not your year

lately, i've been finding it really difficult to write, to post, and, at times, to think. sorting out my feelings has been a struggle lately, which is unusual for me, and controlling some of them has been harder. i have felt, in the last few months, my frustration welling inside of me - frustration mainly concerning things i cannot control and cannot change, and some concerning things i've messed up all by myself. this frustration hasn't become tears as it tends to. it has built up, morphing often into anger, discontentment, selfishness, and jealousy.

as i take these frustrations and their sources to the Lord i often wonder if He really hears, and if He does, why He doesn't change things for me. i find myself so upset with God, wondering why it sometimes feels as if He has taken away everything important, everything i need to survive. and so often, i forget that He has not taken away Himself, the only thing. He intends my good, and i often don't see it in the moments of being brought to nothing, of being only the bones of what i feel i once was. but just because i don't feel it doesn't mean it isn't there. just because i can't understand His ways doesn't make them any less perfect or any less right. i am learning to choose to trust, to be patient, to accept loss, to be okay without so many things i feel i need. but God, who knows me intimately and loves me deeply, knows what i really need. He is showing me what i actually need, and though i am frustrated at times by His method, it is, of course, working on my heart.

thanks Jesus, for knowing what's good for me, even when i don't.

since december

much has happened.

my best friend came home from africa, i looked for a job, my family spent christmas together, i got offered a job, i made my first trip to colorado with laura boldt to see the arnolds, i took the job, i went to a summer camp staff reunion, i moved back to charleston, i started the job, i began learning about maritime forests and estuaries and seawhip corals and spotted salamanders and taking care of aquariums, i got into graduate school, and i'm now still trying to figure out the job, my life, my heart, what i think i need, what God says i need, what i want, what God wants, who i'm supposed to be...

but such is life.

God is so good, all the time. i am so thankful for Him and the things He is doing. i'm not always bursting with momentary happiness, but there is such true and incomprehensible joy in knowing Jesus. where His spirit is, there is freedom. from sin, from death, from the world.... His truth sets free, He breaks chains, even the ones i didn't know i had. God has not left me without a Redeemer, today or any day, for He has given me Jesus, the lamb who takes away the sins of the world.

"you are already clean because of the word which i have spoken to you." -john 15:3

made & blessedly restored

In this little thing I saw three attributes: the first is that God made it, the second is that He loves it, the third is that God cares for it. But what does that mean to me? Truly, the maker, the lover, the carer; for until I become one substance with Him, I can never have love, rest or true bliss; that is to say, until I am so bound to Him that there may be no created thing between my God and me. And who shall do this deed? Truly, Himself, by His mercy and His grace, for He has made me and blessedly restored me to that end.

-Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love.