"Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it. - Salvador Dali

I've been avoiding my blog because I haven't been able to live up to my post about accepting failure and living in freedom. But, if you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all.

One thing I definitely know is that there is good in everything. As I've been searching for the good in my failure I got to thinkin'. . .We have to let ourselves change. We have to let ourselves believe truth. Live, breath and walk in it. Especially if it is a truth we have never believed before. Because belief is what changes us - sets us free.

I held a 5-month old baby in my arms this week. I have probably held 3 babies in my lifetime and when I looked at her I couldn't help but think about how she was blank. Unscarred. Whole. Healthy. She doesn't yet know of the darkness of this world. It made me think of something I read recently about how we are as helpless before God as a newborn baby is to her mother. I think the analogy got me thinking because I am at a stand-still with job searching and I am not completely sure what I want to do - much less what I'm good at. It's comforting to remember my helplessness. And even better - its humbling. After graduation, there is so much talk and thought put into "what do I want to make of my life," or "where do I want to be in the next few years" that I start to think I really want to choose. When really - I'd rather He chose. I'd rather admit my helplessness and take the first open door and let Him guide me if it all goes wrong.

Perhaps depression is more common in the world today than it used to be. Now. . .I don't know a whole lot about it - but I do know that some people see depression the same way they see ADD: over-diagnosed. A fancy term for when people are sad and too lazy to figure things out. But I don't see it that way at all. I think it is a term to describe when the awareness of my helplessness becomes perverted by my pride. Helplessness which leads to hopelessness and then to darkness. A darkness that enters the soul. Many people (perhaps the people who think depression is over-diagnosed) are able to cut off their helplessness before they lose hope. Whether they lean on God or not, they can distract themselves from their doubts soon enough that they don't give up when they feel overwhelmed by their helplessness. But a whole lot of people can't.

We are supposed to feel helpless. On our own, we are lost. Our complete reliance on God is not weakness, it is beauty. It is grace. If I don't breath in every single day what it is that I believe I get to thinking that my helplessness is a flaw. And all my efforts send me inward into an attack of self. A loss of hope. A world of darkness. A deep depression.

I am a wreck of a person.
But I have a hope beyond myself.