honesty, failure, and grace.

I have had several thoughts running through my head lately.

1. Why is it as humans we rarely say what we mean? (Thought provoked by conversation with Emma)...Is it fear that keeps us from being honest with our words? Why are there "unspoken" rules and guidelines concerning when to share our hearts, and when not to? Why do we love within, and according to, the boundaries of fear? Can we reverse it, and if so, will we be burned? Is the burn worth the honesty? I still haven't decided.

2. It seems like as we grow up the idea that "mistakes are bad" has been drilled into our heads. As Robinson says in the video I posted, if we're afraid of mistakes our creativity will be severely limited. Maybe we shouldn't view mistakes as bad things, but acts that, though not beautiful at first glance, make us into who we are meant to be.

3. Grace. It's my name and it still surprises me.

In brutal honesty I admit that though I sometimes feel confident, I also have times of feeling lonely. I feel unworthy of love, and yet desperate for it. I feel beautiful, yet marred and ugly. What do I do when these things overwhelm me? Usually everything I shouldn't. I am a pro at shopping-therapy. Or I look to friends to re-affirm me. I clean, bake, or organize, frantically...because then I feel accomplished. I do everything but the very thing I should do first - pick my head up, look beyond myself and see things through His grace. Slowly...I'm starting to get it.

"Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of meaningless and empty life… it strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage." -Paul Tillich