learning to trust God has looked a little different for me than I had assumed. i went to Detroit this weekend with a car that had terrible tires and broken windshield wipers, and i being the not-car expert had to trust someone else to take care of everything.

i feel like perhaps i have sort of tried to take control of my life for the past three years and been a little frantic at the thought of someone else helping me. including God. 

Which needs to change now.

i feel like i have been discontent. complicated. annoyed. because every little aspect of my life i felt was up to me to control.

it's felt nice spending long mornings with Jesus and giving him my frustrations.

it's felt nice learning that when I ask for prayer and assign the name of Jesus to every spot of me, and when I get in a small space with Tammy and have her pray for me, real things happen. And that is trust. 

it's felt nice being honest about my heart with Brooke and watching a friendship unfold with the beautiful woman who is now glowing in the far room upstairs. it's felt nice to see that I need to learn and grow and that I can become that woman of God that Daniel always calls me, right here, incubated right here. 

and anywhere God puts me.

it's felt nice hearing Him talk to me through Jordan B about God being ahead of me. it's not me waiting for God to catch up. trust is Jesus being way ahead of me on the road calling my name closer to Him. I haven't seen it like that.

i've felt panic that i'd get it wrong. make the wrong choice.

i'm sorry.

Sarah Jayne has been my roommate for the past months, and what a beauty it was to have her here. I feel like she has shown me her trust in God by her constant tears and laughter and unending process of trying to get Him and follow Him and hear Him. It frustrated me and blessed me and pushed me because I wanted to get it, and she helped me get it, and then as she moved out and I had this big empty space to myself to hear Him speak, I started getting it. (thank you Sarah.)

it has been hard, sitting in one spot. I am so used to moving compulsively or taking the first thing thats shot at me in a frantic desire to get it, to understand, to grow. But I am not going to do much moving. In fact the life that is present for me in the next year is pretty much wrapped up in the same beauty of what I have been doing, only in smaller or bigger doses - as God has shown me how to walk in each of them. i am not moving because I am waiting for God to show me, to move me. my work is not done here yet. and instead of my body moving, He's been moving my heart.

whispering that He'll take care of it if something needs to change.

woke up one morning staring at a poster that i've had on my wall for years. (see above picture)

i always just liked it.

but on this morning it meant something more to me - because all of a sudden God showed me that i was the baby in the man's arms. and that i needed to look up at Him and breathe a sigh of relief because

He's got it under control. really.

(and in this I rest.)

Contentment is thankfulness' best friend.

I have decided that this next season is going to be about

trust.

rest.

and him.

because I have not trusted God well in my life

and there has been a battlefield of my mind in regards to letting go and seperating myself from my family and my old church and the old mind and wondering which parts are not truth

which parts do not give me life

which parts can I let go of?

Can I be saved from them all and start again?

Can I embrace a new way?

it's scary and needed. 

I want to rest because my mind needs it. to get past confusion.

to know that

it. is. okay.

it. is. right.

I. am. free.

I. am. loved.

it's okay to lay down. to use my hands in love and not in labor.

walk. with. His. hand. in mine.

(that is rest.)

resting is like a breath, like a prayer, moving out of peace and the spirit, I think instead of

flesh. self. franticness.

can you pray for me?

I really really need to learn this. for real. to ask for it. to pray for it. to wait for it until it comes.

I believe this is how God wants to change me.

to rest is also to trust.

to rest and to trust is to love and which is also what brings me to the next part.

him.

there's an amazing man in my life. a man. 

I really like him, you see... and...

it has been like pulling my teeth out to trust

and to rest in him

to believe him

and I don't quite know why.... but I want to.

and I want to take his hand and walk next to him

and I want everyone to know how wonderful he is

how careful he is with me

and that I have no been looking at him with God's eyes but

(I will now) 

thank you jen.

I want to become like a warm blanket. a warm place. a safety. a friend. 

I think that it means laying myself down

maybe that is why it has been so hard, I have been afraid of becoming unprotected in the way I have protected myself

and he kept asking that I'd be the walls of jericho

so that my walls can come down

I see it starting

I am seeing with new eyes

but I want a new mind, soul, body

so I can love better

trust better

rest better

can you help me? can you be honest with me? it would really help.

how can I grow?

a couple deep breaths...

there is something hard about closing a door behind you, silently.

sometimes the violent slams seem more appropriate

but this one closed slowly and without much commotion

and I look at it sadly, contentedly, thrilled about what's ahead

but it's hard I think to see that it's completely finished now

a few things are completely finished now

and in a way I feel like I am walking on two feet, my own two feet

parts of me feels lonely

parts of me feels independent, victorious

God has brought me here.

I just have to collect my person

make decisions that what is behind me is behind me

and look ahead

"guard your heart for within it flows the wellsprings of life...

fix your gaze directly in front of you

let your eyes look straight ahead

make level paths for your feet

take only ways that are firm

to not swerve to the left or to the right

keep your foot from evil."

Proverbs 4 (last four verses)


ps. I am not obsessed with Alaska. But I think about Alaska.
I don't think Alaska will change me or be the next big thing
but it might change me, and might be the next thing.

I feel a strange settling down with life. It's beginning to make sense.

I'm beginning to make more sense.