I’m moving. To blogspot. I know… I know. I’m not even going to explain myself. It’s my blog-life anyways. I do what I want.

back here: www.kyliebennett.blogspot.com

If you are curious, here’s how I see it:

ability to edit html + comment capabilities = best of both worlds.

Maybe this is the heart of our hang-up, the root of our dilemma. We fluctuate between castigating ourselves and congratulating ourselves because we are deluded into thinking we save ourselves. We develop a false sense of security from our good works and scrupulous observance of the law. Our halo gets too tight and a carefully-disguised attitude of moral superiority results. Or, we are appalled by our inconsistency, devastated that we haven’t lived up to our lofty expectations of ourselves. The roller coaster ride of elation and depression continues.

Why?

Because we never lay hold of our nothingness before God, and consequently, we never enter into the deepest reality of our relationship with Him. But when we accept ownership of our powerlessness and helplessness, when we acknowledge that we are pauper at the door of God’s mercy then God can make something beautiful out of us.

Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 78

So much of the sum of fall semester, for me, was realizing just how deep most of my perfectionist tendencies fun. It felt like wave after wave of failing to meet expectations––some from others, but most from myself. 

I always knew I was sort-of a perfectionist. I mean, when you’re an academic over-achiever you start to figure it out. But what I didn’t realize, and still don’t fully understand I’m sure, is how this mindset infiltrates beyond just objective accomplishments and menial tasks like cleaning and homework. Perhaps what’s most disturbing about perfectionism is the way it comes out in how I relate to others, even how I relate to my Creator. 

Re-reading The Ragamuffin Gospel sounds like a sweet song to this heavy, perfectionism-heavy heart. This quote is just a small piece of why his words are a much needed reminder.

There is so much rest and grace found admitting, both to myself and to others, that I am powerless and helpless, a “pauper at the door of God’s mercy.” 

So, I admit, to myself mostly, that I wreak with inconsistencies, am full of good-intentions fallen short, foibles and failures, a wandering heart, riddled with insecurities and anxieties, both coaxed and defeated by pride, and infused with self-reliance and miserable mistrust. I am no spiritual-giant, holy have-it-all-together, or arrived mature one, but a needy, weak-kneed, prayerless nobody.

(Feels good, doesn’t it? Yes, yes it does.)

There’s grace, truth, and love in the House of Honesty. I’d much rather live there.

And yet I find that, as the church, we’re much more comfortable in the House of Having-It-All-Together, both for ourselves and for others. I see it in how we share testimonies: we nod and smile when someone shares about how bad they used  to be, all the sinfulness they used to do, because now they’ve stopped. Yes, we rejoice in Christ’s ability to transform a life, but there’s another problem. Are we more willing to hear about a dirty past when it’s now “taken care of” in the present, than we are willing to listen to someone’s current struggles? 

We must create communities where present fears, struggles, insecurities, temptations, short-comings, and brokenness can be shared in safety––communities that respond in grace. Otherwise, we’re lying to ourselves and to the rest of the world, (who looks at us as hypocrites because our fears, struggles, insecurities, temptations, short-comings, and brokenness are still there whether we admit it or not, they see right through our act).

So thankful for the people who are that safe community for me. The response I get there reminds me of the grace-filled response of my Heavenly Father, and there’s nothing more assuring than that. 

…. for now.

Fo the maybe two of you who have been [trying] to follow me in this blogging saga, you know that I’ve made countless blogs my home. Even this one! My last post was in September of 2010, over a year ago. 

But… I’m back!

Here’s what I want for this blog:

I want to write.

I want to document life.

I want a visual journal, of sorts. But less unnecessarily personal and more visually interesting. Hence, a visual journal.

I want to post without thought of an audience.

I want to have a place where I gather my personal musing, inspirations, contemplations, that I’m willing to share with the internet world (because, let’s be real, I’m not going to write everything on here.)

I want to look back in a year and smile as I remember the months, days, seasons of life as shown through this blog’s lens.

Pretty simple.

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justawildthought:

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