Freshman Year

In roughly 24 hours, I will have been graduated from high school for a whole year. One year ago, almost to the day, I walked across a stage and stepped into my new life. A new job, a new school, and a new schedule that turned into new friends, a new love, and a new adventure.

This year led to exactly all of the things that I prayed for: a relationship, new friendships, a publishing deal, a job I love, a school I've fallen in love with, and a little town I get to call mine.

And within the last month I have been blessed to celebrate some of those wonderful things like my first year with FCA and my six month anniversary with my boyfriend.

But within the last month, I have also celebrated something bigger: my 15th salvation birthday.

I make note of all the things big and small that are worthy of celebrating in the last year, because I am realising that each and every one of those changes, including the things that stayed the same, are important.

To live, is to adapt to the ever changing rhythms of life. It is learning to love where you're at, while never letting go of the beautiful journey that made you who you are. Because you, as an individual, are a culmination of all the many pieces of yourself that were forged and crafted along the way in this beautiful art project the Lord calls life.

I am small pieces of the FK I was in high school (fun killer for those of you who don't know): she still shows up when I study for eight hours at a time, or feel the need to go above and beyond on every microscopic task, and she has very little self control when it comes to knowing when it's time to stop.

I am pieces of a homesteader: I like my quiet mornings at home, with my book and a cup of coffee, and I wear cardigans for comfort because they make me feel like I've just left my little cottage in the woods. I want a cow, a cat, and a little basket that I carry filled with vegetables from my garden, and I now routinely cry over baby clothes because they're just so small.

I am a lawyer when I'm brutally honest (sometimes too much so) and I fight for the things I am passionate about, and I get excited to speak in front of a crowd and read the fine print of a document But I am a poet when I put pen to paper and pray to the Lord to give me a message worth sharing.

I am me: the culminating, ever changing, shaping and growing pieces that will never be finished growing because to live is to know that the Lord is not done with you.

Growth is painful. I've written that before. But let me write this now: growth is beautiful.

There is a beauty to this simplifying of ourselves in place of the Lord, and with every testament and test of our faith, every chance taken, every road travelled, there is a new piece of us brought into the picture. We are stretched and folded, sanctified through the blood of Christ, born a new every time we ask for forgiveness, and we are loved with a ferocity and fearlessness only capable of the Lion.

When we grow we never lose those pieces of what once was, we merely say yes to adding to it, and giving the Lord control over how it's used. God gives, He does not take away. He does not see our flaws as something to throw out, but rather something to forgive and to fashion into something more stunning than we ever thought possible. He is intentional and adoring. He dresses our wounds and proudly displays our scars because He knows that is our chance to say "look at what my God did", "look at how beautiful my Healer is", "see how far He brought me", "see how much He loves me"!

This has been a year of growing, but also a year of remembering: the good and the bad and strengths and the weaknesses. The things I still have to work on, and the ways that I have bloomed.

It is a year of balancing, and adding, and learning to let go. It is every feeling at once in the most spectacular way possible because it has all been through the Lord's special design.

I am softening and strengthening simultaneously. I am surrendering and sharpening my spirit. I am being challenged and learning to let Christ be my champion. I am pursuing what is, and waiting for what will be, and there is boldness in that waiting. That love. That patience and trust that it takes to say "Lord this is yours".

Maybe you're like me and this year has been all the things, and if so I congratulate you! I encourage you, and I pray for you. It is a beautiful thing to get to feel so much of life at once.

This post sprung from my fingers the moment I sat down and said "Lord give me a message worth sharing because I have no words of my own": I am merely the bridge, and that is a position I am learning to love. That sternness within me that demands to have control is melting away and making room for something so much greater: the Lord's plan. And if anything, He is using me right now to tell you that it is okay: it is okay that your life doesn't look like it once did. It is okay that your body might be different now than it did a year ago. It is okay if you are still trying to figure out what the Lord has planned for you, or what your purpose is, or how all of your pieces fit together just so - because the Lord is in control: let Him. Love the body you have grown into, and the habits you are growing out of. See your pieces as perfect, because He is using those exact things to make a better picture than the one you see before you now. I know because He is doing it in me!

Love where you are at right now, in this moment, fully present because tomorrow is not promised. Because life does not go on forever. Because ten year plans change, and the world is broken, but my God is whole. Whole, holy, here and now waiting for you to surrender to Him.

It's good to be back...

-Emma