“I Wouldn’t Hold You Back If I Didn’t Have a Plan For You In Mind” (Lonnnnng Sigh, Oh Clayton)

 

Before I began this blog, my sister was pretty adamant about me starting it. I mean, she’s the only reason I even thought about keeping a blog at all. She kept saying that God was going to use it for something great.  And I kept thinking, “Okay, Megan…”  When I published that very first post, I never imagined I would be here only 2 months later.  It was just for her, just to keep us connected while I was gone.  I finished the first post noting that I had no idea what it was for, but that we’d see where it took us.  I have only recently realized that ‘us’ has changed meanings over the course of 8 weeks.  And I’m seeing that its not really to hold my sister and I together where we’ve been at all, but rather to build from the ground up.  “Us” has become me, and the whole world.

I’m kind of a nostalgic person, not that any of you haven’t realized that by now.  I like to think about the past, maybe because I never really hurt for it when it’s the present and I’m drawn to look at the loose ends I so badly want to tie up, maybe because I want to believe if I keep forcing myself to look at momentous milestones in my life, they’ll start to make sense… or maybe because I like to be the one that can think back on the past and say I’ve let it go, say I’m not hurting anymore; I’m over it.  But that last one would be a lie.

Writing is most definitely my outlet.  It’s how I let anything out, and yet how I cheat the system and keep everything in at the same time.  Well, before this blog.  Before I started writing here, I kept a Word Document journal on my laptop.  The entries looked pretty similar to the ones here actually… One Hundred and Thirty-Three pages of it.  Of my heart spilled out, kept safe in my cyber world.  Sometimes my heart could be so full, it’d scare me.  So I’d empty it on the white page in 12 point Times New Roman, close my laptop, and never look at it again.  Since May, I’ve started the same story so many times and each time it looks the same at the end—a blank page.  Today, I think I’ll get a few words out.

He doesn’t know that every time I hear from him, my heart drops into my stomach.  I would guess he isn’t aware that I skip ahead in Mute Math’s “Burden” to that part he showed me that always gives me chills, or that when I listen to Anberlin’s “Fin,” or Death Cab’s “Transatlanticism,” oh and especially Carly Commando’s “Everyday,” I always think of him.  When you’re dating someone, you kind of always brace yourself for the worst.  While it’s good and you’re happy, you (well, at least I) still have that little sense of realism bursting through your sunshine and rainbows that he could disappoint you big at any moment, especially while you aren’t expecting it.  So you always have to be expecting it. 

It’s just not the same for a friend.

When you trust someone that way, unless you get in one of those fights that makes you hate one another, they’re supposed to be there until… well, until .. forever?  I just realized that’s the most naive I’ve ever been.  When we were fighting about nothing, he asked once how long I’d expected we’d be friends.  Kind of a snide, you-shouldn’t-be-so-naive kind of way.  And with him, for whatever reason (maybe because he never said anything back; he just let me talk… and he never pried), I didn’t think much before I talked, and I just blurted out that answer.  Forever.  That’s really dumb I guess haha. 

But even now, I go back to conversations, nights we just stayed up until we couldn’t talk anymore.  Or until we hit one of our curfews.  I know it sounds stupid even, but I go back to the jokes, the laughter, the encouragement, and the challenge, and can’t find the place where that ceased to exist.  It’s like I fell asleep, and when I woke up, he was gone.  I go back to the times that I couldn’t imagine not having him there.  Now, it’s not so hard.

And he checks in on me from time to time, to have a petty conversation with no depth.  I go along with it, too exhausted from the situation to even explain to him that it hurts a little to do that.  But I do think about it.

The cool thing about all of this is the analysis.  I am a natural analyzer; it is my gift some days (coming from Daniels’ honors English 3 course), and my curse others (it keeps me up at night).  But tonight, it is both.  I have analyzed it to the core, and burnt it down into my heart; it has left its mark there.  But that’s also what is just sooooo… lovely.

All is lost, find Him there; find Him there.  After night, Dawn is there; dawn is there.  After all falls apart, He repairs; He repairs.

When I’d put so much trust in a person, I didn’t need God.  My entire junior year was spent asking God to break me down, to strip me of all my comfortable “things,” so I could rely on Him alone.  And then He did.  And then I didn’t want it anymore haha.

But there’s room in my heart now.  I’ve never let anyone in fully; I said that.  But I let plenty in enough, and always in the wrong way.  I let them in to hold me up when I felt like I couldn’t do it by myself anymore. 

Yet, another reason this blog is such a fantastic form of Love He is using.  I do not depend on any of you to help me through my struggles; I merely want to show you that I struggle.  I want you to see my failure, as embarrassing, as shameful, as ugly as it is.  Because then you can see in contrast how strong He is as He repairs all the broken parts, as He softens my heart to let Him for the first time.

You Think Your Days Are Uneventful; That No One Ever Thinks About You? Hardly The Case

 

I am now in an official small group with 5 lovely ladies (and a wonderful leader) from Cru.  Wednesday night was our first meeting and we just talked about what we wanted out of the time we spent together and threw out some potentials for a book in Scripture to study.  When it was my turn to say what I wanted out of the group, I took a deep breath because it seemed my first chance, or I guess test, was emerging.  When the breath escaped, so did an honest answer… and I was surprised (and excited) to hear it come from my own mouth.  I told them the truth: that firstly, I wanted community, but also that in that, I wanted them to challenge me-- to be honest, to share, to be vulnerable.  I felt good about the group, and I know with confidence that God is going to bless it, because every girl there was present due to the commonality that she wanted to grow deeper in her relationship with her Father. 

It is a strange thought, though… that I’ll be growing with a new community.  I was never even honest with my small group at E-Free the way I wanted to be.

I think my entire high school career was accumulating to the person I’ve become; with each new trial, I retreated further and further; with each new triumph, I felt less and less because I learned to stop feeling… because I was afraid.  Each new person I trusted become fewer and more far between, until I just stopped trying altogether. 

I have a friend.  He is a brilliant kid (doesn’t know it, but he really is), yet he’s surprisingly good at stupid for being so smart.  He settles a lot for empty fun and sorry excuses.  He has this essence about him though, this mystery I’m still unraveling.  When you catch him under the right light, you can see his spirit.  I see it stretching upward.  And while we are SO different, we have that in common.  I think our souls are both trying to get closer to Jesus.  I don’t know if he believes that though; wish he did.  Wish I knew.

Sometimes I stop.  In the middle of everything.  And just look.

I used to see how the world was so ugly, but I think I focused on that so much that I allowed my eyes to be drawn from the contrasting beauty of His work in it.  My friend asked me how I deal, how – in the ugly, in the hurt – I find ways to still smile as big as I do, laugh as often as I can.  I told him the truth: I don’t deal.  I hurt a lot.  But that when I do find joy, I find it in God, in His unfailing ability to restore.  I suck at trusting (and I admit that to him), but I know full well the peace that comes from trusting Him above myself.

The world is not pretty, by any means.  It is a fallen mass, an empty seed of disdain; it is so far from the truth that the Son of God was put to death to begin its restoration process.  And the truth in that… is an exceptional beauty.

 

…And after I’ve cried until my lungs hurt

From taking heaving breaths,

I will see true beauty

As most of the world has not seen before.

After every thread of my life has been unraveled,

I will see - - LIFE.

I will see it for

what it is;

At its most simple state.

And therefore,

seeing a wonder occur

As somehow it is rethreaded

Into an even more intricate,

And complex

and beautiful pattern.

Furthermore, at times like this,

A high statute that

allows me to feel again,

I will be able to remember.

I will search my heart

For the scars to remind me

That the past has emerged to

the present time;

I have lived.

And I will see the expression

of His Love for me as

He enables me

To be, today; to feel, today; to love, today.

I’m a “Redhead” Now… I Sleep Where I Sit, and Dream When I Please

I dyed my hair, tinted it red.  Think melted dark chocolate with some strawberry syrup mixed in.  Yum.  I wanted to go for an edgier look to match my dark pool of emotions… just kidding.  I was getting bored, and some lady gave me the hookup for a 45 dollar cut, color, and style  Major Steal !  So, of course I’m a sucker and bought in.  Literally.

Lately I’ve gone to a lot of meet-and-greets and everyone is eager in the get-to-know-yous to ask what I like most about college.  I’ve given the same answer each time: naps- anywhere and everywhere.  I went back to my dorm and took a nap in between my anthropology and math classes.  I set two alarms, one on my phone and one on my actual alarm clock.  My alarm clock has a nap setting, and I managed to snooze that a few times as well.  Luckily, my coffee pot has a time setting for when to start brewing so it turned on by itself, and I was able to roll out of bed 10 minutes before class and hustle to  the Arts and Science building, my mochalicious Starbucks caffeine in hand.

 

Ellie and I have decided that sleeping is the greatest earthly good, and in college, I’m finding there are suddenly a lot more places to do it.  Random bench outside Lowry: check, random comfy couch in random lounge in Memorial Union North: check,  random comfy chair in random lounge in Memorial Union South: check, Katie’s bed: check, Ellie’s bed: check, Kasie’s bed: almost check, Trevor’s couch at Phi Psi…… uhhhh, check.  <--- that one was an oopsie haha.

 

So in college, I’ve been sleeping a lot, giving me plenty of time to dream.  And let me tell you, I’ve got dreams. Which brings me to my second favorite thing about college… dreams—hearing them.  I am loving the sight of so much passion.  Yes, Mizzou is the “party school.”  And yes, there are plenty of slackers, kids that skip class, and kids that don’t care about school or making anything out of themselves.  But there are kids of passion, too.  You just have to look a little harder.  I, myself, am one of those kids.  I’ve got maaaaad dreams, and not one clue of what I should do with them.

So I figure my best bet is to lay them before my Father.. which is what I’m working on now. 

I want to love deeply.

I want to discover beauty.

I want to witness miracles.

I want to grow in wisdom.

I want to thrive in my studies.

I want to work for trust.

I want to stand firm against transgression.

I want to be a peacekeeper.

I want to thirst daily, hourly, every second.

 

And I want to do it all for my King.  I want to let go of me, in order to cling to Him.  That is my biggest dream, my most uninhibited passion; that is what I find true in the depth of my heart… well, as deep as I’ve dug thus far.

“Sick of All the Insincere, So I’m Gonna Give All My Secrets Away”

Bare with me reader(s), these thoughts aren’t easy.  That must mean they’re the most honest.

I had a very productive heart-to-heart with a lovely little lady you may know by the name of Laura Brunette.  I told her about this blog and the turn I feel like God is guiding it to after the last few weeks.  I told her how I wanted to be vulnerable, not only so that you -the people I trust- can see all the hurt, faults, and truth, but also so that I may see it too.  I want to know what my Heart looks like more than I can express, because just in the time that I’ve been at college, God is showing me that I don’t even know its shape.  I’m starting to see that it’s a little broken.

I came home this weekend and spent time with my family, which was actually nice for the first time in… a long time.  It was hard for me to come home this weekend with Lyndsey just passing…knowing that I missed the funeral only by hours… knowing I planned it that way.  I’ve quit pretending like my “tough” nature is a product of my strength, instead shamefully embracing that it only highlights my weakness.  I’m too “strong” to show emotion, what I view as the ultimate weakness, yet that is the very essence of my weakness; I am too weak to be strong enough to deal. 

I logged in here to struggle through what I was supposed to be doing this summer, for the first time.  Because I didn’t do it then.  I wanted you to hear (and I wanted to hear) what it’s been like, and how it hurt me, also how I grew from being so hurt.  I fully intended to spill it all… but just writing the above has left me drained.  Honesty isn’t supposed to feel so exhausting; it isn’t supposed to be this difficult for me to tell the simple truth.  I am eager for a day that I won’t be afraid to feel.

“I need another story, something to get off my chest.

My life is kind of boring,

need something that I can confess,

till all my sleeves are stained red from all the truth that I’ve said. 

Come by it honestly I swear, thought you saw me wink;

No, I’ve been on the brink,

So tell me what you want to hear,

Something that were like those years.

I’m sick of all the insincere, so I’m gonna give all my secrets away.”

Time Will Say Nothing But I Told You So; Time Only Knows the Price We Have to Pay

I’m finding that everything I have ever taken for granted, or even the things I take for granted right now, are more precious than I have ever acknowledged.  I think too much, and act too little.  If my world were to come crashing down around me, what would I cling to?  My relationships?  My mind?  My ability to love? Or would it just be my own flesh?  I fear it would be the latter.  I fear I would hold on to the very thing I pretend I’m trying to rid myself of. 

Being here, realizing it’s all real, is opening my eyes to how much I live in my mind.  I run so often, avoiding life, avoiding challenge.  Here I am: comfortable City Girl, wide-eyed and afraid of reality.  Though I am aware that I should not live in the past, I can’t help but wonder… What if I’d ever loved with everything?  What if I’d ever stepped out of my comfort to hold someone else up?  What if I’d ever sacrificed to know what it might mean to truly love?  I look upon the short life I’ve lived and see—I have lived in fear.  Always.  Fear of too much hurt, too much pain, too much emotion, too much love, or any of that at all.  I have never let anyone in fully, not one soul.  Sometimes I wonder if I’ve ever been in fully.

I think about my time at home, with the people I took for granted, and how I tucked all of it inside of me.  I didn’t tell them how much they meant to me; I didn’t tell myself how much they meant to me.

And when I think of how intricately I was pieced together, how my brain works on this complex system that I cannot even understand, how my heart may be capable of being tough, but that God made it that way for His purpose, I understand that by holding everything I have inside, I am denying the glory of God’s creativity.  As images and smells, and intention and ease, and first nights in Jordan’s basement and last nights under the same purpose, and star-filled skies and giving up, and laughing at nothing for fifteen minutes and sitting this one out, and falling asleep with him and waking up alone, and winding roads and broken headlights, and hills as tall as mountains and deer quiet like our breathing, and empty parking lots and walking away roll over in my mind, all the familiarity has been worn down to the core.  Everything is blurred, and I feel nothing.  To me, there have never been good or bad emotions.  Emotions, in general, are a weight… but what if I exuded them, brilliantly?

What if I loved with everything I had?  What if I let down my guard long enough to let people hurt me, but also long enough to let people love me?  What if I let myself be broken fully so I could fully let God heal me?  What if I sacrificed myself for the glory of the One I call Savior?

 

“And the problem, it seems, is with you and me,

Not the Love who came to repair everything.

And I don’t know what to do with a love like that

And I don’t how to be a love like that.

When all the love in the world is right here among us

and hatred too, and so we must choose what our hands will do.”

In Rain Boots, and Waffles, and Weathered Souls

So its raining that cool summerish rain and I'm thinking...Microecon does not sound like a class I want to go to right now. I'm also feeling like a college kid finally as I'm scooping the chocolate sauce from a Dunkaroo package out and eating it with my fingers. If I could explain to you how much free food I have packed into my tum, you would know why I have soooo many extra meal points at the end of the week... which I use to "buy" more food. I'm starting to understand the reality of this 'Mizzou 22' business.

Anyway, I was thinking today about how everything is finally starting to feel a little right, even though I may or may not be getting fatter every second. But really. I am finally feeling like myself, because my identity is hid with Christ. And when I submit to that, I don't have to do anything else. God doesn't ask me for anything else.
In just the 2 weeks I've been here, He's already taught me so much. I've realized that Satan works really hard in his craft. Though God is more powerful, Satan is pretty powerful himself. And when we close ourselves off to the glory of God, we are helpless to Satan’s power, his deceit. When we forfeit our seat next to the Father of all, we are suddenly a mere shadow cast against the temple wall, unnoticed and unaware. Satan is the father of shame, and he uses that a lot. I’d argue it’s his favorite way of separating us from our Father.

When I got to Mizzou, I was already feeling lonely. Let me tell you, feeling alone when you are constantly surrounded by hundreds of people everyday is a scary place to be. And he immediately used that; it is crazy how fast he works. Spiritually, I was dry; I wasn’t on the same level as the others I’d come with (I can‘t tell you what ‘levels‘ they were on, but Satan said I wasn‘t on the same ones). So I isolated myself more, listening to him when he said it’d be easier to deny failure and be left alone than to have to admit it existed at all. For too long, I let myself believe that my arrogance and pride was worth putting the closeness of my relationship with God on the line. But God works faster and more efficiently in my heart. I have been humbled; by the grace of Him who I call my Father, I have recognized that He is a God of restoration and of peace. I don't need to be good enough; He does that for me.

The freedom I find in Truth is absolutely overwhelming. And I am SO excited to grow with Him in these next four years, in the rest of my life.

"The devil is preaching the song of the redeemed- that I am cursed and gone astray; I cannot gain salvation... embracing accusation. Oh the devil's singing over me, an age old song, that I am cursed and gone astray. Singing the first verse so conveniently, over me, he's forgotten the refrain: JESUS SAVES."

Our Scars Have the Power to Remind Us That the Past Is Real

But they're scars. Unlike gaping wounds, they have healed. The past is real; it happened, but it is indeed the past.

Jesus, let thy pit'ing eye call back a wandering sheep.
False to thee like Peter I would fain, like Peter, weep.
Let me be, by grace, restored; on me be all its freeness shown;
Turn and look upon me, Lord, and break my heart of stone.
And break my heart of stone.
Savior, Prince, enthroned above, repentance to impart
Give me, through thy dying love, the humble contrite heart.
Give what I have long implored: a portion of thy love unknown;
Turn and look upon me, Lord, and break my heart of stone.
And break my heart of stone.
Look as when thy pit'ing eye was closed that we might live,
"Father," at the point to die, my Savior cried, "forgive."
Surely with that dying word, he turns and looks and cries, "'Tis done."
Oh, my loving, bleeding Lord, this breaks my heart of stone.
This breaks my heart of stone.

Look up that gem. It's a hymn that I heard at The Crossing... bought it on iTunes as well. (This Breaks My Heart of Stone- Red Mountain Church).

God breaks your heart to show you something more fully. He strips you of your bearings, your comfort, to reveal Himself at the purest and most simple essence. It takes all of that for us to see Him-- stripped of everything we’re comfortable with, everything we find true, everything we know, we’re fully able to see everything we don’t. I get frustrated with Him often times, pretending to don the power and control I know full well belongs to Him. I curse His weakness that is stronger than all my strength, and His foolishness that is most wise above my wisdom, if only because I want to understand. But then I realize He gives me the opportunity to do so. When He breaks me. So, what He is doing with my life I do not know, but I know that He is doing it to show me something more fully. I know that when it’s over, I will be grown; I will be able to touch Him. For now, I will force myself to remember that I’m not driving, and to hand Him the keys without Him having to ask. I will then love Him for everything He is, praising every challenge He throws at me because each challenge is an opportunity to serve, to love, to honor, to be fully grown. Life is happening; it moves. The hands on the clock spin around in the same rotation, day after day, for all of your life until there’s no time left. It cannot be willed to stop, or slow down. This is happening-- right now. There is no arguing that I may not be ready. I’m ready; the Lord says I’m ready. It doesn’t matter that I have no idea what I’m doing, or where I’m going; I’m ready.

Remembering never hurt

like it does to you now;

Life’s moving on

and you still don’t know how.

You’re closing your eyes

and holding your breath,

Repeating the reasons,

and counting to ten.

You’re starting to feel

like your time’s running out;

You scream, maybe cry,

because words can’t be found.

You pick up your hands,

hold them close to your chest,

Feel rhythmic breathing

to know there’s still breath.

Disregarding your feelings

to learn how to die

even more to yourself

to be more alive.

I am an awesome testimony of a living True God, that sent Himself to die, that I might know what it means to live. I'm the wretch that song talks about. And He has given amazing grace.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. - Psalm 73:26.