It's been a really long time since I had the time to sit down and write all my heart down on paper. A lot has happened, a lot has changed. I am both a stronger person
than was and weaker than I ever have been before. And now I am facing something
I never really thought actually happened
to dreamers like me – I am indeed, growing up. In ten days, I will be graduating
from high school. In eleven days, I will be saying “see you later” to my best friend. I
can’t even begin to cover how much he means to me and how hard it is going to
be to say “until next time” to him the day after graduation. My heart will
break, but I know that God is with me and in Him, I will find the peace I need
to carry on. I am leaving my home, the country I have declared my own, in
fifteen days. I am coming back to the place where I never really fit into in
thirty-four. I say goodbye to the place where I grew up in approximately sixty.
I arrive on Messiah’s college campus in roughly
seventy-six days.
My world is a
mess of counting down and never looking forward. I am terrified. I can’t bear
to say goodbye to so many people for so long. I've got this nasty little thing
inside me; it’s building up and creating a hole inside my heart. I am letting
fear get in the way of what my God has in store for me. All the tears I have
shed over the “lasts” that have taken over my heart, blinding me – I am
unseeing of all the beautiful “firsts” that await me.
I will never
forget this place. I will forget the people that I met, the family that I have
found, the beauty that has been shown to me and the God who has been always
with me. I am one blessed little girl. But the problem is, I feel like a “little girl”, I am not
ready to grow up. I feel just like Wendy
Darling when she has to say goodbye to paradise and face the mysterious world
of adulthood.
I am not
ready. I do not want to go.
But then God
is here and strangely enough, He is still holding my hand and even though I may have forgotten, He is ever present, whispering, I am with you. Always
and forever.
Have faith, He says, like that of an innocent and wonderful child. Put your trust in Me and I
will show the world. I will bring you to safety. I know you are scared, unsure
and heartbroken, but I am here to help you through the hardest of times - the
saddest of goodbyes. Who can help you more than the God who sent His Son to assure
you that there will be no more goodbyes? No more emptiness, no more pain. In
Me, there is no separation.
As a teenager preparing for college, my life can get a little out of control. As a Missionary Kid living thousands of miles away from where my passport tells me I'm from, identity can be hard. As a girl ready to get her life moving - my heart sometimes stops and it breaks a little bit more, telling me, begging me, to stop - God is there with me all the time, calming my crazy mind with words of a never ending love and a plan that will take my breath away. As a dreamer with her head stuck in the clouds, all this is so much more dramatic, but everything has it's place and everything has a story a behind it...
I want to especially thank two people for showing me that it's the wonderful adventure experienced in the book, not the turning of its pages, that make a story beautiful. To my best friend, you have shown me that the small things matter the most and that when you share them with special people, the heart does a funny thing - and it fills to over flowing. You are such a blessing and I want to look back on this paragraph when we are thousands of miles apart and remember the lump in my throat I had writing this. It's nothing special of course, but know it's from my heart. You have changed me and my life will never be the same. You are my gift from God.
And to God, my first love. I know I haven't been as faithful as I should have been, especially lately. The people around me and my worries have become my focus, not You. But in front of all these people, my friends and family in Christ, I ask you to please help me fix that. You have not only taught me that You really do love me through the thick and thin, but You have already written my story, the space in between the pages and all. I love the people You have given to me, but I need to love You more. Thank you for being so merciful and gracious to me. I am nothing and yet you have taken my shame and created something beautiful. I love you God. Thank you for everything.
I hope that you, my wonderful and patient reader, read the last paragraph and saw it as a prayer that you can send up to God as well. If you have been struggling with something and you feel like the more you fight, the more you sink, I want to assure you that God is always there. And maybe the little prayer I shared didn't fit with what you are struggling with, but I really, really encourage you to pray the cry that is on your heart. Because trust me, leaving Never Land is a heavy page to turn, but the next chapter is something so worth it.
From,
M
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
-Romans 8:18
