Pride

I read part of an article online today that was talking about the differences between men and women when it comes to sin. Lust is the primary sin that men struggle with, and pride is the sin that women struggle with the most.
Needless to say, that struck a chord in me in the way that most things do when you just know that they are true, and applicable to your life. Pride has been one of my primary obstacles this past year. Realizing this has not been easy. It is so much easier for me to look at my life and see the external mistakes that I have made: that bit of gossip, the impure thought, the complaint, the moments when i lose my peace. What's harder is looking inward to try to find the root of the problem.
Quite truthfully, pride has been the problem with humanity from the beginning, from that very first sin committed in the garden. And we still haven't given it up, after all these years.
When it comes to approaching the altar of God with those pieces of my life that i know need sacrificing...need burning...i have too much hesitation.
One of the characteristics of the virtuous person is that the choice to act virtuously in a given situation is quick.
I've been pretty slow on the uptake these past few months. But God has humbled me.
There is a tendency in my heart to feel as though i need to always be strong...i want to hide my weaknesses to appear in a certain light to the rest of the world. But what am i trying to look like? The perfect woman? The perfect person? Impossible.
When i walk through my day without giving prayer or my relationship with God a passing thought until I've already been awake and going about my business for hours; when i say to myself, 'there are more important, pressing things i could be doing'; when i convince myself that i can put off going to confession for just one more week, i am falling prey to the sin that so tempted Adam and Eve all those years ago.
I am so prideful.
I need to learn to give into my weaknesses; to not numb myself to them and justify them but to open myself to them and let them flood me. Only when i acknowledge my pride, and free myself to see the truth of my weaknesses will i be able to become truly virtuous; to not be a slave to the pride, but to live freely in this messy, weak, dysfunctional, beautiful world that God loves so much. He's stuck around since that first sin hasn't he?