she wants to know, is it always always raining somewhere
I was on such a high driving to Miami after hanging out with some cool people before and during Taylor Wiatt's birthday party. God has really blessed my life and encouraged me with some truly beautiful people and He loved me through them again on Friday night. I was on my way from one awesome thing to another awesome thing and really feeling alive. But I realized that this feeling of joyful aliveness has come at a great cost in other respects. It's interesting how feeling deep hurts also allows me to feel deep joy. We usually measure time by the calendar year or by school semesters, but life doesn't usually work in exact cycles like that. So it's funny how this calendar year - 2005 - just decided to be the hardest year of my life, from January to December. I don't know if it's going to end on December 31st, but so far it's true. At the same time, I have never felt so alive. I remember the first month of being in Spain and realizing that I was trying to ignore the feelings of loneliness so that I wouldn't feel the pain, but then I realized that I couldn't numb myself to sadness because then I would have to numb myself to other emotions too. In letting myself go, in practicing realness, I had to experience a great deal of pain, but I've been rewarded with inexplicable joy. There is a certain trust in God to stop trying to control myself. The beauty of feeling pain is that you are being real and you are being alive. Bono sings, "a heart that hurts is a heart that beats" and a heart that beats can experience so much more joy too. Interestingly enough, though, this semester has been my favorite semester at Stetson so far. God truly works in mysterious ways. I haven't figured this year out yet . . . but I'm not rushing things.
Painful/difficult events this year: confronting my loneliness and insignificance, learning to seek affirmation from God alone, losing someone I loved, dealing with recent and past wounds to my heart, being removed from a place that I love, answering a call and responsibility that scares me to death, doing what God wants me to do even though it is unappreciated and even criticized by others
Alive and Real times this year: singing with Noelle on a mountain overlooking the ocean on a glorious spring day in San Sebastian, Spain, building true community, loving with abandon, talking/laughing/crying for hours on end and late into the night, being thankful with my friends, experiencing God as my Lover
And He is the glory of it all. And He is my strength for I am always weak.
Painful/difficult events this year: confronting my loneliness and insignificance, learning to seek affirmation from God alone, losing someone I loved, dealing with recent and past wounds to my heart, being removed from a place that I love, answering a call and responsibility that scares me to death, doing what God wants me to do even though it is unappreciated and even criticized by others
Alive and Real times this year: singing with Noelle on a mountain overlooking the ocean on a glorious spring day in San Sebastian, Spain, building true community, loving with abandon, talking/laughing/crying for hours on end and late into the night, being thankful with my friends, experiencing God as my Lover
And He is the glory of it all. And He is my strength for I am always weak.