Have you ever been hurt by someone? (Insert sarcasm.) Of course, YOU HAVE! From the time we were young, we were getting hurt by people. Friends, family, peers on the playground, there are an endless amount of opportunities to get hurt in this life. I have some of the most amazing friends and family a girl could ask for, but that doesn’t mean my relationships come with no cost. There are so many opportunities for misunderstandings…

Do you ever feel like you are being taken advantage of? Whether it be family, friends, or coworkers it is easy to feel like people are taking more than they should from us. This week I share the solution to never be taken advantage of again! Want to know it for yourself. Here it is…

In honor of Carter and I celebrating our thirteenth wedding anniversary, I decided to write about love. What is love? Here is a bit of what love is to me. “Love is surprisingly exciting and exceptionally mundane. It is found in traveling around the world together, but also sitting on the couch…” What is love to you?

(I was given the opportunity to be a guest on the "Inside Out" podcast. Check out the link at the end of this article.)

I made a choice long ago to be a person who loves. Over the years, I have slowly grown my capacity to love much like exercising a muscle to gain strength. Loving big is without a doubt the best thing I have ever done in my life.

But let me let you in on something I have learned…

Love sucks.

I used to think people were pretty simple. I thought we all wanted to get along and be happy, but sometimes life simply got in the way. As I have gotten older, I realize that may be true for me, but it certainly isn’t true for everyone.

Not everyone feels the need to live peacefully.

I am now convinced, some people actually enjoy creating chaos particularly during times they feel chaos inside of themselves.

Some people crave the tension.

They relish the push back.

They enjoy the storm.

Living an honest, genuine life comes at a cost and I have found not everyone is willing to pay the price.

It can feel so natural to tell a simple lie to avoid difficulty or awkwardness in our life. There are many reasons we choose to lie, here are six that I have come across …

Growing up, I heard the term “unconditional love” a lot. Honestly, I had the mindset that unconditional love was everywhere. I thought every friend and family member I had would love me, value me, and honor me without condition.

Of course, it didn’t take me long to learn the harsh reality that unconditional love wasn’t as common as I thought. In reality, there are a whole lot of conditions to the relationships we live, some spoken and some unspoken…

Do you feel alone? It is so easy to feel alone in this world. We can be in the middle of a crowded room, yet still feel alone. We may have hundreds or even thousands of “friends” and “followers”, yet feel completely isolated. We can talk with people, work with people, and live with people, yet no one knows what we are going through.

Why do so many people feel alone right now? Why do people feel so much anxiety, fear, and depression? Why are we so isolated? We have more ways to connect than ever before so how are we more disconnected than any other time in history?

I have had years of my life that I felt very isolated. There was so much going on within me that no one knew about...

I have a lot of goals in this life. One of my goals is to die without bitterness. Maybe you think this is a silly goal, but as I have gotten older, it is becoming more and more apparent how difficult this is going to be. There are so many disappointing things that happen in this life…

Babe,

Here we are again. This is our 17th Valentine’s Day together and I would say we have the swing of it at this point.

I love that I know there is a 99% chance there are no surprises coming. (Although those two times you surprised me were pretty fun!)

I love that we both laughed this morning when I asked if you had a surprise get-a-way to the Bahamas planned for today. I love that I asked you if I should pick up my own chocolate covered strawberries or if you had it covered.

I love that at some point I know I will probably receive a card from you that looks like it was painted by Bob Ross and I will roll my eyes and laugh at your card picking skills. I love that I won’t be surprised by anything you say in the card because I know exactly how you feel about me...

I used to be a person of very conditional love. It was common for me to lower people’s value based on my perception of them and their choices. 

Which is quite interesting considering I have spent my entire life dedicated to a faith based on love.

For the past decade, I have been growing my capacity to love and I am quite pleased to say that I am now able to offer love to even the most frustrating of persons.

My ultimate goal?

Unconditional love.  

I have been through a lot with people through the years and I get it.

People suck...

I hear the things that you have said and I understand that you would like me to be different. I hear you, but it seems that you are incapable of hearing me because you are too busy judging me.

If you need to judge me then do what you must. Not that long ago, I would’ve judged me too...

Many people do not realize that I am a recovering control freak who was born with a natural ability to manipulate people. From the time I was little, I can remember watching people, listening and learning how people reacted to certain things. From parents, to teachers, to friends, I liked to read people and once I did, I learned how to give them what they wanted for one primary reason... so that I could get what I wanted.

I have a handful of moments that have shaped me as a person. This being one. I sat on my couch feeling quite defenseless and humble. I will never forget the moment that I was sitting in front of her.

I knew what I had to do.

I had to ask for forgiveness.

Why?

Because I had betrayed her.

I have always been a very opinionated person. I never had to be taught how to have strong convictions and to speak up for what I believed. I just did. These strong convictions left me with a very narrow path of what I believed was right.

I wouldn't chase after confrontation, but I sure didn't shy away from it when someone challenged me. I had my opinions, for good reason, and I stood by my beliefs. This caused me to enter into many arguments and I did so with confidence because I was sure that my opinion was correct. Absolutely positive.

I used to feel so proud of my opinions. That was then...

When I have frustrations in my life, my first instinct is to look around and find the source of my frustration. This usually ends in me finding the person responsible. Someone must be at fault, right? And it isn’t me. I then put my frustration on that person, whether in secret or to their face.

Only recently have I realized how truly unproductive this process actually is. This way of handling things is focused primarily on one thing and that is…

blame.

Most of us think of people as being secure or insecure. I don’t believe that some people are secure and some people are insecure. I believe that we are ALL, both, insecure and secure. It just depends on the moment.

I am insecure. I am unsure. I doubt who I am, what I do and what I say. I feel like I get it wrong too often. I fall short more than I would like.

I am insecure.

No, not at this moment. At this moment, I am fine. I am confident. At this moment, I am secure, but maybe not the next or the one after that....

In many ways, our first ten years of marriage have gone as I expected they would. My husband is a wonderfully, kind man who has loved me well. We have chased our dreams and seen many of them come true. Most of our days have been beautiful, but not all of them...

I love Carter more today than ever before, this is our fifteenth Valentine’s Day together and I still get excited to spend it with him. Our life together has been an adventure. We have traveled the world, had three children and are planning more, we laugh often, value one another, we have accomplished many of our dreams and have many more on the list! Life together is exciting.

People sometimes say how lucky we are to have such a great relationship. In one sense I understand that they are saying we are fortunate and blessed (which we are), but luck has nothing to do with the relationship that we have...