Me blaming God...

I can't sleep...

So I might as well rant here.

I've been bothered by something lately. And honestly I was having the tendency to blame God for it. That's being brutally honest of me there.

"Why can't I sleep Lord??" I would exclaim... punching the bed.

Why aren't you allowing me to??

And yeah I told myself that I can't blame God. And so I dug deeper, searching for what was really bothering me and cutting me off from my sleep.

Geez... I happily slept at 10pm. Then I suddenly woke up at 1.30am and not being able to sleep any more.

Probably I had energy again to fuel that thing that was pestering me.

I searched, and started to feel fear.
Fear that I was inadequate. That I was not good enough.
I realized I had based myself on the expectations of other people. That I have to be good, I have to love the poor. I have to be good in my studies, I have to be this, I have to be that.

And if I didn't reach any of those expectations I would start to scramble and try my best to do whatever is required but I would fail. I then would start to feel guilty, and feel like a failure.
Like I lost their love for me because I wasn't able to be what they wanted me to be.

I felt my anger escalate and I started to lash back at those things, at all those expectations. I felt like a rebel; "I don't need you to tell me what to do." "I'll do them if I want to." "Stop pushing me around."
(I'm not really the type of person who likes to confront others, so all these were going on in me.)

Look, sorry I can't live up to your expectations ok... I just wanted to feel loved.

I already knew that God loved me just as I am. But it was just very recent that I have started to take it to heart.

So it can't be God's fault for what was going on in me.

And so I had two conflicting things. God loving me just as I am, and the other saying that I have to be good and all that stuff or else I won't be loved.

I realized that I have been chasing those things for love when I actually already had love in me. Just like those cartoon characters with a carrot dangling in front of him and he keeps chasing it never to actually catch it.

From there I realized that I had learned to place high expectations on myself. (And probably on others as well.) Disguising them as "I have to aim high." "High goals" Then I would look at myself and feel like a failure for not reaching those 'high goals'.

Chasing something, and the harder I went after it the more elusive it got.

I don't want to do something out of somebody's expectation, or anything at all...

I recently learned that God loves me just as I am, even if I wake up in the morning and I haven't done anything good, He still loves me.
I don't have to do anything good and He will still love me.

So you ask me... Why then be good? Why not just be bad? Since He will still love me anyway.

Because I have tasted and felt His Love, It is hard not to be good or not to do good.
(Originally from Bo Sanchez's talk -"How to mature in your spirit.")

It is His Love that will transform me, I just have to accept and receive it. Grace...

Therefore I want to do things out of love, to give love, and not to be the one chasing it.
To overflow with love, and that love will bless the people around me.

Love,
Gabby "The life giver"