Contentment

Today I am in a melancholy writing type mood

In an effort to not become focused on the things I do not have and wish that I did
I will list all the things I am grateful for (in no particular order)

Beautiful Fall days like today
The ability to see, walk, hear, smell and taste
My fabulous friends
I have a job
I make good money
my relationship with God
my relationship with my family
I have a place to live
A car that runs
I attend school for something I am passionate about
I am learning to play the guitar
I am learning how to take pictures
My dog
Clean water
Food
UT Dental School
Happy Hour
Rest
Peace
Prayer

Hope

Striving for hope in a world where I am told what and who I should be

Hope that life can and will be different

Hope for contentment

Hope for peace

Hope for love

maybe that is all any of us can do is hope

I choose hope

Fall

Today I watched as fall tried to wrestle control from summer

The leaves twirled and sputtered

The trees swayed and wanted to give in...

But then summer reached out its fiery rays and grabbed us by the ankles

Pulled in two directions split apart which way shall it go...peacefully or gallantly holding on...for dear life.

Things we are not taught

I wonder about the things we are not taught

Can someone teach us things like

how to load a dishwasher

where tomatoes should be stored

which ac button to use (the re-circulated or the outside air)

I am sure there are so many other things that I can only think of when it happens to me!

Can someone teach a class called "Life Skills" so we can know?

Love

What is love?
What is it not?

How does it feel?
How do you know its true?

What does true look like?

I know that love is not everything is perfect, because everything is not.
how do you do love

The fact is that I'm selfish and unruly and manipulative without meaning to be

I try to break these pattern but as the saying goes,
there but for the grace of God go I

Cliche yes I know but nonetheless true

Things I have learned from past romantic relationships

There is no perfect partner because
we are not perfect.

Since values are the bedrock of our
behavior and choices, it is important
to be familiar with and loyal to what
we value when we are partnerpicking.

Marrying “the right person”, who
will make everything wonderful in
our world is pure fantasy. Plus, it
puts quite a burden on the poor
schmuck who gets stuck with us.

Going into a marriage believing we
will change our partner into the person
we want him/her to be is the
wrong start. We cannot transform
anyone. We can, however, evolve
into being more accepting of our
idiosyncrasies and our mate’s.

It is not conflict that kills a marriage.
The union erodes as the couple
refuses to grow up and take responsibility
for their part of each
clash. Disaccord cannot occur without
two opposing sides. No one is
blameless in an argument. To resolve
the problem, both need to figure
out his/her own issue by asking,
“What am I fighting about/for?”,
and, “What do I want/need?”, then
communicate that when the firestorm
dies down. Partners’ continuous
insistence on being children and
their lack of accountability slowly
and excruciatingly hammer the nails
into the marriage’s coffin.

Acceptance

Acceptance...
of self
of others
of self

Did I mention acceptance of self?
I am sometimes terribly spontaneous and at others planned to the T
I read today this great piece about acceptance that I wanted to share.
"Unity doesn't begin in examining others but in examining self. Unity begins not in demanding that others change, but in admitting that we aren't so perfect ourselves..."

I think this is true oftentimes I demand that others be what I NEED them to be, when in reality acceptance is what I NEED. Mainly acceptance of myself, my actions, my emotions, acceptance for myself; by my self.

Idols

I like to think I am different, some how better more enlightened
however, that is not true
I am just as messed up and hopeless as the rest...
seeking, holding, grabbing, loving all imperfectly
Somehow I think that I have accomplished more or have been given
greater knowledge
This is not true, I am selfish, at times hopeless, sinful and many many
times looking out for my own interests.

Letting Go

Letting Go feels like

giving up...

not fighting...

not standing...

not caring...

scary

BUT
Not Letting Go feels like

pain...

hurt...

confusion...

tension

From March of 2007

Concept of Good
As I was driving to work this morning I was thinking about what it means to me to be good at something. This can mean being a good friend, or being good at my job or anything in between.
I realized that being good at something or being a good anything means to me that I do it perfectly and never imperfectly. That as soon as I do something imperfectly that it or I am not good anymore. So I started to think that this is an unrealistic expectation to have for myself, so what do I need to do to change my idea of good?
Good cannot mean being perfect, good can mean messing up; sometimes royally. I think the important thing is to learn from my errors rather than beat myself up about them.

Pain

inevitably the question persists...why does God allow bad things to happen?

The assumption for me is that God is all-powerful, all knowing, ever-present.

Then why didn't he stop the terrible things that happened to me?
That question screams at me from the depths of my pain, why did he not protect me, as my own mother did not. Why didn't HE intervene?
The inevitable conclusion is that HE didn't intervene because he doesn't care or love me.
However I do not believe this to be true I believe that HE does and did care and that HIS heart broke when he saw what happened to me.

This leads me to the conclusion that HE is not all powerful and cannot stop things-even this is unacceptable to me. God has to be more powerful than I for him to be God and for Him to have CREATED the world.

In a book titled "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Harold Kushner a beautiful story is woven about our humaness that pain and free will are what makes us human and humane. That God did not want puppets on strings.

Kushner quotes that "Only human beings can find meaning in their pain." this is given to us by God which is a relief to me. Kushner also states that "... if Man is truly free to choose, if he can show himself as being virtuous by freely choosing the good when the bad is equally possible then he has to be free to choose the bad also. If he were only free to do good, he would not really be choosing. If we are bound to do good, then we are not free to choose it." I value my ability to choose freely and to choose good most of the time, however I have come to realize that although I may choose things that are good there are many people who will choose evil and this can and does inflict evil upon others.

According to Kushner and I agree "our moral freedom means that, if we choose to be selfish or dishonest, we can be selfish and dishonest, and God will not stop us."..."All He will do is tell us that certain things are wrong, warn us that we will be sorry for having done them, and hope that if we don't take His word for it, we will at least learn from the experience."
God has given us our freedom to do morally good things like help our fellow human beings but the flip side of this is that this is also the freedom to hurt our fellow man. God gives us room to be human "... our being human leaves us free to hurt eachother, and God can't stop us without taking away the freedom that makes us human."

How beautiful.

It is a comfort to know that God does not cause evil. He allows freedom and human beings sometimes do evil things.

Being unmarried

So I was talking to a friend last night, about the ongoing spiritual awakening I'm enjoying right now. I was talking to her about being single and how I wonder if I'm ever going to like someone again in that way and at the same time they feel similar for me. I was telling her how I just can't see it happening, I can't see myself getting really into someone and them liking me as well. I then had the thought, well of course I can't see it, I am a human being and while I can't imagine it happening-God will take care of it. He can see it and it is going to have to come from him if it is going to be anything worth devoting my energy and time to.
That actually give me a degree of comfort, knowing that I don't have to see how it could happen, or how it might happen-God does and thats enought for me.

Musings

I have loads of time at work right now, at least until school starts which is coming up very very soon. So I'll blog while I can.
Since the beginning of the year (yes I know ten WHOLE days ago) I have been doing a devotional. My pattern has been to start this and then not to maintain it throughout the year. Sometimes my follow through on certain things is not so consistent.
I really enjoy the devotional, it helps me to have a different perspective on life and to keep my focus on God where it needs to be rather than on the things of this world. Each time I read something; it speaks directly to me or something I have recently gone through. I struggle with trusting God to take care of me, although he always has, I struggle with trusting that I am right where God wants me right now otherwise I would be some place else. I fret about being single and if its EVER GOING TO END! I start to question whether there is something wrong with me, why does it seem that everyone else is in a relationship but me? I know thats not true but boy does it feel like it. I question what other people (who are in relationships) have that I don't have and how to "get" whatever it is they have. The question comes down to "What is WRONG with me?"
So in saying all that I wanted to look up some scripture about my identity in Christ, which is always a struggle for me and some scripture about God's character. In doing so I read Colossians 1:22:22But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—
and replaced it with my name so it reads like this:
Now he has reconciled Crystal by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight without blemish and free from accusation.
I had read this before but somehow I really got the "without blemish" part. God sees me without blemish! How beautiful is that? Although I am full of blemish God doesn't see me that way, in his eyes I AM WITHOUT BLEMISH! I just finally got that, and its really a comforting thing to know that I am seen as without blemish.

Holidays

so its been awhile since I've written. I get very busy this time of year as we all do.
From about my birthday through the end of the year its always an intense race for the finish line.
This year I took off from 12-22 through the first of the year. Thats the longest I've taken off of both work and school. It was weird to say the least. I am one of those people that is always asking "What do I DO now?" "What's next on my list?" "Can I be doing something now to help me in the future?" So my days were spent trying to clean my apartment and not doing a very good job of it, hanging with friends and family-which was great! I then got sick and flew to see my 17 month old niece who is amazing if I do say so myself. When I flew out I had a 103 fever, which is high and odd. Those are the kind of fevers you get when you are a child and someone can take care of you cuz you can't think straight.
Well, as a 28 year old adult I got one of "those" fevers and GOT ON A PLANE-not a good idea. I was congested and miserable, thank goodness it was only a short flight, but my ears stayed clogged for TWO days. I got to my families house and my mommy took care of me, I am grateful for that. I am glad that I wasn't at my place by myself cuz it was one of those sicknesses that I couldn't even think straight. All I wanted to do was be comfortable, even if that meant not breaking my fever. Thank goodness for my mom cuz while I was under the covers I could whine to here that I was hot and she say "Stay under the covers" and I'd grumble and do what she said. It worked and I broke my fever which made me feel a lot better.
It is always difficult on me to go see my family. It is difficult on me because my life is so different than theres. If I want to go somewhere I get in my car and go without worrying about it breaking down. I come home to quiet and peace unless I've decided otherwise. Life is just much different for me than they. Their mindset is one of being beaten down and not having any options, although I know they do, one of unfairness, bigotry, indirectness and should and should nots. All this to say that they are not bad people, good people in fact, but they have made some poor choices. I use to think that I would NEVER make choices like theirs, but alas that is not true. I like my sister have stayed in a relationship because it was a relationship and I was scared to be alone. I too have not taken very good care of myself before recent years much like my mother and didn't understand the importance of it. I wonder if we are not all that different; my family and I; maybe our perspectives are different. Sometimes I feel guilty after visiting them because comparitively I have so much more than they in many areas. I have dependable means of transportation, a good secure job, no major health problems. I think the saddest thing to me is that I don't see them as having supportive people in their lives. Many of their friends are in similar places as they and handle things much the same way-reactionary rather than proactively.
In my want to help them I want to DO something to go tell them what they should do, what they need to do to have a better life. I have done this and it does not work in fact they dig their heels in even more because they feel like I am looking down on them, when I feel like I am trying to help them to do some things differently. In the last few years I've tried to not tell them how to do life differently but to love them where they are and support them when I can and to love them no matter what their choices are. I hope that this is enough.