My prayer and self goal for 2018 is to seek and welcome peace into my mind, heart, and soul in whatever form God wills. I returned to work on April 5th, exactly two months after my surgery, and it has done wonders on my anger and burdens. Getting out of the house is what I needed to see how my life could move forward. Unfortunately, I also see how much work is still left on me to do, and with the way society imposes expectations, it's difficult to pinpoint which pieces need the most work.
Failure vs. Lessons
I overuse the word 'failure.' All my former relationships are failures because they ended. My inability to overcome anger is a failure. Not working in the field I studied is a failure. But are they failures by God's standards or the world's?
The Lord focuses on lessons within the Bible to teach His people His ways. What we view as a failure, God wants to use as a lesson to better us and remind us that forgiveness and second chances are real. Society wants to emphasize failure and success so we can measure our worth, but how do you measure a young person's Bachelor's degree against another person's twenty years of industry experience? It doesn't equate.
One of the ways to overcome anger is to recognize that there is something I still need to learn. What am I overlooking about my last relationship so I can be prepared for the next one? What am I not noticing about single life that will help me become my whole self? What can this current work experience teach me that I can carry into the field I studied? Am I sincerely angry, or do I feel stuck, lost, or overwhelmed and don't know how to face these emotions?
If we fail, we lose our sense of self-worth. But when we learn from mistakes and treat everything as a teaching or growth moment, we realize how we can welcome the trials of this world to fortify us against bigger battles ahead.
New Milestones
Before I measured my worth by achievements: degrees, promotions, new cars, and buying a house. I'm slowly, very slowly, realizing that my inadequacy derives from these pointless achievements. I'm not considering education pointless in any way, but when we weigh the piece of paper more than we weigh the knowledge and experience, we have a problem.
I want to achieve happiness in this life, and these things gave me a sense of accomplishment but only when I could brag about them. Rather, I want to seek joy in talking about things that bring me joy: faith, books, video games, and superheroes. I want to achieve peace in my heart by getting out in my community and meeting new friends. I want to know I've reached the next point in my life not with a mortgage payment but with satisfaction each morning I wake up.
This road lasts a lifetime. There are days where I feel like I hate the world and in turn despise myself because I can't figure out why I fall back so easily. But God constantly brings me back to him, whether in prayer, confession, or through kind strangers. Peace is not an achievement; it is a state of being, and that state is shifting as often as we move.
My goal for this year is to welcome peace into my life, but my hope is to meet the authentic me and help her blossom.
My Lord, You are good. You are merciful. You are Our true Father. May we follow Your will for our lives, not only for Your sake, but for our own, so that we may become the people You intended us to be all along. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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