Shana Nicole

  There are two days that you must surrender. The first is the day you surrender living the way you think everybody else wants you to live. The second is the day you surrender living the way you think you should live. At least that's how it was for me. I thought I was making room for God's plan when I gave up the life I never really wanted to start with. But really, I only replace that life with my own plans. It's not enough to just surrender everything outwardly to make room for something Greater; you also have to surrender your inner world, your own beliefs as to how you will get there or how it should happen. You have to get out of your own way, too. It may be your vision, and it was given to you for a reason, but at the end of the day God's plans are always better than ours. I cleared the canvas, thinking I was making room for whatever God was calling me to do. Yet, I didn't invite God to paint the picture. It's time for me to hand over the paint brush and l...

Maybe there are times when our greatest act of love is to keep somebody out… To push them away. To leave them alone. Because even though you tell yourself you’re pushing them away because you’re afraid to be hurt…maybe the truth is something much darker. And much more painful to face than that lowly heartbreak and abandonment I thought I was running from. Maybe you push them away, because some part of you knows that if you stay… They will have to endure a monster. Maybe when they leave, you let them go with such ease because deep down you know–it was only a matter of time. You know it’s only a matter of time until they meet the beast…and you’re left all alone all over again. In the end, it's best to just push them away.  Because it always ends the same–you will feel broken. And you will do damage.  That second part is pretty hard to swallow. That I have done damage. That I have, in certain ways, been abusive. That I have hurt all the people that I have loved so deeply. That I ...

  This is my world, right? I get to decide how this goes for me.  I can choose a world that’s good to me, that loves me back. A world that is on my side.  A world that doesn’t hurt me. A world that isn’t against me. I can choose that.  “I haven’t met the new me yet.”  I don’t want to think the world is against me anymore. I get that a lot of my beliefs come from a little girl that was just trying to protect herself, but when do I finally accept that I’m safe? I want to let my walls down. Fearlessly.  Stop looking for things to be wrong. Start appreciating all that is good.  I deserve for things to be this good. I deserve a life I love.  I’m done with questioning that. I deserve this. I earned this. I choose to see a world that wants me to do well. I choose to believe that I am blessed–even if not everything looks that way at the moment. I am choosing the positive. I am choosing a better world for me.

     I've spent my whole life with a long list of "Someday"s in the back of my mind, knowing that those are the things I actually want  to do--not someday, but right now.      A long list I've been pushing to the back of my mind, knowing it was on the forefront of my heart.     There is no more someday.     Someday is today .