Not an End

I'll just start by saying these past two and a half years have been my favorite season of my life. I have grown and matured more than I could have ever imagined and I got to meet amazing people along the way. Then enters this thing called transition.

Not a fan.

Transition is just a fancy way of saying things are changing and you either get with it or you put it off but eventually have to give in anyways because it has to happen.

It's not something you can stop. A lot of the time it's not something you even see coming.

You can be living life, loving it and not wanting anything to change, and then here comes transition lurking around the corner ready to slap you upside your head, or rip the rug out from underneath you.

Sometimes, however, you know when it's coming.

Sometimes you get to see it all unfold in front of you and you get time to process.

I'm not sure if this is better or not.

Being jolted into something new is sometimes better because otherwise you probably wouldn't have chosen to do it. That's how I ended up here in the first place.

Seeing the moment of transition coming and not wanting it to happen and not being able to stop it is hard.

That's how this has been.

Two years ago someone bought the permit to the land The Station is currently located on. We've had two years to process the fact that when our lease is up at the end of this month we will be moving.

We just had our last camp on the property.

So on the last morning, I got up early and went into the lodge to pray and worship. I sat at the back and stared at all of the chairs that sat there waiting to be occupied for breakfast.

And I thought about all of the campers that have come through our doors. And then I began to thank God for all the campers who have come through our doors.

I started thanking him for my life being impacted by this small little camp with the biggest vision. I thanked him for the friends I have made and the family I have become a part of. I somehow in a matter of minutes turned my mindset from "this is the end" to "this is just the beginning."

And honestly, it's the truth.

Transitions don't necessarily mean it's an end. Sometimes things end, but for this it's just the property.

The dream hasn't died. The vision is still there. It's just the beginning of what God wants to do with The Station.

So as I sat, finally accepting this transition.

The only word I could think of was thankful.

Thankful for this place and what it means to me.

And thankful for the more to come.

In My Own Head

Two Weeks ago I wrote a blog post about getting to know people and it being extremely hard for me to say goodbye to those people. Last night I had a bit of an emotional episode.

This summer, friends have come back to work at The Station. People that I truly care about and quite honestly I feel as though I was just holding my breath waiting for them to come back.

For some reason I have allowed this future goodbye make me fall apart.

At every point where I am shut out or cut off from community and hanging out with people I feel a little twinge in my heart. Another opportunity to grow closer, missed.

I think that because I decided to open my heart to people and get to know them, my heart feels extremely exposed. It's like I went from feeling scared to open up, to being scared that I'm not opening up enough and I'm going to say goodbye to these amazing individuals again and it's going to ruin me.

I got in my head.

I allowed my mind to tell me that there isn't enough time.

I've allowed my own season coming to an end make me feel as though everything is.

It's as though I spoke out that I wanted to open up to people and get to know them even if goodbyes are hard, and then I'm faced with another huge goodbye that is going to suck.

A goodbye to friends. A goodbye to summer. A possible last summer at The Station. And a possible last summer in Mammoth. A possible goodbye to my home.

But if I start breaking down now, I can't have my last experience.

I can't live in the moment if I'm thinking of the last one we'll have.

So I need to stop.

Somehow.

I need to stop getting into my own head.

Welcome Back to Freedom

So, it's been a while. For those of you that read my ramblings.

It's November 12, and I've been in school for about a month and a week.

This year has been completely different than last year.

Where first year at MLSSM is based on identity and our foundation, second year is based on leadership and growing us in that area.

So this year so far, has been me being thrown into leadership in different places of my life.

However, as interesting as that all is, it's not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about the struggle.

The struggle that I've faced with holding onto my identity and my joy.

Brace yourself for the seemingly endless rambling.

These past couple of weeks have felt very off. I had felt very off.

I was easily irritated, I actually at one point was so peeved that I felt like I was going to explode on someone.

Through all of this I did manage to somewhat hang on to my sanity. I didn't tear anyones head off.

I didn't know what it was, but something was wrong. Everyone else could tell because people kept asking me if I was okay.

I kept saying yes, and that I was only tired, but no. I was not okay.

On Thursday we do worship time in The Station office before we work. And my boss Rachel prayed and asked us all if we had any prayer requests. I took this opportunity to open up with people and be vulnerable.

I wasn't okay. I felt like somewhere along the way I had agreed with something and let it back into my life and it was drastically affecting me. I was full of negativity and I didn't know why. So I shared this with the team.

After I shared, Rachel told me that she had seen the shift in me a couple of weeks before. It wasn't until that moment and her saying that, that it clicked. I knew what I had done.

I don't know how far back I shared this with all of you, but in high school and college I struggled a lot with lust. But more specifically I struggled with acting on lust. Now I've never had a boyfriend, or any relations with men, so people automatically assume that I don't struggle with anything like that. Actually people often think I don't struggle with anything and that I'm perfect. Another impossible pressure on my life. I will never be perfect.

Anyways. A couple weeks ago I slipped up. I slipped up and then immediately after I repented from what I had done. I apologized for willingly allowing lust to come between me and my Father. However, even though I repented, the shame stayed.

I had invited shame back into my life and it was tearing my heart apart. It made me self-conscious. It made me angry at myself and then I was easily angered by others. The self-hatred snuck back in. I felt my body changing. I was breaking out like crazy and I felt awful and worst of all, my joy wasn't there. The thing that I fought so hard to get back, somehow slipped from my grasp.

As the team began to pray, I began praying in my spiritual language. My Swiss roommate struggled with sharing her testimony as I did, and so I prayed for both of us, that we would receive freedom to share our testimonies that would bring others freedom.

Rachel prayed freedom over me, freedom from fear. The joy was prayed back into my life. Once we were done praying and I had cried a whole buckets worth of tears, I felt it. My joyful spirit was back.

Normally after you cry you still have that sorrowful feeling of what you were crying about. But this, it just seemed the more I cried, the more freedom I received back. The more freedom I claimed back. I noticed, the rest of Thursday that I felt lighter. I felt freer. I felt joyful. When I looked in the mirror that day, I felt beautiful again. I felt like I could look at myself and honestly say that I loved who I was.

Yesterday I spent a good three hours talking with a friend about my dreams and what I believe God is doing in my life. I was talking into God's destiny for me. I came home and realized that my skin was clearing up. It had been one day. One day of freedom and my whole life seemed turned around, back on the right path.

I have passion for my future again. I have passion to help people again and love people again. If this is my welcome back to freedom, I'm never going to take it for granted again. I'm never going back.