Strange, but Wonderful

It seems strange that I have a little more than one month left before starting classes in September. It also seems strange to be returning to school for yet another degree.

I have several friends with blogs and enjoy being able to keep up with their lives (to varying degrees) via this technology. I even started a blog a couple years ago on another site, but never really did much with it. While I'm a chatty person, posting my thoughts or things going on in my life online doesn't appeal to me. However, since my courses are all online, I need to get over that fear or I won't do well in school.

For the past four years or so, I've become very adept at keeping people at a distance. I was so hurt by my friends in college that I shut down emotionally and have just limped along through life since then. I have close friends who have managed to break down some of my walls, but as one observed a year ago, I've "learned my lessons too well." I know I still have many walls up, but several have fallen in the last year. The protected life I've been living is not how God created me to be.

I recently moved back to Aurora after a year in Fort Collins and was not happy about the move. I didn't understand why God would want me to be somewhere I so desperately desired to avoid. I still don't fully understand His reasons for having me here, but amazing things have been happening since I've stopped fighting Him on it. I've even moved past just accepting it and have started to embrace being here and making friends. It never ceases to amaze me that the Holy Spirit prepares my heart to hear what God has to say to me.

This past Sunday's sermon was on living out your life completely for God, to be consumed by Him. Being consumed by anything but myself has been a huge fear of mine in the last four years. I've tried my best (on and off) to live a balanced Christian life. After everything I've been through, that's all I could handle. But now? Now, I'm tired of life as I've been living it. It hasn't been nearly as fulfilling as I know living God's life for me can be. I want to be consumed by God; I know that things I've grown attached to will disappear, but in the end I will be so much closer to the woman He created me to be. Finally, that's all I want.

I think Aurora is becoming a place of healing for me instead of the place of pain it once was in my life. To quote a song I heard in middle school, "God's promises are rainbows in the night." I don't remember much else about the song, but that line has stayed with me all these years. It's so true because if nothing else, I've learned God is there for me in my darkest hour and turns it into a thing of beauty.

All of this to say, I'm finally coming out of my hiding place of the last four years. I'm going to let God knock down my walls. And I think a step of that is blogging, it's a way to let people in.