Ooh Chloe

First of all, I'm actually shocked that I have churned out another post so soon. But.. Yay! I am so grateful to God for guiding me through my struggles in His time. Had I not gone through the hurt, I would not have grown and matured in the ways that I have; however, I do not want to stay in that hurt forever. I have worked through so much, but there is more to be done. I am not dwelling on my hurt. I think it is important to recognize all that has been done, the lessons learned, the hurt that has been healed, the fears that have been calmed, the hopes that have been restored. Equally important, is the recognition of what needs to be done. Without it, there would be no further progress. It's all about balance. So much of this year has given me opportunity to be bitter. Sometimes I have been. Other times I have not. Every time, it is a struggle. I get so frustrated about so many things. I don't understand why things ended up the way they did. I can't always see G

Hello friends! Once again, it has been a while since I have posted anything. Part of me is inclined to apologize for this, but I won't. As I have mentioned, this year has been particularly rough for me. My hope is that this post will continue to shed light on what I have been going through and, more importantly, the ways that God has revealed Himself and His truth to me through it all. That being said, I have   been taking time to process a lot of hurt, trauma, and grief. The more I work through it, the more I want to write about it and the more comfortable I am to do so. Since my desire to blog and ability to post has been heavily dependent on my healing process, I want to take this post to talk to you about my actual healing process and more about what I am healing from. Last October, a pastor and professor of mine asked if I believe that God could heal me. I, of course, said yes. He then asked me if I believed that God would heal me. Again, I said yes, but it was somethi

"Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time." - Maya Angelou I love this quote. The more I think about it, the more I have to say about it. I want to talk about it forever. Sadly, that is not reasonable. For now, I will make my initial point, and maybe one day soon I will let myself go down all the other rabbit trails I thought of in the time it took me to log on to write. No matter what, loving others is courageous. There is risk in love. We can lose the person we love, we can lose ourselves, or we can lose our minds. Sometimes, I think we lose all three. I am quite certain that I lost all three. There was a time, just this year, I hated this quote. I hated everything about it. I hated the idea of love, the idea that I could trust someone to care about me, to not hurt me, to listen to me, even to respect my rights as a human. More than than trusting someone else to love me, I hated the idea of loving myself. Of trusting myself to make de

In my post, " What is Love ," I mentioned that the beginning of this year brought some struggles that kept me away from my blog for a while, but said that I would work up to talking about them. A little whisper this morning told me that now was the time, thus this post was born. This is my second "letter to myself" post (see the first one, here ). I suppose they come from a place of wishing I knew then what I know now, but these posts help me to consolidate the lessons I have learned and help me to appreciate the growth I have experienced. Dear Chloe, My, my, my. You are officially an adult. I suppose that means you know it all now. At least that's what you think. You have nearly two decades of life under your belt. You really have this thing figured out. You try to act that way, at least. But I know better. Deep down, you are terrified. You have no clue what's going on. You're only going to college, but it might as well be Mars. Right now, thi

80/20. 80% hamburger meat, 20% fat. 20% of people do 80% of the work. I don't know what you think of when you hear the term 80/20. I think it's a fairly common concept, easy numbers to depict a ratio that is a large majority or small minority - however you look at it. For me, I think about a sermon I heard at the ripe age of 11. I don't remember everything my pastor said, but I have a vivid memory of him saying, "Some people get so focused on the 20% they don't have, they can't appreciate the 80% they do. You just gave up 80 for 20!" That stuck with me. Every once in a while this phrase pops up in my head. This morning was one of those times. My first thought was, you just gave up 80 for 20 . I've been pondering it all day. I could apply it a couple different ways. I questioned some of my recent decisions. Did I give up 80 or was I settling for 20? Was it 50/50? I tried to dismiss the thought, no need to overthink what I have already overthought. I

Hello, all! I promise I have not abandoned blogging. My life has been absolutely crazy! I think about things I want to write every day, but simply have not found the time to write them! To update you on my craziness, I am finishing up my last semester to get my Associate's degree right now, bought a car, recently started working a part-time job in retail, am continuing with all my other usual responsibilities, and am continuing to battle my endometriosis every day. Needless to say, all the change I have experienced in the past few months has kept me completely over my head. I have missed blogging so much. Aside from my busyness, I have been dealing with some struggles within myself and felt I needed a break. Over time, I will write about those struggles in particular. At the moment I don't feel quite ready to open up about it, but I want to soon, and I hope that some of you will find a sense of comfort, peace, understanding, and/or wisdom. What I have to share with you today is