chasing abundance

truth be told, i'm on the internet way. too. much. sometimes i spend hours going back and forth from my facebook, my email, my twitter, my other email, my blog, my work email, clicking through blog after blog, daydreaming through online window shopping, on and on and back around it goes. at the time i feel like i'm doing something. at least, i tell myself i'm doing something: i'm keeping up. with what?  

good question.

i wander aimlessly through website after website. 

and i feel worse and worse about myself. 

i read about someone who's about to embark on a cross cultural adventure. i look at a shop whose website is adorable and whose business is successful. i find a new blogger who has 400 followers. i see picture after picture of beautiful people.

all the while, a voice in my head whispers...

you're never going to go anywhere. even if you did, what could you bring?

your new business "venture" isn't going to succeed. it's too much work and you don't have what it takes.

you're not a real writer. no one wants to read what you have to say. and what is it that you have to say again?

you'll never look like that. you'll never do anything or go anywhere because you're not good enough. just look in the mirror.

and then one day [yesterday, even], something happened. it became real to me that i don't have to listen to that voice. i can, in fact, tell the voice to go away. in fact, as scary as writing those thoughts down was, it was equally as freeing. 

i've heard it before, but never really let it sink in...

you don't talk to others that way, why would you talk to yourself like that?

when Christ tells me i am His daughter, a child of the King, fearfully and wonderfully made.

i was convicted, too, that spending my time the way i've been was not in fact "keeping up." it was dangerous and draining. i'm not living a life. i'm wasting it watching others live theirs. and the feelings that are stirred within me from comparing my life to my perceptions of others based on the way they look online are unhealthy. devoting that much time to doing, essentially, nothing is unhealthy. these ways are not life-giving ways.

but, there is hope. turn the computer off. stop looking at others. quit worrying about what other people are doing, feeling bad about myself if they're "getting ahead" or feeling better if i can somehow justify being "superior" [i'm telling you, it's ugly in here sometimes]. 

spend time with my Jesus. go invest myself in friendships. find those things that i love to do, that bring me joy, and do them, without worrying if they will come across as "cool" when posting a facebook status about them.

i'm tired of blindly accepting that this is how i'm supposed to live. He promises me an abundant life. i know it's not the one i'm living. i'm surrendering these patterns and chasing Him, asking Him what He would do with my life. not looking to the left or the right, but straight towards my Savior.




edit: i heard 'the cave' by mumford & sons this morning and realized how perfectly their 6 lines of lyrics said what i am saying:

so make your siren's call

and sing all you want

i will not hear what you have to say

cause i need freedom now

and i need to know how

to live my life as it's meant to be

amen.