A new chapter

A new chapter of my life is beginning and i have a wide range of emotions to go along with it. I feel as if this last year has been a kind of re-shaping, or a molding, or a sort of ice sculpting of sorts making me into more of the person that God had in mind when he created me. i have been sort of behind the scenes really this past year just working ( playing with poop...not really but that's what everyone seems to think a plumber does) and hanging out with a whole new group of friends whom i've grown to love and care about deeply. it has been the best kind of restoring and redeeming process i could have ever imagined (refer to my last blog) but now i'm ready to move on with life. i'm getting ready to start school back up so i'm gonna be around people again building relationships and doing the same thing at my new job at Barnes and Noble. And i'm ready for it! There are so many people that need to know God's love for them AND for the whole world. They need to have hope for something better and for something that's worth living for. I feel like i really have something to offer more than ever. And i feel like i understand God's grace more than ever and i'm ready to share that with EVERYONE!

I want to understand MORE of what it means for me to die and for Christ to live IN ME. sometimes i feel so overwhelmed with trying to figure this whole thing out. Or I get frustrated with church/religion/my past that i really lose focus of what it means to just know that i have this peace which transcends all understanding living deep inside of me infused with me soul. and i want to live out of that! Just the other night at Confession ( not the Catholic tradition but the college thing at Riverside) i felt like absolute crap. i was gettin very frustrated with myself because i could not let that peace take over in me. i wanted to sing songs and worship corporately with everyone there but i couldn't help but begin to think about what people there that i used to be close with think about me and my past and what happened whether they know the story or not. a lot of them knew me when i worked there and i always have this feeling that i let so many of them down and then i was thinking about how they could be watching me and there i was not raising my hands and jumping up and down and how that must mean i'm not as passionate for God as i once was so then i felt i had to lift my hands just so i didn't look like i didn't care even though i did but i didn't want to fake it so i didn't and then i just got more irritated at myself and all these things just were swirling around in my head and it was soooo overwhelming. and i know that it was all just lies from the Enemy and i realized how truly selfish it was to think that people were even paying any attention to me at all and it just made me laugh to myself and i just went home and cried with kami trying to explain all this crap going on in me that i didn't really understand and i realized that i wasn't allowing Christ to live. i was too preoccupied with myself and my past and shame and all kinds of things that i don't need to feel because Jesus has all ready freed me from all that brokeness and hurt.

I always feel like i need to explain myself and i worry what others think about me and i hate it. it's exhausting. If i could learn more and more to die to myself and allow Christ to live I wouldn't feel that way anymore. Honestly i have no idea what i'm tyring to even communicate to you folks out there but i guess it's that you can be free from worrying about what others think about you. you can be free from a lot of worries in life. you can have peace. a peace that transcends ALL understanding and if you're a follower of Jesus you don't have to ASK for it..it's all ready there IN you! so join me in discovering what that means! it's a constant struggle but it's good to have little reminders and that's what this is i guess. And to trust and believe that there are always NEW chapters of life. There is HOPE for new experiences and NEW relationships and NEW beginnings where we can improve and live out what God has just taught us and changed WITHIN us!

Grace and Peace