transitions

The last time I transitioned was a little over a year ago when I made my move into my cute little home in Pasadena to start my credential program. With the exception of a few classes left to finish my masters, I am done with my credential. I have spent the last year draining myself, losing more sleep than I typically like too and learning so much about what it means to be a teacher and in that being affirmed daily how perfect this career path is for me. I was just starting out on the path towards this profession and I had no clue what my year would hold, what I would experience, who I would meet and how I would feel when I came to the end of this journey.

This past year has been just a good year. Sure, there have been a lot of moments of loneliness, a couple let downs, and lessons that I had to learn the hard way. For the most part though, I have spent a lot of the year laughing, dancing and learning to enjoy where I am at. I got to spend the year living close to my best friends again, getting to see them whenever our crazy schedules allowed for it and having it be a thirty minute drive compared to a six hour one. I have seen friends get jobs they so deeply wanted, find love, marry, and move into new seasons. I have met people who were such a delight to meet and brought so much joy into this season. They came into my life and made the choice to walk with me through this year in both the hard times and the beautiful ones and I am so very grateful for that. I have made friends who I know will carry into this next season of life with me and that makes every hard and lonely moment worth it. Although I have not been close to them I have experienced great trips and moments with my family. I said good bye to my wonderfully crazy Grandma Fran and through that deepened my relationship with my family even more. I have learned a lot about myself and about the woman I want to become. I have become fiercely independent and slightly introverted from living alone and have found so much refreshment in alone time as I need to recharge. I have had to learn to say no to a lot of things and time manage in a way that will help me be more successful and take better care of myself moving forward into my next season.

As I move forward into that season, here I am again, at the brink of another transition. I am only somewhat sure of what is to come but there are a few things different about this transition than ones I have gone through in the past. I still eat way too much candy, make too many emotional decisions, and I am still a terrible dancer even though there are few places I love as much as the dance floor. The biggest difference though is that I am sure. I am sure of the steps I am taking, and the direction I am headed. I am sure that the next place I live will be my home for years and years and I am sure that God will provide, challenge, stretch and bless me as I walk forward into a new life. I have learned how to make a life and find happiness and I have learned from being away from them that being near my family and really doing life with them is something that I would give anything to have and am so lucky to have that opportunity in the near future. I am no longer running away from a life that has always felt like something is missing, but I am running towards a life that will give me more.

So here's to another transition. In three weeks I will be 25, smack in the middle of my twenties, and I have figured it out. Although there are still so many things to learn and so many more things I want to experience I know what my calling is and if that was what the first half of my twenties were for then I can't wait for the second half.

a new year..yet again

I love the new year, I love having a fresh start, I love being able to leave things in the past and walk into a new year without carrying those things into it. 2012 was a year of figuring things out, of taking steps towards getting my life back on track and piece by piece and month by month it was accomplished. I started 2012 as a nanny and a sales associate at anthropologie with no clue what was next or what I wanted. I'm entering into 2013 happy with who I am, confident about the direction I am headed in, and so incredibly excited to see what 2013 holds. I've never entered into a new year like this, sure I always had things to leave behind and things I was excited for, but I've never started a year so happy with my life and the people in it. 

 

Every year I make resolutions, and every year I fail to accomplish even one of them. They are always silly things like eat less candy, go the gym more, one year it was learn how to play the guitar. For those of you who know me (I dont really know who reads my blog, if anyone does at all) you know I will never decrease my candy intake, I will also probably never go to the gym more than once a week, and that year I set out to learn to play the guitar, I think I went the whole span of it without touching one. So this year I have not made resolutions but I have set goals for myself. I have taken time to think and pray about the things I want to accomplish before this time 2014 comes around. 

I want to learn to love deeper, to love in a way that changes you. A love that allows people so deeply into your heart that your story is forever changed because of who that person was. 

I want to learn to forgive in a deep and genuine way, to not hold on so tightly to hurt, because in the end dragging around all that baggage does more harm than good. 

I want to spend my year trusting God. I want to take steps forward into the darkness confidently knowing that God is in control. I want to be excited about possible adventures, relationships, moves, and jobs because I know that His plan and His timing is far greater than anything I could plan myself. 

I want to become a teacher. I want to experience having a classroom and students and the extremely overwhelming honor of getting to impact their lives as they impact mine. 

I want to make a difference, it doesn't matter how big or how small but I want to make a difference this year. To know that it was worth it, to know that I made a mark and that my life was used for something bigger than myself. 

I have a feeling this is going to be a good year. A year that things fall into place and I see the beauty and light at the end of this tunnel I've been traveling in for quite some time now. I hope my feeling is right, I hope I learn more about life this year, more about the woman that I am and the one I am continuing to grow towards. I hope I soak in everything this year has to offer and go to sleep at night knowing that I did not take one day for granted. 

2012

As the year comes to an end I find myself, as I am sure most people do, reflecting on the year that has just passed. 2012 was a year of big changes for me, I experienced a lot of pain and a lot of healing. I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, and the steps I needed to take to get there. I began to take those steps, and make changes that has made me a strong and independent woman. I realized how beautiful my family is, and how lucky I am to have the one that I do. I realized that it's okay to let some friendships go and to hold tightly to others. I found myself again, I found that spark that makes me feel alive and full to the brim with happiness. However, I also learned how to cope with the days that are mundane and routine, and I've learned that it is okay to simply just get through those ones. I have learned a lot about my faith, and what it means to deeply and genuinely trust God. I have found myself taking steps blindly into a future that is unsure and holding on tightly to my belief that God is in control and His plan is far greater than any of my own.

Thank you for the people who walked through this year with me, thank you for being there to listen to me obsess over the same thing day after day. Thank you for sitting in the darkness with me and then celebrating with me on the other side. Thank you for laughing with me, making memories, and helping me find joy when my heart was so broken I could barely see beyond that. Thank you for reminding me of who I am, and helping me get back to that person. Thank you for being a part of my story, because 2012 was the year that we survived the apocalypse and the year that my life was set on the path that I have always been destined for.

one year.

So i go through these phases in life where I wanna become the type of person that wakes up every morning and journals. Ill be good about it for a month, and then stop for about seven. To re inspire myself, i tend to buy new journals, thinking a fresh start will be what I need to get me on track. The last time I bought a new journal was a year ago yesterday. I promised myself that no matter how often I wrote I would keep this one until I got through every page.

I re read that first entry this morning, and my words were full of pain and brokenness. And as I continued to flip through the pages from that season of life, I felt like I was reading the words of a stranger. I didn't know who I was, or what I wanted, Id lost the excitement and the spark that makes someone beautiful and replaced it with anger and disconnected broken pieces.

One year later, I am living on my own, I know who I am and what I want. I am so busy that I rarely have time for much else other than school and work, and although I am exhausted and often miss seeing my friends, I am filled with a strong determination to accomplish the goals I have set for myself. I know I am still learning and healing, but I don't feel broken anymore, I don't feel lost, If anything I am overwhelmed by the amount of work that God can do when you have no other choice but to surrender. I want to keep living in this type of surrender, the kind where everyday I wake up and am at peace because I know that no matter how many painful seasons of life I go in and out of, God will always turn it into a beautiful lesson that needed to be learned in preparation for what was next.

At work today, I found myself in a conversation with an elderly man about not allowing yourself to be lukewarm when it comes to God. I think for most of my faith, I have been lukewarm, just right there in the middle where you aren't fully in it but you're not out of it. This time last year, when I started my journal, I couldn't be lukewarm with God. If I had stayed in the area of lukewarm, I don't know where I'd be but I'm glad that I'm here. I'm glad that I've learned how to be more than that when it comes to faith.

The conversation with this man stemmed from his shock that I made it away from APU without a husband, and although I was flattered, it made me laugh as he went on to encourage me that I will find one and "God has somebody lined up for me". The context of his warning to not be lukewarm was to keep me from being single, but I think that his words were intended to remind me of living my faith out everyday with a passion that allows room for God to change me in the way that I have been changed and transformed in the last year.

sufficient

These last four months have probably been some of the most growing, healing and wonderful months I have experienced in a long time. Life is good, i have a wonderful little home, i am surrounded by life giving friendships, my family (although far away) supports me in outstanding ways, and i am finally on a path where I am overwhelmed every day with how right it feels. I have let go of anger, allowed myself to forgive, and walked confidently into this new season of life sure of who I am and the direction I am going. These are all really beautiful things, these are all really good things, things that I have wanted and ached for over and over again in the last couple of years. Most days I feel extremely lucky and wonderfully blessed.

So why is it that I stop needing Christ when life is good? Why is it so easy to need God when life is hard and messy and your direction is unclear and your heart is broken. I can look at this last year, even these last two months and see and feel the way God has worked and healed my heart, yet I wake up every morning and go about my day without spending time in the word, or thanking God for everything that I have and everything that I am blessed with. I don't like that. I want to wake up every morning not being able to start my day without allowing myself to be spiritually fed.

I want to need God, I want to need that time and that nourishment more than anything else. I want to trust and depend on God every day, the way it's so easy too when seasons are dark. When you are broken and cannot see the beauty of what you have, there is room for God. I admire the people who keep that room there when the seasons change. I want to be one of those people, I want to be able to have the same dependence and trust no matter what is happening or where I am.

This past sunday in church the pastor touched on this topic, and preached on the verse, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," He talked about how God is sufficient, how that is all we need and it is up to us to go to our knees every day and admit that we cannot do it any other way. Even when life is good and beautiful, we are all broken by sin and the only way to overcome that, is everyday, come to God humble and aware of that truth.

Once again, how simple is that truth, yet how easy it is to complicate it.

God is sufficient.

faith.

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" 
Hebrews 11:1

When I first became a Christian, this was one of the first verses I memorized. I thought this kind of faith would come easy, that my life would be easy because I would always have a steadfast faith that gave me peace in knowing God was in control.

Something that has always drawn me into and kept me working in children's ministry is how simple their faith is. Childlike faith amazes me, and kids just get it. I've worked with a lot of kids who have been through more brokenness at 8 years old than I have at 24 and the peace they find in knowing God is in control continually blows my mind. Why can't I find that peace? Why is it so hard for me to grasp simple truths and let them resonate into the deepest parts of my heart?

I wish I had that faith.

I wish I could jump from adventure to adventure, going with every curve life puts in my way without anxiety or fear because that kind of faith is one that creates a trust in the goodness of life's ups and downs. I have learned a lot in the last two years, and learned things in hard life lesson type of ways, that I am not in control, that life is going to go in a way that I wouldn't expect but that it would always have really beautiful aspects and life changing experiences. I feel like God is over and over again trying to teach me to have this kind of faith, to be okay and believe that it is all going to work together for my good, yet I still fall short over and over again of really believing this at the core of who I am.

My best friend has a kind of faith that I envy. For those of you who know her, you may not know this about her, but she trusts God in a way that I admire. Of course life always throws us unexpected things that cause nervousness and anxiety but at the heart of who she is, she has that steadfast trust that it will all be okay because God's hand in it is bigger than her worries or fears. In the same way that Children have taught me about childlike faith, She has shown me what it is to have this kind of faith as an adult, and encouraged me over and over to pursue after it and accept whatever step my life takes next.

I will get there. I am determined to get there. I may need a couple more hard life lessons, but I will get to a place with God where I can sit back, let it roll off my shoulder and know that it is all part of something bigger and it may take years for me to see that, but I will get there.

steffen

Today is the six year anniversary of my precious friend Steffen's death. Six years. I still remember that day like it was yesterday, i remember what I was wearing and what I ate, I remember every part of the emotions involved in the phone call I got and the events that took place afterwards. Six years. That's a big chunk of time, and a lot of life that has continued to happen even though his life was cut too short.

Today, I have been thinking a lot about time and how the world continues on even though for some people it stops due to unfair circumstances. Those who continue on, keep learning and growing and carrying the people who have left in their hearts and in their actions.

Six years ago, I was 18 and about to leave for my freshman year of college, with the goal of being a therapist for troubled teenage girls. Now here I am 24, back in college and headed toward being an elementary school teacher. I didn't understand life and relationships and pain, because up until that point I had been spared the really hard stuff. Steffen's death was a turning point, it caused a lot of pain but in that God pulled a lot of beauty out of it. I began to understand who God was in the midst of tragedy and what it meant to be angry. I learned that sometimes life really sucks and that's okay. I also learned how fragile it is, how you never know what the next day holds and although time after time I fall extremely short of this, I want to experience each day entirely and love to the fullest possible capacity. In the last six years there has been a lot of laughter, a lot of beautiful memories, a lot of tears and struggles, relationships that have come and gone and ones that have lasted but most importantly there has been growth and experience. I am a stranger to who I was at 18 and I am grateful for that, I am grateful for what I have learned and what I have gone through, and although my 18 year old self had something completely different in mind for 24, I am glad to be right here where I am at, in my perfect little apartment in Pasadena, walking through life with the most beautiful people.

Steffen, thank you for being a part of my story, for being my first crush and the first boy I danced with at my very first junior high dance. Thank you for making that flower nursery one of the best jobs I will ever have and most importantly thank you for always being strong in being exactly who you were. I hope heaven is treating you well, and that you have The Beatles playing constantly up there.