Being a grown up...it kinda sucks.

This has been one of the most challenging times in my life. Not because I have led such an easy life, but because I have led a very innocent life. A naive life.

Not in the manner some refer to as innocent or naive - although I never did see what a man looked like naked until my freshman year of college when the girls on my dorm floor decided to get together and make sure the Christian school girl had an education she would never forget - which involved papering my room with pictures of penises ((peni?)) from Playgirl magazine while I was in the shower one morning - but instead the innocence of someone who "hopes all things, believes all things and endures all things" (paraphrased from I Cor. 13)

I believe in the absolute best in everyone - even when they prove me wrong. Someone can profess to care about me and I will do everything in my power to give them the world. They can turn on me - lie to me - lie ABOUT me - confuse me and even try and make me believe that I have somehow done something wrong by caring in the first place. Still, I will blame myself long before I blame ever them for their own behavior.

I can only blame myself for that. Just kidding.

Anyway, my point here is...being a grown up means learning to put on armor. Learning to find the tools to cope when an innocent or naive soul comes across the enemy who uses them until they have their needs met and then just discards them. The naive soul - the innocent soul - will always take the responsibility on themselves. The naive soul apologizes constantly and even works to find every way possible to bring the enemy back into their lives because all they knew was that the enemy once cared for them - and even in the midst of a loss, they can't see the enemy for what they are - an enemy of their heart, soul and mind.

Being a grown up means recognizing the enemy. They come camouflaged in different packaging. Sometimes you don't even know they ARE the enemy for a long time. Years in fact. In many cases, those can be the worst. Lives become intertwined and you can't find where you end and the enemy begins. Being a grown up also means realizing when you have held onto something long enough and it's time to let it go. And it means realizing patterns in behavior. And forgiveness doesn't always mean forgetting. Sometimes it's in the remembering where you truly learn what it is like to be an adult - and to do the right thing. The emotionally healthy thing. The best thing. Letting go feels so, so good. No matter what you believe in - or don't believe in - everyone should believe in forgiveness.

If you have never watched anything I have ever posted here - please watch this. Unless of course Christian doctrine offends you. It has brought me to my knees in tears today.



And for everyone who has survived a crash and burn and come out the other end only slightly charred - or maybe burned until you're barely recognizable, this song is for you.



I wish you all well.