#hope

After a long weekend of car washes, conversations, youth group prom, my senior recognition Sunday at my home church, and lots and lots of tears, I thought I had earned some well deserved rest... but when I stepped out of my car tonight to walk into the house I knew that God had other plans. In the distance, almost inaudible to human ears I heard a sound that took me back to a much simpler time. A time when I lived out in the country without a store for miles. A time when nature was my best friend. A time when I would sit outside with my parents on the front porch listening to songs the frogs would sing to me as I fell asleep. The distant sound brought me back to a time when I was content to just be still and listen.

 I live in a world where just being still and embracing what is around me is hard to do. Embrace is almost a term that I am scared to use because I am awful at it. I am always looking forward to the next best thing and the next big way God is going to use me. I will shamefully admit to prove my point that about a month ago I thought God wanted me to get married early. Now to answer the question, no I'm not dating anyone and I'm not planning on dating anyone anytime soon. But a month ago I met a really great guy online. For the three weeks as we talked he challenged me in my faith and gave me hope that Jesus loving men exist at my age. So after our three blissful weeks of phone dates and texting conversations I began to talk to God as if I might marry the guy. Hahahahaha. Talk about rushing things? I can't help but laugh looking back now.

But so often this is how I live my life; in a rushed daze never embracing what is right in front of me. It's funny because I didn't even realized I lived like this until Friday when I woke up and thought "I don't know what to do with my life". I had been looking forward to being done with high school since the day I set foot in the building my freshman year, and here I was three days after being out questioning why my life was at a stand still. The realization didn't stop there though. The next day I had two people that mean so much to me tell me about how awful I am at intentionally maintaining relationships because I constantly want to move on to the newest most exciting relationship. Rough. I cried a lot because both of these realizations questioned the way I live most of my life. These realizations would make many of us question the way we are living our lives.

Never fear though, stubborn old me still didn't get the message God was speaking into my heart. Instead I yelled at him, asking him what he was doing in this season of what feels like nothingness. I cried out asking him to move so that I could move forward in proclaiming the good news. I begged for him to take the pain of the realizations away because facing them broke my heart into a million different pieces. I cried a lot, because when God breaks off a part of you that isn't like him, it hurts. It hurts more than  playing guitar on a freshly stoved pinky (if you want to know how that feels message me and we'll chat). It's never easy, in fact the blunt truth is that it sucks... sucks, sucks, sucks. Did I mention it kinda sucks? But unlike worldly pain like a stoved pinky, this pain comes with hope. Hope that Jesus is going to use this sucky pain to refine my faith.

I forgot about the hope this weekend until tonight when I stepped out of my car and heard those frogs. As I stood there and listened for a minute, God met me in my sucky pain and gave me hope. The words he was speaking into my heart this weekend became clear and could no longer be ignored.

Remember sitting on the porch listening to frogs when you were younger? Remember how safe you felt? How free? How calm? How content? I want you to remember the simplicity of those moments. McKayla, turn to me. Look to me, because only I can give you the peace you so desperately need. Why are you so anxious to move onto the next phase of life? Don't you know I have you exactly where I want you? I know you want to do so much more but you aren't ready for that yet. Rest in me. I love you.

Wow. How humbling it is to have such a huge God step down and stop you in your tracks to tell you something like that? The pain I feel in my heart does not hurt any less but I can have this hope that it won't last forever. If I am willing to surrender all of my brokenness over to the one who knew I would have this breakthrough even before I was born, I will find his peace.

God is good, all the time. And all the time God is Good.