something new

i has been quite the school year so far. it is my senior year of college should be awesome right? my cohort and i do not go to sleep before midnight ever and are awake before any of our peers could fathom. i am tired, worn down, and at the moment physically ill from it all. we live for the children we work with and that is about it for most of us. though i love them dearly and they truly are my life right now, i had a bittersweet moment writing documentations the other day. i realized that they, my wonderfully, competent infants, are what makes the happiest right now. they are wonderful and bring me joy i feel like something is missing, like having those conversations with a man that make my heart swell. i no longer have time for a social life at all. my friends are married, dating, or are engaged. my last boyfriend was over a year ago and since then i have worked through quite a few issues from this relationship. you see i was twenty when the relationship began, it was my first ever.

i feel as a society we have warped the way that God made relationships to be, jumping head first into them and never protecting our hearts to the point where one day we have given all of our heart away. i work with youth at church and i do an illustration of giving away our hearts. with construction paper i cut out hearts, large ones. then i have them rip a piece off for every time that they have given their hearts away. what they have left is what you have left to give to your future spouse, it is often mangled and frayed. i and the youth often find this illustration eye opening to see what it is we have left of hearts to give. it is also very important to note that if you give God all of the pieces, while we are not able to put the pieces back together, he can put all of the pieces back together for us and make it whole again. God wants us to have loving relationships, but in a way that glorifies who he is and how he made us.

there were many things that ripped my last, and very first, relationship apart but i have found myself very lonely these days. away at college with my family, best friend, my church and home miles and miles away i find myself yearning for something very different. i have not seen my best friend in almost a month, she is at a different college. the last time we got to hang out was for a mutual friend's birthday; she is my adopted sister she was there for me during my darkest days. she put up and puts with my often horrible mood swings and crazy family. i have been at the same college for four years now and have recently begun to yearn for something new. i have been in the same small town with a big college, with its touristy hang outs. but also the most beautiful scenery around with mountains that make me feel very small and insignificant but also loved to know that the God that created the mountain was also the God that created me.

i need something to change in my life right now. my heart hurts for it. i have grown away from God because of my schedule and i miss him dearly. this summer while i was building wheel chair ramps with from across the state, i felt him. i felt him moving, i saw him working in their lives and mine. i need a revival, i need to let God have my life again. i need to live his plan and not mine. i need his peace that transcends our earthly understanding. i need to feel his love again. i need this so i can feel whole again, to feel beautiful again, to feel like his daughter again. i need this so i no longer break his heart and hurt him. i need my life to be different and i cannot change it myself, i need him to change it for me because i am powerless. i am the prodigal daughter who left her amazing father and though i do not deserve his forgiveness, his love, or a place at his table i know he will give it to me. i need him to make me a new being. i need him to change how i think because when the new testament writers wrote for heart they meant minds. i suppose above all i need prayer, i need peace and maybe a little slap up side the head from my God.