Starting Afresh...Lessons of 2009

I can hardly believe it's been just a few days over year since I posted last. Obviously, it's hard for me to keep up with things like this. :-)

In December of 2008, I told my boyfriend that I just knew I didn't like the number 19 and that the age of 19 wasn't going to be easy. Now, I'm not superstitious, believe me, I just had a feeling that it was going to be a hard year. Really, I don't like the number 19, though. 2009 was one of the hardest, most memorable, and most lesson-filled years of my life.

I have learned so much in the past year. The events of the year included faith struggles, ones in which I seriously doubted God, disliked the church, and greatly lost interest in what the church is supposed to be about. After some startling news in early January, I had to pick myself up again. Within the past two years I have had friends hurt me, a pastor tell me that if I had gone through the same schooling he had then I would have the same conclusions about the Bible that he had. I struggled with jealousy, anger, bitterness, grief at the loss of good friend one day and a grandparent the next. I struggled with the stress of school and organizing events. My hardest struggle has been with learning to be a Biblical woman. How to give to God what is God's and how to behave myself towards my future-husband. All of these issues, I will always deal with. They are things that Satan just desperately wants to trip up my life with. In the end, I've had to just learn to TRUST God and TRUST David. That is a word that is so easy to say but so desperately hard to live out. I hope that God will continue to teach me day in and day out.

This past summer (July, 2009) I worked at FCA Leadership Camp for NC at UNC-W. It was a God-given blessing and opportunity. I went into it struggling with hard emotions and sins. I felt that I was not worthy of being there to teach those high school students. That Wednesday morning, I was standing at the coffee machine in the cafeteria, hot, steaming coffee pouring into my little Styrofoam cup and God hit me over the head with something. For the past year-and-a-half I had felt as though I had been standing on a mountain-top and someone knocked my feet out from under me. I was falling, rolling, tumbling down the slope, trying to put my weight (faith) on the little sapling trees growing there (friends, family, "the church"). Yet, every time my weight (faith) was applied, they snapped in half and let me down. And yet I heard this voice, Jesus was saying, "Emily, stop trying to put your faith on things around you. All this time I've been coming down to save you with a repelling rope secure at the top. Stop looking to others for how you should live...just look to me. Grab my hand." That's when I realized I had to stop trying to figure out "how" to be a Christian based on what others told me, but rather, what Christ tells me in His word.

This year, 2010, I want it to be a year in which I learn a lot from God. I look back on all the hardships of 2009, but I don't regret a single one of them. Yes, I do wish Brittney and Papa were still alive, and I wish some friends had made better choices...and I CERTAINLY wish I had made better choices...but even still, God used every moment of that year to glorify Himself, teach me, and others how to grow closer to Him. This year, it is my resolution to try to become more patient, and try to learn how to truly begin to be a woman seeking after God's heart...not my own. God bless!

P.S.~ Just a little update- I am no longer anyone's girlfriend...I'm David's FIANCÉE!!! :-)

He's a wonderful man, and I'm learning to see that more and more each day. I hope I can also continue to learn to respect and revere him as I should.

P.S.S~ I've started listening to the Daily Audio Bible podcast on my iPod. For all of you audible learners out there...it's definitely helpful.

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." --Micah 6:8