Finding my place here

11 months ago today, I started my very first "real" job. I started working at an organization I loved, after volunteering there for 3 years before that. I thought that life was perfect and I was well on the road to happiness and loving my job.  I had a great job lined up, housing included, I'd be living 10 minutes away from all of my best friends, living in a city I loved, having independence from my family but still being close enough for visits. Watch out world, I was going to have the life I wanted!


....HA! These last 11 months have been far, far, far from the rainbows and butterflies life I thought. They have been so hard and so just real. Work in the real world is hard, figuring out living on your own is tough, spending an entire summer in a huge house all by yourself (well, except the crazy family in the basement) is lonely and sometimes scary, trying to find my own real church home is really stressing,  learning that you  aren't cut out to do every little task is humbling. Figuring out how to have my own walk with the Lord without Chapel and classes and friends to always be lifting you up and spuring you on in your Walk was more than I felt like I could handle.


I have spent the last 11 months threatening to throw in the towel, pack up my bags and move to the safety of home. I was ready to run home to my mom's open arms and forget about this hard thing called real life. I have spent the last 11 months trying to figure it all out on my own so I would be happy. Forgetting all along that that was not what I was called to. God has called me to something so much bigger than myself and it takes me dying to myself daily and giving in to his will. 


This week I felt like God really pounded that into my heart and for the first time in the last 11 months I truly felt like I was content with where I was and what I was doing. When it became not about what I wanted and what would be good for me, I found my love for the people again. I found my desire to be serving in ministry and my desire to serve God. 


I feel as if, for the first time in the last 11 months, I am truly happy and truly enjoying where God has me in this moment. I am so thankful for all of the life lessons that I have learned over the last 11 months and look forward to the next 11 month as God continues to teach me to become more about him than me. I am learning about Grace and forgiveness and what they looks like in my life. I am learning about just how much God loves me. 

Happy 15th Birthday William Noah!

Today is my little brother Will's 15th birthday. I can't believe this kid is already 15, he has grown up way to fast! Will and I have always been close and even more so now that he is getting older. We are so much a like and I see so much of myself in him (the good and the bad). Will, like all of my siblings, has a special place in my heart and has taught me so many lessons in life. Will started teaching me from the first day he was born. Will was born with a heart defect where the valves that pump the blood in and out of the heart were switched and so his blood was not getting the oxygen it needed. From that first day he was born, Will taught me to trust God through the hard times. This was the first major "hard" thing, that I can remember, our little family of 5 (and then Will made 6) had ever had to deal with. For 3 weeks, my little 7 year old self, begged God to heal Will and bring him home from the hospital and during that time I learned to trust God as I had never had to before. This lesson repeated itself over and over again with Will being the means to which God taught me to trust him. Like when Will broke his leg very badly and was hospitalized the night before my graduation, or when he had what was thought to be tumor in his mouth.Over and over again I have learned to trust God more, because of Will. I am so thankful him and his love for God and others. I am so excited to see what God has in store for him as he becomes a Godly young man.

 

Happy Birthday Little Brother!!!!