6.

I've lost my religion. Now don't get me wrong, I've never considered myself an extremely religious person, but I definitely believe in God, and I definitely feel like I'm not giving him enough time in my life. I was raised Catholic, and while I could probably recite all of the words to a Catholic mass to you if you asked me to, I never felt like Catholicism was really what I was looking for. I always envied Southern Baptists because I felt like their understanding of God was so much deeper than mine. I feel like when they go to Church its not a feeling of "Oh man, it's Sunday I have to go to church", but more like a celebration that God is in their lives and has created them and has given them all of the gifts they have. I had a discussion last night with a fairly new good friend of mine. He said "God loves you so much its ridiculous, He has an incredible plan for your life and supports you every step of the way." This reminded me of a conversation I had with Jarrod over the summer, and a conversation I had with both the guys I met while I was in the Virgin Islands. The sailor I met while I was there reminded me that if God puts me up to a challenge, there will be a reason for it in the end, and that has proven true in the past almost year of my life. A lot of things ended last year around this time, but a lot of things began that I wasn't even aware of. I don't think I give God enough credit. After this conversation I was trying to remember when the last time I had been to church was, and I realized that Christmas Eve was the last time, and that's kind of an obligatory church holiday. I'm not sure that going to Mass will help me rediscover religion, or God, or whatever it is I'm longing to discover in my spiritual life, but I know that something needs to change. I take for granted every single day what I have, and I will be the first to admit that. I try to remind myself daily that God made me the way I am for a reason, and he blessed me with the talents I have for a reason, and that I need to go out and share those with the world. But everytime something brings me down I just throw any sense of God having a plan out the window and think of all the things that I think are flawed about me. But then, everyone is flawed, and thats what makes them special. So why do we all strive for perfection? Why can we not just appreciate what we have, instead of constantly degrading who we are and what we've been given? I think about these things all the time as far as other people, especially the beautiful girls I'm around every day who ridicule their bodies and their talents, but I never take my own advice. My dad said something the other day that has stuck with me all week, "Focus on what you've been given. It's less stressful that way." I've tried all week to focus on the good things about me, and though I still have trouble sometimes, it actually made me feel better to pat myself on the back when I did something good instead of thinking about how I could have done it better. I'm going to apply that rule to this week as well, just to see what happens.

Also, I found this website "100 Ways to Live a Better Life". It was actually really interesting. So I thought I'd post that here for your reading pleasure.

http://www.dragosroua.com/100-ways-to-live-a-better-life/


And so begins this week. Hope everyone has a good one :)

-B