Crawling Toward the Sun

Morning thoughts: May 28, 2012

I think I’m ditching makeup for a while. For the first time in six years I have near-perfect skin, and I’m celebrating that by covering it up — again? It doesn’t make much sense to me. After assessing things in my life over the past couple of days, I need to move my focus to inward beauty. The kind only bestowed upon me by God that radiates far more than any shade of lipstick or eyeshadow could ever do. 

Things are going to stay simple this summer. Simple in the sense of easy happiness, slow days and peaceful nights. I need to fight my incessant urge to prowl metropolitan cities and focus on the rolling hills, placid lakes and natural delights of my hometown. Because one day I’m really going to miss them.

I’m also going to learn. I’m going to learn and re-learn the things that could never be taught within the confines of a classroom. It’s going to be hard, but I’m going to re-learn how to be vulnerable. Re-learn how to listen to my heart and not dismiss every raw feeling as “needy” or “embarrassing.” Re-learn that is is not my job to carry the weight of my worries on my shoulders. Learn the distinct difference between being an independent young woman and one that is intentionally closed off from men for fear of weakness.

Because I’d really like to meet someone nice. And smart and full of words. And inwardly strong and godly. A confident, masculine leader with a pure heart. But I want to meet them when I am ready, and I am just on the cusp of that.

I need to slow down. Because my last year of college is going to be a big one.

I’m already trying to simplify my summer by making my days more low-key, taking days one 24-hour period at a time and fighting my natural inclination to plan out my life five years down the road. In all honesty, all of the trying and planning is futile. And even if I did have the power to draft the five-year blueprint of my life, it wouldn’t be as magnificent as the true Life that is already planned for me. 

To start? I’m going on a mini road trip with my best friend, Carrie, today to a coffeehouse that sits smack on the Chattahoochee River. I cannot wait to sit in a rocking chair, coffee in hand, gazing upon something so beautiful and serene.

I am awestruck.

After staying up all night to study, missing Fall registration for classes (luckily I got ‘em, just a little late!) and immediately falling in my bed to sleep upon returning home, I woke to an overcast sky with my heart feeling very much the same. 

And then I went to check the mail.

My Tumblr penpal and all-around incredible woman Mary (she really is amazing!) sent me a surprise package complete with a thoughtful hand-written note and Joyce Meyer’s “The Confident Woman.” Out of coincidence I had been reading snippets of this book on my Bible app each morning, taking in an empowering paragraph each morning over the span of two weeks.
But now, I think it is much more than coincidence. It took all I had not to get a little emotional at the P.O. box, folks. God is fighting for me again, and I can feel it. This time, I feel it.

It took a penned letter and over 1,000 miles to remind me that we are all women and we all struggle. We all have setbacks. We all have our own personalized, tricky temptations. We cannot control those things, but we can control whether or not they define us, take hold over our lives or pull us away from faith.

Life is a beautiful battle. I won’t let my recent choices leave me alone on the sidelines, because those aren’t me.

P.S. Mary, if you’re reading this, you’re getting a long message from me soon! And a little something from my upcoming New York trip!