Writing about thinking about thinking about thoughts.

A fun thing to do is think about thoughts. About controlling them, thinking about only what you want to be thinking about. Actions are different, and actions are important, but there are so many thoughts flying through my head that are never transformed into action.

For example, in my thoughts I often tend to be very intimidated and easily threatened. These make my actions very inhibited. I shrink into myself and don't think about how silly it is to feel that way - or think those thoughts. I don't want them to reign over me like that.

Last semester I was journaling about this, about how frustrated I get when I realize that I'm just disappearing because I feel...well, whatever that feeling is that makes me that way sometimes. And I wrote down a little phrase that I often repeat to myself and has turned into a bit of a theme song for me. It's simple:

I am who I am

Love me or hate me

God made me

Three silly little lines, but somehow they are so empowering. First of all to remind myself that I just am who I am, and nothing is changing that; I should not be ashamed of it. And to remember that God created me, formed me in my mother's womb, fearfully and wonderfully made.

"O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

You are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.

You hem me in - behind and before;

You have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is to wonderful for me,

Too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

If I settle on the far side of the sea,

Even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,'

Even the darkness will not be dark to you;

The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;

You knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Your works are wonderful, I know that full well."

Psalm 139:1-14

A blog about my recent trip to Washington is in the works - but we did so many things that it is taking foreeeveeeer to write.