Solitude, Destruction and Reconstruction.

I did not quite complete my blog posts on my week of solitude, nor did my week end with that thought in mind. Life has this way of twisting and turning out of the blue, setting us off course from the path we intended to take. At least, that's what happened to me. Before I continue to explain, I'd like to say that my decision to seek solitude indeed led me to my Creator. It stirred up emotions, thoughts, and fears like I could no longer ignore them. This is not the first time I've had to address issues in my heart, but it was definitely a very sensitive and significant time for me.

There is an area in my life that I've experienced in negative ways. I've only seen sad or ugly endings and I've endured through each new situation in that area in ways that still broke me. The time I've invested in certain people, putting my heart out there, is great and lengthy. If there's one thing I'm certain about with myself, it's that I love deeply and hard when I put my mind to it. But this is the area in my life that I have continuously given up to God. This is the area that silently created bitterness and anger over time, because my experiences were continuously hopeless and sad.

Tonight though I feel filled with a sense of strength that is not my own, but rather God's. Although I still haven't seen the bigger picture to understand what is happening in my life today, I feel like He has given me quite the glimpse of what He has started. Just the other night, I had a revelation. It was one of those moments where as I'm speaking out my thoughts based on what I can see, I suddenly paired what happened around me to what happened between God and me. These moments are by far my favorite, where a piece of a puzzle comes out of nowhere and places itself in connection to another.

I truly felt like God went silent to simply make Himself known. Without Him, would I notice? Would I realize how much He actually meant to me if I didn't hear from Him? If He didn't show up? If suddenly He just wasn't there when I was used to  Him being there? But did He "hide" because He doesn't love me and wanted me alone? No, I think not. I believe He went silent so that I would come diligently seeking Him because He means a lot to me. He knew that no matter how far I went, no matter how deep I sunk, He could resurrect me out of anything. He knew that when I hit my lowest, I'd come running to Him and if He wasn't there... I would miss Him. He was still there, but He was silent, letting me learn what my truest pain was so He could then take it away.

I believe that God is still in process of working with me on this, and it is taking me years to grow this much. But this is my story and it speaks greater than it would have if I never had those bad or hopeless looking experiences. Tonight I feel this strength in me that has allowed me to look up and see a light at the end of the tunnel. It has allowed me to feel this hope that everything is going to turn out all right. I have struggled with my faith because of my ability to believe in things that have never once in my life happened. It gave me the idea that I tend to believe in the unseen and impossible and then I proceed to watch them never happen before I move on to something new. Although that is unfortunate, I can still feel my faith wanting to return despite its failures.

This hope inside of me allows me to feel like God will surprise me with an answer I can never make up in my head no matter how many made-up scenarios I picture. God's solution to this negative area in my life is unimaginable at this moment, but I feel that hope that He's bringing me there. Out of fear, I held on so tightly to a person that made me feel happy around him. I held on tightly because I felt like if I let go, I would fail to believe. I somehow believed that if I stayed around, I would witness everything changing. I held on because it meant taking a risk and I wanted to prove to God that I was willing to believe again. But then I let go when I realized they weren't holding on in return. When the other person isn't holding on back, letting go means falling. So I fell. I fell so far down after climbing so high that it hurt an incredible amount.

I can look back and see that it was entirely human of me to react the way I did. That it was perfectly normal and okay to cry, to break, and to feel defeated. I imagine God knew it would happen but He wanted to be that Knight in shining armor who "saved the day" because He was the only one capable of it. So although it hurt at first, as I grieved a loss of something I once found beautiful, God wasn't finished with that part in my story. He wasn't leaving that prayer unanswered, or story left unfinished. I believe God intends to finish what He has started but for now He merely needed me alone. Because through my story, I can show the world that when life hits you with the heaviest, sharpest, and biggest rock...you can still get back up and find strength in God.

God is shaping me into one strong human being, even when I keep using up that strength and finding myself on the floor. I know myself to keep getting back up, attempting to believe all over again that something great is about to happen. Although I've let myself believe false hope one too many times in life, I'm now to the point where I'm seeking true hope. The hope in what you cannot see because you haven't even imagined it. Tomorrow as I turn twenty-four, I pray that God fills the next year of my life with true hope. Not hope in my dreams, but hope in God's dreams. I know now that I can love with my entire heart. I know now that I can take risks, even if I get scared. But most of all...I know now that I can love and then walk away empty handed and it still be worth it. Love alone is worth the fight.