Allie Ballie

Today was a rough day. I didn’t realize how rough until just now as I was getting ready to go to sleep and Lydia and I were praying for someone and we took turns praying, and then after we were done she then started praying for me. Asking God to give me rest and help me to have peace. As she was praying this, I all of a sudden felt my entire body relax. I hadn’t even noticed that I had been tense.

The reason my day was rough, had nothing to do with classes, school, work or even for the most part relationships. The reason today was so rough was because I have been wrestling through things all day long. Then tonight after finally talking to a really good friend of mine I realized why it’s been so hard for me. I have been wrestling with being impatient and really disliking the people around me. Not disliking in the sense that I really don’t like them, but in a way that I am getting easily frustrated with people and not loving them the way I should. Not because of anything they’ve done. Just me being sinful I guess. I have been so on edge with everyone and no matter whose talking to me I can find some reason to be unhappy, when really all I’ve been trying to do, subconsciously, is cover up why I’m really unhappy. I am seeing other people’s faults and sins because I don’t want to acknowledge my own. I have been pulling a speck out of my brother’s eye without even considering the plank in my own.

I have been living my life loving people based on feelings and emotions, not being around my family has made it difficult to remember that you don’t always like the people you love… does that even make sense? Sometimes you don’t always like the people surrounding you or the people in your life closest to you, but you love them regardless. Because love is not based on an emotion or a feeling, love is a choice, a promise we make to another. I have to be constantly reminded that I can say ‘I love you’ until I’m blue in the face, but saying it doesn’t make it true. What makes it true is acting upon it and even doing it when we don’t ‘feel like it.’ Love is something we have to work towards everyday. Living in a community like the one here has made this so clear to me. I’m around people constantly. Whether I want to be or not, and yet I can choose to love those people as a choice or to simply put up with them for the time being.

My prayer is that I can be a better friend, a better roommate, a better daughter, and a better sister by realizing these things and beginning to work through them.