Where I Live and What I Live For

         I was given an assignment for one of my classes to write a paper (in first person which was exciting because we aren't ever allowed to do that!!) and as I wrote it, I thought it would maybe be an appropriate blog. Happy Tuesday-the weekend is coming!

         For a person to know where he lives is not a huge accomplishment, but to know that where he lives affects him greatly is. In the same sense, to know what he lives for is the stepping stone to great success that is so often overlooked. To make it more personal, I will put it this way. To know where you live is not as simple as reciting to me the address you drive home to each day or even the town in which you live. To tell me where you live is to explain how your home or homeland has formed the person you are today. What do you see when you see your address or the name of your town? Likewise, to know what you live for is much deeper than living to simply get thorough school and one day create a happy family. Knowing what you live for reaches to the depths of what makes you tick and what makes you want to stop ticking.

            I will start with the simpler of the two, where I live. I have, since birth, lived in this “small town” of Hartwell, Georgia. As a child, I spent much time with my cousin outside either playing in the water hose, riding the four-wheeler or running the car battery down playing “take the kids to daycare”. To me, a person’s childhood is one of the biggest factors in their becoming of who they will be, the friends they will adapt to and the legacy they will leave behind. For me, it has created an aura of simplicity and enjoying what you have, while you have it. Before you know it, everything changes and there will be absolutely nothing you can do about it but simply accept it, which isn’t simple at all. Although this town is small in population; in heart, passion, drama and gossip, it is not. There is and will always be someone ready to lend a hand, a home, or a heart, and sometimes, the same person ready to lend a stab in the back when they tell your deepest secrets or just totally turn on you. One of the greatest things this small town has taught me is that if I don’t want anyone knowing my personal business, I better just tell it to my mom because otherwise, I am just as well off to tweet it rather than tell a “friend”. I live in a place that gives me daily reminders that although spending time pampering myself or catching up on the latest Netflix hot pick is quite fun and sometimes necessary, it is more important to get an education and make myself the best I can be now so I can have more freedom to choose who I will be later.

            Now the hard part, what I live for. I believe this is the single most thing we struggle to truthfully identify. Unfortunately, what I live for is often pushed aside or defined according to how my day is going. In all honesty, I am trying so hard to figure this out for myself. As bad as I want to say that I whole heartedly live for the Lord and wake up daily, gleaming with a smile, asking him what I can do to serve him, it isn’t the case. In fact, most days I don’t even remember waking up because nine times out of ten I am late and so my whole morning is an absolute blur between getting myself and my dog fed and ready to go for the day. While my heart earnestly desires to live completely for the moment that someone finally accepts Christ, the memories made with family that will last a lifetime, or the crazy nights spent with the best of friends, my flesh typically over powers that desire and I find myself living for the way I feel on the outside by the way I dress, the amount of likes I can get on my Instagram post, or the faster I can run on my horse at the barrel race. Our heart is totally wrapped in what we live for, thus causing us to be identified by it. I do not want to be identified by my social media usernames or my placing at the horse show. It is more important that I am identified by the way I make others feel, the way I truly feel about myself when I lay down at night and my relationship with the Lord.

            The best way to really start living a life that fulfills you and that others notice is to identify these things. Where you live and how it molds you and what you are living for and why you have chosen to live for that.

 

Stay Humble, Stay Happy.

xoxo, Kins