Well, I shall go in order of the title :) first- I'm ready... I was ready to be done with college- not necessarily ready to leave great friends, but ready to move on to greater things, a new adventure, a change really... and I still am ready- ready and waiting... I love my family, and I love my home, but I sometimes feel squished.... uh a better word for which I am searching .... squelched? I don't know, either way I sort of feel like I can't really reach my fullness here... and it's no one's fault, except for maybe my own... but when i'm home, in the area and churches and people groups that I've grown up in, I feel like I should still be a young person- in high school- who doesn't know anything, who doesn't have a place to say anything of real value, and I just can't really work in a place where I feel this way... and, so I'm ready- ready to move on and live... yeah, I'm sure I could do some more about that while I'm still here, and I hope working at Grace Community Church will help me in this, getting involved in something greater than myself, giving back to God and those around me, I know this will help, and i am greatly looking forward to Monday for this reason. :)
This past semester has been really rough, and I haven't really been able to fully understand why I've been struggling so much with self-confidence, self-esteem and even liking myself... and I've struggled with why I keep feeling this way, I know that God has made me to be a wonderful woman of God, striving for His heart, striving to follow where He leads. Yet I often feel like the lowest of lowest, filth, trash. I know Paul talks of being the worst of sinners, and we as Christians view that as a noble thought. The way I see it, however, degrading oneself is not noble... in anyway. Humility, yes, self-loathing, no. I was/have been on the verge of self-loathing, and I couldn't figure out why... I'm not normally one to think so very low of myself... I love and treasure who God has made me to be... why have I suddenly lost that? Well, it took me all of about 5 months to realize it but I think I've put another piece to that puzzle... I've caused pain, in people I cared deeply about, I unintentionally caused a pain deeper than I can imagine, and the whole semester was really one giant daily, moment by moment of that, how I caused pain, I broke a person, and not only did it effect that one person, but the ramifications spread across a large group of people, and each day was another story of how what I'd done had hurt someone else... The thing is... I still know that I did the right thing, I followed my heart in what I knew I needed to do, what would bring about God's will for my life.
The cool thing is with realizing this piece of the puzzle, I can have the hope for renewal in my life, the hope for a change, a new-found peace, knowing that I didn't do wrong, sometimes evil and pain just comes, and we truly don't have an explanation. We don't know why bad things happen, we can only try to guess at reasons and purposes that can come out of the evil we face and experience. Nonetheless, we cannot live in a way that we constantly blame ourselves- without room for grace and redemption through Jesus Christ. It is only destructive to continue on the path I was on, and I know many who have been or are even still on that path- and this is to all of us... this path of self-pity, self-loathing is only one of pain and destruction, and it is not the road that God wants us to be on- Yes His path is a difficult one to tread as well, but the focus of that path is on HIM not on our own lowliness and worthlessness, but on His righteousness and glory! Partner with me to walk off this stupid path of destruction to return to the path of love and righteousness, the difficult but worth path of the Lord. I can't do it on my own.
To God be the glory.
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