Tenacity to Purpose

I think that I've figured it out. The holidays are about love and happiness. They are just covered up by loads of food, vacation plans, and tree decorations. There are so many people that feel lonely and depressed during this time, for many logical reasons...But the fundamental one is that they don't feel loved. And the scary thing is that you can be in a room full of people but still feel unloved. They may not have done what they promised to, they didn't give you that warm embrace you were longing for, or they didn't remember what your favorite dessert is. Different things make us feel loved. For some, just being in the same room is enough. This festive season I have learned that it's not the bad fried chicken or the missed trip to church that ruins the holiday season for people. It's the broken promises, the unspoken words right along with the spoken ones. It's the misunderstandings and the unmade phone calls. We are all longing for and seeking the same ...

Everybody wants to be accepted. No matter who you are, or how confident you are. We want to be viewed as enough, as good, valued for who we are and what we bring to the table. When you don't get accepted, the feeling of rejection is intense and it brings with it pain. It's like applying for university. Not getting accepted is them saying that what you used to apply was not good enough, the thing you brought to the table was not sufficient, others did better than you did and so they get in but you don't. As humans we reject each other all the time. Not just in the big scale things like saying no to a marriage proposal, but in little acts every single day. Your loved one tries to open up about their feelings and you sweep them under the rug. You are saying that their feelings aren't important enough for you to sit up and take notice. Your friend tells you about how terrible his day was, and all you're worried about is getting the conversation over and done with...

Facebook has this new On This Day memories thing, where it tells you what you posted on that day in previous years. The other day a memory from 2011 left me in shock. Have you ever read something that you wrote in the past and wondered who that person was? Wondered what on earth you were thinking? This was that moment for me. In the post I was going on about how I was tired of waiting for things to come together. In the comments someone told me to make them happen by myself, I then told him that I didn't know how to and that someone would have to come and tell me how to do it. I sat there in disbelief because I was acting so helpless. I looked as if I couldn't even think for myself, that I couldn't do anything unless someone came and showed me how to do it. How many of us are like that on a daily basis? We play the victim role so well, we act as if we are helpless, even worse we believe that we are helpless. How many of us have dreams, projects and aspirations but they ar...

From a young age we all want friends. When we’re toddlers, our friends are the people we play with, the people we share our toys with. For most of us our first friends are our siblings, and our cousins. As we grow older we start looking for people we have similarities with. People we have something in common with. When we’re adults, life may separate us from those people, so we build friendships based on proximity. Friendship is something that never needed explaining. To some it may not seem as complicated as a romantic relationship.  Brene Brown, an American scholar, author, and public speaker, says that connection is why we are here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering. Friendship is all about connection.  Let’s take an example of a great friendship from the Bible, Jonathan and David’s friendship. In 1 Samuel 18:1 it says that Jonathan loved David as much as he loved himself, so muc...