Accepted // Waiting // Loved

This is my final journal entry in a journal I started the first week of my freshman year of college. This is really big for me because I've never finished a journal in all my short years of journaling, until today! Starting journals, oh yeah. Make me the queen of that because I can start them all. It's finishing thats always proved to be hard for me. It makes sense that in a time of so much change and uncertainty that I am finally able to finish what I started. Not to mention with a new passion and ambition to hardcore run after the one thing that has been constant my whole life, God.

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I started this journal with stress and anxiety. Quite literally, my first entry was a Breakaway message about Philippians 4:6-7. Fitting that my first day of freshman year was the next day. But as I am finally able to see the back cover page of this beat-up journal and all I can do it feel at peace. Throughout the past year and a half, I've changed. One hopes that one changes over the years but this is unlike any other change. Not only has my outward life changed, but my soul "did a full 180" so to speak. (For all you millennials out there. I swear I don't TikTok. . .that much) But in all seriousness, my soul was wrecked. I started college as an Environmental Geoscience major and while science does in fact rock, math does not. As each class got harder I started to evaluate what a career in this would actually entail. I would be in a lab. . .alone. . .doing research. . .and that's about it. Now if you know me or even if you don't, yuh girl likes people, a lot. And being in a lab doesn't sound like its a very people-oriented or hospitality-based career. So after much consideration and internal battling, I decided maybe science wasn't the basket all my eggs should be in. So BOOM, Communications major. Now that's something I can get behind. Constantly exercising your communication skills and being around people, sign me the heck up. But it didn't stop there. Along with this major change I realized where my heart was at, Ministry. So now, to quote one of my favorite quotes by Frederick Buechner, not only does my deep gladness meet the world's deep hunger but it also is rooted in my deep hunger to get closer to God.

Okay so all of that being said, it hasn't been all rainbows and unicorns. Motivation is hard, especially right now. Motivation to get up and be productive, motivation to continue school, even to sit still in the word has been hard. But one thing I know I am motivated for is God. I want to learn, to teach, and to do. My ambitions have shifted from getting a degree and doing "the college thing" to wanting to start a podcast, write more blog posts, vlog more of the things, and speak on all of the stages.

Now how does a 20-year-old community college student get from the "college kid" lifestyle to the girl boss ministry lifestyle? Well, how the heck should I know because I definitely don't. But again, what I do know is that it's going to be beautiful and fun! <<< Quoting what I heard God tell me when I asked because I have asked a hundred times and probably will ask a hundred more and He just keeps telling me about how beautiful and fun it will be.

Now here comes my reflection back on the past 2ish years. Looking back 3 things have been very prevalent and reoccurring.

1. Rejection

2. Waiting

3. His Steadfast love

Rejection:

This is a big one for me and always had been. Personally, rejection and expectations go hand and hand. A good friend of mine who sometimes knows me better than I know myself recently told me "You have standards (or expectations) that you think are already set for you but really, you set them for yourself." That hit me like a brick and I told her to text it to me asap so I wouldn't forget it. But truly, I used to do that all the time. I would assume and place all the expectations on myself and life when I inevitably didn't meet them I was always left with the feeling of rejection. Feeling like you are being rejected from everything you thought God wanted for you is rough. No, it's more than rough it's frustrating. I believed so much that what I was striving for was everything that He put me on this earth to do, but how can I do those things if I was constantly being rejected from them?! But that's just the thing, I'm not rejected from everything. I am accepted in the one thing that really matters, and that's Him. It has taken me a good bit of time to lay down my cross and accept this and realize that being accepted in Him is so much better and, honestly less tiring, then constantly trying to be accepted in everything else. Even if everything else is what I believed He wanted for me, He is better. Chris Renzema said it best in his new song Better

"You are my Gospel, here for me when there is none. God help me believe that what You've said is what You've done. We all just wanna get better."

He is how we get the better. The better life, the better love, the better acceptance. He is going to get me to where I need to be, how do I know this? Because look at where I am now. 2 years ago I would of LOLd right in your face if you said I was going to want to go into ministry and God just LOLd right back at me and here I am. It just took time. Which leads me into the waiting.

Waiting:

Change didn't happen overnight and the process has been long and hard. Waiting is a large part of our lives and culture today. We wait in lines, wait for big life events to happen, or for God's plan to, you know, actually start. Just as waiting is a part of the process, so is listening.

"The longer the quiet the louder the chorus." - Chris Renzema; Springtime

I recently heard a sermon on waiting and the woman speaking turned the word wait into an acronym:

W= Why

A= Am

I= I

T= Talking

And boy did that hit hard. The waiting is inescapable, but you don't have to lose your voice having conversations (or in other words arguing) with God over what you think you need right now. Did he not create the entirety of the earth? Is he not the master gardener that not only breathed the most beautiful garden of all time into life but also tends to each and every vine knowing where to cut and where to water? Then trust me on this one, he knows your needs, as well as your wants. I found that in times when I was waiting and I finally shut my trap and listened, He showed up way sooner than I expected. When I listened it took away the pressure of a timeline and the need for an instant answer. Just like coffee, sometimes instant isn't the way to go. He does that quite a lot you know; shows up when we finally shut up. And every single time, when the wait is over, it was so worth it and that much sweeter. Why Am I talking turned into What An Incredible Time I got to have with the creator of the universe. This is all because He knows and loves us. Which lastly, leads me to His steadfast love.

His Steadfast Love:

Man I could write about this one for days but ill save that for another post and simply state what he so simply told me:

"The Steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning." Lamentations 3:22-23

That's it. That's the "tea". Not only is His love steadfast, meaning dutifully firm and unwavering, it also never ceases. NEVER. And. . .I know, how can there be an and after that! but His mercies never come to an end. That is why I go through the rejection, to be shown my acceptance in Him. That is why I wait, to be told what to do and listen. That is real love. That is a love that gives new mercies every morning and is so much better than what I deserve, expect, or wait for.

So worth the wait.