Knowing your place.

Sometimes you have to protect yourself from the incoming traffic. 

Temptation

Anger

Hurt feelings

Anxiety

Shame  

There are days when life is swell, and there are days you're left standing in the swelter. 

I don't want to spend my life in an eternal internal battle. 

It's always best when I offer it up to Him instead.  I beg Him to guard my heart and mind and mouth.  I do my best to see myself the way He sees me--like I see my own children.  

They are not perfect--but I love them fiercely. 

I want to be big and important and right and validated, but I repeatedly discover that I feel more like myself when I choose to be small.  Being small doesn't have to mean that I'm wrong--but perhaps it means that I'm choosing to acknowledge my role in the grand scheme of things.

And in the moments when I just want to handle things swiftly, I'm learning that sometimes you just have to leave things alone for a season.  I can fret about all the things that I have no control over, or I can choose to move forward in my immediate circumstances and deal with what's been directly handed to me in this moment.

And trust that some things will work themselves out in their own time.