Secure

I've never been very good at hiding,

but I sure try to anyways.

I'm learning so many things about myself as I 

"open the door to my own therapy"

in my counseling program

Like my desperate need for approval,

and my surprisingly terrible communication skills.

Looking forward is scary, intimidating,

and it's starting to look pretty lonely.

I've spent much of my life beside someone,

searching for approval in opposite sex relationships.

Most of them have ended,

and that's a struggle for me.

Especially when I get caught up in comparison 

and the silly game of asking why God is good to everyone except me.

But then I catch a glimpse of the Kingdom,

of God's prevailing love for me,

and the opportunity to be satisfied in Him.

I read this article and was blown away by these words:

"But I want to be married. I pray to that end every day. I may meet someone and walk down the aisle in the next couple of years because God is so good to me. I may never have another date and die an old maid at 93 because God is so good to me. Not my will but his be done." -Paige Benton Brown

What if I could speak such words with conviction.

What if it became okay for me to stop searching,

to see the value and opportunity in where I am.

What if I let myself be free to be God's and no one else's.

What if I remembered that he offers

Beauty for Ashes

Joy for Mourning

Belonging for Loneliness

Security for Desperation

(Isaiah 61)

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.