The good, the bad, the ugly - and the beautiful

I'm a very candid person. I actually had a prospective Pathway student tell me that, the other day, when I was on the phone, trying to answer her questions. She thanked me for being so candid for her. Literally all I did was answer her questions...but apparently people she spoke with before didn't do that very well. *shrug*

This candidness means that I say what I think and how I feel (usually. Sometimes I have tact). If I have a beef, you're probably going to know. I think that developed after being a server at a restaurant, and after 10 months of pretending to be okay serving jerk-faces, I decided I would never pretend to be okay with that junk again. So, I'm wholly me. All the days. You poor individuals.

That means, sometimes people get a whole lot of Beth. My frustrations, my passions, my excitements, my sorrows, my joys, my successes, my pet peeves, you get it all!

This also means that I am very frank about my weaknesses. And, lately, I have been pretty down on myself, which includes pointing out my flaws and my weaknesses - present and past. Not in an unhealthy way (mostly) but, you know, a thing. It's good to be aware of these things. Being aware of your weaknesses allows you to grow and overcome.

I've had a few conversations with some people, lately - old friends, and new friends - that have opened up my eyes a little bit. And, I realized, maybe a little later than I should have, that we all need a friend who can look past the good, the bad, and the ugly inside of us, and just see the beautiful. Today during lunch, I was talking to someone about how much of a butt I can be, and she just looked at me and was like, "What? I would have never guessed!" Granted, she barely knows me. But I had a similar experience with one of my good friends.

Now, of course I'm a butt, sometimes. Like, being sarcastic and teasing people are favorite hobbies. But, when I started talking about specific flaws and weaknesses, they just looked at me and pretty much treated them like, "Meh."

Now, I firmly believe you need friends who can look at you, see all your weaknesses and flaws, and who love you through it. But, today, the epiphany that I had was that we also need friends who can just look through all of that as if none of it is a thing.

Everyone needs a person in their lives who sees all the good, all their strengths, and is in disbelief when they talk about their weaknesses and flaws. Not because that person is in denial of those flaws - like, if you were blatantly rude to them several times, they wouldn't be like, "Oh, you're never rude and always so sweet!" that's not it - but because their eyes don't see the bad. The minuscule issues that we have, the things that, sure, could be and should be fixed, but don't actually define our character as a whole and are really just isolated incidents,  are not the things they see. They just see the things that make your soul beautiful.

You will always have negative in your life. You will always have people who will point out your flaws - including yourself - and that is not wholly bad. But, you also need to be sure that you find people who can see your light.

A theme of my life is most definitely the good friends that I have. I will never stop thanking my Heavenly Father for placing wonderful people in my life. Pretty much all of them have been friendships that just happened, and I sometimes scratch my head and wonder how the heck it happened (sometimes there are friendships where I saw someone that I thought was so cool, so I tried really hard not not show my awkward and actually worked hard to be friends with them. Those usually don't work out, though, because, well, I'm awkward.) It's because God loves me and knows I need stellar people in my life.

I will never stop talking about how awesome my friends are. I am grateful for the reminders the past couple of days that I have light in me and I am good. Sure, I have my flaws and my weaknesses. Sure, there are characteristics I had in my past that I try really hard to not have anymore, and sometimes I fail. But, I am good. And, so are you.