my eyes still search for a purpose. they still hunger for more. they still do not rest without first looking up expectantly. i cannot go to sleep each night without first finding the moon and straining against the artificial, to see the stars…. to find true light.
i believe that yearning is only a mirrored reflection of what is truly going on inside of me. inside of you. inside of us all.
the search for beauty.
its all around us. promised in movies, magazines and tv. its spewed like gospel from the perfect mouths of millionaire spokes models. its preached from every marketplace- beauty, completeness, the hole-filling substance that will make you feel complete, whole.
products, marketing, consumerism, all predicated on the ingrained belief that you are not good enough. that i am not good enough. that we, no one, is good enough. and we never will be. not without this new thing, or that new product, or those ten new techniques. not without this amazing new ______ or that newly reformulated creme. we’re never good enough. but if you spent enough, bought enough, try hard enough, we will be. or so we’re told.
our lives become full of stuff. cluttered, artificial. we spend our days working hard for a paycheck. and we spend our nights and weekends hunting for that next fix, that next thing to complete us. to fill that aching void. we dance the dance of window shoppers. always looking, hoping, never truly finding satisfaction. never truly finding that one thing that completes us. that fills that hole.
we try, we burn ourselves out attempting to be good enough, to fit in. to have or act or say or wear whatever the right things are. all because deep down, we know we are faulty, broken, failed attempts at humanity searching for something with depth, for some form of truth. something that justifies our existence. that tells us our dreams for more, and our constant disappointment each time we find new ‘stuff’, isnt wrong. something that tells us that there is more. that life is out there, calling. that it aches for us to live it as much as we ache to taste true life, true freedom… to taste – truth.
we’re so afraid to show our true selves that we bury it; underneath our jobs or friends, beneath the veneer of wealth, skill or beauty. we hide behind our desks or our hobbies, our religion and our beliefs.
we do all that, fully knowing but never truly grasping that we are all broken, faulty, damaged beings. that we all remember the taste of hopelessness and the emptiness of knowing that we will never be capable of creating the beauty we so long to see.
we know, we just know we will never find what we’re looking for in the mall. but we keep looking anyway.
and you see this. if you dont yet, you will. go to the mall next friday night, find someplace busy and just watch. watch people. you’ll see the anorexic, the drunkard… you’ll see the girl so wanting to be loved she allows herself to be used. you’ll see the kids who’s parents dont care and the adults who’s parents never cared.
they… we… always fearing, always hoping that one day someone will see us. the real us. see through the gloss and find true beauty. the beauty we all hope exists inside of us. we all hope, but we’ve never been brave enough to risk showing it.
we always hope that someone would recognize the value in us, see that beauty, see beyond our brokenness and offer unmerited, unearned and wholly unconditional love.
FindingTheCourageToDream.com 
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September 7, 2008 at 1:10 pm
April
You, my friend are walking in your calling. Just wait until the news gets out. Lives will change everywhere. And not because you have figured it all out or have walked into all the answers to your questions….but because you are allowing Him to overtake every desire to run away, to walk alone, to try to be good enough on your own. You are allowing Him to settle your heart. Do you see it, PJ? The testimony He has given you…is giving you…has given you purpose…His purpose…to see His kingdom come…to see His heart’s cry fulfilled in the lives of a broken generation.