"To Love is to be vulnerable"

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
-C.S. Lewis

Where do I even begin with this quote. I feel like it sums up pretty well what I have been trying to do. I have been trying to guard my heart on my own strength out of my own selfishness. I did not/ do not want to be vulnerable. However, God has been convicting me and I realize that by "locking [my heart] up safe in the casket," I am becoming more and more impenetrable...unbreakable.

I have been wrapping my heart with little luxuries that keep me happy. My hobbies keep me happy, but when I am alone sometimes i feel empty. I mean, I do love time by myself, but lately it has been different. I feel like there is something missing and that is where I feel God has been convicting me. He is convicting me of my own selfishness that wants to guard my happiness by not letting others in. God helped me see the truth...something that I refused to see for so many years. After so many years of being "hurt" by my father, someone I loved, I began to make my heart hard and I began to pretend like I didn't care and that it didn't hurt me. AFter a while I began to believe it and not even the nastiest comments could bring me to tears. I feel like my love was turning into hatred for my dad and may have began to infiltrate my views on men in general. I say that I forgive my dad for all that he has done to me, but part of me feels like I haven't just yet. I like to say that I have forgiven him because that's easy, i don't have to realize what he did, I can just say "You never hurt me, your opinion and comments never really mattered to me anyways," but in reality, his opinions and comments once meant something to me. It use to hurt me when he said that he disowned me, it use to hurt me when he told me to get out and it use to hurt me when he said that I was nothing but a parasite. I think that this is the reason why I feel like haven't truly forgiven my father and this is the reason why I am unable to be vulnerable. Because I use to be vulnerable and I got my heart broken, but what I realize is that that is life and what sustains me is God and His peace.

God pursues my heart and I pursue Him back and His love is everlasting and intangible. It is something than no one can EVER take away. His love teaches me how to love. It teaches me how to look at myself and see where I am going wrong. It teaches me how to be vulnerable so that someone else can be loved too.

Whenever I see someone I love cry, it makes me cry. That again shows that to love someone you are vulnerable. To truly love someone you , in a way, give the control of your emotions. It is not easy and it is something that I am working on, but it is also something that I am glad to be convicted of. I don't want to grow cold or bitter. I want to love others just as God has shown love to me.

He restorers my strength. He sustains me through all trial, tests, and tribulations. How I love the Lord my God who gave His only son for me, a sinner. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, thank you Lord! I cry out to you Father when I am at my lowest point you give me strength, you are the everlasting God.

Thank you Lord for all the blessings that you have poured out into my life Lord. The greatest blessings of all is Jesus Christ, with out Him I don't know where I would be. Thank you for Your forgiveness and mercy Lord. My heart is Yours Lord, continue to captivate me with Your love. I pray that I may be able to forgive and love others just like You have forgiven and loved me. O' Lord at times it can be so hard for me, I humbly profess to you that I can not do it with my own strength but with Your strength. Help me in my strive to be more like You, help me to keep my eyes on You so that I may love, forgive and understand, like You.

Lord You're holy...how i love that song!!! You truly are holy and i lift you up and magnify Your name!! I see all the works you have done in my life, just like the song says, Your love NEVER fades! You are worthy of all my praise!!

God is good

God said to look at the flowers of the fields and the birds in the sky that they neither sow nor reap, yet God provides for them. I see how pretty the flowers and trees are and it show me God's power and glory. This makes me happy because I know that God loves me, His child, just as much if not more than the birds and flower. Slowly I feel that I am able to accept myself the way God made me. I love knowing that He loves me and that He doesn't look at the outward appearance, but at the heart. God's love is what sustains me through all things and His love is sufficient for me. Well, it's easier for me to say it (or type it lol) and believe it, but sometimes I wonder if something affected my physical appearance how would I react? ...i don't know i guess i'mjust thinking about all this right now because I found out that I'm going to have chemotherapy again. I don't know how much chemo I will be getting, but I may or may not lose my hair....My response to my doctor when he said that I would have to have chemo again was kind of funny because the first thing i said was " Will I lose my hair??!!" Afterwards I realized that was kind of shallow of me, it's just hair it will grow back if i have to lose my hair.

Lately God has been telling me that I am beautiful. Well, actually God has always been telling me that, but it's just recently that I have noticed. We all have insecurities at some point in our lives. What I realized is that I just need to be content with myself. It's the whole concept of the "grass greener than the other side." A lot of times girls compare themselves to other girls and are unsatisfied with themselves, but if they had the same physical appearance of THAT other girl and kept the same mentality of comparing themselves, then the cycle would continue. They would continue to compare and compare and change and change things about they're physcial appearance. For example, when I went to India the girls there wanted lighter skin and there were ads for creams to lighten up the skin. However people here in the U.S.A go to tanning booths and use creams to get darker skin (this really surprised the indians).

ok i feel a little distracted rite now lol. anyways, GOd has really been helping me to deal with these kind of issues. Everyday that I seek Him, only His opinion seems to matter. He knows that I am beautiful and it makes me so very grateful and glad. He gives me the confidence that I need, but not to be boastful.