Intricacy Within Simplicity

I have recently come to the conclusion that I need to be more transparent with my life. I get into this habit of only wanting the good things to be public knowledge and only putting my best foot forward. I tend to only want to be seen as calm, cool, collected and content. I portray this image on social media and in real life that I am put together and incredibly happy with everything and I have realized that all this does is hurt myself. By forcing this image of "put-togetherness" I am forcing myself to not acknowledge my shortcomings or feelings. I am inadvertently suffocating myself due to my desire to seem together. And I firmly believe I am not the only one who genuinely struggles with this concept. In this day and age we are pressured to seem perfect and content and successful, but in reality sometimes we need the world to know of our misfortunes so they can provide solace or comfort. Due to the stigma surrounding failure, we feel forced to not reach out when we feel t...

As I have grown up I have often noticed that people, including myself, tend to be different people for different situations. And while sometimes this makes sense, for example you can't quote The Office in a business meeting like you would if you're with friends, other times it doesn't. Sometimes it does more harm than good. As a Christian I experience this often. People who think they need to be one thing in order to be good enough for God.  PLOT TWIST: God loves the weak and the broken. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 says " But he said to me,  “My grace  is sufficient for you, for my power  is made perfect in weakness. ”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.   That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight  in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions,  in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."  In our weakness God is glorified and made stronger. God purposely ...

Before I started college I wrote myself a letter full of goals and dreams for college me. I made goals for who I would be and what I wanted to accomplish. This letter resurfaced recently and as I read through it I felt inspired by my younger self.  BE OPEN BE KIND BE FORGIVING BE GENEROUS BE LOVING BE TRUE TO YOURSELF    These are the goals I had written down for myself and these are the things I wanted to accomplish. As my sophomore year comes to an end I am realizing how big of a role these goals have played in my college life. This list is no small list. This list is what has helped me make friends and what has helped me follow my heart and love others well. My App State chapter may have closed, but when I look back on it I see that I was showered in love from my closest friends, I had many experiences where I had to forgive others, and many more when I needed for them to forgive me. I experienced kindness in the truest forms and aimed to share it with all I e...

Recently a good friend of mine and I were talking about ~love~ Yep. The hard "L." The word that single handedly strikes fear into the hearts of all who are scared of commitment. We talked about how we didn't truly know what love was or if we had felt it. Me being me, I started to reflect. Upon this reflection I came to my usual conclusion that I have never felt "love" nor experienced it and it is in fact, a fallacy. A fake. A mirage. To me love is like seeing Chick-fil-a open on a Sunday, it will never happen. I adopted this belief early on in high school. I was most definitely trying to seem deep and insightful, and I was also most definitely trying to impress a boy. And while one must of course think that this was just a phase and of course I grew out of it... I did not. I dug in deeper and deeper and let this thought consume me. I made it my sole belief system. I convinced myself that love was not real and if you could say you love pizza and also say you ...

Valentine’s Day is honestly the worst. It is expensive, excessive, and obnoxious. Maybe I’m just incredibly cynical and maybe one day when I am with the person of my dreams I will have a completely different opinion, but as of now I am not a fan. Only showing love on one day seems strange, it’s odd that people wait until February 14th to show their significant other just how grand they are. The bears and chocolate and flowers, all pretty over the top am I right? And all for one day!! I feel like the reason I am such a critic is because I know what true love is. I know what it is like to be loved grandly everyday. I know that I have a savior who literally died for me, if that isn’t love BOYYYY I don’t know what is. He set the standard pretty high off the bat, Jesus died to show his love for us and to forgive us of our sins (so don’t just accept chocolate ladies! — please note I am joking).  He knew all of my flaws and all of my bad decisions and still chose to love me, forgive ...

Vision is a clear picture or idea of what you want to see happen, whether that's in a moment or big picture. This idea of having a vision is essential, especially in college. I struggle with vision because I constantly rely on others to shape my wants and desires and I know that. I realized this is why I lacked satisfaction in my life. I lacked real, pure joy because I was unable to truly figure out what my heart, mind, and soul desired.  Without vision you will struggle and settle and become complacent in your own life. You will settle for whats occuring because you don't know what to strive for. Without vision you will get stuck in your same patterns; growth and change is hard because you lack the idea of what or who you want to be. Without a vision life feels boring, you have nothing to work towards. Your dating life seems stagnant. Without vision you can feel lonely even when surrounded by friends because you don't have a real vision for community. Determining what ...