God is LOVE... U & I are made by God out of love... & we are meant to love

In my prayer lately, I have been asking God to refine my heart. That He make me a better daughter of His. I have been more critical of myself lately, seeing that I still have many faults, many hangups, etc. And I have been desiring to be a better person, and God knows, and the people closest to me, who need to deal with me day in and day out, know that I have a lot of things to change. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying I have an awful personality, yet I acknowledge that I need refining. I need cutting off of some rough edges.

Rough edges that need to be cut:
1) Be more loving in how I react to conflict
2) Not be late
3) Put more order in my personal things
4) Have a more loving, giving and open heart
5) Be less insecure

I am sure there are more things to be refined in me, but these are the things that I wish to change as of now. And mind you, they are pretty difficult things to do.

From the 5, I would say I have been making improvements with #1. For the dear readers to understand how I, Cay, handles conflict, let me tell share. If I come into an argument, or if there is something wrong, these are my following reactions:
1) I turn quiet
2) I begin to ignore the person I am upset with
3) My being upset keeps replaying in my mind... and the ignoring continues
if you are my Mom, Dad or Vince - let us then proceed to #4
4) Once its all bottled up and it is about to pop, I blurt out my thoughts... and I do it in a very unloving way. I may start to raise my voice, and shout.
5) Then I argue, argue, argue and argue... I will defend my point as long as I can (there are times I think that I should have studied law, coz of the way I defend myself lol)

Anyway, these past weeks, but especially these ast days I have made improvements. They may be small, and they may not apply to all situations yet, but they are changing.

My biggest victory yet was on Sunday. I was upset about something... and I was tempted to start ignoring Vince. BUT I caught myself just at the right time... and I decided to not ignore him. What did I do:
1) I calmly opened the topic and told him what bothered me...

AND oh my did that do me good =) Notice how there was just one step and nothing else followed... coz of that ONE step... "calmly opened the topic of what bothered me", that one step led to a good conversation, which ended up, us affirming each other and allowing us to talk about the issues.

It is soooo humbling to just blurt out, in a loving way, the thing that bothers you. But you see, it is important to do so, because the other does not have super powers and cannot read your mind, like Parkman does in the series "Heroes". You may have to admit to the most lame things that bother you... but it doesn't matter... it needs to be said. And then, you get affirmed that what you are thinking is wrong... and you don't waste your time consuming your mind with the thing that bothers you.

Be sure to build up an open communication. If you do, then you have more opportunities to love! God is love... and you and I are made by God out of love. So our very essence is to be beings who love.

"There are men who would quickly love each other if once they were speak to each other; for when they spoke they would discover that their souls had only separated by phantoms and delusions." -Ernest Hello