Friday, June 1, 2012

Project Me...Take Two


 (Picture from our second honeymoon in Carmel Highlands)

Wow! Talk about the best intentions kind of going down the toilet.  Wait...does anyone talk about that?  Or at least do they use that terminology?  I entered the new year with high hopes of changing my life, finding direction, gaining purpose and insight.  I wanted to do so much, but...at some point, I kind of flopped.  Not in a drastic way, but my project of me was not something I could really keep up with on here.  Not good.


So hey, there are six more months left in this year.  How about we try that again?  Okay.  How about I try that again.  


No guilt and no condemnation.  Sometimes you make plans, and sometimes you slip out of them.  I have been working on myself, and I have been trying to make some headway with things.  I will get into that as I continue writing over the next few months.  


I am not going to make any grand predictions.  I do have some goals ahead.  These goals I have been working on.  Like I said, I haven't been exactly chronicling them, but I have been making efforts.  


One of the things that I have been truly trying to figure out is my place in this world.  My talent.  My gift.  What is it that God created me to do?  Is that a question that you wonder about?  I have spent hours and hours just trying to find direction.  I have friends who always just knew.  They had gifts and talents that were hard to miss.  Some are amazing organizers, teachers, and leaders.  I have a friend who has an incredible singing voice and who spent a time singing professionally in a very successful Christian group.  Her talent was in your face and amazing.  In your face as in it is something that is obvious like beauty.  You see someone tall and lithe and gorgeous and thing "she should be a model."  When you heard my friend sing, you knew she should do it for life.  And she did.  :)  My talents were not quite that open.


As a child I loved to draw.  I would pick up pencils and draw on everything I could get my hands on.  All scrap paper was handed to me.  I drew pictures and comics.  Then, my cousin began to draw.  She was incredible.  Everyone oohed and aahed over her work.  I slowly stopped.  I did move into stories though.  I wrote and wrote pages of stories.  Or I would take long walks where my grandma lived and tell myself stories.  I decided that it would be pretty neat to be a writer.  Then for some reason, I got it into my head that I wasn't bright enough to write.  The dream didn't completely die, but it fizzled out dramatically.  I figured I would go to college and figure it all out.  Something happened after that though, my family kept telling me I needed a fall-back plan.  I should focus on that, and then worry about doing something I would like.  Mainly I began to see my dreams as unreachable or at least saw myself as not up to par.  If I was, certainly I would be encouraged.  


This isn't about my family though, and I feel bad even writing that.  I just wish that I had a little more open direction.  I have felt for a time like I am not living the life God created me to live.  I don't want the talents He gave me to not be used for His glory.  I want to help others.  I want more than to just have a good job.  You know how they say that you should do what you love?  That is what I want.  Most of all, I want to silence the self doubt and open up to what God can do. 


This brings me to my new position.  I will actually get into it tomorrow.  I am stressing a bit much right now and really kind of need to pull focus off it and onto God.