He knows where this is going.

Once again I've fallen off of the blogging bandwagon, and once again I'm returning to pour out my heart in type.
As I'm looking over my last blog post, my mind is reeling.
So many things have occured since I typed out that post, and I'm thanking God for that.
There are truly too many events that have happened since then to include in this one post, but I might get around to expounding on them as time passes.

First of all, about a week after I wrote that last post I went to a church camp, and God completely wrecked me. I don't know how familiar you are with the term "wrecked," but I mean it in the "breaking point/crying and blubbering/desperately needed" sense. At this camp, I was put on a team to do mission work in a small community a couple of hours away from my home town. The entire week, an apathetic mindset overtook me. I just went through the motions, sort of running on autopilot. On the last night of this camp, there was a prayer walk. There were several different stations, and most of the time was devoted to individual reflection. One of the last stations was a prayer garden. I stepped onto the paved cobblestone pathway with no expectations of an encounter with God. Thankfully, He had a different agenda for the night. My mind started racing, and realizations surfaced in my innermost being. My mind spouted a phrase that completely overwhelmed me: "How can you come work, sweat and bleed in this ridiculous heat to love on complete strangers, and not love your own friends enough to stop this cycle of sin you're in?" Wow. I finally saw God's perspective of my situation, and it broke me. I wept for at least an hour, and one of my good friends shared a dream that she had about me, which verified what God was already doing in me. That's the short version of the story, but that was my true turning point.

Fast forward a month, and I am in Kansas City at the International House of Prayer. My heart was still a little chaotic from its recent shaping up, and I was clueless of what was going to come next. I remember sitting in the prayer room one day and asking God where I was supposed to go from the place I was at. As soon as the question formed in my mind, I began writing things in my journal. The things He had me write were things that were separating me from Him. Some of the things that He highlighted surprised me, but I was excited to begin tearing down some of the barriers that kept me from encountering Him fully. It was a step back to where I knew I should be.

Fast forward again to August. I started college, which, in all honesty, was terrifying. I wondered many times why I couldn't just move to Missouri and attend college while doing an internship at the International House of Prayer. As I began my journey at my college in Texas, a little bitterness resided in my heart from my unfulfilled wishes. God's plan was so much better...It's always so much better. It's kind of humorous to think about now. Anyway, I had a little panic attack the first night I was alone in my dorm. Okay, I was going to have to be an adult. Okay, I was a little bit alone. Okay, I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders now. These thoughts crippled my mind and I freaked out, for lack of better words. The following week, I got myself settled and tried going to a few churches to see which I felt was right for me. The third church I attended was the House of Prayer here in my college town. Wait a second... a House of Prayer? Yep. I knew it was right for me before 10 minutes had even elapsed after I walked in the door. So there I was, participating in a House of Prayer. Then, God started placing people into my life. People that I knew for less than a week and already felt like I'd known them my whole life. People with similar hearts to mine. People who have been through some of the same things I've been through and struggle with some of the same things I struggle with. Then, I sort of stumbled into an audition for a worship internship at the House of Prayer. Somehow, He gave me the boldness to get in front of people I didn't know at all and sing my praises to Him. So this is where I am now: I'm getting to be involved in a House of Prayer, sometimes playing on worship teams, with people that are extremely dear to my heart and inspire me daily. God is the best orchestrator...ever. Why didn't I believe He would do it? Why did bitterness take root in my heart because I wasn't getting my way at the time? Sometimes I remind myself of a 5 year old, throwing fits when I dont get what I want. God knew the desires of my heart the whole time, and He had a plan so much more grand than those I had for myself. He's training me up here to prepare me for future endeavors in my life.

Well, that's the abbreviated version of the happenings in my life since my last post. I have so much more to say, but since I have an 8am class in the morning I'll leave it at this for now.

I'm so in awe of my Creator. I'm so thankful that He knows where this is going, because I definitely don't.

The Painful Truth.

It's been about 10 months since I last posted anything on this blog. My goal was to post every single month, and I succeeded in that quest for a while. However, I hit a snag. By "snag", I guess I kind of mean a snag in my whole life. Looking back on all of these posts, I see a person who was striving to be a better person and leaning on God immensely to achieve that goal. Looking back, I now see how far I've come from that person. And to be honest, I think maybe I haven't "come" to the right place.

 I'm about to be completely honest here, and lay it all out for anyone who reads this.

Around 10 months ago, I started to change a little bit. I didn't notice it at the time, but I saw certain friends begin to slip away from me. I thought, "Well, I guess they just weren't meant to be in my life right now." Maybe they really weren't, and maybe I was wrong. Anyway, a month earlier, I had deleted every single song off of my iPod that wasn't Christian. As I drifted into different friend groups and different thought patterns, secular songs began finding their way back onto my iPod. I found myself hanging out with some new friends, and was having a great time with them. I'll admit, I allowed myself to conform to the way they did things. I'm not saying these people are bad, and I love them deeply to this day, but I know spending time in their presence didn't further my relationship with God. I knew it then too, but was too content flirting with sin (And yes, that's what I recognize that I was doing) to back up and pray about the direction in which things were heading. I stopped getting in the Word daily and attending church regularly somewhere in the midst of that 10 months. I'm not saying I went to crazy parties, got drunk or did drugs... It doesn't matter if I did/didn't do those things. What matters is that I fell away from God. What matters is that I realized what I was doing, and continued to break His heart. And it breaks my heart. I'm not saying I have made a full 360 and gotten my life back where it needs to be. I think I'm just at that point where I feel like I've hit rock bottom, and now it's time to start getting my life into order again. I think it's time to curl up next to the God who never stopped loving me while I looked at Him and scoffed. He never stopped loving me when I did things I knew would make Him weep. I'm not writing this so anyone feels sorry for me, I promise. I'm writing them so I can look back on this in a couple of months and say, "Wow, I'm so glad I'm on the right track again, running next to God like I should have been all this time." If you're reading this, please pray for me. Pray that I'll put that lifestyle behind me. Pray that I'll break off those harmful sin-leeches.

I'll be back to blog next month... and hopefully I'll be a few steps up on the ladder, on my way up from rock bottom.