do you value integrity?

(disclaimer. this post was inspired by frustration. lol)

i guess i can’t blame people for sacrificing integrity for the sake of community. 

God would say community is more important.

but for some reason, i can’t excuse my desire to be real all the time. consistently.

to mean what i say all the time, not just when it’s convenient for a certain audience.

my community may be smaller, i may be less attractive for certain types, 

but that seems to me to be a good thing. even if it doesn’t ‘feel’ like it all the time.

but who really suffers? i guess it just depends on where your importance lies.

you shake and jive for the people that surround you at the moment, 

just to talk badly about them when you’re with another.

honestly, isn’t it exhausting?

idk, i guess i can’t judge. 

we all handle the burdens of life differently. 

but it seems that a lack of foundation,

is only a breeding ground for confusion

and harvest doubt in self and God.

ultimately, a lack of faith. 

i’ve had my fair share of ups and downs

and hard lessons due to impatience, desperation and stupidity.

but ultimately, i’m always better than i was before.

in a better position than i was in before.

in a place where God won’t let my mistakes harm me, but uses them to teach me.

my dedication to truth has paid me well. 

i hope whatever you’re doing is working for you.

Take Your Own Advice

i wish i could be poetic,

but the best way for me 

to articulate the truths i’m realizing,

is to speak them how they come. 

my life is the one i’m most intimate with,

but i know enough to know,

that the feelings and fears i face

are not isolated thoughts

directed only towards me

but shared by many, with the goal to defeat.

we can work so hard

and come so far

and win so many battles

and still face fear.

because after one goal

there is another.

even if that goal is only

to maintain a peace that cannot be shaken.

here i am,

facing another goal.

a goal so big

i forget the ones i’ve already conquered.

& here i am, 

surrounded by circumstances of fire

that while although uncomfortable,

scary, and blinding,

can be used to refine me,

enhance me, make me better than before.

when we see this in others

it is easy to tell them to keep going.

it is easy to see that this trial will not last,

and all winning takes is commitment.

the action of not stopping, action to keep going.

it’s a marathon not a race we say.

but for ourselves

that truth can often seem so far away. 

we forget that we’re built to last

and begin to believe

that we’re destined to fail.

no matter how many wins you claim

this fear will always attempt to meet you,

attempt to prevent you from taking the next step.

but then i saw a person

who felt down on their luck.

their passion was real,

their heart was good,

but they felt their circumstances 

were instead, to be the death of them.

they couldn’t catch a break they said.

success wasn’t meant for them they said. 

& i believed wholeheartedly

with not one doubt in my heart

that there was a light at the end of their trial.

it was easy for me to see

that all they had to do was keep going,

keep believing.

& i knew it was worth it to do so.

& then i took those thoughts for myself.

& i looked at my life through a different lens,

an outside one.

and i could see the win so clearly

& begin to believe wholeheartedly

that the brightest light was at the end of my own tunnel. :)