Reminiscing

I have been reading through my old journals, especially ones written during crucial points of change in my life. Reading through a specific year that was the beginning of personal overhaul and discovery, 2008. The beginning of 2008 I wrote,
"Following the unbeaten path, there is no turning back, there is no turning back.
I am walking on unfamiliar ground; it is dark; it is heavy, but it will be lovely.
I miss your voice, your touch, your face but I will trust You."
It has been 2 years since I wrote this, 2 years of complete adventure into the unknown, 2 years of cutting off all that has become familiar and pressing on deeper into the unknown places. I have experienced a richness of healing and transformation and have come to learn how to discover truth and to find intimacy. It comes out of a willingness to venture into darkness; only dark because of my own lack of understanding or experience. As well as I learn to let go of control and pride I become completely dependent on God and in that discover a greater inner strength than I thought was there. It is in the vulnerability in being cut off from what is familiar that we discover our character and develop endurance.
In this place; a jungle so to speak, I have faced my greatest fear; myself. The fear that I will not measure up, that I will not be god enough. I have seen my greatest personal deprivation; have been faced with a vastness of insecurities and pain and had discovered my inability to be real with myself let alone the rest of the world. Yet one of the most beautiful things is that in our uniqueness and rawness; when we are real is the place we have the ability to empower others the most.

January 29th I pondered on relationship and questioned my lack of ability to relate. love vs faithfulness; two things that are combined that I thought had to be different. I only recently discovered my belief that "they were impossible to be together" from remembering my past experience growing up with a warped idea of what love looked like. Everything intimate in my life I compared to the relationships that hurt me and if any of my relationships looked like this I would run. I had to have something different. What I finally came down to was this; "love out of fear is quick to jump, to run but love out of confidence is able to honor and take it's sweet time." There is no rush, I can stop being afraid of attracting the pain because I am finally separated from it. This has only taken place in this jungle season in my willingness to let go of all that was familiar. Because even though it was hurting me, it was strangely comforting me because it was familiar. Which leads me to this: learn to let go of security and step into unfamiliarity, in this place you will be set free of all that is familiar that has ensnared you since the beginning of your time and you will learn to depend completely on God. It is fear that binds us to fear, but without fear the root of most all things has nothing to be bound to.

So I have learned that in my pursuit after understanding and truth and my desire to understand intimacy I was running from it. Yet through it all was directed right into it as I learned to let go. So it is time in 2010 to turn over a new leaf. To say goodbye to the old in all its intensity and depth and say hello to the new. It is time to be free from all others expectations and to enjoy life.