Forgiveness

I'm in training for a very special trip this summer. I'm excited about it because the opportunity walked up to me. I love when I don't have to go searching, but things find me! I'm working on the third training lesson, which is forgiveness. I'm always surprised by how many things and people I need to forgive. It's one of the disadvantages of being a really sensitive, and prideful person; you're always getting hurt. I just realize more and more how I have to be proactive about forgiving because hurt and resentment build up so easily. Once it's built up, it's so very hard to break down. Better to allow God to root it out early on. In many ways it's a very essential lesson for me right now. I don't know why I'm always trying to hide my weaknesses from God, but I'm so glad that He keeps bringing issues to light. These training lessons are also very cool because you have to share what you're learning with two other people.

I started reading Obama's first book. I'm enjoying it so far. I think it's because he's a decent writer and because I relate so much to his story. I understand how difficult is to learn what it means to be black. In some ways I think he had it tougher than I did. I mean both of my parents were immigrants so it was always clear to me that I was an outsider. But for him he was an outsider/insider, privileged/ underprivileged, foreigner/local - simultaneously. It's a tough world to navigate as you try to figure out who you are, whenever everywhere you look someone is telling you what you are supposed to be. I'm looking forward to what he learns and how he decides to embrace who he is.

Another thing that resonated with me, is that slimy feeling you get when you make fun of one of your own in order to be cool, or fit in. I think it's one of the worst feelings in the world when you realize that you've done the very thing you hate to someone else, in order to have a few seconds of acceptance from people who don't care about you.