..::Quality Vs. Quantity::..

Quality Vs. Quantity is a topic that I've been rattling around in my brain for quite some time. I think it's all about a persons personality whether one or the other is more important to them. Some people are more introverted, or extroverted, or some where in the middle. Those qualities are going to be the first that help determine if quantity interests you.

Quality on the other hand is a tricky one. There are a great deal of people who will say, well why can't I have both? To that I say: it's kind of like that triangle on that one episode of Bernie Mac, lol! You can get fast & cheap but it won't be good, you can get good & cheap but it won't be fast, or you can get fast & good but it won't be cheap! With quality you have to put in time, effort, and care to get the best results possible. When you take short cuts or cut corners you get below par results.

Many people have a fascination with popularity and power don't even know it. When they are slighted or when they run into a person or a situation that has passed it's reason & season they will still hold on for dear life, why, out of that pride & ego. The desire to be liked, loved, & admired can cause people to jump into situations that send up ginormous red flags that say "quality does not live here" and yet you're still holding on. It's all about those core values and when you value quality over quantity but are smack in the middle of quantity people if your pride is in the mix or low self-esteem or little insight & acceptance of who you truly are you'll often wonder why it is that certain patterns continue to repeat themselves or why certain relationships or friendships continue to not work out. Of course other factors play a part in it but the fundamental building blocks need to be similar in order for there to be any reliability in the foundation.

Quantity isn't a bad thing for a lot of people. A great deal of people love to be surrounded by others, they love to network and have many people in their circle that could potentially be an asset in one way or another to them. While they may be a truly quality person they don't always see that you are a mirror (which is partly composed of family and those people you didn't choose to be in your life) that reflects those that you choose to have in your life. A person of quality can spread themselves very thin in a room of quantity. If you have several quality people reflecting your quality in your inner circle but then have far more people who are about quantity in that same circle they will over power them, and you can become lost. Being a person of quality you can also be searching for signs & actions that people of quantity aren't able to show you, you can be naive in situations, and continue to put your trust & feelings on the line in a situation that is not going to end well for you.

As stated earlier, everyone is different and if you are truly a person of quantity and it works for you then there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, however, if you are a person of quality attempting to have it all in a world of quantity be prepared to be a reflection of that quantity both positively & negatively. What I've learned in my experience and I'm sure is not true for all: is that if I regard myself to be a person of substance and others around me reveal themselves to not be of better or equal substance then I must classify them where they are in their journey, not in comparison to mine, and determine based on that how much influence/time they are allotted in my life.

Personal Journey(s)

:::Warning::: This post is riddled with personal opinion!

Being that I was never "raised" in the church I had a very difficult time as I got older attempting to find a church that I felt a sense of belonging too. When I was in Undergrad I had the pleasure of finding one church that truly felt like home to me, unfortunately, it is located three hours or so away from my actual home! I have always had faith no matter the level of exposure I had to church or the sporadic Sunday school trips we made when I was younger. I just always believed in God, and in Jesus Christ and that he did in fact die for my sins! I chose to get baptized the week after I graduated from college because I was ready to make my public declaration of faith at that time.

In reading this I'm sure you're saying oh okay well that sounds great despite your upbringing not being consistently grounded in a church family and etc. you were able to find Jesus and follow the necessary steps to become saved... But when I came home from college I found a church similar to the one that I used to go to in Undergrad and attended for some time but something just didn't resonate with me as it had in the previous setting. As time went on and I got busier I attended less and less. I never turned my back on my personal relationship with God but I had less time and less motivation to attempt to find another church or to make the one I was going to work.

I then started to think about why it was so important to go to church. I understood that it is important to fellowship with Gods people and the church is a place to give praise and worship to God as well as having a place to pay your tithes and so on and so forth. So for those who have been able to find that connection and that stability in a church I'm super glad for you, but it was apparent that I was having a great deal of difficulty doing so.

Well when Grad. school came about and all the craziness that goes along with it, the life/relationship/situational changes and etc. I decided to stop making myself feel bad for not having found that "right" place for me yet! I took a year to spiral into darkness that was overworking, and overpushing myself. Then I took a year to get myself together and work on my relationship with me, well more like a year and a half. Now I feel like I have so much more to offer my relationship with God. This year my focus is to take more time to talk to God, to study the word, read my devotionals, and work my way back to a place where I'm ready to look for and know what exactly I am looking for in a home church.

I found myself giving myself such a hard time and feeling so guilty that I was not going to church on a regular basis and at one point I just stopped and said wait a minute!!! I know that God wants me to be a part of a church but I'm pretty sure that he cares most about my relationship with him and that he has put me in the position that I am currently in and the situations that I have been through to lead me to be the very person I am, and to be on the very journey that I am currently on. For some I may be intellectualizing the situation too much, but if I've learned nothing over the last several years I have learned that every person is different, their personality and the way the think and feel and respond is different than the next persons. I can't let someone else's expectations of me or my desire to please others determine the decisions I make and how I live my life. I'll get where it is that he is leading me when I get there and that's all I really care about anymore, and for that I'm happy.

The Key To Disappointment

The key to disappointment is to set your expectations of others and yourself to a level that is unrealistic and maintain it there.
The key to disappointment is to believe that because you "love" "care about" or "know" someone that they will change for and/or because of you.
The key to disappointment is to ignore your instincts and your brain and follow your heart alone.
The key to disappointment is to continue to make excuses for yourself and others and continue to force change.
The key to disappointment is to view your perception as fact.

The key to not being disappointment is to keep your trust in God and don't place your situation and needs above those of others but in relation to the needs and situations of others.

The Way of Love

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

¹ If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. ²If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. ^{3 -7}If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

^{8 -10}Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

¹¹When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

¹²We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

¹³But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

The Message (MSG)

Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Three point Five Years

3.5 years will be summed up by a commencement ceremony to receive one piece of paper, but in that 3.5 yrs I've built, developed, & ended relationships, I've fought w/ those I love(d) been cared for & betrayed. I've learned too many lessons to summarize, stayed up long nights writing papers, worked 10,11,12, & 13 hr days, while doing 7,9, & 10 cr hrs worth of classes. Drove two or more hours per day to work & school & back, worked overtime, overnights, dealt with crisis & being treated like a taxi service. While being present for marriages, divorces, cancers, heart attacks, births, & deaths. I've fallen out of & in love with counseling & w/ people. I've doubted myself & my ability, gained & regained my confidence, learned new skills & honed others. Pinched pennies, borrowed money, time, and food, given my last, my best, my all. Prayed for clarity, meditated in stillness for an answer. I've learned who truly wants to see me succeed & who could careless. I've demanded a lot of myself lived through the arguments & put myself back together when the love was gone. I've learned what it's like to be truly exhausted & continue on another day, how to have a 103 degree temperature and still get to work & class. I've learned when to say "no more", the difference between self-care & selfishness. What 6 day 60 hr work weeks & 6 hours of sleep per night do to your body and your mind, and still carried others worries & struggles on my shoulders, lived through the mood swings mine & others, the body aches, the cramps, the physical rundown of the emotional and mental strain. I've expanded my horizons, obtained new levels, learned what balance is and isn't. I've jumped with excitement for 53 credit hours of A's & 3 credit hours of B's all the same, I've changed... I've GROWN! I've felt the excitement of helping someone get to the next level, solve a problem, start over, feel empowered & encouraged, and renew them self. I've escaped to closets & secluded bathrooms to hyperventilate and cry and sunny beaches to soak it in and renew. One piece of paper can not even begin to describe what the last 3 years and soon to be 3.5 years of my life have been. So if you see me walk across that stage in May with tears & a smile, you can say now that you know why!