A Change of Heart

When I read back most of the things I’ve written, I like to think I can be rather eloquent and composed and interesting. I’ve had teachers tell me I have strong writing skills, and writing usually comes very easily and naturally for me. But I tend to get bored of it quite easily and English was never my favourite class.

I like to thing I’m rather creative. I like to paint and sketch and compose and play and dance and sing. I’m not saying I’m brilliant at any of those things, but I like to think that the spirit of creativity is there even if I can’t quite follow through in my chosen medium. Unfortunately, anyone can claim to be creative, it’s only the brilliant who get anywhere.

I like to think I’m good with children. I enjoy kids, I enjoy teaching them and laying with them and laughing with them. I want a houseful of them someday. I think kids are innocent and simple and easy to be around. Being around kids is natural for me, it’s a natural extension of who I am and I never feel awkward around them or unsure around them. Yet the idea of being a teacher or a ECE worker is not appealing.

See, the thing is all of the things I feel like I’m good at or that I enjoy do not easily translate into a job, into a career. But then I have this option that just seems right, seems to fit, seems to work out and allow me to use all of my skills and talents and gifts. But there is no opportunity for this option to grow into a reality. And on top of that the knowledge that this option, this choice will not necessarily be welcomed is also a deterrent. 

How do you make a decision about your future when there is little support, little access, little opportunity. How can something that just seems to fit, seems so right, not be obvious to everyone else? How can no one else see how good it could be? How can no one have the faith to trust in me, despite my age, or experience, or background? 

Sometimes life just seems overwhelmingly unfair.

I can’t make any decisions about my future and what I want to do and who I want to be because I can’t find any purpose in any of it.

I think it’s because I’m not as close to God as I need to be. God has purpose for our lives, he has a destiny for us and he has made us unique to serve a specific purpose in this world. 

And even when we aren’t close to him, I think we still have purpose. But that purpose gets distorted and it’s hard to figure out quite what it is.

I think in order to be able to figure it out, we need to be close to God. The purpose of our lives it to honour him, and we can’t honour him in our decisions if he wasn’t apart of the decision making process.

I know in Psalms it says seek the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. It’s because he gave us those desires that he’s able to give them to us. But it also says we have to seek him. Otherwise we’ll never find what we’re looking for.

I want to do things now, but in a week I’m onto something else.

I have all these dreams and plans, but they never develop into anything because I’m too busy planning my next idea or dreaming a new dream.

It’s great to be a dreamer, to have passion for things.

But if you never settle down long enough to allow God to grow those dreams and that passion into something, if you never focus enough time and energy and love into that dream, into that thing your passionate for, it will never come to be.

And all you’ll be is a dreamer with your head in the clouds, whose feet never touch the ground.

My theory is that God had this perfect version of us in his mind when he created us. And because we are human, we are not the perfect version of ourselves. That’s why he is constantly changing us, molding us, shaping us. It’s why he calls us to be like Christ, so we can try to better ourselves into the perfect version of us. And although we’ll never get there, we are called to try to continually change our hearts to be as close to perfect as we can. Because God wants the best for us. Now, don’t get me wrong. God loves us despite our imperfections, and he will never love us more just because we try to be perfect. His love is limitless at all times. But he still wants the best for us.

And, if there if the perfect version of us, there must be a version that is the farthest from perfect. And like God wants the best for us, the Devil wants the worst. He is here to steal, kill and destroy everything God did, is doing and will do in our lives. So we have to avoid becoming that worst version of ourselves because it will separate us from God.

A lot of times when I am reviewing the decisions I’ve made or I’m talking to someone about something in my life I don’t like, I talk about myself like who I am today and who I was a month ago are two different people. Currently, I don’t like the person I am. I would much rather be that person I was last year, or the year before. That Aleshia was much more in love with God and on track with where her life was headed. That Aleshia was taking on the world, where as I, right now, am too terrified to take any leaps of faith. I know that probably sounds insane, but it makes sense in my mind. Because we are constantly changing based on our environments, our decisions, our priorities, our relationship with God. The version of ourselves we are is in constant fluctuation between that worst version and best version of us.

I am currently not the best version of myself. That’s what this blog is going to be about. It’s going to be about my journey as I try to make myself a version of me I am happier with, that is closer to God and closer to perfect. I want to be someone who loves who they are, who is in love with God and who is on track to being the best they can be. And right now, that means I need to sort out a lot of heart issues and a lot of head issues and a lot of other crap that is stopping me from being that perfect version of myself.

Sometimes trying to make yourself better means letting go of things you don’t like. Sometimes you have to let go of things you do like. Sometimes you have to let go of things you didn’t know where there and sometimes it’s the things that have always been there and have become so apart of you that you didn’t know you were able to let them go. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it’s freeing, sometimes it gives you joy and sometimes it’s depressing. Sometimes it makes you cry, other times it makes you laugh. One day you can be on top of the world and others you may feel at the bottom of the deepest cavern. But I can guarantee that it will always bring you closer to God, and that in and of itself is worth everything and anything. Because being close to God is what we were made to live for. And anything less means we aren’t living.