Constructive Criticism?

         First things first I need to do a roommate shout out, Becky Fain has recently introduced me to Miller’s Creek North Carolina and I can now say that I fell in love with it this week. Also, I’d like to thank every single one of my Elementary teachers for all the hard work and preparation for every school year. Helping get a classroom all setup for school to start is NO easy task. I didn’t realize how much work goes into it until I began living with a teacher, I guess I just always thought that everything was prepared for them. Crazy I know.

         With that being said, I need to be very transparent with y’all today. We talked about criticism this morning at church and at first I didn’t think that it was something that I’d have to pay much attention to honestly. But the more my Pastor spoke I realized that I’ve been on the giving and receiving end of some painful criticism. I never thought that what I was saying was considered as criticism until today. I need to be a lot more careful with how I talk about certain situations. It’s easy to get caught up emotionally with something and say more then you should or saying something that is way out of line. One situation in particular comes to mind for me. An old boss of mine made some decisions (non-work related) that I didn’t agree with. I’ve never talked about any of this on here but a lot of my close friends and family have more then likely heard me on more then one occasion vent about it. What I was doing was doing more harm then good for me but I didn’t realize it until today. It was showing zero respect for him because of the fact that I didn’t agree with what was going on. And by me talking about it so much out of frustration and sadness, it opened the door for others to do the same with me. So starting today I won’t be talking about it anymore. I have to guard my own heart and doing that will help me to guard his as well. If you read this and you know the specific situation that I’m talking about I would like to ask you to help hold me accountable with this. If you have no idea then your prayers are definitely welcome as always!

         As far as receiving negative criticism goes though, I never really noticed that that was exactly what it was until today. And I don’t think that the people that were dishing it out were doing it with those intentions at all, it just kind of happened. A lot of people have expectations for my life, not bad ones at all. In fact they are actually really great things that they wish for me. But I think that it has somehow turned into them living vicariously through me. Those dreams and expectations have never been mine, but somehow I let myself believe that they were. Recently I’ve been learning more about myself and about my God-given purpose so that part of the message this morning didn’t slap me across the face quite the way the first part did, BUT it still was painful to hear. I’ve been living my life for 24 years to please others, whether that was my parents, grandparents, friends, a previous roommate, leaders etc. and doing whatever I THOUGHT was supposed to be done. And for the past 6 months I’ve been living my life to change their minds about some things I’m choosing to do but at the same time not being 100% honest with them about what the Lord is calling me to do. All of that being said, from now on I’ll be doing my best to follow the calling on my life without worrying about impressing or disappointing certain people. After all the Lord didn’t call me to serve them, which is ultimately what I’ve been doing by being so worried about what they would think.

         That’s about all of the vulnerability I can dish out for the moment so I’m call it quits for the day. But in other news, this past week I was told about two different jobs and seriously was considering one of them because of the consistent schedule. But I asked the Lord what I needed to be doing since I didn’t feel like I was working all that much with this cleaning company. He answered by delivering 40 hours of cleaning for this week coming up and a bunch of new clients for the next foreseeable weeks. Needless to say I’m sticking with Truly Spotless :)