Beautifully Strong. Wholeheartedly Faithful.

Tonight I find myself thinking of Africa. Of Congo. The people I met there. The strongest people I've ever come across. Women who were brutally raped as a tool of war used to devastate the communities of Congo. Women who experience serious health problems and had or are still waiting for reparative surgery as a result. Who suffer from the HIV/AIDS their rapists left them with. Who live ostracized from their communities and even separated from their families due to the stigma rape carries in their culture. I felt utterly weak in their presence as I listened to their unimaginable stories. They had suffered so much trauma, experienced horrors I can't even imagine. And continued to live every day of their life with the haunting memories of it all. Even the thought was devastating.

Yet, they were vibrantly alive. Full of hope for a better future for their country, their children, themselves. Only loving towards those who brutally raped them and forever changed their lives. Wholeheartedly trusting in God to bring peace to their community. Faithful in his ability to bring justice and redemption. Strong in every sense of the word. Carrying on, looking forward, finding purpose in their past, sharing their experience with other women to show solidarity. Despite the tragic violence they lived, they believed with all their heart that there was a God who loved them, and that he would never abandon them.

These women give me strength and taught me more than I can ever express. In the worst imaginable circumstances, they didn't worry about their future. And they didn't question their suffering.

We all worry about the future. We freak out. We wonder if things will go the way we have planned. We get anxious. We want control. We want to know what will happen before it does. We feel like we need to be prepared. Like our future is in our hands and so we need to make the right decisions. We ask how we will get through suffering. How we will heal a broken heart. How we will live after the loss of a loved one. Fear that we will never find our soul mate. Worry we'll always be alone. We won't be able to pay our debts. We won't measure up to another person's standards of success. We'll disappoint someone. We'll fail. We won't be all that we were meant to be.

Whether or not you believe in God or any sort of higher being, deep down we know that our future is not totally in our hands. There's only so much we can control in life. You might believe in fate, or destiny, or you might believe that God already has a plan for your life. Either way, its all the same. We are only human, and life throws us things we aren't expecting all the time. Our lives are brief in the span of the world as a whole. Even if you're not buying this, and you think everything that happens to us happens based on decisions we have made...we are frail. Because at any moment our lives could end. We could get in a deadly car crash or some other sort of accident. Our lives are not our own. Our future is not in our control.

So why do we worry? If you believe in God, then you know he would never throw something at us that he didn't know we are fully capable of handling with his help. He wouldn't leave us out to dry. He knows how much we can take. And like those women believed with all their hearts, he would never abandon us. If you don't believe in God, my argument still stands. There's no reason to worry in life. Look at how strong these Congolese women are. It's not a competition of whose suffering measures out to be worse. But I guarantee you, you're not going to even come close if you try. They lived through a horribly violent war. They were brutally raped. They continue to live with the physical pain and haunting memories. They are now infected with HIV/AIDS. Many were shunned from their communities. Meaning they don't even get to see their own children. They continue to live in poverty. Their entire world was taken from them. But they are NOT worried about their future. They have faith in a happy ending. They know deep down that they are capable of fighting whatever the evil in our world brings next. But they have faith that peace will come instead.

If they can have hope that after all they have experienced, all will be okay, how can we not?

These amazingly strong women didn't worry about their future. And rather than questioning their suffering, they knew redemption was coming for them. They trusted more of life was on its way. That this wasn't it. That the rest of their life would not be full of suffering. They had so much faith in that that in the mist of trauma, violence, and suffering...they praised God for his goodness and love. That's right. After all of the horrors they lived, they THANKED God. Crazy, right?

Or is it? Ever notice how we get angry at God (or the world if we don't believe in God) for sending us pain? For making life hard? What good does that do for us? I recently read a book called Bittersweet, about the beauty of a life that is both bitter and sweet. With only sweetness, we don't appreciate life. Without bitterness, we can't grow in life. Ever notice how in the worst times of suffering, we come out a stronger person? We grow in suffering. We learn who we are, what we're capable of, who we can count on, how to heal, at what point we break, what matters in life. In every difficult time, we learn something valuable that we can use to live a better life.

Even more importantly, we grow in strength. Without suffering, we would be weak. Half alive. Sweet but not bitter. Unaware of all that we are capable of being.

So why not be thankful for pain sometimes? Without the pain you've experienced you would not be the person you are. You wouldn't be this strong. You wouldn't be this deep. The bitter and how we deal with it is what makes us beautiful. Its what makes us become all we were designed to be. Strong. Always growing. Always learning more about ourselves. Intricately beautiful.

The Congolese women I met two summers ago have been an inspiration to me ever since. But too often, I forget what they taught me. I worry about the silly things life brings my way. I worry about my future not going the way I planned. I get frustrated when life isn't easy. I get angry when I encounter pain and suffering. Those beautifully strong women in Congo did not. If they can have faith in a better future, if they can thank God for his goodness in the midst of their suffering...

How can I not?

How can we not?

A New Year...

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog. But what better day to come back and write a new post than January 1^st? (Alright, so it’s technically the 2^nd since it’s past midnight…but I’m gonna go ahead and give myself that today is 1/1/11!) I’ve been home for a little over two weeks now. Boy, has this been a weird winter break. A weird holiday season. A weird version of being home. Without going into any details, let’s just say my family is about as messy and broken as I’ve ever seen it. As a result, I haven’t in the least bit felt at home. Didn’t really feel too much of the Christmas spirit. The stress of the whole situation has caused me to develop quite a bit of anxiety. Meaning, it hasn’t really felt like a vacation at all. I’ve been traveling through a gigantic range of emotions in the past two weeks. I’ve gone back and forth between feeling angry, guilty, sad, uncomfortable, pissed off, and claustrophobic. I’m used to dysfunction in my family. But it was recently taken to a whole new level of devastation and destruction. The kind you never think of touching or even coming close to your family. Sure, you’re family is a little messed up (they all are), but the bad stuff only happens to other families…Or so you think.

Anyway, this is not about the shit that’s going on with my family right now. It’s about what it has allowed me to realize. You see, the older we get, the more we see that we, and our families, are not as untouchable as our childhood naivety allowed us to think. Our parents are not superheroes. They are not infallible. They are not immune to making mistakes. We aren’t living in a fairytale world, and our actions and the actions of others do have consequences. We can’t control the people around us or the ones we love. If we want to change the way things are, or the way people act, the only way we can even get close is to start with ourselves. And then we can hope to have some sort of ripple effect on others.

So, one huge change I would like to make in myself as a result of all this mess unfolding around me? I would like to be more positively-selfish. Probably not what you were thinking, I know. But it’s a term my counselor used one day that I have come to love, appreciate, and believe in. It’s not the same as being selfish. No, selfish has a very negative connotation, and is associated with qualities like being greedy and egocentric. Rather, it’s about making decisions that put your own health and happiness first, without negatively harming or affecting those around you.

Why do I want to be more positively selfish this year?  I am, and have always been, what most people would call a pushover. I’m not a fan of conflict. Truthfully, I hate it. And so, for my whole life I have tended to consider the needs and desires of others prior to my own. This isn’t to say I’ve been a selfless angel serving the needs of those around me. That’s not the way I mean by putting others before myself. I mean, for the sake of avoiding argument, conflict, or tension I tend to allow others to make decisions for me. On a small scale, that might mean responding, “I don’t care, whatever you want,” when asked where I would like to eat or what I would like to do today. On the more serious end of the spectrum, it has translated into remaining in unhealthy and even damaging relationships for far too long, letting people I am close to hurt me over and over again, and failing to stand up for myself when my lifestyle and values are mocked or condemned by family.

So my first and most important of my many resolutions for this New Year is to be more positively selfish. To stand up for myself, my values, my beliefs, my way of life. To only enter new relationships that are truly healthy for me, and to only remain in ones that are helping me rather than hurting me. To tell someone if I feel they are treating me unfairly, abusing our relationship, using me, hurting me, not listening to me, or even just not appreciating me enough. To value myself enough to believe that I deserve healthy and happy relationships, and to fight to make that happen. Even if it means entering conflict, enduring tension, experiencing awkwardness. To stop settling. For anything less than what I deserve. If it’s not right, its not worth settling for. To do what makes me happy. What makes me truly, undeniably happy. Whether it be taking an hour to read a good book, baking cupcakes, going for a run, ordering  take-out for dinner, blogging, whatever. To stop the rushing and the racing, and make time for the little things that make me happy. That bring joy to my soul. That fuel my passions, brighten my day, and make me feel alive. That’s what keeps us going. That’s what allows us to truly live and never feel regret.

As you are thinking about your resolutions for the New Year, think about what it would mean for you to be positively selfish. How would it change your life? What would it give you the power to do, feel, and experience? How would it change your relationships, effect your happiness, bring vibrancy and joy into your life? It’s not a crime to do something for yourself. It doesn’t make you a bad person to stand by your morals when no one else believes in them. To fight for more in your life rather than settling. To make sure that your relationships are healthy for you and that those around you appreciate you. To do something that makes you truly happy. It’s not a crime. It’s not motivated by selfish desires. It’s not egotistical, self-centered, or greedy. It’s what you deserve. And if you don’t recognize your own self-worth, how do you expect those around you to know what you are worth and to treat you as well as you deserve?

 Just for the sake of having them written down…here are the rest of my new years resolutions!

2) Show love, compassion, and kindness to everyone always.

3) Find perspective and patience in times of stress.

4) Express myself through blogging regularly.

5) Eat healthy and exercise, because I know it makes me happier.

6) Read more (for fun, not school!)

7) Live a life of balance.

Would love to hear your resolutions if you’d like to share! Or about any experiences you have with positive selfishness if you take on my challenge J I know resolutions are cheesy, but there is just something so beautiful about a new year. There is hope and opportunity. As much as there ever could be. There’s no reason not to change things you want to change, not to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. It’s a new year. A fresh start. A new story…and YOU get to write it. So, why not write the best story ever heard? And then go and live it…