Apparently today was that day! (see previous post if you have no idea what I'm talking about) I took the time to re-upload some pictures to my more recent posts, so enjoy.
Also, updated my blog! You like? Don't really care if you don't, I do. And after all, blogs are all about narcissism.
Also, was inspired to blog a second time today! I have some stuff I need to get off my chest, so here goes…
Sadness.
Its hard to predict when its going to hit. Even harder to figure out what caused it.
Especially when its unprovoked. Is that the word I'm looking for? Not sure, but that's the best I can come up with.
I heard someone once say that sadness kicks in when we're tired. That's very true. If its been a long week, I can easily be pushed into a melancholy state.
But I wish we were all better at, well, being nice to one another.
Its hard to step out and be an adult, build a community. We all know its hard, so why aren't we all nicer to one another? We don't we encourage one another more often? Why don't we say 'thank you' to people that deserve to be appreciated, why don't we seem to recognize when someone needs to be told 'thank you'?
Why are we so afraid to be the first to "give" in any relationship? Its so much easier to be the one taking, but in order to take, someone needs to give. So instead of giving, we all wander around empty, needing affirmation, because no one wants to be the first to give.
Because when you give, you're not guaranteed a refill, so to speak. When we step up and help someone, we have no idea if they will reciprocate when the time comes, or if they'll just cross over to the other side of the street when they see us coming.
Jesus didn't wait until He was sure that His disciples were going to reciprocate when He reached out to them. He didn't wait to help others until they told Him how they were going to pay Him back. If He did, we wouldn't have the gospels. We wouldn't be saved from eternal separation. We love because He first loved us.
So why is it so freaking hard for us to be kind to one another? It won't bloody kill you to say 'thank you', to let someone in who is trying to merge on the road, to look up from your own space to see the needs of those around you, to anticipate that someone may need help, may need affirmation, may need another person to simply acknowledge their existence.
I so easily emulate people in social situations. If everyone else is laughing, I'm probably laughing. If everyone else is angry about something, I easily join in without thinking how I really feel about the situation. I know I'm a fairly strong-willed person and not without a backbone (and can be quite loud about my opinions on occasion…oh alright, often…) but my need to please people often overrides that and creates a version of me that simply mirrors the attitudes of others. We can all do this to some extent, but my point here is that when someone else holds back and doesn't affirm me, I in turn hold back my kind words as well.
If you don't want to reach out and help, I'm not helping either. If you're not going to smile and say hi, I'm not wasting my hellos on you either. If you don't think I'm worth the extra energy it would take to ask how my day is, then I'm not asking you either. I'm not at all saying this is the right way to go about things, but this is what I find myself doing.
Its a ridiculous version of survival of the fittest, where my fallen mind thinks, "Well, if I give first, then they're just going to walk all over me, so I can't be the one to cave first" and I don't want to appear to be weak or at a disadvantage. Its as if we're playing some kind of game to see who can be a jerk the longest.
I want to stop playing this ridiculous game. Because I'm competitive and I will win, and who wants to win this kind of game??
It takes so much energy to give when someone doesn't return the effort, but isn't that what Christianity is about? I'm not talking about still giving money to someone that repeatedly doesn't pay you back. I am talking about heaping burning coals on someone's head…and for those of you not familiar with that biblical passage, killing someone with kindness.
When we withhold all kinds of kindness and affection towards other human beings, we rob them of a simple pleasure. We are spreading sadness. Enough days/weeks/months of being ignored by someone takes its toll, and we begin to believe the lie that we aren't worth the effort that affection takes. We believe that we've done something wrong, we aren't likable, we aren't acceptable.
We need to stop believing those lies about ourselves and recognize that there is the need to stop others from believing those lies as well.
We need to be kinder to one another, we need to pull our heads out of our butts and ask someone else how they are doing, and sincerely! Not just for the sake of asking!
We all have value, we all have worth. Sadness comes in many forms and can be fed very easily, especially by lies. We need to stop the lies from entering our minds and stop spreading the lies with our apathy towards others.
Jesus said the most important commandments were to love God with everything we've got, then to love others. So love God, believe what He says about you is true, then love others with that same kind of love.
As far as my positive story for the day, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here you go...
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