We stood, steady as the stars in the wood, so happy hearted & the warmth rang true inside these bones.

Sometimes I write letters. Sometimes I write letters to people just to figure out what it is that I would want to say. Most times, in these letter writing scenarios, when I'm writing to figure out where I am, how I'm feeling, I don't send them. I have a few times, but usually that's totally mine. Usually, I don't let anyone else in on that. Usually, that's something really sacred, and special to me. I like that I have shared them a few times, because those times keep me grounded. Those times keep the process valid. I could at some point, actually want to share this with the name at the top. That keeps me from leaving reality and going off into some alternate universe where everything revolves around me. But the fact that most times these letters never leave my journal makes them real, too. Statistically, it is more likely that I will keep this to myself, than share it with anyone. And so, I'm really not trying to just be nice. I'm really not trying to just be mean. I'm really not interested in making things sound particularly good or well written. I'm really not trying to be anything other than honest.

The more I do this little exercise, the more I realize how seldom all of my energy, all of my effort, or even just the majority of it goes into being honest, being truthful. That freaks me out, because honesty is something that I have to think about and, because I usually don't think about honesty as something that I have to think about.

The process is freeing. The process is enlightening. The process is endless and surprising and sometimes it hurts, sometimes it hurts a lot, but the process is always worth it. It has always given me something valuable, or at least pointed me towards something of worth.

I think I got to this place, where I have to write these letters, because somewhere along the way I stopped being honest about my relationships. Somewhere along the way, I stopped talking honestly, or more likely, I stopped talking altogether about what it means for me to be hurt by someone that I shouldn't have to worry about hurting me. I got really good at answering questions. I developed this skill where I could talk about really painful things without letting anyone (including myself) know that they were actually really painful. I got really good at controlling the way that I talked about things.

Facts. That is the secret. Only facts. If I'm not really careful, if I don't take a second every now and then to remind myself of what honesty actually is, I'll slide back into talking about facts. I can talk to you about something that has impacted my life a whole lot, something that hurt me a whole lot, or even something that has brought me a whole lot of joy, but if I can control the way that I talk about it, if you will let me tell you what happened or is happening without ever actually having to address how it touches me, I can separate the two.

So good. And so, so bad.

And it's usually not as obvious as it sounds like it would be. I'm pretty good at tricking you into thinking that I've talked about myself, my feelings, my heart without ever actually having to do it. I can trick myself too, but that's getting harder to do. Trickery doesn't sound a whole lot like honesty.

The letters help me. They give me opportunities to be honest. And I can write a letter to absolutely anyone, about absolutely anything, absolutely anytime. Anyone. Anything. Anytime. For someone that kind-of-sort-of just discovered honesty, those are really helpful, really great, really incredible things.

The facts are important, but the feelings rule my days. The feelings are so much bigger than the facts. We need them both. I'm not entirely sure how I operated for so long with just one.

It's funny how things that you do to keep yourself strong can actually do the opposite. I thought I was protecting myself, and I was, but it didn't make me strong. Strength is not in facing the facts. Strength comes when we face the things that the facts produce. Strength comes when we face the feelings, the scars, the joys and the sorrows.

So far, 2012 has taught me a lot. I have cried more in 2012 than I have in a long, long time. And I feel stronger than I ever have. I asked God to make me more honest in 2012. He's surprising me. Everyday, he's surprising me.

Tears and strength have gone hand in hand for me this year. He's teaching me about what it means to really be honest. He's teaching me that real honesty is way more than just not lying. He's also teaching me that honesty yields things like tears. And he's showing me that the kind of strong he wants me to be is not cold, it is not fact based, and it is not strong like an impenetrable forcefield.

He's showing me that the strong he wants me to be is alive and it feels things. The strong he wants me to be is tender. The strong he wants me to be isn't afraid of empathy and the strong he wants me to be can cry. The strong he wants me to be can cry a lot, because the strong he wants me to be is rooted in facts and it's rooted in feeling feelings and it's rooted in a whole lot of hope.

And we have so much more of 2012 left.

I was looking for a breath of life, a little touch of heavenly light, but all the choirs in my head say no.

I did an exercise that a little app on my phone suggested a few days ago. It was trying to teach me about gentleness, and I did learn about gentleness, but I learned something else as well. It asked me to think of my best friend and then to create a list of five words that described that friend. Not too hard. Then it asked me to think of someone that I don't get along with and to create a list of five words that described that person. Also, not too hard.

Next, it asked me to go through all of the words I had come up with and think about how it would make me feel for someone to use each of them to describe me. The good ones would obviously make me feel good. The bad ones would obviously make me feel bad, all but one of the bad ones that is. My words to describe someone that I don't get along with were: loud, argumentative, manipulative, mean, and different.

I have never wanted to be excessively loud. I have never wanted to come across as argumentative. I have never hoped that someone would describe me as manipulative. I have never wanted to seem mean to others. I have, however wanted to be different.

I chose the word different to describe someone that I don't get along with, because sometimes when you have a different perspective than someone else, or differing views on a particular topic, it can cause conflict. Sometimes even differing personality traits can cause tension or confusion. That is what I meant by including, "different," in my list of words to describe someone that I don't get along with. There is potential and value and so much to learn from our differences, but sometimes differences just make things hard.

There have been many times in my 22 years that I have wanted to be like someone else, different than myself. I can't really say that I've ever wanted to actually be someone else. I've always wanted my name to be Jill. I've always wanted to be whatever makes me, me. But often times I want to just borrow traits from others. Sometimes it's as superficial as, "I want your hair or your skin," but sometimes it is more like, "I want your courage, your ability to relate to others, I want your sense of humor, or your ability to captivate an audience."

I want what's not mine. I want to be me, but a better, more capable version of me. I want to be a version of myself that I can tweak a little, sometimes a lot. I talked about this dissatisfaction with myself and who exactly that is a lot last summer. Being on a team every day with people that were all so different from me was great, but it was hard. It stirred up a lot of insecurities, and hidden feelings of disdain that I had for myself and for specific things about myself, or things that I thought/think I was/am lacking.

I can remember an email I got one day last summer after posting what I am sure was a very dramatic blog entry. I got an email in which Ashley very gently reminded me of how counter productive wishing that I was made differently is. It's one thing to want to be better, to want to improve, but it's something entirely different to long to be made differently, to wish to have different strengths, different gifts.

"I watched the Voyage of the Dawn Treader the other night and the line that the little rat [Reepicheep] said keeps sticking with me. He said, 'Aslan gave me this tail, so if you don't let go of it, I will have to fight you (or something like that).' Just got me thinking how Aslan made you the way you are and it is perfect! He created you, Jill Burnette, in his image, and with all of the pieces and parts the way he designed and saw fit..." A.A.D.

She went on to say more kind things to me, and they were and are nice, but that right there is the point. Perfect. In his image. The way he designed and saw fit.

When I got to the last word, different, I didn't hate the thought of someone describing me as different. I knew that I was not supposed to like the way the words describing the person I don't get along with made me feel, but different was hard for me to dislike. What does that say about me?

It would be really easy for me to say that comes from a good place. I want to be different than I am today. I want to be better tomorrow. I want to love better. I want to trust more. I want to live well.

But that's really not what I meant.

Honestly, it is tempting for me to cling to the word different, because time and time again I do covet what other people have. I want their gifts. I want what they are good at. I want what they do well. I do not see the things I do well. I don't appreciate my gifts. I don't see the way that I was made perfect, in his image, the way he designed and saw fit. It's not about wanting to improve on the things that I have been given; it's about wishing that I had entirely different instruments.

And that can't be good.

Perfect. In his image. The way he designed and saw fit. Those words describe me right here and right now. So why would I want to be different? I don't know, but I hope that I can learn to wish for a continual sharpening of my knife, not for a new knife altogether.