Transitions.

I know life is full of them. I've been through many of them so far in my almost 19 years of living; birth, two numbered age, teenage years, moving to texas, moving from texas, break of a close friendship, graduating highschool, beginning a courtship, getting a car, getting a job, a long distance courtship begins, going to school, getting a second job and accepting a leading position in a church. Wow. Next up I'll be married with twins on the way and I'll be moving out of country to a remote place only to survive on bananas which I'm allergic to and with little to none college experience and make money by beading necklaces! (Only God really knows, but hey, it could happen). Sigh. Transitions are hard. I really don't know how I should be handling them. I'm scared. And the transition I am in right now has me feeling as I am standing alone. My playmate, my best friend, my future spouse.. is away. God currently has him working away from me. Which is probably good to an extent otherwise in the words of Ray Blackston we could become the Couple Who Could Not Wait. But, he is away. Little communication available for us and then he comes back to an extremely busy year of school and paying off a possible loan. And I'll still feel physically alone. I'll be beginning my new job as a Certified Nurses Assistant opening possible doors for my future at a hospital if I even needed to work for money later on in life instead of the unknown ministry God is planning for my husband and I to work together.  All of this is the immediate transitions. What am I doing in my communicating with God about all of my life and what He's doing with it? Welll, I communicated about monies and what and how He could help me pay off the 700 dollar debt the IRS put me in. He blessed me greatly. I'm still humbled. I communicated with Him about the perpetual waiting I am in, realizing it isn't so perpetual and sneaking up on me very quickly. I could be married. Next. Year. That is scary. And exciting because I'll be starting a new transition and with my best friend. Fully able to start life, share fears, and allowed to experience the joys and bliss of married life along with the hardships and trials. But mostly for the first few months, the joys and bliss. But it's scary. I'm currently 18. Not that age matters. I've told God that often, and I have prayed that I could start early so I could live to my fullest with my husband and do whatever God has us do. And here he is! My future. Patiently waiting at camp cleaning kitchen pots and watching over bouncy kids all summer long. But I don't know, I'll be 19 soon. Almost 20. What am I doing? I'm working retail, going to college part-part-time (one class maybe two), and waiting on God and my husband to be. In retail, I know I am helping a little, one of my supervisors have been needed some love and compassion. She's been needing God and I'm praying that she fully sees Him soon! And I know if I wasn't there, God couldn't use me to help her. Sigh. Transitions. I see so many of my friends and family helping others in ways that are really good! God is growing everyone so much and in great ways. I feel left out. But then I was just offered this position as the Middle School Drama Team Leader. Wow. God is there where I can lead now? Grow now? Is there where you want me? I decided to take the position and if is it truly where God wants me, I'll learn as much as He wants me to and then He'll move me. If it isn't where God wants me, it is an open door that He'll move me through, I'll grow, and He'll move me out. Either way, I'll be growing and I'm trusting God to move me. Hmm... Transitions.

Smile

It's almost distracting to be outside right now. Distracting and absolutely breathtaking all at once. Sigh. That describes my life as of late. Full of distraction and breathtaking moments.

I sat down on my front porch with Lemon ice-tea and a cold turkey sandwich on whole grain bread( I do eat healthy! Please don't gripe at me because I have a few chips too).  My stomach feels extremely full, and my head feels almost starved. I cannot help but think of how my life is right now, where I am going, what I am doing, how I am acting, what or who I am missing. I feel the breeze on my skin and I know if I were with you right now, I wouldn't feel so cold. I actually sat down to work on my essay, but I felt the urge to write. Write for you and write for the few others who dare to read what I feel on a day to day basis.

I am not going to say that I am worrying, that I am scared, that I am impatient. Because even though I am all of those things.. I know I am in His hands. That He has plans for me to prosper me and not harm me. That one day, we will have our time.

I cannot wait to tell others when they ask what my ring means, that it isn't a promise to wait, but that a promise to stay together. To tell them that it once was a promise to wait, and that we now have been married for 'X' amount of years. I cherish the ring you have given me because even though it is only a material object, big and bulky :P, it puts a peaceful smile on my face because it is a physical part of you, with me, always.

I am used to it already, but I have no idea what our next year is going to bring. There is so much that you are doing.. for His glory and your growth. I am so proud of you and everything you are doing. I know I am not helping any, ahha, so I'm sorry. But I do understand, and I support you. I do.

Now I am really really cold so I am going inside and back to my current reality of my essay. I pray I get to talk to you soon. If I do not, I will be seeing you soon. I know this.

I love you. Oh so muchhhhh.

YFW.

How do I fight this?

I honestly am not making sense to myself, I'm just writing my thoughts, my fears, my desires, what I know I need and what I don't see God doing here today. I'm basically throwing all these thoughts into a blender and pressing purée. Maybe something'll come out and I'll sift through it later.

Regrets of heavy words thoughtlessly spoken, run 'round and 'round my spirit. 

All's I know right now is that I am empty, I am tired, I need to do "this, that, and the other". I cannot wait for one month to be over. I'm weary of God trusting me with big things, I'm tired of everything seeming to fall apart.. and I'm tired of being negative. 

I feel inadequate to follow you, I feel inadequate to be positive for God. I hear you pray, serve, and finish everything you have on your plate.. all with a smile in the end! And all I feel I see myself do is gripe, cry, and try not to freak out when life comes barging at me. 

And then all I can believe is that I am the negative to your positive. 

"I'm tired of hiding my weakness. I'm tired of trying to look strong. I don't want to say that everything's fine, when there's so much that's wrong. Tell me again that You love me, though it's more than my heart understands. And I will lay down my disguises, and show You who I am.."

At college group three weeks ago, two weeks ago. We studied Matthew Chapter 13. I loved this week. This passage is four stages of life. God explains it too.. but there are times where "everyone" goes through each of these. We live in a fallen world and we just have to go with the flow. The bolded parts are what I feel right now..

 Matthew 13: 19- 23. When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” 

Hahaha.. yeah. I feel so far away from God's voice.

I feel like I don't understand what God is trying to teach me. I feel as if I am being choked. I feel like I'm being stolen from. Some areas I understand completely. Areas I have already walked through and areas I have been given wisdom so I can give some wisdom on when wisdom is asked from me, share it. However, every other area.. area of compassion, area of kindness, area of selflessness, area of goodness.. all of those areas, I know and knew. I felt to an extent I could walk out this life somewhat successfully and humbly. Lately.. I feel as if I am fighting for patience, kindness, goodness.. love, true Godly love, from myself. I'm biting my tongue again(not very successfully). I look back on my life two, three years ago.. I grew so much. I understood a lot and God taught me and I heard Him. Loudly! 

I love God still and I follow Him and serve Him.. but I just don't get it. I should get it. How do I fight this?

I kind of feel like Eustace from Narnia. You know, the part where Aslan was clawing in his sinful skin and making him new and whole again. I can't do a thing. All I feel is the scratching pain, not knowing what God, big and scary, yet lovely and beautiful lion, is doing. 

Bread and meat. Bread or meat? Which am I truly consuming.

I read my devo today and basically: God gave the israelites manna to eat. Manna is bread. Bread fills you only a little. God gave the israelites physical bread so they can lean on Him spiritually so he can feed them spiritual meat. Yet they craved physical meat and demanded physical meat. What would they get in return spiritually if they caved into their human nature and ate physical meat? They would get spiritually fed, bread. Not enough to survive. 

Physically, maybe I have been eating meat. And Spiritually maybe I've been eating bread.. 

I am out of words. I need an all consuming wave to cover me and even out my life. I feel like I am stuck on a rocky surface and nothing is growing. How do I fight natural elements and instincts? 

I honestly do not think I can. When is God going to send that wave?

Sigh..

I love you. Where am I going with my life? I knew we have a future, we have a plan (or we're planning on being together), we have a purpose. But honestly, have I lost what God wants me to do until then, or what He personally wants me to do on my own now, and when I am with you? I think about my life as of right now. A lot. I am comfortable. With my business, my stresses, my joys. I am not satisfied, however, with not having you near, or that adventurous feeling doing God’s will gives. Am I doing God’s will? I think about how our life will never be normal. Normal how? As in, “Okay God, where are you sending us now?” Or, “ahh, will there never be a day where the same thing happens twice?” Is not normal about living in a remote country with literally nothing? Or not normal as in, each and every step we have to literally and physically and emotionally and spiritually say “where the heck are we going?” 

What is trusting God?

Right now, I don’t know what I am doing. For about two weeks, I knew God wants and still wants my attention these next 5 weeks. But I’m still counting down. How do I look forward to finally have a little bit more of an ‘us’.. at least for three weeks, yet let God teach me? 

How can we talk so easily about when we do this, or when we do that, or one day this, one day that.. yet we have no. clue. what. so. ever. this summer or next fall will hold?

I’m feeling shoved to the side. And I know I am. A God shoved to the side. But it’s still not a cool feeling. There nothing that can be done either, until that one day where I’m not shoved to the side, but standing at your side. 

I’m just thinking about a lot. I don’t know how to speak it either. I don’t even know what to think. These past few days, have really.. sigh, taken a toll on my joy. Which I hate. What have I done wrong to have allowed my joy to be diminished? What am I doing wrong? What can I fix?  Where do you not want me? Where should I be silent? Where should I speak? I am asking this, having no expectations for an answer. You can’t. You can only, sit back and pray. Not a different kind of fighting.. sigh. Only prayer. 

And I have to ask myself. Am I truly willing for God to teach me? Or am I just saying I want to be changed, when I really am not at all willing?

“Silence”

My mother told me I was deathly shy and rarely spoke before age three. My oldest brother was playing with me one afternoon with a plastic cooking pot, trying playfully to get me to speak. It worked like magic! I began to converse among my family and they couldn’t get me to be quiet. Yet as soon as I walked out the front door of our home, I clammed up. I did not look anyone in the eye or utter a single noise. Whenever a stranger walked within ten feet of me, I let my hair fall over my face like a curtain and the collar of my shirt went into my mouth to give me a reason not to speak. All I wanted was to be invisible. It took a pivotal situation in life to determine whether I either stayed mute or spoke, ending my silence.

Although I had friends, I was never the one to take the lead. I never initiated conversations, hangouts or the friendship itself. Into my teenage years, I followed my friends, doing whatever they wanted to do, whenever they wanted to do it. Countless times I found myself over at my friend’s house helping with her homework at two, three in the morning. Her thoughts became my thoughts, her opinions were fact and her life was the best of the best… until I didn’t feel like myself anymore. Please don’t get me wrong; I had opinions, big dreams, ideas, comments, witty jokes, snarky jabs, wise and sometimes unwise answers, and I yearned to share all of them. But I was never one to spit out a random thought just to spark conversation. I stayed to myself, smiling timidly whenever a question was asked, pretending I had nothing to say.

I lived in my own mind, totally unconcerned about the social world around me. I had a lonely thought process, accepting and believing that no one cared. As I grew older, I found it easier to speak when I wrote. I believed, or rather I hoped, that no one took the time to read my writings, yet I craved to be heard, that someone cared enough to listen. I knew I could not “write” forever, I desired to speak; I had to speak.

After years of being a follower to a born leader, I was weary. I had been pushed to the limit of my faith, of my morals, of my own existence. I had followed my friend for years, down the same paths, doing the same things, and all to keep my silence because I was too scared to speak. And then I was blamed for being silent, for being shy, for being a follower. What I had to offer in our friendship was not enough, was my fault. So I spoke up. I voiced my opinion about our friendship and that was not enough either. I gave my friend an ultimatum. She either accepted me the way I was, or forget about our friendship. In her normal way of solving issues, she wanted to analyze, hash out and bend my thoughts back to her point of view so all would be right in her eyes. And I replied with silence.

We didn’t speak at all for two months. On the occasion that we did meet, our falling out was brought up and I was asked to do things her way. So all I could do was say “no” and continue my silence. Because of my silence and standing my ground, I realized my thoughts were valuable. She realized she had not respected me. For once in my life, silence was my voice and turned out to be the most crucial thing I could do for our friendship.