This year, my word is deeper. This is actually a really awkward time of aching for me--- more than I care to admit. There is so much joy and goodness and love in this season, but this year, there is also a lot of confusion. These are the days when I'm not totally sure where home is, though there are many places where I am welcomed and I know that there is really nothing to fear. These are the days when I wonder if I have ever really belonged or just...floated. When I question if I really know how to do this relationship thing, if I'm even worth knowing on a deeper level or if I even know how. Maybe I'm just always going to be a little bit of an outcast. Maybe that's my gift--what reminds me of Him here with me. But lately, I've resented it. How, in moving to the cornfields of Indiana, the community I thought was finally, finally mine seems to be more distant now that I am not involved in the grind of everyday life back home. There's something growing at Taylor, too, to be sure, but not without the moments of wondering why everyone seemed to belong so effortlessly to each other except me. This year, I want to plunge deep into faith and relationships and academics. I want to live in a way that terrifies me, that draws me into the deeper waters where His grace abounds. I want to seek after and find God in an entirely new way this year. I want to be awed by his goodness. I want to live every day of this year hand in hand with him and constantly whisper more, Jesus. Like Peter, I want to follow him into the situations and relationships and conversations that would rattle me if I went alone.
I want to love my family, my wing, my people back home deeply, in a way that pushes me beyond my own ability. Community is still a pretty new idea to me. The idea of having a best friend is one I've tossed around and apparently rejected for a variety of reasons--some acknowledged, some not. I've always just told myself that it feels exclusive, that it compromises the quality of other friendships, but lately, I've caught myself wishing for the closeness I see between women on my wing and around campus. God still has a lot of work to do on my heart around this whole thing, but this year, I'm ready to wrestle this a little. I want to learn to wade into meaningful conversations instead of killing them in favor of lighter topics, how to be someone others can come to and be welcomed.
I want to find my niche, a role to fill. I feel like I need to find something that I can do, some leadership position...Ugh. I've tried finding clubs before. Violin, piano, theater, dance, and none really fit. I found a love for special education and I love it, but that's my career. I can't only be good at what I get paid for, right? So there has to be something else. I'm just afraid of what could happen when I start looking, that this un-belonging might just be made worse by finding yet another thing I'm not good at, yet another group I don't quite belong to. But maybe that's part of the whole deeper thing God's putting in my heart. Maybe he's asking me to wade through this weirdness, clinging to my faith alone, into the unknown, the scary, the uncertain and watch for Him. This year won't be easy. Even as I type this, I'm almost 100% sure that someone will be completely weirded out by what comes out of my mouth, how much I over-share and whine and make a fool of myself, and I'm so afraid of asking too much, being too much, too needy, too clingy, too insecure. I don't like my inner voice sometimes, and it's hard to see how I can ask anyone else to love it if I can't. But, OK, I'm going to step out in faith, knowing that one way or another, my Lord will catch me, that He shows up when I empty myself. That He makes a way where there is none. So even if it's scary and I will probably not publish this for like a week and delete it a couple hundred times, I'm going to start out the new year with this mess of a blog post, trusting His promise that grace abounds in deepest waters. Here goes...something.
I want to love my family, my wing, my people back home deeply, in a way that pushes me beyond my own ability. Community is still a pretty new idea to me. The idea of having a best friend is one I've tossed around and apparently rejected for a variety of reasons--some acknowledged, some not. I've always just told myself that it feels exclusive, that it compromises the quality of other friendships, but lately, I've caught myself wishing for the closeness I see between women on my wing and around campus. God still has a lot of work to do on my heart around this whole thing, but this year, I'm ready to wrestle this a little. I want to learn to wade into meaningful conversations instead of killing them in favor of lighter topics, how to be someone others can come to and be welcomed.
I want to find my niche, a role to fill. I feel like I need to find something that I can do, some leadership position...Ugh. I've tried finding clubs before. Violin, piano, theater, dance, and none really fit. I found a love for special education and I love it, but that's my career. I can't only be good at what I get paid for, right? So there has to be something else. I'm just afraid of what could happen when I start looking, that this un-belonging might just be made worse by finding yet another thing I'm not good at, yet another group I don't quite belong to. But maybe that's part of the whole deeper thing God's putting in my heart. Maybe he's asking me to wade through this weirdness, clinging to my faith alone, into the unknown, the scary, the uncertain and watch for Him. This year won't be easy. Even as I type this, I'm almost 100% sure that someone will be completely weirded out by what comes out of my mouth, how much I over-share and whine and make a fool of myself, and I'm so afraid of asking too much, being too much, too needy, too clingy, too insecure. I don't like my inner voice sometimes, and it's hard to see how I can ask anyone else to love it if I can't. But, OK, I'm going to step out in faith, knowing that one way or another, my Lord will catch me, that He shows up when I empty myself. That He makes a way where there is none. So even if it's scary and I will probably not publish this for like a week and delete it a couple hundred times, I'm going to start out the new year with this mess of a blog post, trusting His promise that grace abounds in deepest waters. Here goes...something.
No comments:
Post a Comment