Here's the truth: I don't always want to take care of RAIM.
Maybe I shouldn't say that but I want to be honest. There are days I don't want to get Twitter to see if anyone has contacted us, I can't think of anything to say or post on Facebook, and I have no words of encouragement at all. It's worse when I'm feeling stressed. Then it becomes I can't check RAIM because I have too much going on and I don't feel like it and I just want to lie down and watch Netflix after coming home from school. Now, don't misunderstand me, sometimes you gotta take care of yourself; and I'm all for that. Heck, self care rocks. But I know myself; and sometimes my not wanting to take care of my responsibilities has nothing to do with taking care of myself and everything to do with just being lazy.
But another reason I don't take care of RAIM as well as I should is I tend to get discouraged easily and I let negative thoughts creep in. I see the pageviews our website gets, how our follower count has remained in the same range for months, how no one tweets us back or comments on posts, how I just wrote up a long blog on the site and somehow it got deleted, and I get discouraged. I tell myself that this was all one giant mistake. I got carried away and this isn't God's plan at all. I say that starting a nonprofit at 19 years old is crazy. And after that my thoughts overwhelm me.
I don't even know if I believe in psychologists or what they stand for, why do I want to be one? I don't have the money to do this. I'm not good at this. I'm not smart. I suck at paperwork. If I wanted to help people I should have become a rock star not a counselor. Everyone knows people hate counselors. I can't get Ph.D I'm barely passing math class. I can't live for this ministry I want to live for myself. God should have picked someone else. I'm a mess I can't lead other people. No one reads your blogs anyway. This ministry is pointless, I should have just joined Mercy Ministries instead of starting another thing just like it. This is too hard. I can't do this.
This was a mistake.
And maybe that's my biggest fear. That I've worked so hard for nothing. That my dream of helping people find hope through Jesus was just that. A dream. Not a reality. Maybe it wasn't God's will but my own false thinking. I second guess everything. And it never gets me anywhere. It makes me sad and angry and lazy.
Sometimes those thoughts come in and sometimes they start to take root in my soul. They try to control my actions and try to get me to give up. Some days I believe all those lies. I wish it wasn't true, but it is.
The reason I share this is because I'm sure a lot of you can relate to that on some level. We all have doubts and struggle with our purpose or God's will for our lives. It's normal. But what do we do when those doubts arise?
I can tell you that its so easy to give in and give up. It's so much easier than to just throw it aside because you would rather give up than be disappointed if it it doesn't work out. Your dreams will take hard work and commitment; it takes risks and means you'll have to go up against your biggest fears. And I want to ask you this: what's more important to you? Your dream or your your fear?
Your dream or your insecurity?
Your dream or your comfort?
Your dream or the life you live now?
When you give up, you're choosing to accept fear over freedom and it's living a life less than what God wants for you. We were not made to be mediocre. We were made with purpose. (Ephesians 2:10) That doesn't mean the road there will be easy. But since when did we need things to be easy? We have a living God on our side, we don't need the nice road; we want to climb. We were made to experience life to the fullest. Living to the fullest means living in faith, and living in faith is absolutely terrifying and sometimes we can be tempted to look at the easier options and see their appeal and think, "Now, would that be so bad?"
I like to think I would be okay if I just fell in love, married my best friend, and became a photographer. I would like to settle for being just okay. And there's nothing wrong with those things in of themselves, its just that God wants me to dream bigger. Someone once said that if our dreams don't scare us a little, they aren't big enough. I agree. A little fear should push us to try harder, not give up. The lies we tell ourselves can often make us question our ability to press on and it might even make it doubt what we know to be true. But let me tell you a secret.
Your track record for pressing on past hard situations has been 100%. You can do this. Don't believe the lies you tell yourself and don't think that just because its hard that it's also impossible. You're a lot stronger than you think. Of course, some days will be better than others. Some days you'll question the point of it all. Some days you'll be on the ledge that divides staying from going and you'll have to make a choice about dreams or fear and maybe you'll fall but maybe in a total plot twist you will fly.
You were made for so much more than this.
Go on my darling. Fly.
-Faith
Maybe I shouldn't say that but I want to be honest. There are days I don't want to get Twitter to see if anyone has contacted us, I can't think of anything to say or post on Facebook, and I have no words of encouragement at all. It's worse when I'm feeling stressed. Then it becomes I can't check RAIM because I have too much going on and I don't feel like it and I just want to lie down and watch Netflix after coming home from school. Now, don't misunderstand me, sometimes you gotta take care of yourself; and I'm all for that. Heck, self care rocks. But I know myself; and sometimes my not wanting to take care of my responsibilities has nothing to do with taking care of myself and everything to do with just being lazy.
But another reason I don't take care of RAIM as well as I should is I tend to get discouraged easily and I let negative thoughts creep in. I see the pageviews our website gets, how our follower count has remained in the same range for months, how no one tweets us back or comments on posts, how I just wrote up a long blog on the site and somehow it got deleted, and I get discouraged. I tell myself that this was all one giant mistake. I got carried away and this isn't God's plan at all. I say that starting a nonprofit at 19 years old is crazy. And after that my thoughts overwhelm me.
I don't even know if I believe in psychologists or what they stand for, why do I want to be one? I don't have the money to do this. I'm not good at this. I'm not smart. I suck at paperwork. If I wanted to help people I should have become a rock star not a counselor. Everyone knows people hate counselors. I can't get Ph.D I'm barely passing math class. I can't live for this ministry I want to live for myself. God should have picked someone else. I'm a mess I can't lead other people. No one reads your blogs anyway. This ministry is pointless, I should have just joined Mercy Ministries instead of starting another thing just like it. This is too hard. I can't do this.
This was a mistake.
And maybe that's my biggest fear. That I've worked so hard for nothing. That my dream of helping people find hope through Jesus was just that. A dream. Not a reality. Maybe it wasn't God's will but my own false thinking. I second guess everything. And it never gets me anywhere. It makes me sad and angry and lazy.
Sometimes those thoughts come in and sometimes they start to take root in my soul. They try to control my actions and try to get me to give up. Some days I believe all those lies. I wish it wasn't true, but it is.
The reason I share this is because I'm sure a lot of you can relate to that on some level. We all have doubts and struggle with our purpose or God's will for our lives. It's normal. But what do we do when those doubts arise?
I can tell you that its so easy to give in and give up. It's so much easier than to just throw it aside because you would rather give up than be disappointed if it it doesn't work out. Your dreams will take hard work and commitment; it takes risks and means you'll have to go up against your biggest fears. And I want to ask you this: what's more important to you? Your dream or your your fear?
Your dream or your insecurity?
Your dream or your comfort?
Your dream or the life you live now?
When you give up, you're choosing to accept fear over freedom and it's living a life less than what God wants for you. We were not made to be mediocre. We were made with purpose. (Ephesians 2:10) That doesn't mean the road there will be easy. But since when did we need things to be easy? We have a living God on our side, we don't need the nice road; we want to climb. We were made to experience life to the fullest. Living to the fullest means living in faith, and living in faith is absolutely terrifying and sometimes we can be tempted to look at the easier options and see their appeal and think, "Now, would that be so bad?"
I like to think I would be okay if I just fell in love, married my best friend, and became a photographer. I would like to settle for being just okay. And there's nothing wrong with those things in of themselves, its just that God wants me to dream bigger. Someone once said that if our dreams don't scare us a little, they aren't big enough. I agree. A little fear should push us to try harder, not give up. The lies we tell ourselves can often make us question our ability to press on and it might even make it doubt what we know to be true. But let me tell you a secret.
Your track record for pressing on past hard situations has been 100%. You can do this. Don't believe the lies you tell yourself and don't think that just because its hard that it's also impossible. You're a lot stronger than you think. Of course, some days will be better than others. Some days you'll question the point of it all. Some days you'll be on the ledge that divides staying from going and you'll have to make a choice about dreams or fear and maybe you'll fall but maybe in a total plot twist you will fly.
You were made for so much more than this.
Go on my darling. Fly.
-Faith