22 Years

It seems to be a yearly thing that on my birthday I sit down and think about where God has taken me this last year. Since hardly anyone reads this I felt like this would be a good place for those of you who do care or who are interested in what I have to say can sit with me, with a cup of coffee, and rejoice in the Lord with me for all of His faithfulness, goodness, and power from my last year of life. This last year was my 21st year of life. Many people have really big parties and celebrations, go drinking, and do something crazy to welcome in their adulthood. Me, I was beginning to recover from the awful 8 months my family and I had just gone through. I was numb, I was hurting, I was going through counseling and I had a big event in the future I needed to focus on. I've chosen to remain abstinent from alcohol because of a very long line of alcoholism in my family. On the 11th of April my brother and sister-in-law took me out to dinner and announced to me that they were going to have a baby - what a crazy sensation it was to want to cry and laugh all at the same time! I was on cloud 200 for that next week telling almost everyone I could that the Lord had answered my 11 years of prayer and is granting me the position of aunthood! On the 17th of April, I delivered the harsh reprieve letter to Bethel's provost for all the ways Bethel mistreated my mom, my family, and failed to live up to their standards of their Covenant for Life. I never did get a reply back - typical. Later that summer I found myself donning blue as a bridesmaid for a really really good friend's wedding - it was beautiful! Then I took a hop, skip, and a jump and landed in the midst of the Navajo Nation in the middle of nowhere - Pinon, AZ - doing my senior research project and being a witness to the goodness of the Lord amongst a people who have only heard fire, hell, and brimstone preached to them. After a month there I came back just in time to move back into Bethel for the leadership retreat - praying on the air was probably one of the craziest and most amazing things I have ever done. Being a leader on Pray First has been amazing and VERY difficult this last year as we have gone through many transitions with losing a few people from our team - my Pray First team has been my social life and my family away from home for so many different reasons. Then it happened...the depression...oh did it come to bite me with a vengeance! There were many scary nights I was REALLY not sure I would wake up that next morning - completely lonely, struggling with the pain of a dead friendship and the feelings of rejection that brought, on top of the fact my roommates probably didn't care a lick about what was going on with me - oh I do try to be a part of their group but they don't let me in just because I'm different. Typical... November 7, my beautiful niece Kerrigan Zettie Grace was born - oh what a joyous moment that brought so many changes into my family! In December I found myself at my lowest and I remember it was around the 11th that I cried out to God and asked him to help me love myself because I loathed everything about me. Going down to Onething was probably the best thing to ever happen to me, the Lord met me and touched me deeply! He placed a calling on my life within His Kingdom which answered years and years of prayer and longing on my heart and He reassured me that I was on the right path in life. Such a relief! And on top of this, God started freeing me and healing me of my need to be a PEOPLE PLEASER! OH WHAT FREEDOM!!!!!!! This semester started out differently than the last one. I started to notice the lonely depression coming back to bite me every Thursday night, but after my Pray First team prayed against this for me I haven't had it come back, and the few times it has I have been able to stand on my own two feet. The issue of forgiveness and the struggle I have had within my heart to forgive my ex-best friends has been huge these last two weeks for me and I find myself getting to the most intense part of the forgiveness process (which is really hard to explain unless you have persevered through forgiving someone). Yea, the Lord has been good and today I did some planning for my future - this was the first time I sat down and made goals for myself, ways that I want to grow in my walk with the Lord, things I hope to do to keep myself from just surviving - I WANT TO LIVE - Yea this next year is my transition and building year :) Thanks for listening! Blessings!!