I needed a change of scenery. It has been over a year of looking at the same thing and honestly I'm just tired of it. My blog has always been and always will be a place that I will write exactly what I'm feeling, somewhere I can come and say it how it is, or at least how it is in my world. I usually don't hold much back and if you read my blog regularly, you can vouch for this. Writing has become such a part of me and my hope is that maybe it will encourage someone, or influence them, or inspire them. I do it for me, but more than anything, I do it that maybe someone will stumble upon it and leave with a better understanding of my heart and this very strange world I'm living in.
Untangling God. God Untangling Me. This is the new title that I hope you become familiar with, a title that holds meaning far beyond just those five words. A title that stems from and represents my world now, my life as it is, not as it was a year ago, and not as it has been over the past year. Though my heart has endured much in this past year and though I have experienced hurts that others have brought upon me and even I have inflicted upon myself, I see something now that I once couldn't. Jesus was there, despite what I thought, all the questions and doubts that I sent up aimlessly, He was there. He still is. And this is where I am, untangling God, the same God I chose to run away from. But here I am now untangling Him who is untangling me. That's all I have to offer, a tangled, messy, sinful, ugly life, but I'm willing to untangle what's beautiful to let what's beautiful untangle me. Every day.
I blow out the candles in three days, year eighteen. Birthdays and New Year's are basically the same thing to me, another year, another opportunity to move forward and do the thing that I didn't the year before. I have learned much in my seventeenth year and anticipate learning much more in my eighteenth. I think that's one of the most important things I have learned, that at any given moment, I'm not all that I am going to be and it's wrong to think otherwise, to think I have it all together when I don't. To think that I don't need anyone's help when I do. I have learned a lot about letting go, but even more than that, holding on. I have learned that my heart is very fragile and capable of feeling things that are indescribably dark, but also things that are so beautiful. I have learned that I am weak and have very little strength to call my own. I have learned that I am even more stubborn than I ever thought I was and just how much I LOVE to do things MY way no matter the cost. I have learned of the many depths of my heart-to love others, to hurt others, to have compassion for people,and to have patience with them. I have learned how scared I am and how embracing life is the only way to go. I have learned not to care so much about what people think of me. But more than anything else, I have learned that I fail every day and that neither the good things or bad things make me any better of a person or any less of a person, because at the end of the day, I still need a Saviour. Jesus died for me, He saved me, but that doesn't mean I'm perfect or know what the heck I'm doing with my life, because I'm not and I don't. The only thing I know is that I'm unworthy of such a big love and yet He loves me anyway. I'll never be enough, ever, but He will take all that I am and all that I'm not and and work with it. A thousand times have I failed and a thousand more times await me, empty I will find myself, but He'll take that emptiness and use it, because that's just who He is.
I am so looking forward to this year, and while I know it is going to bring just as many pains and joys as last year, I know something now that I didn't know then, I know God's identity, who He is, just how much He loves me. This year I get to see two special ladies that I haven't gotten to see in over a year, two girls who hugged me and prayed with me on that cold Ecuador grass and became my sisters. I can't wait to see their beautiful faces for a whole week in Washington for Thanksgiving this year! I am beyond excited! I am looking forward to getting a tattoo...even though my parents are not. And I am so ready to graduate, seriously...and all of the possibilities that come after that, I'm looking forward to those too. I'm looking forward to the expected, but just as much the unexpected. This year I hope to allow myself the strength that Jesus wants to give me, but I am so incredibly stubborn and accepting strength that's not my own means that I will have to use that same strength for things I can't do on my own either, and that scares me. What is He going to ask of me and will I be willing to say 'yes' in spite of a self-centered spirit? I'm looking forward to another year of looking at Christmas lights that stay strung across my ceiling year round. Another year of sweet friends who make me cakes shaped like owls(my favorite!) four days before my actual birthday...so blessed by the many relationships in my life. Another year of loving more, laughing longer, and listening better. Another year of this crazy life....geeeez, who knows what will happen next?! Hopefully not getting pulled over by a cop, definitely ended my year on the wrong note...you won't believe me, but I'm a good driver, really, I am. Others may tell you differently, but they are all wrong. I was just in the wrong spot at the wrong time and Mr. Coppie just so happened to be in that same spot...at the same time. Unfortunate, let me tell you. I was freaking out, first time ever being pulled over...hopefully the last. I mean I was only going sixty-five in a fifty-five...anyway, all this to say, I didn't get a ticket. I think after he realized I wasn't lying about not drinking and after he confirmed my driving record clean with the other copper over his fancyshmancy walkytalky thing, annnd after I told him I was sorry about one-hundred times, he just let me go...while informing me he had to go pull over other dude that just drove by with one of his lights out. And then he said 'have a good evening' like it was nothing. I'm not sure how I feel about this cop, whether I like him or not, I mean first of all he didn't even have his lights on or sirens on, he just got super close to me... he better be glad my road rage didn't come out or his nice white vehicle wouldn't look so pretty in the front anymore(just kidding...kinda). Apparently all the cops were having like a 'pull over every car you see' party that night...unnecessary sirrr. Anyways that's all I have to say about that. Okay, so besides that rather unnecessary rant itself, my point is, this year is about untangling God and allowing God to untangle me.
And I thought I'd start that by starting this blog.
Here's to year eighteen.
...oh, and it would be super fantabulous if I could let eighteen paper lanterns go on my birthday like they did in the movie Tangled. That's all. I'll be back when the weekends over...
