Motivation

**NOTE: I apologize if this may be a little confusing and informal... it is written like a reflection I would write in my own personal journal. Also there might be some grammatical mistakes because I didn't edit it carefully. But then again do you ever go back and edit your journals?

Lately I have been having trouble motivating myself to do anything other than explore various forms of social media and watch YouTube videos. The typical teenager. Obsessed with the magical and wonderful internet. These tasks aren't inherently bad, but when done in excess they become destructive. Because of my stereotypical actions I loose time to complete spiritual actions. I love to write, read, help people, and learn.  I really do, but I can't motivate myself to do these rewarding tasks.(As you can probably infer from my lack of blog posts) I want to focus on one field of productivity that pertains to this particular context. Writing. After every time I write I get this feeling of completeness. I feel as though my purpose in life is being fulfilled. I am always so excited to write again, but I have a hard time motivating myself to. I spend so much more time on activities that aren't furthering my relationship with God. What I don't understand is why? Why is it so hard for me to get off my butt and do something. There are many flaws in my character, but my most self-destructive one is my laziness. I don't really want to call it laziness, because it is a little different. Well not by much. I have always been satisfied with completing simple tasks. Ever since I was a child. I enjoyed watching wayyyy too much TV. Playing super fun video games on the computer. I occasionally liked to read. But I wasn't a total couch potato! I loved to play outside, ride bikes, and swim. I never got involved with many organized activities. Sports weren't my thing. I didn't have interest in doing many activities after school or outside of school. This was a big problem in middle school. The only activity outside of school that I occasionally partook in was church. Presently, I am not this extreme couch potato that my middle school self once was. And the reason for that is God. In freshman year of high school, I didn't do many outside activities. Just softball in the spring and I hated every minute of it. Then everything changed when God came into my life. At the end of Freshman year was when I really started to know God. And every moment from then has just kept getting better and better, because God keeps pushing me to become better and better. Sophomore year I became actively involved in a community service club called Project Lead, became more involved in church, studied more, read more, wrote more, improved more, and I even got a job at my church! Now I am in my Junior year and am pretty busy. I am in many different clubs, much more involved at my church (I am now a Deacon), babysitting a lot more, writing more, reading a little more, giving more, and blah blah. I am not saying all this because I think I am a great person who has improved greatly. I am saying this to show how God's great grace has improved me as a person in ways I never could. I couldn't have done it without him.

Woww. If you think this post has no coherence  or direction you are right. When I started writing this, I thought it was going to be like something you write in your journal. I just started writing. I didn't know my purpose. I didn't really know what I was going to say until I started writing about my day. (Yes a rhyme!) Writing (especially in my journals) helps connect me to revelations God wants me to know. Well I just started writing and complaining about my laziness and in the end God helped me realize a great revelation. Even though I still complete unfulfilled tasks, I have come such a long way and it is all thanks to God.

A Best Friend

It is a very seldom occurrence that what you constantly dream and fantasize about actually becomes a reality. I am big day dreamer. I always have been. Many of my day-dreams are usually realistic and tangible. It is a problem. Anything I desire in life that I can’t have at that moment I dream up a life in my head where I can have it. I guess in a way my day dreams are a coping mechanism for the lack of what I desire, but unfortunately that kind of makes it an addiction. An addiction that I have had from a very early age. This is in no way a sob-story, it is just a major aspect of my life. In elementary, I used to swing on the swing set for hours just imagining different scenarios my supper cool middle school self would encounter. In middle school I couldn’t wait to get to high school where I was so sure I would meet a ton of friends, become super popular, and have a bunch of boyfriends. I have even dreamed up a high school romance with an attractive new guy from Australia (why Australia… long story). The point of this whole spiel about my day-dreams is to emphasize an important point. There is a 99.9999 % chance that my day-dreams won’t ever turn into my realities. When your actions involve controlling others actions more than your own, it will end in failure. I didn’t become super popular in middle school. I can assure I am anything but super cool in High-School. And sadly no hot guy from half way around the world arrived at my high-school to make my dream come true. I know I kind sound angry and negative about all of this, but I really am not. I know I am not living the life I dreamed up because God has different and better plans for me. I love the way my life has turned out, even if it doesn’t match up with my dreams. However, when I reflect on my entire career in day-dreaming, I realize that there is an exceptional case where my fantasy became a reality. It is the o.ooo1% of my dreams. This exception has had and continues to have an enormous and powerful influence on my life. This exception is so exceptional I can only deduce that it was a blessing from God. I dreamed a dream and it came true.

            I was entering my 7^th grade year with unrealistically high hopes in the form of a vison, but the unrealistic dream was one of the few things I had. I was lost and desperate. Desperate for a best friend, and if I was lucky enough, a group of friends. Throughout sixth grade I hung out with a group of friends who were resembled acquaintances. I didn’t feel like they cared about me, but I also didn’t really care about them. This is in no way there fault. They were never mean to me. I just didn’t see our interests and personalities mixing anymore. At the end of sixth grade I decided to try to slowly break away from that particular group of friends and attempt to find new ones. However, my desperate priority was a best friend. In life people often highly desire a place where they belong. In the mind of a slowly maturing middle school student finding a place to belong isn’t just a desire. It’s a necessity. A necessity I lacked. I felt like I was barely surviving. I know this seems like foolish middle school problem. It is one where I look back and think, “Wow, I was a little dramatic”. There were and still are people who are going through so much more pain. I wasn’t even completely alone. I had an amazing loving family that I took for granted! Well even though my past pain seems unworthy because I was an inexperienced 12 year old girl, I can assure the pain was real and loud. It wouldn’t leave me alone. I remember crying myself to sleep many nights. I remember looking at every girl and wondering, “Could she be my best friend? Does she already have a best friend?” I prayed to God to send someone who would end my suffering. I never prayed to God so passionately before. I am kind of ashamed of that, but a best friend was all I needed. A best friend was what I didn’t have, and there was rarely a moment where I would allow myself forget that. Dreaming up different and future realities where I would have a best friend and a group of friends became my drug to lessen my pain. I imagined a girl and me just clicking and becoming best friends forever. I imagined having sleepovers, trips to the mall, boys, high school, and life with her. I imagined becoming best friends with someone who would introduce me to other friends.  I imagined this perfect girl who would understand me and care about me. My day-dreams were my only hope I could cling to…more like dangle from. See this is where God comes in. At moments of extreme despair God makes his love and presence unmistakably know. Perhaps God wanted you to go through a horrible period in your life so He could give you something amazing after. Something that would barely mean anything too you if you hadn’t gone through the period of time where it was absent. That something for me was and still is my best friend.

            About a month into my middle school nightmare I received a text from this wonderful girl who would soon become my best friend. The text she sent is why we are best friends today. Of all the options for a best friend I definitely didn’t consider her. Not because I didn’t like her or anything! She was just a part of the group I didn’t really want to be close with anymore. (SIDE NOTE: let’s just say the girl I am talking about name is June). The day she sent me the text was a total plot twist on my life. I thought June was a devout member of this middle school clique, but to my surprise she was the opposite. June told me that she didn’t really want to be close friends with our clique anymore, but she did want to become closer friends with me. I realized then she was desperate for the exact same thing that I was desperate for. She was dreaming the same dream. We both needed a best friend. We both needed a new group of friends. We both needed a best friend to meet new friends with. The only difference is that she took steps to make her dream a reality, while I just waited for it to happen.

            We soon began hanging out a lot more. I knew her since 1^st grade, but it felt as though I was meeting a new friend. We became very close and I finally felt like I had a place where I belonged (outside of my wonderful family of course). I wasn’t lost anymore because God gave me June as the light to guide me out my despair. That is exactly what she did. June is very determined. When she wants something she won’t patiently wait and expect it to happen. She stands up and walks right up to the thing she wants and grabs it. She wanted to meet new friends whether they liked it or not. June went about this process in a graceful, kind, and passive way. What I am so grateful for is that she took me along on her journey to meet different people. One of the friends June meet and introduced me too was this wonderful girl named let’s say…Pansy. Currently, she is a best friend of mine. She is the type of person who greatly cares about the happiness of others. She makes an effort to give others that happiness. I think she understood that June and I wanted to make more friends. She would commit social suicide and leave her lunch table and come sit with us losers! I remember Pansy’s friends not being happy about her leaving them at lunch a couple of times a week. Pansy didn’t care enough about her friend’s disapproval to stop being kind and friendly to us. She then did the unspeakable. She invited us to sit with her and her friends at lunch! How could she do such a nice thing?! Didn’t she know that you can’t let anyone new into your middle school clique? Her refusal to conform is why I love Pansy and owe her a great deal of my joy. Pansy gave us an opportunity to make new friends. Her friends originally didn’t like us intruding on their group, but over time, they warmed up to us. They are some of my closest friends I have today. I am so grateful to both Pansy and to God for allowing me to meet these wonderful people. However, there was another force working here. AKA my strong and ambitious best friend. I think June might have had some influence on this decision. Not only did she originally befriend Pansy, but I think she had a direct influence on Pansy’s kind and selfless decision. Maybe she talked with Pansy about wanting to meet new friends, or gave hints that she wanted us to sit with Pansy’s friends at lunch. I don’t know what happened, but I am pretty sure June gracefully pushed her and my way into this group. But please don’t think because June is ambitious she is annoying and unpleasant to be around! She is the opposite. June is a girl a boat load of people love because of she kindly made her own spot in their lives. When and while she makes her way in you can’t help but adore her. I am not really a pusher because I don’t have the confidence to be. I was merely the co-pilot of June’s plane gliding through the air to its destination. The destination being our amazing group of friends.  They are the group of friends that I usually hang out with now, and still sit at lunch with. I have shared so many memories of sleepovers, lunch, parties, and dances with them. In the vast and treacherous sea of High school, they are my little floaty I happily cling too. I know I take my friends for granted, but they have really done a lot for me. I realized soon after forming a group of friends that I probably wouldn’t be friends with them if it weren’t for June. If it wasn’t for her ambition, kindness, and charisma, I probably would still be in the same desolate and depressing place my 7^th grade self was in. Whose only source of hope was her hopeless unrealistic day dreams.

            I knew then and I know now with even greater clarity that June is a blessing from God. God heard my prayers. God wanted to show me He loves me. God knew that I didn’t have the confidence to go out and try to make new friends, so God sent me confidence in the form of a best friend. She has changed my life in the best way possible. She is the reason for so much happiness in my life. She is the one who took the brave step and texted me. She is the one who made the effort to be my best friend. She is the one who helped me make new friends. She has done so much for me, and I have done so little for her. I have felt that I don’t deserve June as a best friend. I now realize we deserve each other, but I just didn’t earn her. I didn’t do anything to make her my best friend. But a blessing isn’t something you earn. A blessing is something that is given to you by Gods amazing grace. June is a blessing from God. God put this beyond amazing girl in my life, because he loves me. He saw that I needed her, and blessed me with her spirt and ambition. It is God and June who have changed my life. I did nothing. All I did was hope and dream of a better life. Much of my entire life has been spent dreaming of elaborate futures, but this is the one and only occurrence where my dream came true.