Issues with Life

Last night I attended institute and had the most amazing lesson that really got my thoughts going.  The lesson was on true and appropriate repentance. About wasting time dwelling on our shortcomings and sins as opposed to getting up and getting to work.

 I don’t know if I will share this publicly, but feel a strong desire to get this off my chest. I have so many truly amazing friends, I have not always been so fortunate to have friends who show such love and support. Therefore I am grateful beyond what I can express for those friends I have who are there. 

Through much of my life I’ve always been pretty good at telling people either take me or leave me as I am. I am a spazzy, quirky person overall. Sometimes I wish I was a little less so, at least less awkwardly clumsy anyway.

Unfortunately, I have spent far too much time recently allowing others to define me and tell me who I am and what I am worth. I have wasted too much time listening to the negative voices in my life telling me that I am not good enough. And believe me when I say that it has been coming from all fronts—both external voices and internal thoughts.These thoughts have led me down a dark road of late. I have moped around feeling that I had nothing to offer the world because I was so worthless. I feel like Satan has been working overtime on me to coerce me to feel this way. Which leads to the question why? What I am supposed to be doing in my life that I am not because I am wasting time hating myself and focusing on the things I don’t like about myself?

There are things in my life I wish were different or that I wish I had handled differently, but I need to stop defining myself based on those moments. I need to acknowledge that there are things in my life that are out of my control but that is ok. I don’t have to fix everything. I can only do what I can do.  Because that was the main point of the lesson last night. To not let ourselves become so bogged down in our transgressions that we forget to go out and help others. I am human, I will always make mistakes. There will always be things in my life that I wish I could change or wish I could be better at. But to sit around blaming myself and beating myself up will serve no one. And I can honestly say I love serving those around me. With so much misery and sadness in the world, how can I not try to ease the burdens of people who mean so much to me?

I am not valued nor defined by my marital status, my family status, where I come from or what I look like.