Something Improved & Something to Seek

I took Thanksgiving off which means i’ll be combining posts today.

My daily pace of life has improved. New York is a grind lifestyle for a lot of people. People work really hard to merely make ends me. And on top of that, most things take a good bit of effort. I carried my groceries home. The subway work commutes during rush hour are awful. There’s more, but you get it. When I moved back to the South, my body and mind needed recalibrating. I’m still finding my rhythms and self discipline. It’s taken me a minute to put to practice, because i’ve had a good bit of free time which i’ve filled with TV watching or going for walks. I’m drawing and writing more, and attempting to learn how to play guitar, all for fun. There wasn’t much space for that in my NYC way of living. I’m expanding my definition of creativity and am really grateful for the down time.

Something to Seek is simple - self discipline. I mentioned it above. I’d like to be more disciplined with my rhythms and output. Fear of rejection (failure) is the very convincing inner voice I battle with regularly. It has gotten the best of me time and again. So what I’m seeking is boldness in creativity and self discipline in all areas. Better self discipline with my time management, finances, routines and even free time.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was quite cozy and filling ( all definitions of the word).

Write soon,
SS 🦃

Something Weak

Here we are, the day before my favorite day of the year! I’m already drooling thinking about eating breakfast casserole tomorrow morning as the parade marches down the festive NYC streets. So while that excitement fills my heart, thinking about weaknesses feels like a joy killer. I don’t want that. So how about this:

2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

I think about this verse whenever I’m having one of those I’m not good at anything days. It reminds me to focus on God’s promises of strength and peace. There’s relief too trusting that in my weakness and insecurity, His strength is always there for me. So when I’m running on empty and don’t feel like I’m loving other people or myself well, His strength refills my cup.🫖

Something Powerful

If you need to know one thing about me, it’s that I consider myself the luckiest person in the world because of the people i’ve been able to meet (and be related to). I won the lottery. The something powerful that comes to mind is from the morning I found out my dad passed away. My roommate at the time, Jen, was incredibly loving and gentle with me. The other things that happened were three of my Nashville actor friends drove to see me shortly after they found out. They came in, full of energy and with flowers, candy, and DVDs in town. They put on Mean Girls and hunkered down, allowing me to leave the room to cry when i needed to, and hug me when I needed that. It was incredibly thoughtful. Sometimes it’s hard for me to articulate or identify what I need in a moment - especially one that’s overwhelming. Those girls didn’t waste any time - they just were there, whether I needed them or not - and that day, I needed them more than ever. I’ve experienced that over and over again from close friends and family. The other thing from that day which was hugely impactful was when my pastor, Lloyd, called because he’d heard through the grapevine about my dad. Because of the snow and ice, my car was stuck in the garage and couldn’t make it up the hill to get out of our neighborhood. He assured me that I’d get to Memphis for the funeral, no matter what. Once again, an example of people doing, not waiting for me to ask for what I needed.

The other thing that came to mind while writing the above was thinking about my recent car troubles. I was gifted an older truck when I moved to Georgia. It was fun to drive and I really enjoyed being the girl in the little white truck. However, toward the middle of this year, it started having issues and broke down more than once. This resulted in the truck needing to be in the shop for a good bit of time. Instead of me having to deal with rental car costs in addition to fixing the truck, I had a couple of friends just offer up their cars for me to borrow. They are all single and working more than one job because they’re actors. The generosity and trust still blows my mind. Yet again, I didn’t have to muster up the courage to ask. They heard my stress and offered a solution.

Those are a couple of examples of powerful moments in my life - so full of love. And the people on the other side didn’t ask for anything in return. The saying, “my cup runneth over” comes to mind only, it feels like I have something bigger than a cup - my swimming pool runneth over!