The Continuous Journey

"And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does, too." - Khaled Hosseini 

       Once I heard that the teenage years were the best years of one's life - the years in which we have license to be selfish, probable financial stability, and enough energy to accomplish our goals. In my perfect snowglobe picture of adolescence, I envisioned a scene brimming with opportunities, laughter, true friends, and trivial problems fading into the background. This thinking, fraught with errors, somehow didn't take into account the nature of a snowglobe; it is meant to be shaken.
      Sure enough, even before I reached the ripe old age of thirteen, my personal life observed a complete change in direction. Being the sort being who knows no other way than to plunge headlong into any and every endeavor, I soon found myself addicted, obsessed, phony, afraid, and outrageously lonely. This downward spiral continued for four years before I made a definitive effort for change.
      As a child I was under another mistaken impression; that change was fun. Change is not fun. Apart from the one in a million situations where change is quite obviously for the better and quite obviously having a perceivable positive outcome. Although a creature constantly in motion, desiring action and adventure, I was and still am terrified of change. The way most people look at skydiving without a parachute or jumping out of a speeding car over a bridge is the way I view the changes occurring in my life. Honestly, I would more likely agree to either of those alternatives. My natural way of life is pragmatic and hyper-organized, a curveball from left field is hardly appreciated under any circumstances. In hindsight, my reactions to changes in my life, both recent and long ago, small and large, have been ungraceful and blundering to say the least. This time, with a renewed perspective from the Lord, I realize that that a desire to change isn't merely a wish upon a star.
      I grew up in a Christian home and "prayed the prayer" of salvation at the age of eight - my Christianity was nothing more than blind faith. I could recite any number of Bible verses and spew out Sunday School answers at lightening speed, but truths of the Word had yet to take root. Unfortunately through the years of turmoil, instead of recognizing my lack of faith I acted under the guise of a good little Christian girl with false genuineness and a heart rapidly running away from the Father. I hesitate to make the statement that faith was absent from my life, but I believe it was pretty close.
     It wasn't until the beginning of 2013 that my life began to unravel against my will and by July had all but fallen apart. I remember laying in a dorm room hundreds of miles away from home sobbing hysterically on the phone to my mother and texting a friend because I didn't know what would happen left to my own devices. The change was grueling. The decisions were painful, but not nearly as painful as they would have felt if they were of my own volition. Never in my life have I experienced one of those "God things" before the last eight months, in which case I felt my every move constantly guarded by His protective power.
     Recently while talking to a friend, I realized my burning passion for writing, and decided to do something about it. For the first time ever, I find that my motivation for change is God's will for my life. My way never ever works out, as I've witnessed time and time again. God's unending love and mercy is my new permanent foundation for encouragement, not addictions, obsessions, false identities, or fears. To HIM be the glory.

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:9-10