thankful...

I am following my sister's lead and taking a moment to remember the things in my life that I am thankful for. I am not going to lie, there have been times in the past few months where I have struggled to be thankful. There are times when relationship, wedding, family, life stuff is hard. There are times when I have lost sight of all the things in my life that are amazing and from the Lord. I want to remember them more. I want to be more thankful for the good things in the midst of the hard things.

A few things that I have been thankful for recently:

that my soon-to-be in-laws love the Lord

that the Lord has given my mother and I a truly close friendship

my sister, her family, and that sweet babe growing inside her

honesty

a fiance that works so hard to break through my walls

my little apartment

hot summer weather (even though almost everyone else hates it)

real "i can tell you anything and you will still like me" friendship

for situations only the Lord can change

grace and acceptance

affirmation from my parents

babies

reuniting

oh, and jalapeno burgers from Harris Teeter

what is on your list?

thankful <3 

something good...

i haven’t written anything on here since July 2010. slack much? i think so. :)

so much has happened in my life over the past few days and will be happening over the next few months. i want to try and write about how i am feeling and what’s happening so that one day i can look back at it and remember as much as possible.

getting engaged has been such an amazing experience. there have been so many emotions and so many tears (of joy, of course.) Kyle is the most amazing man i have ever known. he loves me in a way that sometimes i cannot understand. he loves the Lord in a way that inspires me. i would say he is the man of my dreams but honestly he is more than i could have dreamed or dared to.

ever since Kyle got down on his knee in front of his entire family, by the way, (the perfect proposal) Romans 8:28 (MSG) has been running through my mind "we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good." i feel overwhelmed with joy when i think about how God knew that every step would lead me to this moment. that every mistake, every regret, and every stumble would land me in the arms of such an amazing man.

i can honestly say that there was a very big part of me that was unsure if this moment would ever come in my life. i know people say things like that but i genuinely mean it. before falling in love with Kyle i always felt i was so damaged. life has made me hard and independent, not soft and submissive the way a wife should be. i never thought a man could see through all that and into the soft, emotional woman that i am inside. but Kyle does. he really sees me and loves me so well.

i feel so blessed that the Lord worked everything in my life into something oh so good. i am excited to start our life and change my name but right now i am basking in the wonderful joy i feel at this moment.

and to top it all off, he is unbelievably handsome.

change....

i have been putting this off for a while because i feel like i have so much i want to say and don't have all the words to say it.

i am sitting right now in my empty living room that i moved my bed into so that i could pack a little easier. i look around at the walls and think of the memories i have made here in this little apartment and the changes i have under gone since moving to this town. the person i was when i came to Boone 4 years ago is a far cry from the person i am today. when i moved here i was a kid trying everything i could to get my life back on track and get away from a small town that i felt was sucking me in. today i am a woman and even though i am no where close to having it all together i am on a good path. i see God in all of it. from making my living situation back home not work out to having someone break my heart which gave me that extra push to move away. he knew i would be here today and i am so thankful he broke my heart, in so many ways, back then.

i think about what it was like when i first came here to Boone. i moved on a whim after getting accepted 4 days before school started. moving in with my sister and feeling like i was never going to be able to form a life here. the first semester i was here i was miserable. i thought i would stick it out for the year and then transfer somewhere so that i could live at home and near my old friends and go on with the life i had left behind. i cannot express how glad i am that i didn't make that choice. the real turning point for me and my new life here in Boone was when my sister gave me a surprise 21st birthday party the second semester i lived here. i walked in the door and saw so many people that cared about me and began to see that i was making a life here even though i didn't realize it. that day changed the course of the rest of my time here.

each person i have met here in Boone has made me grow in some way. from the people who have become so important to me that i would never want to live without them to a interesting little guy named Matthew that i just met last week who already tells me he loves me and kisses me on the head when i see him out even though i have given him no reason to do either (he is a little bit of a kook). :) this place and the people here have helped to shape me into the woman i am today. i have learned to accept people for who they are and where they are. i have had to look in myself and really think about how i feel about issues like homosexuality and gay rights. things that i would have never had to face had i stayed in a small town. things that i am glad i had to think about because they effected someone i have come to love so much. i am learning to accept myself for who i am and the faults i have. i have learned that i have a LONG way to go.

i have so many things i want to say about the life that i am leaving behind here and the new one i am beginning. so many emotions i want to express but i don't have to words right now. in 2 weeks i will be leaving this crazy little town for good. i will be taking the last of the things i own and putting them in the back of my yellow bug and i will watch Boone fade into the background as i turn to a new life in a new city. i will never forget the things i felt in this place or the way it has changed me. if you had asked me 5 years ago if i thought i would end up in Boone i would have laughed in your face, but here i am. scared, excited, sad, nostalgic, anxious, did i say scared? feeling so many emotions about leaving and so many more about where i am going.

Failure...

This is a word that has hung over my head for a very long time. I live my life in fear of it and make decision about my life based on it. I am so afraid of failing that most of the time I don’t go for things that I really want. I also put rejection in the same category as failure which keeps me from asking people things and from meeting new people. It’s sad and kind of lame.
I told Page a few weeks ago that I felt like he could do great things in this world and then he asked me if I felt the same about myself and I said no. He told me that was the stupidest thing I have ever said. But to be honest it’s true. Talking to him yesterday as we sat at the fire town spending time together before he moves, he spent a lot of time telling me that he could see me doing amazing things and I couldn’t make myself believe it. I think I will fail and because of that I don’t even have the guts to try. I don’t try to lose weight because I don’t think I can do it. It took me years to quit smoking and I hating telling people I had started back or hadn’t quit. I hate when I feel people are disappointed in me and in my mind it is better to never try then to try and fail. This is something, like many things in my life, I want to change and I started yesterday. It was a very very small step but a step.
I have wanted to meet regularly with my Pastor's wife Kim since pretty much the day I met her. She is an amazing woman of God, an amazing and loving wife, and now a wonderful mother. These are all things that I want to be and I believe the God put her in my life so that I could learn and grow because of our relationship. We have spend a few afternoons together since I have been going to theHeart and I have wanted to ask her to meet many times and have been so afraid of being turned down that I haven’t asked. Until yesterday. I called and talked to her for a while and we talked a lot about failure. She told me about how my pastor, Jason, is never afraid to fail. He tries new things all the time and if they don’t work he never feels like a failure. I told her that I would never put Jason in the category of a failure even though I know of things that he has done that have "failed” and she agreed and said that that is how people would think of me if I tried things and they didn’t work out. Crazy concept.

Anyway, I talked to Kim for a while and finally got up the nerve to ask her if she would want to meet with me regularly while I am still in Boone for the next couple of months. And she said she would love to. It was a really great feeling. I went out on a limb and I didn’t fail. Who knew? J
I know that this will not always be the case at that sometimes I will try things and I won’t get the result I want. And this is something I want to learn to be ok with. I know that it won’t be easy and I know there will be times where I won’t do things because I am afraid but I want to try.

My life is changing now because college is ending and I am going to be in a new place where I need to meet new people and start a new life, something else I am terrified of. I need to live with less fear of failure or rejection and I know that yesterday was a step. I can’t wait to see what I will learn from my time with Kim over the next few months and I can’t wait to try new things and meet new people with less fear of failure.

I know some of you have been waiting for me to blog again and I hope this post gives you a little more insight into this crazy brain of mine. Thanks for reading and caring.

forgiveness...

for me this is a hard word to think about. i don’t know if i really know what forgiveness means or what true forgiveness is. does it mean that when someone says they are sorry and they mean it and you say you forgive them that you will never think about it again or let it interfere with how you feel about them? does it mean that you will allow them back into your life/heart over and over even though they may hurt you again? does forgiving mean forgetting? can you forgive and still walk away from that person? even if they are your spouse or family member? is asking for forgiveness just as much for you as it is for the other person? is it hard for everyone to forgive or just me? is it strange to ask for forgiveness from someone that doesn’t even know you have hurt them or said something against them? if there is someone in my life that i haven’t forgiven does that mean that God doesn’t forgive me and i am going to hell or something? why didn’t God make it so that once we speak the words "i forgive you" that our minds are erased? why is forgiveness such a struggle for so many people or is it a stuggle for a lot of people?

these are all things that i wonder about. there is a person from my life that i have been unable to forgive because the things they have done to me are so hard to get past. this is not something i am proud of and it is something i am working on but it there none-the-less. there are also people that i feel that i need to ask for forgiveness. holding a grudge against someone for something they did to me when i should let it do. being mad at a boy that broke up with me even though i know it was the best thing. saying i forgive someone when i really don’t and i choose to hold on to it long after the fact. thinking mean things about someone. having an issue with someone and never saying anything and letting it come into my mind over and over again. making fun of the way people dress. talking behind someone back. there are so many wrongs i have done to others that i could spend my whole life asking for forgiveness from people. just thinking about it is exhausting.

from what i can tell, with my very limited knowledge, forgiveness is something that everyone deals with in their lives. i don’t think God would have put it in the Bible so much if it wasn’t a big deal. right? this is one of those things that makes us all the same. no matter if you are a homeless person living in an cardboard box or you are the Queen of England there has been a time in your life when you have had to ask someone to forgive you or had to lay the hurt down to forgive. forgiveness is even in the 12 step program (step #9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others if you were wondering.) which means that asking for and being forgiven is a part of being a better person as well as a person of God. basically forgiveness is no joke and something that i want to spend a lot more of my time thinking about and doing and asking for when i need to.

maybe ill do a little forgiving right now.

friendship...

is such a gift. the bond with a friend can be such an amazing feeling. for some reason it is often so much easier to share something with a friend then it is to share it with someone in your family. on the flipside sometimes friendship can be very very hard. sometimes it is hard because we are not good friends. sometimes it is hard because one of the people in the friendship is going through something. there are so many reason why a friendship can begin to crumble.

a friendship in trouble is something i am, regrettably, dealing with in my life right now. i am by no means saying that a friendship in my life is ending because i dont feel that is the case. my relationship is just going through a transition point. the day after i talked to my mom about what was happening in my life and what was going on in this relationship she heard Charles Stanley speaking about friendship and broken friendships on the radio. this short 20 minute sermon spoke to me so much and i have listened to it numerous times in the past few days. i encourage you to do that same. i believe that God wants us to be good friends to one another and when a friendship is struggling i think that God wants us to make it right.

please take the time to have a listen. Troubled Friendship

blogging...

i in no way thought that writing this blog was going to make me feel so good and so strange at the same time. it is very weird to know that because of what i type on this blog people are seeing a side of me they might not have ever seen otherwise. writing things that are really real on here is a little scarier then i thought it would be. putting all these feeling out there for anyone to see and judge. it is very weird and i feel very self conscience.

with all that said i want to say how much i appreciate anyone who reads this blog. if you feel led please pray for me and the walk i am beginning with the Lord.

maybe i like blogging :)