My Story... It Isn't Over Yet.

Who am I? What is my story? Many of my close friends know, but that's about it. Ask anyone, I am horrible at talking about myself, especially when you ask me to tell you. I am that person who reveals things slowly, as they apply to what is happening around me. But, for the sake of this blog, I think you guys deserve to know a little about who I am and what has brought me to this point in my life. And most of it can be summed up in some bullet points, with some sections having longer explanations, so here we go!

-I was raised in a Christian home and I was saved at around 5 or 6, that is where the story pretty much begins, but definitely doesn't get interesting yet.

-My family struggled to find a church where we belonged and as we fast forward to my high school years we eventually stopped trying altogether and didn't begin to attend a church again until the end of my senior year of high school.

-Due to my family's personal struggles with finding a place to belong, and being rejected by many friends and family. My faith and trust in both people and God began to suffer. My last few years of high school I refer to as my Agnostic Phase, because I never stopped believing in God, but I stopped believing that He cared for me. And due to the rejection from many people I cared about I became very shut off and almost bitter. I was content to keep the people I had in my life and letting new ones in was too risky for me, something that I still struggle with to this day.

-2014 was my year of change though, I graduated from high school and found myself planning on attending Grace College, a small Christian school about 4 hours from my home. My major was Communications and I was more than ready to be on my own.

-The first part of my first year of college was easy to fake, I could tell people what they wanted to hear. After all, I had grown up in a Christian home... but as the year went on I began to learn more about myself and I began to open up and my heart began to soften. My relationship with God also began to mend.

*Skip boring summer between freshman and sophomore year*

-Coming into Sophomore year I thought things were going to be great, some of my friend group had transferred out at the end of last year but I still had a solid base.

-That was until I lost a close friend, and it was through that journey that I really began to explore and become who I was, not who I thought I should be based on what I saw in other people. However, at this point I still hadn't been truly crushed yet and so I still wasn't actively pursuing God as strongly as I should have been.

-The end of first semester was when I officially began my first relationship, we had danced around it for around two months beforehand, but it was over Christmas break that he came to my house and surprised me and asked me to be his girlfriend. I thought things were gonna work out.

-A month into my first relationship things fell apart. I went through my first break up and my heart was and still is in many ways shattered. He was one of my best friends and losing him left me reeling. I felt like I was drowning and I had no idea how to breathe again.

-About a month after we broke up, I knew I had to do something. I knew I was failing in trying to repair any kind of relationship with him on my own, friendship or otherwise. My friends could only support me, they couldn't give me answers, so I turned to the only person I had left... God.

-I devoted myself to devotions and meditation daily. I gave my whole relationship and its horrible trainwreck of an aftermath to God, and I still have to keep doing it daily in order to keep myself from trying to fix things on my own again. I evaluated my life and outlined areas that I wanted to change and how I am going to change them, and I started this blog.

-Two weeks into this new journey, I am definitely doing better but I still am not whole. My heart still hurts and I still mourn the loss of the man who was one of my closest friends and someone I was beginning to love daily. But I don't know what the future is with him, and I know that if he is somehow in my future that is all in God's hands.

So in summary, those are the details about me and how I got to this point. I am in still no way recovered from what has happened these past few months. I don't know when I will be recovered from them. I don't know if I will ever receive the answers or peace I am looking for in this matter... But I know that I am doing my best to grow through this and rejoice through my troubles. I am leaning on God and doing my best to relinquish control. So I don't know where I am going, or who God is molding me into. I don't know my future, but I do know who holds it.... and I know He is going to do a much better job with my life than I ever could, and I am very excited for this new journey.

If you have any questions or want further explanation, feel free to ask!