It's a Journey

I will be coming up on my 24th birthday next month and I can't believe that I will be 24, it seems like yesterday when I just turned 16 and had my sweet 16 birthday party.

I always wondered where I would be when I turned in my early twenties, wondering what plan God had for me. I have had many doubts, confusion and fustration in my life, wondering where God was in the midst of pain I experienced and even sometimes joy. I remember about a month back I was driving home from someone I knew's house and we had a really deep conversation, I was silent most of the time because I wanted to allow him to speak about what was going on in his heart, even if it hurt me to pieces and I remember getting in my car and this song came on by this band called, "Casting Pearls," and I felt the spirit of the Lord comfort me in a way that I knew everything was going to be okay. And it's in those moments that I never want to let go or leave. I even remember praying, "Lord I want to hold onto this moment forever." In that moment I felt so protected, loved, cared for and completely satisfied and complete in Him.

I think I even wrote about when I got hit in the lip by a frisbee a few months back and how after the nurse put the stitches in my lip and I was laying there in the hospital room as she was finishing with my paperwork, tears began to run down my face because I knew at that moment, the spirit came to comfort me and reassure me that everything is going to be okay.

I was reminded the other day by my mentor, "Those who God uses greatly, He wounds deeply." I have had my years of deep dark moments, wrestled with heartbreak, brokeness, loneliness, wondering where I was going to find a place to live or a job to work at, fighting deep insecurities and addictions and I can't even begin to tell my story of how I have seen God pull me through in such dark moments into His love, mercy and sufficient grace. And lately I have truly been pondering the thought of who I am in Christ and although my past at times is truly painful and it hurts when I think about certain things, I have complete confidence that it doesn't define who I am, but it makes me the woman that I am today.

I still have insecurites, struggles, doubts, confusion, frustration at times in my heart, but it's different now the way that I walk about it and the way that I have allowed God to meet me. He has been meeting me in the deepest parts of my heart, the parts where I have hidden and closed off to everyone and even Him at times, but it has been so amazing to see Him wait there for me to let Him in, patiently waiting and for me, this is what freedom is defined as, this is what freedom means to me. That even in the deepest part of my heart that screams, cries and hides He is there accepting those parts, those parts that you don't like about yourself or the parts that you are afraid to show anyone else because of the rejection, but this freedom inside me has begun and has brought so much security and truth into my life.

And maybe for you this is something that you have been longing for. I believe we are a culture that is captivated by finding freedom within ourselves and yet have no idea how to go about it, so we look in other places to fulfil and bring freedom to our hearts and within those findings, God is waiting at those places of your heart, ready to cultivate you into His everlasting arms, revealing to You that freedom is true acceptance in Christ and what He did for you, that you don't have to have it all together for Him to love, adore and cherish you as His own and if that is not freedom, I have no idea what is and if that is what you are looking for, go for it, trust that He is there, waiting. If it becomes painful to invite Him in those places, trust that His love can heal and restore that pain and He isn't afraid, He isn't scared to go to the depths with you, just trust, trust and trust some more.