...for the Guarded

Maybe I'll just stay busy. Maybe I'll just exercise a lot. Maybe I'll just do everything but sit here and think about my flaw.

My flaw that has ruined relationships and refuses to allow me to grow.

My flaw that has consumed me these past few weeks.

I am guarded.

I fear proximity.

I crave relationships.

I grieve mistakes.

Sometimes I just want to leave.

To open up a bookstore in a little boat town. To go to a new school with an accent. To live a completely different life than the one I've been living. Instead, I'm stuck in this life and I don't know how to happily stay here at the moment. This isn't a children's book you can buy on a kindle, where you can escape to a world where paste covered fingers and battling imaginary dragons are your only problems. Instead, we have to face our own dragons. No knight in shining armor or dinner time to save the day. Just you, the dragon, and your toilet paper roll sword.

My dragons have been winning the battles lately.

My dragons have been breathing fire lined with doubt and laced with regret.

My toilet paper sword bends when it hits the shield guarding my dragons and unfortunately, the only guard I have is the one I've put up.

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Proverbs 4:23

I know this to be true, but I don't know why I have to follow it so literally.

I could rattle off a list of "i hopes" and "i wishes" but that won't get me anywhere but hoping and wishing to turn back time and fix what's been done. Instead I want to start rattling off lists of "i can" and "i will"

I can open up to someone I love.

I can guard my heart yet show and receive compassion from those around me.

I will live in the present and move away from dwelling in the past.

And I will fight my dragons with a terry cloth cape and an aluminum foil shield, and be very successful at that.

...for the Avoider

I tend to avoid a problem that is right in front of me.

Rather than dealing with it correctly, facing it head on and full throttle, I put the issue on the back burner, letting it get lukewarm as the heat dies down.

This weekend was full of over-crowded back burners that were finally moved up a spot, ready to be re-lit.

In so many areas of my life I have recently made revelations about things that I already knew, but avoided acknowledging.

I knew I loved cheddar and sour cream chips, but denied myself the delicious taste whenever I walked by.

I knew I missed working out, but failed to get my routine back.

I knew I needed a softer heart, but failed to sand the edges down to let people in.

I knew I belittled people with words, but refused to let myself feel weak anymore.

I knew I was ready, but I pushed aside anyone else's feelings for my own gain.

So often we let ourselves deny the right so we can falsely accept the wrong.

So often that blows up in our faces.

This weekend I was over letting everything get lukewarm, so I brought the heat up a notch or two and through that, I had doubts. I told myself I wasn't ready for the revelations I made, that I wasn't ready to move past the mediocracy of the lukewarm life I was living, and that I wasn't ready to fully commit to a change.

Considering New Year's Resolutions are notoriously broken at least 5 days into the new year, I convinced myself that this year would be like any other and that I would let the progress pass me by and come around another year.

Well, 2011, do I have news for you. Not this time. Not this year. This year, is my year.

No matter how difficult it may be or how tiresome I may become of constantly living up to the expectations I laid out for myself, I want to succeed.

I knew I loved cheddar and sour cream chips, so I went out and bought some yesterday.

I knew I missed working out, so I turned up my ipod and headed to the gym.

I knew I needed a softer heart, so God placed in my life a sister with kinder words than I will ever come to say myself.

I knew I belittled people with words, so I bit my tongue and cried the whole way home, ashamed of the person I saw myself becoming.

I knew I was ready, but I put my convictions on the back burner in hopes of a future full of heat.

So, as we dip into the year 2011, what will you do?

Let your goals and hope become lukewarm as the months pass you by, or will you pick up that teapot filled with doubt and let it boil away over the heat sparked by convictions?

Accept the right, deny the wrong.

"Give as rain falls, effortlessly. Love as rain will continue, endlessly" ~Alana Aronson