7 Years

It's interesting to me how quickly things can bring you back to your past. It can take things as simple as a song, a picture, a scent, a place, a person, a certain word or action. I love memories. Some make me smile, some make me excited, some make me happy, some fill me with joy. But some memories are still unbearable. A stroke of my cheek, or tucking my hair behind my ear. The hand on my back, or singing Rent at the top of our lungs. The scent of the perfume I wore then, or the cologne he wore. DDR, rock band, Ne-Yo, gas stations, walks in the dark, swingsets, stars, oven mitts, creepy rooms, snow days, bowling... my list could go on forever. And that's the problem. It's not that the memories themselves are too painful. Maybe the post break up thougths are painful, but not the friendship. I have gotten to the point where I can think of them without it even working me up. But sometimes they are so FREQUENT. I see someone eating plain pasta, and then 5 minutes later I see a red Taurus, and then I smell Axe, and see someone watching Blade. It's when things are repeated, over and over again, that I can't get the memories out of my head.

I can sit here and talk about him with a smile on my face. What an improvement. I can remember all the good times we had together, and can I smile. But part of me still wonders if he thinks of me, or ever regrets how it ended. Part of me is lonely, and wishes I could just hold his hand, even for a few minutes. My heart aches for the friend I had in him, the comfort, the acceptance.

I am always asking myself if I will ever be completely over him. I can be happy, and I don't regret it. But will I ever stop loving him? Hard to believe I will. Maybe I just need someone else to come in and love me even better than he did. If only I were open for that. I don't believe I will ever let a man have that again. Ever. I've always wanted to think the most of him, believe he is the wonderful person I knew for so long.




Maybe to become open to people loving me like he did, I have to stop hoping he will come back.





It is so incredibly hard to give up on someone you loved that much.

Love Out Loud

Loving through fear is difficult. So is loving through pain. Deciding to love regardless of these things is even harder.


I am so incredibly loved. I am so lucky to have the people in my life that I have.

I'm tired of letting my fear of abandonment change how I am loved.
I am also tired of letting this fear change how I love others.

I am ready to pour my heart into people. Yes, I might get hurt. I might be betrayed, I might get abandoned. But of all the times this has happened before, did it make the relationships not worth it? absolutely not.

God wants us to love like He does. I am ready to love like Christ loves.
Jesus knew He would be betrayed and hurt by not one, or 2, or 3 of the people He loved. He knew He would be betrayed by every single one of us. But did that stop Him from loving us? absolutely not.

There is a quote in the movie Cinderalla Story that I often think of. Yes, it's an awful cheesy chick flick, and worst of all it has Hilary Duff. But the quote is, "never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game." I'm not going to let the fear of failure or pain keep me from enjoying life and loving the people I have been blessed with.

Time to Come Back Home

I am slowly beginning to love being challenged. Lately the metaphor of the overflowing cup has applied to my life quite frequently. Sometimes when I am challenged, I can feel like the cup tilts a little bit. But in the end, it is always set back up right. And not only is it set straight, but even more is poured in. I feel like recently, I am just overflowing.

Today was an abnormally painful day. Multiple people who were close to me hurt my feelings. I was challenged on some touch decisions, and I made a decision I knew would let someone down. Disappointing others hurts me more than most other things do. I fear that when I let someone down, the chances of them leaving are raised greatly. In the past, when I disappointed someone, I would slowly start preparing for their exit. More recently, I have realized that by preparing for people to walk out of my life, I gave them more of a reason to leave. Given, this in itself does not change how I handle disapproval. Even today, I still started to guard my heart, fearful of the result of this decision. For once, instead of the person agreeing with my opening the door for their exit, soemone stood up to me.

My life has always been about what I do. Decisions I make, how much I help around the house, what I say, who I choose to be friends with, how far I am willing to go, etc. For once in my life, I have relationships that are based off of who I AM. This itself brings me to tears.

I feel loved by my Savior; I always do. Overwhelmed with love from my Savior. But it is rare that I feel love from others. Not always because it is not given; a lot of the time it is because I do not receive it. Fear has been ruler of my life for far too long. Fear that if I accept love, it will only hurt more when I lose it. Fear that I will lose all the love I have. Fear that I will lose everyone and everything that matters to me.

I am so tired of being afraid. I know that even after I write this, I will still be fearful of losing those I love. But I think I am finally willing to let it go. Fear is my comfort zone, as odd as that sounds. Pain is where I am comfortable, hurt is where I am comfortable, betrayal and loss is where I am comfortable. I'm tired of waiting to be hurt. I'm ready to accept and feel love.

For once, I can say this and actually believe it, and mean it: I DESERVE to be loved.

And now I'm finally ready to be.

Haiti

I have always desired for my life to have a real purpose.

I have always had a passion for people in need. I still remember, years ago, when I decided I wanted to go out of the country to serve others who lived in poverty. It became a dream, something I wanted to accomplish before I died. I never knew when the opportunity would come around; there were multiple times I got close, but it slipped through my fingertips. Instead of giving up, this only made me more determined. Disaster after disaster has happened all over the world, and I sit back wishing I could be a part of their recovery.

I love children. My heart warms everytime I see one, and I absolutely can't wait to have my own. I hear about children all over the world with no food, no clothing, no clean water, and worst of all no one to take care of them. This breaks my heart more than anything else.

Being offered the opportunity to go to Haiti was absolutely my dream coming true. Everytime I think about it I want to jump up and down. I know that I have a heart for these people, especially those children, and I am so ecstatic that God is going to use me in their lives. I am so loved by my Savior, and my heart is just overflowing. I am so excited to be able to spread this love to those who need it.

I love being used by God. I love that God is going to use my life to bless others. What an honor! I don't deserve it, and I never could have earned it. But I am so excited to be able to do this for Christ. Not because I owe it to Him [even though I do] but because I love Him, and I want to be like Him, and I want to make Him happy.

I am so on fire with love for Christ, love from Christ, love for those children, and with pure excitement.

11 weeks until I leave for Haiti.

Clocks

I am only 18 years old, but I am beginning to understand how quickly time is going to go. I have always been told by older adults in my life that I should love every minute, because it will be gone before I know it. I have always felt like this was so ridiculous; time moved so incredibly slow. Even throughout this year, I was always counting down from something, most frequently being the next chance I would get to go home.

Here I am, with only 2 and a half weeks left at Spring Arbor. I look back at this year and I am shocked. Sometimes I still feel like I graduated from high school a few weeks ago. Sometimes I still feel like I started junior high a few weeks ago. It was not until recently that time really hit me. A year is not a long time; 3 years isn't even a long time. I am already a quarter through my college education; that idea just blows my mind.

As I am realizing how quickly life will pass me by, I am beginning to wish I hadn't been counting down so much. I always wanted to make the days go faster, pass quicker, get to the next weekend, the next break. I see now that those days are days I'm never going to get back.

I don't know how many more years, or months, or weeks I have left to live. But I know that I want to make them count, every single one of them. I am so blessed to be alive, so blessed to be able to do as much as I am able to do. and I want to take advantage of that while I still can.

I need words

I feel like I am going through an "up" phase in my relationship with Christ. I have now been reading the Bible every day for 20 weeks. I am writing papers based off of pericopes from the Bible, which includes extensive studying and reading of the passage. I have also been watching the Nooma videos to write summer guides, and listening to even more worship music to prepare for worship band auditions in the summer/fall. I feel like all of these things combined have me feeling closer to God than I have felt in a long time. At first, I thought it was superficial and very surface level. But I realized that I am finally truly pacing with God. I have stopped talking so much to Him, and have begun to just listen. I feel like I am finally having real conversation with God.

With this real conversation has come a real relationship. I feel there is so much to say to God that I can't say with words, or I can't find the right words to truly express it. For one, my gratitude. Everytime I truly reflect on what I have been blessed with, I become overwhelmed and my heart just boils over with love for my Savior. I have had points in my life where I felt so empty, so burned out; I felt I had nothing left to give, not another word, not another prayer, nothing. But sitting here, right now... I know my heart is full. Not just full, but overflowing. When I become stressed and depressed, reality is often clouded, and I forget how much I truly have. I have so much love to give that I don't know what to do with it, and that is because of how much I am loved.

My heart is just simply... overjoyed today. I feel like I could sing, I could dance, I could cry with joy. I am so incredibly blessed.

Maybe that's all I needed to do. God must understand, why would I need to have the perfect words to explain to my all-knowing Father how much I am in love with Him? He gets it, because He loves me even MORE than that.

Abba, Father, my life Preserver, my Savior, my Everything. Oh how I love you, Lord, how blessed am I, how blessed am I...

I pray that I remember this in times of struggle, in times of depression, in the "down" phases of my life. May I remember how truly blessed I am, and remember how much my Father loves me, and how much I love Him. What else could I possibly need? I have so much, I have been blessed with everything.