My Johari Window

This assignment was quite an eye opener for me. I was a little nervous about sending off emails to my friends and family. I thought they wouldn't take it seriously and just delete it or pass it by. I was pleasantly surprised when they not only completed the task, but called me to discuss it and followed it for a number of days to see what others had to say. I became the center of attention for a few days as my closest family and friends discussed the best ways to describe me in just a few words. I was even more surprised when a few of them became upset that they were limited on their adjectives. I thought it was nice that they felt they couldn't narrow it down.

I try very hard everyday to make those that I care about proud of me. I don't necessarily need a pat on the back all the time, but I still like to go to bed at night knowing I tried my very best that day at anything I had to accomplish. I have my off days and I have a tendency to let those off days over shadow my good ones. I feel as though my bad days are what people remember, so then I work twice as hard to erase those days from people's memories. I always had the impression that people hold onto the negative a lot longer than they hold on to the positive.

When I reviewed my results, I found that this is not always so. My loved ones chose qualities that I was afraid to choose myself. Things like clever or adaptable are traits I have always hoped I had, but I wasn't confident enough to say it about myself, at the risk of being wrong. My family and friends chose traits that I can finally admit to myself that I have, without feeling self conscience or even self centered. I have a hard time talking about myself and pointing out any good qualities because I don't want to seem like I have a big ego. My family and friends have shown me that a big ego is far from the list they chose from.

Having them choose words like loving and kind helped me a lot. (80%!!!!!) It shows me that they know where my heart is in times of need and where my loyalties are. That may be confusing, but it really isn't. Those two words, for me, are words that can only come from the heart. Clever, calm, and knowledgeable are all great words that would make anyone feel good about themself, but they are functions of the brain. Being loving and kind are words that show support and devotion. They are matters of the heart. Having those be the two most chosen words were wonderful. A lot of the self doubt I had in my friendship qualities are gone now. My loved ones have shown me that I am all the things that I have always strived to be.

As wonderful as the words were to read, it isn't just about that. Any of the Johari window words would be wonderful to hear about oneself, but the simple fact that the people I love took the time out of their busy schedules to share their thoughts on me is great. It showed me that I have value to the people I value. Don't get me wrong, I know that I am loved by my family and friends, but in our hectic lives we don't always get to show it. We get sidetracked and forgetful. I am guilty of it constantly, especially this semester. My loved ones made it a point not to forget about this, knowing that it was important to me and my strive to excel in school. I didn't have to call and remind anyone. I didn't have to send repeated emails. I didn't have to choose new participants because the first ones bailed on me. My first picks are obviously my first picks for a reason. I can count on them just like they have always been able to count on me. That's an awesome feeling. OK, enough rambling. I hope I make sense to everyone and I look forward to reading how everyone else felt about this assignment.

Just another Wow and a lot of WHOASSSSS!!!!!!

I had a conversation with my dad tonight that started off very scary and confusing, but ended with an empowerment that I have not had, but thought I did. A "hey, how you doing?" conversation turned into a "your church does WHAT?" conversation, and at first I will admit that I was skeptical of my dad and his new found faith in God. I found it very strange and left field from someone who always taught me to be a free and independent thinker. I am happy to say that the conversation did not end with me feeling this way. He opened my eyes to the misconceptions that my church, scratch that, a church was putting into my head. He pointed out the many non-biblical teachings within said church and supported his claims through scripture. He gave me some wonderful tools for better versing myself in the scripture and showed me that I could still be an independent thinker in my faith. I know some of you will find that to be an oxymoron, but it is possible to have independent thought and still follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.

I now find myself both fascinated and appalled by the discoveries in tonight's conversation. On one hand, I feel blind sided, bamboozled, and just plain ridiculous that I found such joy in a church that is so completely bass ackwards from the teachings of our Lord. On the other, I am forever grateful to my dad and his wife for bringing this all to my attention in a very loving and supportive way. I am, as of this day, a child in Christ. To elaborate, let me say this...

I was baptized many years ago after excepting Christ as my Lord and Savior. I do believe that it was heart felt to the best of my knowledge at that time.

I have strayed throughout life and fallen away from God and his teachings, but he has always been there, never leaving my heart or giving up on me.

I use the term child because I am just that. Until tonight, I thought of my faith as one level, one unwavering line of knowledge. No better, no worse, just faith. I never considered that, just as with everything else in life, that I needed to truly grow in my faith in God. Yes, you read your bible and gain insight, but I mean truly GROW IN GOD. Before, I was jumping into the deep end an experienced swimmer, not realizing I had a fifty pound cinder block around my ankles. Now I know that wading in the shallow end does not make me less of a Christian, merrily one that is willing to do it God's way, in His way, and of His way. I must throw the old lessons aside and have Him teach me, from the beginning, what He wants me to know. If I have to wear some floaters for awhile then so be it. I must get passed my human age and what everyone thinks I should know after being saved all these years, and worry only about what He knows about my heart and my capabilities. God will never condemn me for the speed in which I learn His ways. I feel that He is happy in my progress as long as I do it with a loving, faithful and repenting heart.

As for said church, I can understand now why it was so appealing and why I fell so deeply for it. I was raised, in a now non existent church, to not question the teachings of your pastor. I fell into the idea, as did many others, that if he said it was from the bible then it must be so. (Not that you all need to fear your pastors, but questions are allowed, and with a good pastor, should be welcome. If you don't understand it, ask!!!) The pastors of said church were so strong in there sermons, so powerful with there words, and so convincing with there convictions, that it was hard to question it. I was, in my own self conscious and passive way, excepting the word by their authority. I now realize that that is what they probably want. They spruce it up with so much smoke and lights that you stop thinking and you just follow blindly. I see now that I was following the wrong authority. Don't get me wrong, I believe in God and I was in a church that praised Him, but somewhere along the road, God took a right and we all went left. I see now that having all that said church has as part of their "ministry" is appealing and fun, but it is all smoke and mirrors. I wish that I had been smart enough to catch on sooner, but maybe this was God's plan for me. Maybe He needed me to be there to see what not to do. Maybe He knew that I needed the experiences from said church, so that I could share them with my dad, and then get my BIG FAT WAKE UP CALL!!!! Maybe it is true that one cannot learn from mistakes that they don't make. Maybe this was all His way of opening conversations on faith with my dad. After all, if I wasn't going to church, then how would this conversation with my dad have started? Would I have listened? Would I have talked to him for over 3 hours? Yes, it was the wrong church, with JACKED up teachings, but it did pave the way for a more open minded me when my dad called. Maybe that was God's plan all along. God does not make mistakes by any means, but he sure allows me the free will to make my own.

(I know that I am rambling. It is late for me and I am wore out, but I just felt the need to try and get it all out as best I could. I am sure that the grammar and sentence formation is horrible, but whatever. Sorry, I am forever the English major.)

Bottom line, I was feeling a bit of self pity when I got off the phone with my dad. I felt dumb. I felt gullible. I felt used. I have always researched everything. I am a huge reader. Every time I have ever been told something or taught something, I have cracked a book to check it out for myself. What does it say about me that when it came to the teachings of the bible, I simply took what I was told and trusted it? I never referenced the bible for the truth. I never cracked it open and looked up the teachings for myself. Just this week alone, I have cracked all my college books at least half a dozen times to check and recheck the teachings of my various subjects, but I have never done that with His word. Why is that? I grew up with a intense love of reading, but know very little of my Bible. I love every genre of story out there. Crime, Love, Betrayal, Mystery. My bible has all of those. It is the greatest love story every written. It is full of plot twists, murders, mysteries, passions, hatreds, everything that I always saw as a great line to any story. Yet, I have read so little of it. I commit now, that I will read a little of it everyday. Baby steps, yes, but I will do it. Knowledge is power, right? Anyway, enough. My brain hurts, as do my eyes. But thankfully, my heart does not. Hopefully, this is the start of something greater than myself and hopefully the start of a journey that will include my best friend, my husband.

To my dad and A...thank you for your time, devotion, and love. Know now that you have opened a huge chapter in my life. Know also, that I will probably be calling a lot more for guidance, as my dad has always been my most trusted advisor, both good and bad. HeHeHeee. I love you both. I look forward to more talks, hopefully with less screaming from my little ones. Goodnight to all. I will torture you no more tonight.

School of Whining

So I am going back to school. I thought,"Hey, kudos to me!", but now I am just a few weeks from the first day and I find myself scared. Like butterflies in my tummy, I think I'm gonna throw up, stage fright kinda scared. Why is that? I have no ideas of impressing anyone. There is no real social scale where I am going. I don't have to deal with any real high school type drama or even socialize if I don't want to. But I haven't been to school in 10 years. That seems like forever. I love school, learning, reading, and writing, so I should be more excited then scared. I have the drive. In fact, I think I have too high of expectations for myself. I won't except anything less than an A, so how do I deal with a B. I know this may sound trivial to some, but other then a bad year in high school, when I needed to get my head out of my rear, I did really well. I studied when I had to, I payed attention, and actually contributed intellectually to the class discussions. I guess in honesty I don't feel as smart as I think I was back then. I think I am afraid of being the oldest in the class and being "out of date" with classroom etiquette and the like. I will be taking notes on paper, and what if they all have laptops. Ok, WOW and WHOA, I sound really superficial, but I am there to learn and I feel like my anxiety might hinder that. My first few classes are ones that I am really excited about, but once I get into the Math and everything, I am going to be the biggest dope in the class. LOL. Ok, enough for now. I am making no sense...just personal boohooing. I just need to suck it up and do it. Who cares what I think other people will think, right? And if I take notes on paper, then well so be it. Anyway, enough on that. Just haven't been in a classroom in a LONG time. Oh well. Get over it Felecia. Education is more important then feeling like a dinosaur. Just a little weird to be registering for classes with my sister's 17 year old boyfriend. Maybe it's the birthday blues and I am not even 30 yet. LOL. Please laugh at me. Reading back over this, I sound like a real whiner. Night all......have a good laugh from this one. I know I will.

The Good Ole' Days!!

Ever feel like you were born in the wrong era? Like you have the ideas and values of someone from days gone by? Well, I am there. I see kids with 42 inches of underwear showing, heading through doors they should be holding for the little old lady behind them. People on welfare running around in "bling" while their kids look like they just crawled out of the gutter. All these little details, to me, are meshing together into one big socially dysfunctional pool of disgust. I spoke to my grandmother recently, and she reminisced about the 50's, when she was just a teenager. We spoke of everything life was like back then and how much better off we would be if time had just stopped there. After the world wars, after the depression, before Vietnam. A time when everyone had a "home" no matter how big or small. Everyone took pride in their appearance, whether it was made by their mama on her old singer, or bought in the department store. When every family sat down to dinner away from the t.v. and enjoyed conversation. When saying "darn" was a vulgarity to be shhhhed in public. When milk was delivered fresh to your doorstep and you waved to your neighbor when you went out to collect it. When going downtown for the day didn't require a flack jacket and concealed weapon. When the "make-out" spot over the river didn't "make" babies. When modesty and etiquette were taught at home by mom and not only at an upper east side prep school. When everything was closed on Sunday and bbq's were the "in" social events and not some trampy club outing with loud music and drunken depravity. When wearing red lipstick was as "daring" as the girls got, as my grandma puts it. Now we are lucky if they are wearing clothes at all. In all this I am sure that I missing some of the cons of this era, but I doubt that they compare to the complete fall out that we now call life. I just feel old fashioned on my 27th birthday. I feel like my ideas and morals and expectancies are old fashioned. And well, I don't think that's a bad thing and I hope that my kids will pick up on it in their old fashioned ages just like I did. Had to vent. Let me know what you think. What's your ideal era? What were your good ole' days?

Pain has taken control both of your heart and of your mind.
You have lost all sense of reason and you have no sense of time.

Your tears have flown endlessly forever and a day.
You hope and pray that they will find any other way.

You look into your baby's eyes and caress his tiny head.
You wonder how many more times you'll tuck him into bed.

You write down all the things that you want us to remember.
You know that all the hurt and pain won't go on forever.

He'll have every memory of you that we can think to tell.
He'll always have your love and spirit to carry him on well.

Just know that we all love you more than words can ever show.
It's alright with us if you just want to let it go.

We know where we can find you if we ever want to talk.
All we have to do is raise our eyes to where angels walk.

Your hurt and pain are over, your soul goes on and on.
Even though our hearts are broken, we know your never really gone.

Not much of a first blog.

Well, not much to say for my first blog. Just getting the hang of it really. Thank you to my Daddy. He has come into his faith and this has brought us close once again. He gave me a bit of a nudge back towards my faith and with his support and the love of my husband, positive changes are happening in my little family unit everyday. A great sense of peace are now apart of our daily lives and happenings I never thought possible are becoming a reality. I am blessed with the knowledge that I will see the ones I love most dear in heaven with me. I am posting the following little poem from a friend that sums up how I feel right now. Enjoy.

When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not shouting 'I'm clean livin''
I'm whispering 'I was lost, now I'm found and forgiven.'
When I say... 'I am a Christian' I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble and need Christ to be my guide.
When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak and need His strength to carry on.
When I say.. 'I am a Christian' I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed and need God to clean my mess.
When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible but, God believes I am worth it.
When I say... 'I am a Christian' I still feel the sting of pain..
I have my share of heartaches, so I call upon His name.
When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner "Who" received God's good grace, somehow!