Keep Calm and Carry On

This Is Our God by Hillsong

"Your grace is enough, more than I need. In your word, I will believe. I wait for you, draw near again. And your spirit, make me new. And I will fall at your feet, I will fall at your feet, and I will worship you here. Your presence in me. Jesus, light the way. By the power of your word, I am restored, I am redeemed. By your spirit, I am free. And I will fall at your feet, I will fall at your feet, and I will worship you here. Freely, you gave it all for us, surrendered your life upon that cross. Great is your love, poured out for all, this is our God. Lifted on high from death to life, forever our God is glorified. Servant and King, rescued the world, this is our God. And I will fall at your feet, I will fall at your feet, and I will worship you here. And I will fall at your feet, I will fall at your feet, and I will worship you here. Freely you gave it all for us, surrendered your life upon that cross. Great is your love, poured out for all, this is our God. Lifted on high from death to life, forever our God is glorified. Servant and King, rescued the world, this is our God."

Finally having a moment to breathe is a very liberating feeling.  I'm surprised my body is still intact because I've pushed myself very much to the core over the last two and a half weeks.

That feeling that all is right in the world is still here.  Anderson is my home.  I feel more calm, more collected (which says a lot, seeing as my life has been chaos lately), and more comfortable here than I have in the last six months.  

I'm not exactly sure how to approach putting my thoughts into words because I already feel radically changed since I have gotten here.  I'll try to make sense.

It's funny how God has perfectly orchestrated everything since the beginning of time.  As many times as I have realized that, you'd think that I would expect it, but I am never prepared.  Jesus has much grander plans for my life than I will ever realize.  All things that I was nervous about in coming to Anderson have been blessed tenfold.

Starting with my staff.  I wasn't prepared to cry, laugh, slave, craft, and share testimonies with these girls.  I expected to be close to them, but I never expected to call Ashley, Emily, Lauren, other Emily, Beth, Mary Katherine, Laura, Courtney, and my RD, Ashley, my best friends.  In the few short weeks that we've known each other, my walls have been very much broken down.  And I praise God for that.  I praise Him for the friendships that He is building, for perfectly giving me just what I need before I even realize that I need it.

And my girls.  I never thought that my heart could swell up as much as it has over the smallest of things.  I take joy in hearing their laughs through the walls (that sounds super creepy, but #yolo), letting them into their rooms when they lock themselves out, helping them fill out work requests, laughing with them, explaining rules to them, hugging them, everything.  Everyone told me that I would be the one most blessed by this job and I didn't understand what that meant until they arrived.  I'm very blessed to have them and to be able to love on them.  

And Jesus.  Jesus has made a HUGE appearance in my life since I got back to Anderson.  When I was home, and even when I was in Anderson in March and April, I was very far from the Lord.  I went to church maybe three times this summer.  I never read my Bible.  Never prayed.  But God has a way of gently, but very burdeningly (totes not a word), bringing you back to Him.  In my most fragile of states, I cried daily, missing home and feeling highly inadequate for the job that I had gotten myself into.  I knew that coming here and being an RA was all in His doing because He burdened on me to apply until I finally did, but I felt lost and confused and very angry that He had brought me into this without giving me a clear way of handling my new situation.  So, of course, He broke me down to nothing and built me back up on Him.  That sounds weird and church-y, but it's exactly how it went down.  Jesus brought me back Home, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally.

Praise God for all He has done.  I know full well that the Lord is good.  He's working in my favor, even when I don't understand, at all.  Which is basically all the time.

Pray for me?  Pray that this wouldn't just be a quick thing, but that I would continually move forward with my eyes fixed on Jesus and Jesus alone.  I need prayer.  "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.  Prone to leave the God I love."   Why is that me?  I wish I could be stronger, but I'm not and I continually seek my own ways and my own desires.

I still cry a lot and I'm still feeling very raw and emotionally drained, but it's easier to focus on the good stuff when I know that Jesus has my back.  He always has, but for some reason, I just now finally get it.

Thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I'm praying for y'all as well.  Let me know if you need anything.  Brenna is finally back.  Jesus is good.

Psalm 61:2

It's been a long time since I've been here (both in Anderson and here, typing), but it's good to be back and it's good to be home.  

I moved in last Wednesday and to say that it was hard would be a big understatement.  It took me a couple of days to adjust and get over the emotional heartache of leaving things at home in a different state than I would have chosen to.

And now, as I type in my quiet, new, very junky and overcrowded dorm room, I feel in the most perfect of places that I've been in my life in the last year or so.  I'm only here early because of the Lord's calling of me to be an RA and I'm still unsure of the whole process.  It wasn't at all what I wanted, but Jesus has a way of calling you out and calling you up.  There are times when I'm overwhelmed by the weight of what I've gotten myself into.  I'm excited for the doors that this will open for me, but I'm also crippled by the fear of rejection, of my girls not liking me, of not being sufficient for them.  It's the biggest comfort of all to know that the God of this whole crazy, big, complicated universe entrusts me to do this job.  But I think even that is somewhat prideful to say because I know that though I represent Him, I'm nothing without Him.  So really, He's trusting His ability and my reliance on His ability.  That's almost scarier than Him just trusting me to execute the job--knowing that He's only entrusting me because He knows that I'll rely on Him.  Scary and reassuring and comforting.

I'm not sure if any of that makes any sense, things tend to sound better in my head.

I can already feel myself being the one most affected by this position that I'm in.  The Lord has given me no choice but to rely on Him (it's funny how He works).  After a year of relying on myself and others, He's finally breaking me down and forcing me to rely on Him.  It's no accident that I'm in the dorm I didn't want to be in, doing a job that I never really wanted to do, currently living in a room and on a floor all alone.  I've been tossed into something wild and even though that makes my head spin, I know that this is all His doing and I can't help but relax.  And if you know anything about me, you probably know that that's not easy and it's something I struggle.

I'm rigid and complicated and uptight and it seems that God is breaking me down, one situation, person, relationship, encounter, at a time.  I'm thrilled for the experience and to see what He has for me.  I've already learned more about myself in the last five days than I have in the last six months.  So, so blessed by the Lord's provision and love.

That love is a very challenging, persistent, consuming thing.  Once you catch even the slightest glimpse, you're sucked into that storm that wrecks you and challenges you and chases after you, begging you to let it in.  God's love is more than fathomable and it hits all the way to your core.  I literally just scratched my head trying to think of how this right, but there is no way.  God is love and love is a very beautiful thing.

Thanks for sticking by me.  I've been in a rough place for the last four or five months and I've kept that very much to myself, but I know that that gets me nowhere.  Thanks for being friends, encouragers, warriors when needed, and family.  I honestly don't know where I'd be without the people in my life.  God is good and I pray that my life would be a testament to that.

"When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that I higher than I."

To the One that didn't tell me Happy Birthday

The Lime Tree by Trevor Hall

This post is different than (and very similar to, all at the same time) my others and I apologize for that.  I've been trying to avoid doing something like this, but I don’t think I can anymore.  Hopefully this will be my last post of this sort.  It’s been a long year and I’m trying.  I feel immature doing this this way and maybe I am, but I don’t care what the opinion of me is anymore.  I didn't type this for attention or pity; in fact, if you try to get me to talk about this post, I probably will close up real quick (sorry).  There’s a lot that I need to say, both for myself and because maybe someone needs to hear it, but here goes.

I can’t stress how important it is to date within your realm.  I know I've said it a million and one times here before, but I’m desperately trying to save you from making the mistake.  Though I knew that I should date within my own realm, I assumed that I could change a person to look like what I needed them to look like.  Now that I’m out of the aftermath of that relationship, I see how foolish I was to think that.

I always believed that you could change people.  But you can’t.  You really can’t.  You can influence people, but at the end of the day, people will go back to who they are and what they know.  Some differences just can’t be looked past.  That within itself should have been enough reason to stop me, but at the time, it wasn't.  The two of us viewed life very differently.

I have a lot of love to give and that’s what my entire life boils down to.  My only intention is love and love and love until I can’t love anymore.  So to try to make something happen between someone like me, the girl that falls in love with a million new things a day, and someone that doesn't know how to love, it doesn't work.  I cared too much while this other person didn't care at all.

I guess that’s where things fell apart.  Well, obviously not only here because there were plenty of reasons for things to fall apart, but this was a big part of it.  It really wasn't all bad, I smiled a lot.  But when the good doesn't outweigh the bad, you have a problem.  And when the bad is as bad as it was for me, you have a real problem.  Cause you can’t force someone to care.

If there’s anything I wish someone would have told me, it would be that you can’t carry others.  It’s not your job to sustain yourself and everyone else.  The burdens of others are not your burdens and you are not responsible for them.  You can’t fix everything, especially the things that have nothing to do with you.  At the end of the day, you’ll be left empty and exhausted.

So to the One that didn't tell me Happy Birthday, you still know more about me than anyone else, but that does not mean that you know me better than anyone else because if you knew me better than anyone else, you wouldn't treat me the way that you do.  It took me ages to figure that out, but I finally did.  And with my chin up and my head facing forward, my hand finally off that burner, I’m done with you.  I realize I’m late with that because you've been over me for a while, but I always loved more than you anyway.

To the One that didn't tell me Happy Birthday, I’m praying for you.  I always will be.  I’ll always be here for you because months and months ago, I promised you that, though this time around, I’ll be protecting my heart.  You made a promise to me, too, and you haven’t come through on it, but I intend to show you that I’m a girl of my word.  It’s hard to distinguish what was the truth and what was just being spoon-fed to me because not everything was truth, you know?  I’m sorry that we went out the way we did, but it was not my fault and I refuse to take the blame.  My heart still breaks for you because I've been where you are.  You can ignore reality for a while, but you can’t forever.  And I can’t wait for it to catch up to you, not because I’m being vengeful, but because I can’t wait for you to grow up.  You said you like how real I keep it and to continue in that trend, I don’t regret any of these words.  They might hurt you, but I doubt it because I refuse to believe you care that much.

I can’t wait for you to regret this.  Because when you do, I’ll be able to stand firm and declare that I deserve better than you.  After all, you don’t know what you've got until it’s gone, right?

I should have said this all months ago, but better late than never.  My only regrets are letting you get away with not being honest with me and me not saying all of this sooner.  I told you you hurt me a lot and maybe now you’ll see.

To the One that didn't tell me Happy Birthday, since it’s not longer me, treat her right.  She deserves it.  You have a lot to offer, but you need to be honest about where you lack.  Humble yourself and be kind.

To the lonely girl reading this, we’re waiting together; our time will come, princess, I promise.  We have to just be ourselves and know that someday, a man is going to fall in love with our awkwardness, our craziness, our weirdness, our beauty, our individuality, our psycho tendencies, and the way we care way, way, way too much (really, I don’t count that as a flaw. we’re beautiful).  We’re waiting together for Mr. Right, not Mr. I-Can-Try-To-Make-Him-Right.  And until Mr. Right comes knocking, we patiently wait, trusting in the Lord and soaking all that He is.  And when Mr. Right arrives, we continue to patiently wait, trusting in the Lord and soaking in all that He is.

To the girl confused by this post (you're not alone, I wrote it and I am, too), love is hard.  Feelings are hard.  Emotions are hard.  Boys are hard.  So guard your heart.  It’s not bad to love, but it’s bad to love all the wrong things.  You’ll learn the difference, I promise.  It took me a while, but I think I’m finally getting the hang of it.

“You don’t ever have to feel guilty about removing toxic people from your life.  It doesn't matter whether someone is a relative, romantic interest, employer, childhood friend, or a new acquaintance—you don’t have to make room for people who cause you pain or make you feel small.  It’s one thing if a person owns up to their behavior and makes an effort to change.  But if a person disregards your feelings, ignores your boundaries, and continues to treat you in a harmful way, they need to go.” –Danielle Koepke

I can’t say thank you to y’all enough.  Thanks for putting up with me.  This wasn't meant to be a mean, vengeful post, but I’m not too sorry if it came off that way because I was only being honest.  I am sorry if it comes off like I think I’m perfect when I write these things because that’s far from the truth.  I just refuse to take all the blame anymore.  I know I’m exhausting, but onward, we go.  I love you guys more than you’ll ever know!