THE POINT OF IT ALL

 ​So, I usually wait until the end of these posts to wrap it all up and give the main point. I usually make it bold or italicized. If it’s real special, I may make it bold and italicized. You get it. But not this time, friends. Nope. This time, I am going straight to the point. In fact, I’m going to start with it.
 
The point is this: You are okay.
 
You are just fine. 
 
You’re good. 
 ​

You are okay.
 
Regardless of what happened to you this week. No matter how many times life did its thing and shut you down. In spite of how many times you had to blink back tears. Despite the fact that people, including you and me, suck sometimes. You are okay. You are.
 
In the moments that I have truly taken the time to reflect on the happenings of my life, I have realized that each little chunk can be defined and characterized into an “era”. Every year, there has been an overlying theme…a take away. Each break up, each lost friendship, every moment of feeling broken down and beat up….each one was followed by a moment of silence and thankfulness and understanding. A quiet time to think to myself, “holy moly, that was a bad one...but my, oh my look how far I’ve come.”
 
That sounds exhausting if you think about it. It really does. To imagine a life of constant failures and pulling it together enough to get back up sounds completely annoying and stressful and not worth it. But, you know what? Life isn’t black and white, and struggling isn’t always as ugly as it’s made out to be. We are rough and jagged people. We really are. We are bruised and tattered and banged up.
 
And I’m going to go on and say…I think that’s really beautiful. I think each bruise and tear and scar are so beautiful. We are made alive by those blemishes. We are reminded of our state of being human…but mostly, we are reminded of how resilient our spirits become when we desperately need them to . We are reminded of how much bigger this world is than we are, and how unfailingly powerful faith is. We are reminded that there is love in this world, and it is bold. Love is here, and it is real. It will find you.
 
The two weeks I had before getting to the point of typing this, on an airplane that’s on its way to Denver, were rough. Really rough.
 
Full of quiet moments and doubting and wondering and feeling down. But let me tell you something. Through those moments, I didn’t break. I cried. I wrote things. I ate bad food.
 
However, I never broke. I never lost it. I never sat down with my knees pressed to my chest unable to breathe or move. I never hit that spot.
 
I scuffed my knees a little bit, but I did not feel myself lose heart.
 
And I think that’s the product of a couple of things.
 
One of those things being that I believe in a God who never stops believing in me and being faithful. A God who doesn’t make mistakes and who doesn’t fail. I have been scared to really write about it. I honestly have. I have just now entered the phase of my life where I am comfortable talking about it with friends in coffee shops and whispering His name to people who come to me with broken hearts. I think my fear comes from seeing it done all wrong- with judgment and condemnation and this need to feed appearances of what being a “good Christian” looks like. I don’t know if I’m a good Christian. I don’t know what that means. I know what I believe, and I know how that faith has affected my life. That’s a whole other discussion I hope to bring to my little Internet space some time soon.
 
The other part had a lot to do with struggle. I have struggled. I have had my heart broken. I have hit the bottom. I have lost friends. I have felt lonely. I would venture to guess that you have too at some point because that’s what life and love are made of. That’s a part of this whole living and loving thing…it’s not the whole cake, but it’s a slice of it.
 
I had felt it, and I had survived. So, I knew with every part of my soul in this past two weeks that I was okay. When people were saying negative things about me and judging and hating, my heart felt sore. I felt lonely. When there were too many assignments and not enough time and the backs of my eyes hurt because not enough sleep, I felt tired and discouraged. When I turned on the news and looked to my Twitter timeline to see the hate, anger and pain experienced at the school I attend plastered on national networks and from the very hearts of my classmates, I felt so sad and down.
 
But I had struggled before, so I knew I was okay. I knew that every beautiful, full life has dark seasons….so, light was coming. I knew. So, I breathed. I prayed. I moved forward.
 
I share this because it’s one of the first times I fully felt the blessing of my struggle. It’s one of the first times I had felt that tougher character and thicker skin I’ve read about in all of those motivational quotes and verses. I felt it. It’s real. I am okay.
 
Not everyone will like you. Not everyone will understand you (in fact, many won’t even try). Not everyone deserves to stay. Nope. In fact, I’m going to go on and tell you that my guess is a lot of people don’t deserve to stay. And that sucks, and it’s stomach churning…sure. But here’s your silver lining, darling…it’s not up to them. It has never been up to them.
 
You are okay.
 
No matter where you are, you are okay.
 
I was sitting on campus with two ladies that I love so much when a guy came up to us with a small video camera. He said he was getting video responses for a YouTube video he was making. He wanted to know our explanation of the meaning of life. A question so vast and daunting that it’s often used to mock the idea of being truly philosophical.
 
I thought for a minute and kinda just started rambling, but my friend snapped for me and sassily yelled out “YAS”, so I guess it wasn’t too bad….so here it is-
 
I think the whole point is realize that we are okay right where we are. I think we spend a lot of time searching for things to make us happy and noteworthy and popular and valuable. I think we have to sit with ourselves and fully understand that in any given moment, we are whole and okay. When we do that and carry it with us, we attract people who have also found that. Then, love and happiness and joy and passion and understanding can be felt fully and we can begin to build genuine forms of all of things that we are made to believe will make us “happy”. However, we will truly be happy, and those other things will all just be a bonus.
 
I am working on it, friends. I am.
 
I have just entered the phase of my life where I am ready to start the conversation of understanding that I am okay. I am whole, and I am here. I am starting to understand the power and value of that.
 
I hope you will start the conversation because you’ve always deserved that from yourself.
 
With Love & Glitter,
 
Morgan.