Collab with Last Year’s Self

I just found a blog post I wrote last fall and never published. A snippet of it really resonated with me today… so here it is in italics, with today’s thoughts following:

I don’t want to be the person I’ve been lately. I don’t want to be the sister who is so disorganized about her work/learning schedule that it somehow sucks up her life. I don’t want to be the friend who is so scatterbrained that she doesn’t respond to letters and texts or check in just to see if you’re doing okay. I don’t want to be the daughter who lives like home is just a landing field and runway.

Most of all, I don’t want to be the Christian of whom her God is ashamed.

I want to keep my priorities in the right place. My writing will one day be forgotten; the lives I have either strengthened or crushed will not. Work is so important… God loves diligence… but it cannot consume me. It cannot become an idol.

God needs to be first. I show my love for Him in the way that I love people…

…not necessarily in the way that I write… or in how well I mix feed for the cows… or in how many poems I churn out… or how successful I become in the world’s eyes…

But in the way I drop what I’m doing to truly listen when someone needs to talk. In the way that I shove aside my own plans to bless someone else. In the way I hold my tongue when harsh words are burning on my lips. In the way I choose to stay and love when everything in me screams to run.

In the daily, conscious choices to pick up my cross, die to myself, and choose to love.

God needs to come first in my heart… above everything. How I love God is proven in the way I love others.

It’s that simple… and that hard.