Trail Mix

God is love. God loves.

I am included in these statements. Sometimes it seems so easy for me to think that God loves other people but not me. It’s stupid because He has been providing for me like crazy…but in more protective measures than perhaps giving me things. I have spent the last 5 years having to see God’s love in not being able to have the things I have desired. I have learned to believe that I should not expect good things, because good things are not something promised. I am beginning to realize that I may be so wrong. I have had some major things that my heart has been burdened for. I desire so much to work and love in some crazy ways that are so beyond the normal lifestyle that most people have. I desire so much to be a part of a group of friends who are crazy like me and love in big ways that I can live with in community and serve others with. I desire so much to hike the AT and go to grad school for family and marriage counseling. I desire so much to be married and have a crazy cool partner in crime to serve God with. I desire so much to be small and God to be big. I want to stand on mountain tops regularly, and I have always desired to travel the world and meet new people and hear their stories. I want these things so much that when I think about them my heart wells up with tears and excitement. I have treasured these desires in my heart for as long as I can remember. The last five years of my life have been about surrendering these desires over and over to God. I have crushed my spirit into the thought that I must just seek joy and know God’s love for me only based off of the promise an abundant life in Him without the things I desire being a reality. That I will not have the things I desire but must believe that God loves me still because He died for me on the cross. Over the last few months some of the craziest things have happened. I got to go on tour with the dearest of people in my life which was something I have always wanted to be a part of. I have met some of the coolest people who have the same heart for people and ministry and community and unicorns and hiking the AT. I have been on so many mountain tops lately and have the opportunity to move to Nashville to be among awesome friends. I am also making some major breakthroughs with the lies I have allowed to take over my relationship with God and with other people. As well as some other awesome cool things have been under scheme these days. You would think that all I would be doing is going crazy with excitement and reckless abandonment to praising God…but where I find myself is sitting in fear. I have given my heart to things that were close to what I wanted but not really what I wanted and God has protected me from them…but it has felt like one hope crushing after another. I know God has been protecting me for something great…so what do I do when I see that greatness??? I remain frozen with fear while everyone else dances with joy for me. I am so quick to fret that God will not provide the job and finances for me to actually move to Nashville. What I have come to believe and been told to believe by my family is that things may not work out or I may just change my mind. My parents love me so much and they don’t want me to hurt anymore because they have seen the pain I have sat in for the last five years of my life, but they also do not want the life I want. They love me by pulling me down so that I cannot ever get hurt. I pull myself down so that I can never get hurt. I have allowed myself to lay bound by fear, rejection, and hopelessness. I have called it trust and hope in God. I have called it humility. I have called it a million things…but today I am going to call it for what it really is: Fear. Fear that I am a nobody to God who will sit in a cubicle forced to swallow my disappointment and dreams in the name of contentment in Christ. I am not sure I should expect to get any of the things I desire…so in the face of so many wonderful things at hand I find myself scared out of my mind. I am afraid to actually dive into the pool of goodness before me. God is not cruel. He does not play jokes with us. He is a Father who desires to lavish with goodness. I am trying to discover if it is both eternal goodness as well as earthly goodness. I do not want to act as a caged animal when really I have been set free. I wrote a few months ago that I was afraid that God would let me drop. That all the goodness He was giving me in His arms would just come crashing down as He let me fall…God has never given me reason to believe this. He has been holding me tightly from day one. The world is cruel sometimes. It hasn’t been the nicest to me…but I no longer want to live trapped to lies I have believed. I want to learn how to live in the sunshine of God’s love. To receive His gifts. I do not know how to receive love. This is a season to receive love. I know it. I believe it. I hope for it. I am scared…I mean what if I cannot get a job in Nashville, what if I am not loveable, what if I never hike the AT, what if I never get to love people in crazy ways…what if I am stuck in debt and so have to work a job I hate forever…what if…what if…what if I actually decided to trust God? What if I didn’t live in fear? It’s just that I have never had so much good to be afraid to lose. It is one thing to hold onto dear life to fake pearls…but what if you are holding onto the real deal? I may go bury some treasures. I mean let’s just be rational. If God knows what my heart is and if what my heart desires is what He desires…then well, it would make sense that God would open the right doors…and if not then He would close them. I am going home and eating some gushers. Then I may go rock climbing and write letters and play in the sunshine. If other’s can push through the lies that Satan is trying to trap them under than I can to. So yeah.

I feel it necessary to say that once upon a time I had a major crush on Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales...and I have no idea why I feel inclined to say that. Perhaps all this felt heavy to write and the end needed some comedic relief…oh and it needed some Sun Lux/My Brightest Diamond. HMMMHHHMMM.