Constant.

Growth is a constant.

Who will I be in 2 years from now.

I've been learning so much in school, in life.

I'm learning to push fears aside.

To risk here and there.

Because some of the most thrilling moments

lay right outside the walls of our built boxes.

I've let fear steal from me in the past.

I've let it give me cold hands, heart, and feet.

But when it comes down to it, 

love is the only right way.

& I think loving someone, loving them truly,

is one of the bravest things a person can do.

So I will love people through customer service,

through doing my best to make a perfect espresso drink.

I will love people by getting my own counseling,

through engaging in learning about lifespan and theory.

I will love them by taking prayer requests,

through praying for broken arms, grandmas, and fourth grade.

I will even love through listening to complaints,

through encouraging words and a push in the right direction.

I will love by giving an apology.

But in the end, I'll be reminded,

I can't earn your love.

It's something that can only be given.

I'll say it again.

Love is the flip side  of fear.

Consider

I have been praying that God would awe me with His love.

I asked Him for an experiential awareness of His love for me.

And as I look at the past few weeks, love is all I see.

It's been a surrounding & a stripping.

God has shown me this before, 

but I needed a reminder.

He is in the easy, simple things.

Silence,

a bike ride,

an encounter,

early morning stars,

someone else's writing that speaks to my core.

And all I can really do is accept it,

stop trying to earn it,

and be loved.

....

This is a considering,

a scratching the surface of a Great Love,

an attempt to pay attention.

"Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things,

let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord."

Psalm 107: 43

Isaiah 43, Isaiah 54, Psalm 107, Psalm 146,

these are good places to begin considering.

...

Lead me towards a deeper understanding of Your love,

and a deep belief that You are Enough.

Just Fine.

I decided to link up to Emily Freeman's blogpost today for her new release of her book, Graceful. It's a book for young women about the roles of grace and rest (and it inspires me to keep working on my own writing because I would love to write something similar someday). 

As part of the link up I decided to join a bunch of other bloggers and write a letter to myself. It ended up feeling a little therapeutic: looking through old pictures, remembering, and forgiving.

To my 18 year old Self.

You think everyone is looking at you, all the time. You think they pay attention to which color collared shirt you choose to wear with your dress-code khakis. Here's a hint: They're not. Later you'll get to counseling school and learn that there's a term to go with your heightened self-counsciousness--egocentric--and you'll struggle with it into your 20s. Start letting it go now. 

Those five girls you have called your friends, the ones you take prom pictures with and spend long summer weekends at the lake with, quit being afraid of abandonment & love them well. They are going to to stand by your side no matter what. You're going to stand by their sides in their beautiful summer weddings. 

The relationship you have the summer after graduating high school, enjoy it. Relax. You will have the time of your life riding four wheelers, going to baseball games, and eating at fancy places. He will teach you what true pursuit looks like. But for heaven's sake, finish your meal and offer to help pay once in a while.

That college you have visited three times, just to be sure, go ahead and give in. I know you're afraid because your ex-boyfriend goes to school 35 minutes away, and heaven forbid, it might look like you're following him. It's okay. He will take you to Walmart when you're sick your freshman year, but then he will find a lovely native Arkansan and fall in love again, just like your prayed.
Remember, it's not always about you.

You will choose to decorate your freshman dorm with hot pink, black, and zebra print. Please, think again. It will make your already-small dorm room feel small and depressive. It will all end up in your attic the next year when you choose to go for something different. Zebra print isn't really you, anyways. (I can say the same thing about the cartilage piercing you get later, but that is another story.)

And one last thing: a warning. Your first semester of your freshman year is going to change you forever. You are going to make some mistakes and ruin a few relationships. You are not going to make the wisest choices. You're going to fall in love for the first time. You are going to let him define you. I'm not going to tell you to do anything different, though, because it will make you into a better and stronger person. It's really okay that you're not perfect. You will become less judgmental and more forgiving. You will find yourself again. You'll find that you have been redeemed. And for the first time you will feel the freedom that is hand in hand with Grace.


I can tell you that at 22 you have redefined success. You are single, living at home, still in (grad)school, but you are successful. You finished strong. You graduated with dear experiences and dearer friends. You retitled your regrets and learned from them. You are going to be a counselor, and you trust God with the rest of the unknowns. You learned to embrace the process and find beauty in the struggle. You're going to be just fine.

Dare.

I play it pretty safe, most of the time.

Yet, I'm realizing that 

It's the risks that keep us living.

Risking is refusing to live in fear,

 because fear keeps us from doing what we love.

And love is the flip side of fear.

I've been trying to do more things that scare me lately,

getting up in front of a crowd,

pursuing new relationships,

turning in an application,

thinking less, acting more,

saying I'm sorry,

sharing myself,

writing again.

I think if we find the places of fear,

we can find the places of most opportunity for growth.

....

I'm afraid of being a writer,

it's what I've wanted to be since I was a girl telling stories,

it's what I've always been.

But I'm completely afraid of it,

because I don't want to fail at the one thing I feel to be me.

This is me working up the courage to submit.

What's that thing for you?

....

Bold love makes a difference. Not a hypothetical, poster-on-the-wall kind of difference but a real difference in the real lives of real people. You can’t save anyone, but you can be the kind of person who acts out of love, not out of fear.

(from this wonderful blog)

Familiar.

As I struggle with 

being known,

taking risks,

facing the unknown,

and making choices,

I rest in these verses:

"O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down.

You are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue,

you know it completely Lord"

Psalm 139: 1-4

And still He loves me.

Not my words.

Perfection

I like to blog about what I'm learning,

but lately I haven't really liked what God has been teaching me.

He's been revealing to me how selfish I can be.

How egocentric (counseling word) I am.

How I spend way too much energy trying to appear a certain way.

How much deeper I will have to go before I can be a good counselor.

Last year I went through some Spiritual Counseling,

and there were a few times where I was surprised

by unexpected, but strong, emotions that came up during our hour together.

She would stop,

"What just happened there, when I mentioned that?"

But by then I had already forced it all back down,

and all I was left with was confusion.

I wanted to know why talking about "living life fully & freely"
brought up fear, sadness, worry,

but I couldn't.

Sometimes she would simply reflect to me,

"You are not very kind to yourself."

Or,

"Do I need to leave so you can have a cry?"

I don't want to cry in front of people.

I don't want to appear sad, or confused, or lost.

I want to come across happy, peaceful, perfectly content.

Sometimes I go into a one-on-one encounter with nervousness,

and I think the nervousness says, "You're afraid they will see you."

Brennan Manning says this, about people like me, "[They have] a compulsive desire to present a perfect image to the public so that everybody will admire us and nobody will know us."

Nobody will know us,

not even us.

What if the first step to recovering our identity is to accept our imperfections.

What if we gave ourselves grace to

Uncross our arms, take off our masks,

see ourselves

and let His love cover our shame, sin, doubt, and hopelessness.

"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow--not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below--indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

--Romans 8:38, 39