really goes away. It's not something to turn on and off like a faucet. But I overcame the self-hate part by prayer, discipline and a lot of encouraging books, quotes and and bible verses.

Now two years after actively trying to be better, I've become okay. It's a daily struggle of purposely being positive. A daily struggle of praying for grace. A daily struggle of self-love, self-reassurance, and self-positivity. There are days where I curse the negative words and head-biting sarcasm that cuts deep, those harsh words that fling out of my mouth like an arrow that can't stay on the taut bowstring anymore. There are still days I have to read my phone screen saver that says, "I hope there are days when you fall in love with being alive." Because it's a constant. Because I always need reminders to love myself and to love others like Christ would. It's a constant to strive to be the best you can.

Just remember: it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to struggle through that mental illness. It's okay to sit in the dark for a while and to cry and to bleed your soul out to the void. It's okay to ask for help.
But you have to get up. You have to learn to give yourself grace. You have to learn to love yourself. You have to learn how to LIVE and how to LOVE being alive. Because it's a long process of daily commitment. And self-hate is self-harm. And you can learn to love again...

Your brokenness is welcome here.