For most of my short life, I have never looked much into blogs. I find myself to be a pretty private person so the idea of really laying it all out there for anyone in the whole wide world to see instantly gives me a wave of anxiety. I do have social media accounts, but when you are limited to only 140 characters, there is no way you could share too much.
However, it has been here recently that I have found myself very interested in blogs. There are two blogs that I check every so often, both of which are written by people I don't exactly know, but know of. I would check in to their blogs almost in a way of checking in on the two women, two women that I did not even know. I reached out to my Momma and told her of my idea to create my own, I said I would never want anyone close to me to get ahold of this, except her. My communication and writing skills are one of the very best skills my mom taught to me and one way I feel like we truly connect.
For so long I had a lot of trouble with praying because I worry I was or am being too selfish. "Really Olivia, you're praying about a finance exam when there are people without a warm dinner to have tonight..." is one of the many examples that I could give you. So I started to think of the most "appropriate" way I could pray, and finally one day it came to me. I learned to pray to God to "Lighten My Heart, and Ease My Stress." This is a personal prayer I send up to The Big Guy upstairs every. single. day. If not more. Hence the name of my very first blog and post.
I am constantly worrying, it is a flaw of mine that I have been working on fixing but am just skimming the surface of how to really accept and deal with. At one of my darkest times, I closed my eyes to send up a prayer and the words seemed to just roll off my tongue. I prayed to God not for him to eliminate the "things" or "problems" that were bothering me, but for him to Lighten My Heart, and Ease My Stress. I did not want to ask for God to fix every single problem I have ever had at the flip of the switch, because that's not how communicating with Him works (in my eyes). So, I instead took a different approach. I realized that my hardships will come and go for the rest of my life, all meaning different things and teaching me new lessons. I use this prayer to ask God to help prepare me/get me to a state of mind where I CAN handle whatever comes my way. With a lighter heart, and a little less worrying about whatever it may be.
-Liv
