To the casual observer it looks like I have moved on since I go around wearing my little happy mask all day. I smile and laugh and carry on like my heart's still in one piece, but beneath it all, I am dying.
But fear is confusing. It tears you in two. Half of you wants to run far, far away, but the other half is paralyzed, frozen, immovable. And the hard part is that you never know which half is going to win.
It takes a good habit to replace a bad habit.
It's amazing the things you realize when you lose someone: you get mad at yourself for not saying the things you could've a million times, you take for granted the days spent doing nothing when you could have been with them. Anyone can be taken, at any time in our lives, but we always wait until they're gone to say the things we never had the courage to before.
It seems totally unfair that the way we look matters so much. I mean, why can't we just get over this gotta-be-thin-and-beautiful thing? Why can't we just accept ourselves and others for what we are?
Being a teenager these days is not for the faint of heart.
Mostly I think I've learned to trust God more. I mean, if I start getting worried or freaked, I just try to put it in God's hands. Sometimes I imagine God cradling the globe in his hands, and I tell myself that as long as I'm with God, the Creator of the universe, I can be comfortable and at home anyplace on the planet.
I don't usually think of my writing as a 'challenge' because I enjoy the process so much. I suppose that's what's helped me to avoid 'writer's block' all these years.
I mean all this focus on how we look on the outside. It's just all wrong
Girls can be so petty and jealous. I swear they're worse than guys sometimes. Except they're all quiet about it. They sugarcoat it or else they talk behind each other's backs. It's seriously twisted.
I grew up in a difficult environment, but I became a Christian as a teen. My mom and my sister soon became Christians also.
A book is kind of like a river; I simply jump in and start swimming.
God planned for our lives to connect. Let's make sure we keep it that way.
Shut off the internal bashing.
I have become convinced that God thoroughly enjoys fixing and saving things that are broken. That means that no matter how hurt and defeated you feel, no matter how badly you have been damaged, God can repair you. God can give anyone a second chance.
I welcome each new day with a hopeful expectancy that I, too, will rise above the ordinary. For I am not content to live a merely 'normal' life or settle for an average existence. No, I am destined for more - much, much more.
Melody Carlson is an American author.
