A Life To Live

"What is love without sacrifice in the wake of Christ's cross? A life that risks no loss is not life at all. Divine love does not spare itself." - Beth Moore

Question: Take stock of your current life: your actions, your focus, your time. What do I believe to be a priority? Does your schedule reflect this? What might you change to better align your values with your calendar? 

I sit. The majority of my day is spent on my tail, writing and completing school assignments. The majority of my days center on a screen and even when a break comes I find myself still drawn to the luminance of false reality. It is easy to stay seated, when your main priority is centered around sitting still and letting your fingers fly. Maybe that is why my fingers are sticks and my body is not? I like to be inspired and I find my encouragement, inspiration, and pull to the creative through books, music, movies, tv…story. I appreciate story, and it doesn’t have to be happy for me to enjoy it. A good story is filled with the good, bad, and the in-between…I find without these things a story stalls out and in life a person stops growing; becoming. We need it all to develop and to be well rounded, no matter how much we want to hide the imperfect, that is what connects; because it is relatable and reality.

My focus is to create and succeed. In reality these two are in a pull with each other. Creating and success are rare partners, in the well-known definition of success. This Journal Journey, may flop out and may not strike within me the desire I have for it in my writing ambitions and hopes. But it will be a success if I see it to the end of 30 days of diving in that is success. But success around my world looks like spotlight, likes, and followers; celebrity on a small scale. Being idolized is something the shell of self craves, but my soul craves to be known. Known not for what I produce in content in grades and craft, or even what I do in the world around me. Known for just being present and alive in the world. To create is to succeed, fear is my fight and it screams to keep all of my words and creative outlets to myself, but to do that is not to live out what I have been given. 

My schedule does not look like I want it, because my selfishness does not want it. My selfishness wants to do the bare minimum, sleep in, and stay under a rock so I can’t be stepped on by the criticisms produced by the differences of the world around me. I want to avoid stepping on toes and stay in shadows, tight lipped and hopeful that what I want will come to me without the work. Life as I have learned does not work like Christmas…you ask and receive. It takes faithful work with the day. So I fight for my schedule. I lay down at 9 and try to rise at 5. It is an imperfect cycle I am in, thankful for a job that makes me rise at least by 6. 

To achieve what I want how to I re-align. Honestly the biggest difference in my day is staying off the “anti” social network of the world. I stay off of it and it becomes easier for me to read, create, write, study, and be present. That is my big secret to living peacefully and accomplishing and pursuing the avenues that ignite my heart with fire. Stay off. It is hard, but stay off. It is a simple change and causes me to reach out and be intentional with my relationships, it forces me to truly connect. I believe in living abundantly. Staying off a sphere that calls me to be discontent with what is and be jealous and give attention to people and conversations that are empty and fruitless, makes my spirit lighter and purpose clearer. 

I fail to stay off. Habits that have become comfortable and second nature are hard to lay down, but it is worth it to give my all to my priorities. My spirituality, education, and my creativity doing all to glorify my God and to love people well. It is worth it to lay down the eye drying light of screens moonlighting as spotlights on stages. My priority is to be me and continue to learn who she is and is meant to be, I learn more about me every day in the light of all the things that matter to me, even the things I do not like. Here is to the struggle to get up at 5 and off the couch, living fully in mind, body, and spirit.

- Hannah