It sinks in...

Just a few thoughts today: I am starting to understand more fully who I am. I was thinking over my day last night. I love reflection. Well, I was thinking over a conversation with a friend. "Your acceptance or rejection of me doesn't change who I am." Woah! When did that truth finally sink in? I've struggled with others' opinions of me being tied to my value. It become so clear last night. Somewhere along the way I started believing in my heart that my value is tied to God.

I just had a Pride and Prejudice Moment?

It's funny how we think we know ourselves. And then along comes a new wave...something new captures your heart and you are changed irreversibly. You thought you had your life figured out. That you knew what the deepest desire of your heart was. And then it's shattered. You see yourself through new eyes. You know what you want. And it's different than you imagined. Not better or worse. Just different. 

I never realised what I wanted. I had dreams. They were good. But I don't know that they were God's dreams. I know I could have pursued them and God would have blessed me. But I know my own heart more fully. I know what I love to do and what makes me come alive. It's not leadership. It's not running a ministry or being in charge of things. It's one-on-one discipleship. Teaching. Hospitality. Art...on my own time and terms. 

I do not want to pursue a career right now. If I abandon myself to pursuing this, it will consume my life for the next 10-15 years. I want a home. I want a family. I want to do ministry on my own terms and time. I want to make coffee! Ha! It's funny how different my life is going to be. Now that I've truly examined the desires of my heart. 

I feel like Elizabeth in P&P. "Until this moment, I never truly knew myself."

Online

Why is it so easy to chat online, yet so hard to converse face to face? Wouldn't it be easier to talk when you could look into their eyes? Guess at what they are feeling? Yet we talk freely to a computer screen--and keep our mouths shut when with another human being. I am doing it again right now. Typing my thoughts into a blog...I want to share them with a person.

I long to be truly known, but I fear intimate relationship. I fear someone knowing me and then rejecting me. I am not perfect--far from it. I am farther than some believe from surface level observation. My past whispers that no one will ever accept me. That I am un-redeemable. I fear being known, even though I know these are lies. 

I want to be known in life, not just online. 

Green

The world has turned green and fresh again. I fell in love with this place at this time of year. It seems surreal that I have lived in Homer for two years. It was two years on Friday. It seems I have always been here. This place gets inside of you. It becomes a part of you.

Leaving is something I crave and simultaneously dread. I miss my family. I want to spend some quality time with them before our lives change too much more. But the thought of leaving the people here behind tears my heart. I have incredible friends here. They are the family I have chosen.

God, help me to know what is right!

I know I'll be back to Homer someday. I want to come back and just live...I don't want to say 'a normal life' because I don't believe such a thing exists. Shall we say, a non-community living life?