God made you special

Where in the world have I been? Outside, of course! Playing with my little girls and doing yard work with Mr. Wonderful. I've just been enjoying life and standing in complete awe of how incredibly amazing God is. I know people say it all the time, but I am so blessed. God has been so good to me and my family. I think Spring is  probably my favorite time of year. I love seeing the flowers bloom and the butterflies floating around. It is a wonderful reminder that God makes all things new. In Him, I have a new beginning. My old self is gone--Praise the Lord!! I am forgiven for my past and I have hope for my future. As difficult as it is for me to comprehend, His grace is enough for me.

When I think about God's amazing grace, it floods my soul with a desire to be exactly what He wants me to be. It makes me determined to NOT be the person I've always been. The older I get, the more aware I become of the mistakes I've made in my past. I have no intention of dwelling on them, I've spent plenty of time doing that already...one of those mistakes. My awareness of those mistakes has brought me to the conclusion that I have lived most of my life in fear. Fear of making mistakes, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of not being good enough, fear of being embarrassed.....I've always been a "whatever you want" kind of girl. I never decide what to do or where to go eat or what movie to watch with friends because, what if they don't like it? I'm not really crazy, I just like for everyone to be happy and would rather compromise myself to please others.

Besides, I'm pretty much satisfied with anything. I now know that, even though that is true, I don't really know what I like in the first place! I've spent so much time allowing others to dictate what I did, where I went, and what I ate, I think I lost myself a little.

I have been working on changing that over the last 9 years that Mr. Wonderful and I have been together. It has been a slow process, but I feel like I have been making some real progress, especially over the past few months. I've discovered some new things that I really enjoy doing. Things that I never would have considered before, probably because I don't know anyone else who does it.

I now know that I love sewing. I am still learning, but it is my favorite thing to do with my free time. I have even allowed the girls to wear clothes that I made them out in public! Shopping used to be my only hobby, (which isn't a hobby at all, by the way) and I do still enjoy shopping. I just do it differently now. I look around, find something I like, and think, I can make that!

I started to learn to crochet last year, but it turned out that I was really slow at it. I was intimidated by it and stopped. I hope that I will find time to start back again though. Even when I was doing the wrong stitches, I found it to be incredibly relaxing. 

I have also been reminded by Mr. Wonderful, that I absolutely love to write. When I blog, I write and read and write and read. Putting my thoughts down has really been a lot of fun and has helped work through some issues I didn't even know I had. Then I publish it for the entire world to see! Well, maybe not, but they do have access to it....does that count? When I was in the 7th grade a friend and I wrote a "novel." Don't ask why...I was a kid, okay? It was just about our other friends and the more exciting life we wished we lived. Don't ask if it was any good...probably not. Hopefully that friend burned it a long time ago! I also took a creative writing class in high school that I secretly loved. I even won $50 in a local essay contest that our teacher made us enter. I considered studying English and Language Arts in college. I didn't get the scholarship that I applied for, so I just left that one hanging. Kinda makes me wonder...

When I was younger I hated being outside. I didn't like the way you smelled when you came back inside, most sports are outside and I'm the least athletic person in the world, and I really didn't like sweating......things directly related to what others would think (why would I care if I'm sweaty and "smell like outside" and I didn't like sports because people watch sports and they would see how terrible I am). I love being outside now. Mostly because I have learned to let go and just enjoy the moment.

Having my girls has helped me a lot because I am thinking so much about them that I completely forget to be self-conscious. It is a great feeling to not worry about unnecessary things. Mr. Wonderful has also helped in so many ways. He is so great at encouraging me. He seems to always have confidence in me and I love that. I know that I can trust him to be honest with me, even when the trust may sting a little. And that really means a lot. Anyone can just lie to you and tell you you're great all the time. It takes someone who genuinely cares about you to gently let you know when you are not so great. Mr. Wonderful does that for me.

My 29th birthday is coming up in a few weeks. The last of my twenties. I admit that I am a little sad because I just can't believe how time has flown by and I feel like a lot of it was wasted. But I am mostly excited because I love life more every day. It gets better with every breath and if it is this great now, I am so ready for my next 29 years! Whoever said that your teenage years or high school days were the best years of your life......oh, I feel so sorry for that person. A teenager only thinks those years are so important because they are unable to look beyond them. But then, if you are a teenager you probably don't believe that. Ironic, huh?

I am loving my new hobbies and feel as though, at 29, I am finally figuring out who I am. I am praying that my journey to a life without fear will continue to bring me to a place where I am truly comfortable with who I am becoming: the woman God intended me to be. I don't want my girls to ever live in fear of what others think. I want them to respect others and their feelings like I did and still do, but not lose themselves in trying to please them the way I did.

I want my girls to appreciate the fact that God made us all different because He has a different plan for all of us. I want my life to reflect to them what I believe...that God doesn't make a mistake and He made me and you!! So, as our friends Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber said in their awesome book, God Made You Special, "Remember that God made you special--Please do! I just wouldn't say it if it weren't true!" God bless you all on your journey to becoming who God wants you to be!