Change, humility and beauty

So all day it seems, the topic of first impressions has come up. Different friends have been talking about what it was like when they first met the other; what they thought of them even when they didn't really know them, etc. It's interesting how you can be so wrong about someone because you haven't gotten a chance to know them. I remember one of my best friends from home, I thought she hated me in 9th and 10th grade... but it wasn't true! and then 2 years later, we became best friends!

I've been thinking alot too about how much has changed from this time last year... SO much. So many things in my life are not how I pictured they would be a year ago. Some of the things I wish weren't true... I wish they had stayed the same. But others are good things. I never thought I'd be this excited about teaching. I never thought I'd be living off campus my senior year! I never thought my grandmom would get cancer or that a dear neighbor and friend would be taken away. I never thought that staying in Chattanooga would be something I would ever consider... and yet I am. I never thought I would have rely on God so much for comfort and strength and peace as I have had to at certain points in this year. I never thought that I'd be having to say good-bye to so many amazing, wonderful friends on May 9, 2009.

Change has always been something that I have wanted to avoid... whether it be change in friendships, change in location, change in interest, change in ____. It has just always scared me. But I think God has used all this change in my life during the past year, to finally get it through my thick head that He is in control and has a wonderful plan for my life. And that through all the changes life brings... and there will be many I'm sure... He is the only constant. He is the One I can always count on to be the same faithful, loving, holy, sovereign Lord of my life. What a tremendous peace that brings me. It's like a huge weight is taken off my shoulders and I can breath again. I don't have to worry. I don't have to fear change. Because through all the changes that have happened in my life, whether good or bad, He has remained faithful! And He has remained constant.

Sometimes we have to be brought to our knees in humility, to have everything secure taken away, to have a ton of questions with no answers, before we know what it's like to truly seek our Savior; before we truly understand what it means to follow and trust in Him. And as painful as it may be to be brought to that place of utter brokenness... that is when we truly grasp just how much we need Jesus.

That is when we see that only He can truly take those broken pieces of our lives, and make us whole. He can take those broken pieces and make something beautiful out of it.

I'm seeing each day how God is taking my brokenness and is using it to mold me into the woman of God that He wants me to be. Being molded and shaped and prodded is hard; sometimes it hurts. and sometimes when you're in it, when you're sad or confused or scared, you have no idea how anything good can come out of it. But that's why you give your sadness, confusion, and fear to the Creator. Because He will take those things of your life and use them to make a masterpiece; an amazing life in which you never expected could ever contain all those difficult things.

And that life, because it has been surrendered to Jesus, is truly beautiful.