Stuck, lately. Comparison is often the thief of joy. 

thunderpopcola:

This is how you lose her. 

You lose her when you forget to remember the little things that mean the world to her: the sincerity in a stranger’s voice during a trip to the grocery, the delight of finding something lost or forgotten like a sticker from when she was five, the selflessness of a child giving a part of his meal to another, the scent of new books in the store, the surprise short but honest notes she tucks in her journal and others you could only see if you look closely.

You must remember when she forgets. 

You lose her when you don’t notice that she notices everything about you: your use of the proper punctuation that tells her continuation rather than finality, your silence when you’re about to ask a question but you think anything you’re about to say to her would be silly, your mindless humming when it is too quiet, your handwriting when you sign your name in blank sheets of paper, your muted laughter when you are trying to be polite, and more and more of what you are, which you don’t even know about yourself, because she pays attention.

She remembers when you forget. 

You lose her for every second you make her feel less and less of the  beauty that she is. When you make her feel that she is replaceable. She wants to feel cherished. When you make her feel that you are fleeting. She wants you to stay. When you make her feel inadequate. She wants to know that she is enough and she does not need to change for you, nor for anyone else because she is she and she is beautiful, kind and good.

You must learn her. 

You must know the reason why she is silent. You must trace her weakest spots. You must write to her. You must remind her that you are there. You must know how long it takes for her to give up. You must be there to hold her when she is about to. 

You must love her because many have tried and failed. And she wants to know that she is worthy to be loved, that she is worthy to be kept.

And, this is how you keep her.

(via sporadicism)

I had a hurricane of thoughts plowing through my mind right around when we departed for a weekend at Yosemite. Lately, it’s been a constant uphill battle for peace- and the incline just continues to get steeper. But somehow, hiking Yosemite shed new light on what it means to be a conqueror.

For some reason, I had it in my head that the act of conquering implicitly negated any sort of struggle. But in actuality, to conquer is to build up collective moments of little struggles and muster just enough strength to overcome. You don’t climb the mountain in one massive sprint. Instead, you persevere with hundreds of thousands of small steps; one foot in front of the other, at a steady pace. With each step, a pocket of victory. With each rest, an invitation to give up.

And so it goes in the spirit as in the physical. It seems so much easier to take the easy route, backslide to square one, and only see a tiny glimpse of the beauty that awaits at the mountaintop. And how foolishly satisfied we are by a peek, a mere fraction of what we’re meant to behold.

But after the seemingly never ending ascent, right when you feel that you can endure no more testing of strength, you reach the top of the mountain. And you realize that you now stand atop the peak- the very same one that towered over you so impressively, when you began. Its a new kind of smallness you feel now. Not an imposing smallness brought upon by anything of the physical, but a reverential humility in realization of the Creator:

“We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.” -Charlotte Brontë

In light of this past week.