I want my spark back, PLEASE!

"I used to feel as if there was an insuperable wall surrounding me completely and there was no chance of ever scaling its height. Sometimes I imagined that I had been dragged out into the ocean, waves pounding on me furiously, and I was slipping below the surface. Other times, I felt like I was falling into a deep chasm and that there would be no escape. I thought I was garbage, so in return I received garbage. The negative messages inside my head were soon visible on the outside, as my confidence slowly deflated like a balloon and nothing that I was reaping was positive."

This is an excerpt of a letter that I wrote to myself seven or eight years ago. I stumbled upon this narrative written my young, fifteen-year-old self tonight, on a night where I am feeling stuck. Literally stuck in a moment that I just can't get out of. I think I wrote this back then, for my future self... which just happens to be my present self right now. As a recent college graduate who has not yet found the perfect job and has no idea, really, which career path to follow, I've been drowning in a sea of doubts. Doubts that whisper to me in the middle of night, "You don't have any skills!", "You're not talented!", "You'll never go anywhere!", and "Your dreams will never come true."

When did I start listening to doubts, fear, & negativity again? What happened to my ability to drive the negative out of my heart and let the positivity, light, and love creep back into the dark crevices of my soul?! I ended this note-to-self with this observation [I think I was wiser back then]:

"When my thoughts are contaminated by negative thoughts and I am visualizing the opposite outcome of what I wish to occur, Satan has a way of making it happen. I have learned that when we worry and verbalize fear, we are just one step closer to reality. Therefore, what we think literally translates our actions, and what happens is a direct result from our innermost thoughts, whether they are conscious or even subconscious. I’ve learned to guard carefully the words that pass through my mouth, as well as the messages I’m sending to myself, because I know that they can permanently hurt others or become lodged in my heart. Unguarded, hurtful words pursue a course of damage wherever they go like an arrow which cannot be brought back to the bow once it has been fired."

"I didn’t realize the importance of building a ladder to our dreams so that they can become realities, and not just a cloud floating in the sky out of our reach. We are guided towards success and failure in everything we do by the pictures, produced by words, in our minds. These images are imprinted on the screens of our almost computer-like subconscious and if we are bombarded with negative thoughts we will be locked in a dungeon of bondage. Positive thinking will always produce a good outcome. Spectacular success is always preceded by unspectacular preparation. If I hadn’t learned the tremendous amount of power that positive and negative words have on our lives, I would still be stuck in my spider web of confusion, doubt, and fear, trying to extricate myself from its sticky entanglements. I now know that God expects us to be determined, lunging one step further than we feel we can bear, and to never give up. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”(Proverbs 23:7)".

I want my spark back!

And my determination...

and faith! and expectation of success and prosperity!

I will overcome the fear and invite the courage back into my life!

Cast your cares on the Lord & He will sustain you.

He will never let the righteous fall.

Love,

CEE.