accept

It's difficult to accept that my life is easy. How ridiculous. I've found myself agreeing to a life of striving. I don't like striving. I like putting in an effort. I like knowing that I'm getting better at something. I like accomplishing. I like a challenge. I like growth. But I've found myself making all of that synonymous with struggle and strife and suffering. It makes me feel ridiculous because by all accounts, I actually have a very good life. I want more. I know there is more. I know I'm not who I'm meant to be yet. But I have much to be grateful for. I'm getting back to my base, my firm foundation. And it's been hard these past few weeks to accept that I really am free. It feels like there's something lurking and that everything still hinges on me. Like there needs to be something to balance out what is surely too good to be true.

Everything comes easily to me. I've gotten everything I've ever wanted. And I feel bad because I know that's not the case for everyone. So I've downplayed all that I have. I've found where I seem to lack so that I can relate to others. And I don't want to do that anymore. But doesn't that make me an ass?! When others are going through what they're going through. When whatever is happening in the world is happening. How can I possibly be so insensitive, so naive, so dense, so out of touch. It feels to me like I'm being detached or like I'm living in a fantasy. What's that quote? If you're not angry, you're not looking hard enough.

He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.
-Thomas Aquinas

Like! How can I possibly live a life where everything works out for me when there really is all this other stuff happening all around the world. But it's the truth. Who am I if I don't have anything to worry about? If there's nothing that can go wrong anymore? If I'm completely taken care of? And I hate to admit it. I don't want to accept it. It feels like it's a betrayal of some kind. But I can't keep squandering what I do have either. I don't want to run away. I don't want to escape. I don't want to fight. So where does that leave me?

Lord, lord. Take your rightful place as lord in my life. Help me to practice sincere gratitude. Help me to steward all that you give me. Help me to trust that you can do more with your joy than I could with my anger, with my worry, with my strategizing, with my anxiety, with my fear, with my imagination, with my spiraling, with my anything. Help me to steward my blessings. Help me accept who you made me to be. Help me to do what you call me to do. Help me to accept that life with you really is good.