I graduated my senior year and decided to live in Tennessee for the next year. I worked as a paraprofessional at one of the elementary schools in the area. The next year would be a very memorable year for the rest of my life.
I started a new job, was living independently from my parents in another state, and starting real life. Needless to say, growing up is easier said than done. Everyone wants to grow up when they are young and then they grow up and wanna be young! (I sound old just saying that! haha)
It was a big adjustment for me and I learned a LOT about myself. Like that I use 100 too many pots, pans, and utensils just to make one meal. And that I had a dreadful fear...one that Satan had been festering inside me for so long that when it manifested itself, I was scared to death.
I clung to my boyfriend, who lovingly did his best to fill this hole and conquer this fear of mine. But it wasn't his fight to fight. With time, my struggles as a newly independent person, and his as a senior graduating with a cloudy future, we began to fall apart.
In January we broke up, and I was devastated.
Over the next few months I was overcome with love from the BEST of friends, restoration and healing from Christ, as well as new friends who were just what I needed to become a little more lively and less stressed. A little more....me. :)
Someone wise brought up the movie The Wizard of Oz and mentioned this quote in reference to me...
Dorothy: Can you help me?
Glinda: You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn't you tell her?
Glinda: Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.
It is a beautiful illustration to me. I had it in me the whole time! To be happy. To enjoy life! But I had to find it myself. I was wasting it being stuck in fear and lost in a new stage of life with nobody to guide me. But God...God had bigger plans. :) :) (BIG smile across my face.)
I moved back to my home state after accepting a job offer in the summer and after 5 months of being apart, God brought my and my boyfriend's hearts back together. This story makes me cry because it is truly written by Him. I never expected us to be together again, but God is so good and brings healing. Turns out we each individually, had a LOT of things to work out with God and ourselves before we could work out together.
In several weeks, we were engaged. YES, engaged! God's timing is perfect and not bound by humans. Now he is serving as a missionary overseas and our wedding will be next summer.
I am teaching 1st grade to the most precious, and LIVELY group of kids! It has been challenging almost EVERY day. But something tells me that God gives me just enough strength in the day to rely on Him, that way I'll daily be coming back to Him for more...and I am okay with that...
So life is beautiful. Live it. Ready, set, go!!
:)
