Hello again! It's been a while, as usual. It seems like I get overzealous about blogging. Like, I think I will blog, you know, like twice a month, or at least once, and then nope, it's been 3. Or 4. Or 8. Whatever. But, I'm back! Where do I begin? That seems like a familiar phrase. Probably because I wait so long to blog that I don't know where to start filling you in on my life. But I'll try. And hopefully succeed!
The last blog I posted took a while for me to write. I had been thinking about blogging since about January, but I just kept putting if off. I kept getting busier and more stressed, and then more apathetic. So then it took till May to finally write it. I said this in the last post, I believe, but these last 8 or 9 months have been some of the most challenging months of my life. This has been the roughest season in my life so far. And I'm sure there will be rougher. I've experienced so many changes in almost every aspect of my life. I moved, twice. I started and quitted a few jobs (still working on recovering from that). I entered and exited a pretty manipulative relationship within a few short months. I switched churches. I changed friend circles. I developed a tolerance for spicy food. The list goes on and on. But through it all, God has remained faithful. Perhaps that's a cliche thing to say, but it definitely doesn't hold less meaning because some people overuse that phrase.
I feel like I'm growing up. Well, of course Laura, you might think, you're supposed to! Yeah, but during high school there wasn't a whole lot of growth. Sure, my ACT scores increased per year, and I grew a few inches taller, and lost weight in my cheeks, but that's it. There wasn't much for me to have to really depend on God for in high school. Then I took a year off and travelled the world and saw some incredible things. Then I came back and felt totally lost. Like, where do I start life again? What am I doing here? What do I do with my life?! All of those terrific thoughts. Then I felt like I was gonna do ok. I was working at a bank as a teller (big girl job woo!) and going to community college on a full ride scholarship. Sure, I'll just go to school for two years then transfer to a university and meet my husband and get married and travel and do missions for a bit then settle down and have kids and all that. Well, that fantasy quickly got crushed when I quit my job at the bank and got into a car crash a few weeks after I moved out of my parents' house. So much has changed in my life that I look back at myself a year ago and I'm like, what? Who is that girl?
I've finally figured out what I want to study once I get to a university. So that's pretty exciting for me. I'm looking at opportunities now to do internships or volunteer work abroad with the program I will be studying in. So, look out world, (literally) 'cuz I'm gonna be overseas again soon! God has been really patient with me, I'd say. I mean, He's known what He wants me to do since the beginning of time, right? So He's just been waiting for me to catch a glimpse of what that is. And now that I have, it's pretty exciting!
I've sort of abandoned the idea of completely planning my life. When I was in high school, I had this terrific plan for what my life would be after I graduate. I go to a four year degree. Major in something safe; something I'd probably never use because I was just going to be a stay at home mom anyway. I'd meet a great group of friends my freshmen year. I'd start dating someone in that friend circle my sophomore year. Then junior year he would propose. Then we'd get married after graduation. Then I'd have a family. And the rest is history. You know, that might be a dream life for some people, and that's totally fine--it was for me for the longest time! But now that I've seen so much in my short years of life, I don't want that anymore. I can't plan out how my life is going to go. I mean, I can, but I will be sorely disappointed. So far that is not how my life has worked out and I'm totally grateful! If I knew what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life, if I knew when I'd be getting married, if I knew how many kids I would have, if I knew how much money I would be living off of, then where's the faith? It's nonexistent. So yeah, I've abandoned the idea or the practice of planning long term things in my life. Instead, I'm choosing to live off of faith.
I have a dear friend who has been learning a lot about relationships lately. She's been interested in this guy for like 8 months now and she's been going crazy. She has no idea how he feels about her even though they are great friends. She told me today that she had finally surrendered him to the Lord. Genuinely surrendered. She told me that she had gone on a walk and thought, gosh, I wish he was here with my just enjoying this evening. But she also thought, well, it's super possible that nothing will ever happen, and I'm ok with that. She said instead of asking God to just take away these feelings, that she instead recognized the obvious fact that the feelings would still probably be there for a bit longer, but she could just wait and trust that God would take care of things and that He would bring along somebody if that was His will and in His timing. So that was encouraging to hear.
That got me thinking about singleness. Like, what am I doing with my life? I can be doing SO much with my singleness right now. Am I? Eh, that's debatable. I was convicted a bit that I haven't been living up to my full potential. I'm not meeting my goals, nor am I really setting any. I have all of this time and energy I can use to minister and to serve and to really invest in Kingdom work, but am I? Sometimes. Enough? Probably not. Because sometimes I'm distracted. Sometimes I'm discouraged. Sometimes I'm apathetic. Sometimes I'm scared. But I don't wanna be that way anymore. I'm trusting in God's strength to help me change once again for the better, for His glory, to be more like His Son.
A verse that has really spoken to me is this: "'Go', Christ says to his disciples, 'I am sending you out like lambs amongst wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals. When you enter a town...heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you'" (Luke 10:3-4).
Kingdom journey. That's what I'm on.
God, give me faith.
