summer thoughts.

what a year this has been. it has been full of firsts and full of laughter. it has been great living and loving life with some of my best friends in maulding #fourtwentfly. it was hard to move knowing that it holds so many of the great memories from the past year. surprise birthday parties. singing power ballads in the living room. community naps and romantic comedies, which the occasional sports movie thrown in. football games. being discipled for the first time. being intramural team moms. an ER trip or two. thanksgiving and christmas parties. pictures in the park. finding such a solid community within navigators. friday night dinners. ridiculously fun spring break trip to nashville. late night study parties. late night life conversations. late night encouragement.

but this year has had plenty of challenges of its own. the loss of two of the most influential people in my life within a month and half of each other. apartment getting broken into. thousands of dollars of stuff and the comfort of safety gone for a little while. roommates going through some really difficult situations. change of major and the fear of other people thinking i’m crazy for it. realizing that i am an exceptionally average student and learning to be okay with that.

this year has taught me how to constantly run towards jesus. i desire with all my heart to grow more like him everyday, and i fail a lot. but i am so thankful for his grace that constantly picks me up again and keeps me going. despite all the rough times, he has remained by my side. and i am so thankful.

as this year ends and summer semester begins, i look to him. it is going to be one of the hardest things that i have ever had to do to not return to camp glisson for the first summer in thirteen years. it has always been and will always be my spiritual home, the first place that i really encountered jesus and truly understood his goodness. but he has taught me a lot this year that it isn’t about the place. that it’s never been about the place. is it beautiful up in the north georgia mountains? yes. will i always love cane creek falls, the glisson chapel, and even G4, G6, and G7? of course. but it had always been about the unconditional love, radical community, and most importantly the presence of the Holy Spirit.

as i enter into this new season of summer life here at tech, i pray that the lord would continue to reveal himself to me in new ways. it will be a summer unlike any that i have had before. i pray that he would give me discipline and focus that i need greatly in order to succeed in school, because for some reason he told me he wants me to be in engineering. i pray that he would give me a greater boldness and courage than i could ever have on my own to be a light in the house, the classes i'll be taking, and to the people of Atlanta that need him most. i pray that he would continue to grow me into a more loving person and teach me what it truly means to put the needs of others above myself always.

a little hell week reminder.

Father, you know every little thing about me - everything I think, everywhere I am, everything I do. You are always surrounding me, and there is absolutely nowhere that I could ever run to that would ever separate me from you. You continue to guide me with your presence wherever I may be. You burst forth from darkness in glorious day and light up the world around me. You know every intricate part of my being because you formed me in your glorious and wonderful image. Your thoughts are infinite and perfect, Lord. I will count those that are evil as evil. Search my heart and purify me from the inside out so that I may be a living picture of your love and faithfulness.

[rewritten Psalm 139]

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Lord, I ask that you continue to reveal yourself to me and give me eyes and a heart to fully understand these truths so that I may share them with the world.

being real.

To be honest, I have never viewed myself as an effective communicator. I have traditionally always held back from speaking out in social situations, too worried that I would embarrass myself or not make a good first impression. Being the INTJ that I am, I always have tended to be the observer, taking every little detail in and spending my time reading (and ultimately judging) the other people around me. I have always left events, meetings, and parties feeling like I know a lot about others but feeling like nobody really knows me.

But within the last couple of months, the Lord has been teaching me so much about the importance of simply being real with people and living a life of vulnerability in order to gain that much-desired intimacy in relationships. I am blessed to have some incredible roommates and friends to live life with right now, and I cannot wait to dive deeper into the Word with them and grow together. It's going to be messy, but it's going to be perfect.

The Lord is so good to me and continues to reveal Himself to me in many different ways. I used to think that I had everything together, but He continues to wreck my own thoughts and plans and ideas. I am finally realizing that He has provided me with people in my life that are going to love me no matter what and that I don't have to be afraid to open up to. And I know that is just a teenie-weenie picture of how much He loves me and how nothing that I could ever do could change that.

This being said, I wanted to have a space where I can put my thoughts into words. I never thought of myself as the blogging type, but I wanted to be able to share what the Lord has done and continues to do in my life. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Philippians 2. Verse 3 says, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves". This is something that has really been on my heart lately and that I have been striving to live out every day. So here goes nothing.

The wonderful ladies of four-twenty-fly that I am blessed to call my roommates.