I’ve told myself that if I’m going to have a blog, that I need to be consistent and write often. The only thing about that is the fact that I let outside circumstances affect me to the point where, instead of pushing past it all and doing what I got to do, I retreat to this silent place inside myself. Now, maybe it’s not so silent on the inside, but I definitely get silent on the outside. I suppress all that seems to be good in me and for me, because I can’t seem to overcome the overwhelming conflict that looms inside.

I’ve learned some things about myself these past few years that I’m not too proud of. Like, the fact that I always thought I dealt with change so well and even used to brag that I completely embrace it. Well, that was a lie! I didn’t know it at the time of my naivete and my oblivious pride. I thought I was the most grace extending person who forgave anyone and everyone. I definitely thought more highly of myself than I should have, considering life hadn’t brought all it had planned into mine, yet.

I’ve been going through real stuff. Stuff that has felt like depression, sadness, remorse, anxiety, anger, unforgiveness, stress, anguish, pain. I’ve let these things affect me more that I’d like to admit. I’ve let these feelings keep me from what I know I should do and even from what I want to do, sometimes. I have felt numb and have allowed myself to stay there, not wanting to feel, whether that be good or bad.

I know this is sounding like a super depressing post and seems to go against what I always try to present here, but this is real and if there’s one thing I have learned, it’s that when you finally get real, you do finally get free. Knowing that still hasn’t excluded me from the stresses of life taking a hold of me and almost winning, though. Because even knowing that, I still sometimes don’t want to face the reality of what is really going on. I don’t want to get real. I don’t want to get vulnerable. Because that is what it comes down to, being vulnerable, even if it’s just with yourself, enough to admit that you have gone too far away from who you know you truly are. And as much as I don’t want to feel the pain I know that vulnerability will most likely bring, I don’t want to feel the pain of being stuck in this place of forgottenness, even more. The person I forgot that I am. The love and joy I forgot that I had. The tender heart I forgot was there.

So I choose to come back.

To come back to who I am and come back to sharing what’s real so that I, along with many others, I pray, can come back to freedom.