a lifelong love letter

See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

and streams in the wasteland.

It's so strange to sit here.

To write a blog post that I intend to be a bookend to a season of searching and discovering God's immense grace. It hurts to want to say goodbye because I've poured so much of my heart into these 'pages' of the internet. I've been raw and real with you. And you've faithfully read along and understood that I just needed a place to process all the things.

I sometimes shared things that terrified me. Other times I shared my immense joy and love for all the ways God is moving in my life. At moments of weakness and duress I may have said words that were more emotions than truth. In some ways my words were mistaken, loved ones feeling like I slayed them with my ink. But for the most part, there was such a great freedom here. A space that was mine.

So it was safe albeit scary. I opened up about things that I hadn't verbalized ever as well as recounted a lot of my past and how it's all weaved it's story into who I am today.

I hope that in these posts you have seen not just me. If you have, then I have failed. Because although I've made this blog for me first, I shared it because I hoped that somewhere in the world it encouraged someone. I prayed that my gut wrenching honesty would reach the hurting and maybe someone would feel like they aren't so alone in this world. Further more, I hoped that they would see God. That they would know what it is to find hope amidst the storm.

"I plan on being as honest and open with the details as I can because I believe that if I do that it will encourage you, that whatever your storm looks like, that it's worth trusting God through it."

So that was my statement in my first blog post and now I sit here and I write what is the last post on this site. And I hope and pray with all my might that in my discovering grace, I served you well. I hope that I was relatable and that you forgive all my moments where I was grieving the situation at hand and all the ways the past held me hostage while I tried to bargain with the captor.

I feel like it's time now to close the chapter on this book. There's a lot here in the depths of this blog that make me very vulnerable. Funny how I'm more vulnerable on the other side of my story than I was in the midst of the storm. I don't know why that is. But lately I feel like I need to close off these parts of myself. These words, they are sacred and they are me. But right now, I want to learn what it's like to stay private with those parts. I don't want the wrong eyes to stumble upon my words before I have a chance to know them. Because I want them to know me by who God has made me now. I want to share the dark places where i've often wrestled, in person, not via text. I want those sacred intimate moments back in my relationships. Whether it's with friends and family I've known my whole life or with my future people. Whoever it may be.

My goal is to eventually have a new place to invite you into. I want it to be more like insight to my favorite scrapbook. I want to share all the fun exciting places I'm discovering, things I'm learning, and things of that nature. Of course, I will probably still share parts of my heart, mostly because the desire to share is knit into the fabric of my being, I just want it to be a fresh start.

I have been given new life. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old is gone, the new is here! 

And with this new life, I feel like we need a new book. A new jumping off place. This blog holds so much of who I've been, not only in the past few years but also my whole life. Yet, again, that girl is not me anymore. As I write this I already have so many things I want to say about this, so I guess I will be sharing my heart in my new space. Thanks for journeying with me. Whether you've been here from the beginning or just are jumping in for the first time, I am so grateful for you. I may have still wrote if I didn't have readers, but it meant the world to me to know I had you reading. I don't know who you all are. If blogger is truthful, I've had almost 11,000 views total on this blog. You guys, that's amazing and crazy to me. I truly can't even comprehend it, which is why I want to say that the counter is wrong, but I think some guys get paid a lot to make sure these things actually work. So, either way, thank you.

It's been heart wrenching and joyous sometimes simultaneously. I'm excited for the fresh start. I'll leave you with the lyrics that started it all. The ones that gave me my blog name. They are the balm to my heart and soul and they hold a much more profound meaning to me than just being a Sara Bareilles love song. Til next time, friends! Xo

I'll unfold before you, what I've strung together

The very first words of a lifelong love letter

There was a time when I would have believed them

If they told me you could not come true, just loves illusion

But then you found me and everything's changed 

And I believe in something again

My whole heart will be yours forever

This is a beautiful start to a lifelong love letter

♡