Looking Beyond the Ordinary
By April, age 24, New Jersey
With great victory comes great sacrifice. But what if we're sacrificing the wrong items? We always think materially. Ok, if I give this up I'll get that. No carbs = skinny. But what if the choices we are making emotionally ... spiritually ... are calling for sacrifice and go unnoticed? Or perhaps wrongly done? Maybe the sacrifice is within ourselves - what we are willing to give up in order to actually gain. And sometimes this might mean letting a few things - and people - go along the way as well.
Sometimes the ones who were always there for us, the ones who helped us get to this magnificent point, are exactly the people we need to let go. They now hinder who we are as of today, which is not who we were yesterday. Maybe the sacrifice is within ourselves, knowing when to let some go while holding on to others, knowing when we need to face the world in solitude in order to see more clearly.
Maybe everyone is meant to have a season of loneliness, or not so much loneliness as just being alone. To be at one within ourselves and with God, or whatever higher power we believe in. A time of reflection. A time of facing up to oneself and putting it all on the line.
The stronger I become, the more I radiate. The more I radiate, the more confident I become. And that confidence gives me clarification about the things I actually need compared to the things I might just want. Or the things I don't want but I choose to tolerate. With each day I realize that this world is not as enticing as I had once thought it to be. I've realized that materials always come and go, and so do the people in our lives. We will always have a select few who remain constant through the years, but even within that circle there will be seasons when they are absent or not around as much. To live for them is wrong. To live for what they want for us is careless and naive. For we can't take them with us when we go. We only take ourselves ... our choices ... and our soul.
