I was once told it’s better to enjoy the journey rather than only anticipating the destination.

I’ve learned though appreciating the journey, that the journey brings with it: ups and downs, laughter and tears, independence and dependence, confusion and clarity, wrongs and forgiveness, confidence and doubt, anxiety and peace… Being on a journey implies the destination is still to come. I guess it may also be true that each journey probably has many “destinations” along the way. We reach the destination (a new job, a heartbreak, a trip, graduation, etc), maybe we stay a while, but then we keep going. When we decide to go on, we bring with us lessons from those destinations that make us more loving, more cautious, more forgiving, less afraid, more willing…

That gives me comfort and hope because I’ve not yet learned all that this journey of faith and life and love have to offer me. I have learned, however, that in between the destinations is a journey worth travelling. And I’m up for the journey.

Wow.

I have waited a long time for this moment. The moment of healing and freedom from a decade of living with hurt cast by the shadow of one person’s evaluation of my worth. Today there is freedom and healing. There is restoration. One moment broke me for a long time and one moment has brought me out into glorious peace and joy.

I offer forgiveness for the individual and I offer forgiveness to myself for allowing myself to be hurt so badly for so long. I had told myself a story about who I am, but I wasn’t the author of that story, someone else was, but they didn’t have my interest in mind. In fact they hated me. So I took back the pen. I deleted their edit. I rewrote my story. In fact, I am still writing the story. It feels good to look upon the page before me; I do not know what my story holds, but I won’t give the pen away again. Only two people can write on these pages: one is Divine, the other is me.

What a journey these years have found us on.

I mean if we really stop and take an honest appraisal of our lives, who would have thought we’d be living the lives we’re living, having seen the things we’ve seen, have experienced the love, hope, joy, disappointment, and peace we’ve experienced. Though I’m 33 my life has been lived one day at a time. I can’t take in all my 33 years without reflecting on the individual days that made it so. One purposeful, hopeful, hopeless, exciting, disappointing, faithful day at a time… Life is not all ups and it’s not all downs either. It’s this incredible experience that I don’t quite understand. A journey, an adventure, a story, my story, our story…

The process of becoming my true self means:

• fighting the hands that hold me back, realizing those hands have been my own
• tuning out the lies I’ve heard, realizing the voice has belonged to me
• hearing the song that’s in my heart, knowing the lyrics belong to Him

It’s always been in me. It’s time to live it out.

Even when the night seems darkest, God is still there.

It’s great because God is not a fair weather friend; he isn’t just with us when the going is good but also when the going is rough. There is nothing we can do to make him love us more or less than he already does. His love is perfect, endless, knows no conditions, and he gives it to us.

The Bible tells us also that he keeps no record of our wrongs. I wondered then why I feel so lost or sad after my sin. I realized it’s because I keep a record of my wrongs. I sometimes carry them around with me, remind myself of them, dwell on them, regret them. But if I confess that sin, he forgives me! Instead of playing the memory game with my sin, I need to put that same energy into drawing nearer to God, praising him, praying to him, and thanking him for his mercy, grace, and love!

I think that that is when I’ll begin to appreciate, accept, and live in the gift of salvation; realizing that God’s love is not like the love of people. He doesn’t just love me when I’m up, good, trustworthy, honest… He loves me always. And when I realize how powerful that is I think I’ll start to seek his presence significantly more than I do now.

It’s been too long since I’ve been still.

No TV, no phone, no internet. Just still. In the quiet of the day. Still.

In the quiet moments my heart and soul are free to hear the still, small voice within me. The voice of my God, my Saviour, my friend. It feels strange to sit here quietly, yet it is distinctly familiar. An old habit, once lost, but being rekindled. Still. Entering the peace that only His presence brings.

I was thinking about how our lives are like movies.

Someone on the outside looking in could see the mishaps, the follies, and know it’s all going to work out in the end and that there will be a beautiful ending despite the “scenes” of our lives and all their content. But for us, the “characters”, we can’t step back and see that.

Think about:

• The “soundtracks” of our lives: the music that speaks to us or about our circumstances… 
• The “supporting actors”: our family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances… 
• The dramatic climaxes: experiences building in intensity until at last giving way to the revealing of tried but true friendships, self-reflection, self-awareness, overcoming heart wrenching trials and experiencing heartwarming triumphs, expected and unexpected love…

And all these coming together to create an unimaginable outcome resulting in our own realization that everything has not been in vain and all is truly okay.

I’m in a rut.

Not a deep one, and not one that I can’t get out of, but a rut. I’m not where I’ve been, but I’m struggling to move forward. I’m in a rut.

It’s like when my tires get stuck in the snow in one of the residential areas that rarely get plowed. There are two different types of ruts. The one you can rock back and forth in your car in, by slightly reversing then quickly driving forward (by yourself) before eventually gaining the momentum to be set free. And there’s the ruts where you’ve done the aforementioned back and forth rocking, but to no avail; and you need the help of family, friends, or good Samaritans to push you out of the rut.

In my experience with snow ruts, whether the rut comes unexpectedly or not, I usually don’t know which rut it is until I try to get out on my own and I’m successful or try to get out on my own and I’m not. When I am out however, there is a wonderful release of anxiety and a glorious exodus into new freedom. But before that freedom are experiences of panic, playing the ‘could have, would have, should have’ mind game, and feeling a mild sense of despair. I know I’ll eventually get out, but “how?”, and “what kind of rut am I in”. For now, I don’t know the answer to either of those questions; but I’ll keep ‘rocking back and forth’, trying to gain momentum, and hoping and praying that help will come along, if needed.

I felt that way for a while… then I realized, “Hey, maybe I’m not in a rut. Maybe I’m right where God wants me to be and the feelings I have are not of being stagnant or ‘in a rut’, but of a slow but progressive spiritual, emotional, and mental growth. Perhaps the discomfort is not of not growing but instead of growing through challenges and past mental roadblocks.” So then I started feeling better, not great because I still feel really challenged, but better in that I feel hopeful and that soon this time of challenge will give birth to something good. 🙂