You Are AMAZING!!!

For a woman so full of words I cannot see why they seem to be hiding from me.  I’m struggling to write the novel that I am working on.  Writers block?  Maybe.  But writers block usually follows after someone is stuck, frozen in the moment and not able to envision the story beyond.  Not me.  Not now anyways.  I know completely what comes next and then next beyond that.  In fact I have every aspect of the story set.  Maybe I am not satisfied with the story I’ve outlined you ask.  Not true either.  I am excited with writing it.  I can’t wait to see it ended and I can’t wait for my vision to be, my characters to live.  So, why am I struggling?

I think in the past whenever I have lost my words it’s been Satan’s way of keeping me sedimentary and the sad thing about it is that I usually let him, for a while until something sets me back on course.  Well, perhaps this time that something has to be me.  Perhaps it is time for me to take responsibility for my laziness before God will help me back on course.

So then, why am I still here, lost without words? 

I’ve had a lot of time to reflect lately on who I am and what my testimony is.  Even as a little girl I knew who God was and never doubted his existence.  To this day I do not doubt him.  At times I doubt myself but never him.  I’ve had conversations as of late with fellow sisters who are struggling to understand themselves and their role in God’s world, some asking how I can be so confident in who I am.  The word lucky comes up a lot.  Sometimes even blessed, which that I am, but I need to stress here that although I know  that knowing who I am and knowing how much I can shine in a world that seems to take shiny things and tarnish them is most definitely a blessing, one of my greatest blessings, it didn’t come without years of very hard work.  Some of the most heartbreaking work that I have ever done.

As a child I was bubbly and happy and never had a problem making friends.  Confident.  Then my parents moved to a new town in a new state and for a time, what seemed like forever to me as a child, I was completely on the outside.  No one wanted an outsider.   Now I don’t blame that little town we moved to, I don’t even blame those kids, unfortunately it was just human nature to make fun of the one who doesn’t belong.  In fact I so don’t blame any of them that when the chance came for my husband and I to move back we jumped on it as quickly as we could.

It wasn’t forever that I was on the outside.  Only a few years, but it was enough to form my little impressionable brain around.  My high school years were filled with lots of good friends and lots of good memories.  In fact I grew up in such a good grade that it should have been easy for me to love myself because I had great kids around me every day, but by that point the damage was already done.  Needless to say I had a hard time believing that I mattered and I wondered how God could love me so much, but I knew that he did because I knew that the gospel of Jesus Christ was true.  So if he loved me so much how come I couldn’t love myself?  And even more how great of a sinner was I for not believing that I mattered.

I was a good girl.  Very mindful of others feelings, but the first one to throw aside my own.  So how did that change, you ask.  Well, it started with a plea from a very amazing brother.  In fact he doesn’t even remember saying it to me but he changed my life that day none the less.  When Ken left on his mission, just a day or so before, he asked me to be happy.  He said, “Happiness is a choice and if you choice it often enough it becomes a habit.  Will you choose it for me?”

Sure?

Easier said than done.  But I did it all the same.  Every day every time a sad thought, mostly about my pitiful self, popped into my head I chose to put a happy one in there instead.  Took me forever.  Whoever said that creating new habits only took a few weeks or months or even a few years was a totally lying!  But with a constant effort I made that choice day in and day out year after year.  When I stumbled, very lucky me had a very amazing hubby who would not let me say or even think one horrible thought about myself.  That started twenty years ago.

Now most people who know me think of me as confident, easy going, happy, the glass half full kind of gal, and they are very surprised when I tell them the struggle, especially in my teenage years, that I had with depression.  When I think of that girl I used to be I hardly can believe that it was me either, while at the same time I am sad at all the joy that that girl missed out on.  I’ve learned to create joy and to love myself whether or not anyone else does.  I’ve learned that I am beautiful and can look at myself in the mirror and smile because I like the face that is smiling back at me.  I’ve learned that even when I am at my ugliest, my hair wild from crazy sleep or twenty extra pounds to loose from a new baby, I am still amazing and most of all that I matter.

A couple years back as I was on my knees having a very heartfelt gratitude prayer and I asked my Heavenly Father how I could share what I had learned with everyone.  Every daughter who has forgotten who she is.  Every woman who doesn’t know how she can shine.  You see, the joy I feel sometimes is so overwhelming that my heart feels like it can’t contain it all, and the journey it took for me to get here was so long and so painful that I want everyone to have what I have.  Everyone to understand just how much God loves them.  When I see even the smallest glimpse into his love for me I am overwhelmed.  Do you know what I know?  Do you know that you are amazing?  Do you know you can be happy just by choosing it even when you don’t think that you can?

Sure a new dress or those sexy pair of 4 inch heels can make you feel like you shine.  Heck I love getting all decked out, but when those outer sparkles come off do you still shine, because you should.  You are beautiful!

Now look how easily those words came.  Funny because some years ago I would have laughed if you would have told me that I could write the very things that I have.  God loves me.  I am amazing and so are you!!

Now if only I can fill the pages of my book that easily.