Dera's Diary

In a world where there is so much confusion, so much disagreement and so much polarisation, love is more important than ever. I don't mean the cheesy type of love where we say what we think we’re meant to and act the way we’re supposed to, but a more present type of love where we speak the truth in love and love in truth. Not always agreeing, but always seeking to understand. Not always winning, but seeking to be compassionate. Every other day, something is happening that only continues to draw us farther away from each other. I can’t lie and say that we can all of a sudden have unified opinions. It takes some of us some time to listen to each other and sometimes, the truth isn’t what we want to hear. It’s not what we want to believe. But I think there’s something to be said about choosing to see the person behind the opinion. Choosing to ask instead of assuming you understand. I don’t always know the straight and narrow of different situations and I won’t pretend to. But for the...

I heard something in church last week that really stood out to me - People of purpose are not concerned with being left behind. And it seemed so obvious but it also resonated with me as though I was realizing it for the first time. If we truly know what we are meant to do and if we are really certain (as certain as we can be from any moment to the next anyway), then why are we always so concerned with what everyone else is doing and where everyone else is? I think walking in your purpose and truly being confident comes from a place of recognizing that you are not the same as everyone else. I don't mean that in a cocky way. But you need to come to terms with the fact that your journey won't always be the same as everyone else's and you can appreciate where they've gotten in their lives without having to be in the same place to feel the same level of contentment. Ulitmately, it's natural to be a bit discouraged if things aren't moving according to your schedule,...

It's amazing how happiness and difficulty, fear and faith, can coexist. The presence of one does not necessarily exclude the presence of the other, but the power lies in what we choose to focus on. Good things make us happy. Bad things make us sad. I'm going to take a huge gander here and assume this is how you operate. And I think if we chose to view life through this lens strictly, we would be very volatile. And I think we are very volatile. We sway with every wind. Sink with every storm. Doubt with every uncertainty. Run with every trend. We only stand up for things when we're in a multitude and we sacrifice our consciences everyday to stay comfortable. Don't feel offended... I belong to this category strongly as well. And recently, it's felt like for every step forward I've made, I've also made one step back. And when we follow this rule of good equals happy and bad equals sad, we're in a constant state of change, never really settling or having a...

I think one of the greatest gifts of friendship is accountability. But at the beginning, this can be really hard. I remember the beginning of this year - I had just gotten back to school and had tested positive for COVID for the very first time. I was holed up in my room (a situation I didn't really mind) and I was watching this New Years conference and one of the speakers was talking about the power of confessing things to people. She spoke about how our mistakes and bad decisions and choices weigh us down, not just because they are wrong in and of themselves, but because of the guilt that accompanies them. Recently, I've been struggling a lot with guilt that makes me feel like there is no point trying to change and I have to constantly remind myself that I am not my mistakes. But there is also the guilt that weighs you down when you are trying to change. The speaker asked people in the room to find someone to confess to and she advised them not to share surface level things, ...