Reflection

Graduate

365 days ago, I graduated from Liberty University.

Well dang.

Honestly?  It’s felt like so much longer.  “Time flies,” they tell you.  That’s true, I think, for the most part.  But not this past year.

The past 365 days have been daunting to say the least.  I’m 21 and I’ve attended more funerals than weddings, to give you a snapshot of the year.

What I’ve Learned:

Friendship

It’s been a rough 365 days, but in these 365 days, I have experienced the most beautiful friendships.  

Joy is a funny thing—it seems to appear nowadays when I least expect it.  

It’s been a dark 365 days, but I have had such sweet friends and family here along the way.

I think the darkest of times expose the purest friendships.  My community has come alongside me and my family and given so much of their time, energy, and resources to loving me and my family well.  Thank you for praying for me and my family.

I thank all, sincerely, who have shown up for me and my family. I cannot emphasize the depths of my gratitude towards you. This has been a gruelingly sweet year because of you.

Career

Fortunately, God has blessed me in this aspect!  I am a Technical Writer/Editor for an amazingly supportive company out near Virginia Beach and I am quite enjoying my work.  I have met the most wonderful coworkers and have had the privilege of working for an incredibly supportive company.  

My job has been abundantly understanding with the tumultuous circumstances and my coworkers have been encouraging amidst the chaos.  The support I have received from my company/coworkers has been a relief in a time of affliction.

Faith

Now, I could probably write PAGES on what God has taught me in the past 365 days, but I will attempt to keep it brief.

Above all, time is precious because life is precious—how we spend our days details much about ourselves. Family is precious. To receive the abundance of life, you must seek it and abide in it. God has taught me so much through discouraging circumstances and encouraging friendships: the idea of “community” becomes clear when people are bringing you dinner every night.

Even though it’s been a horrifically difficult year, I have been loved so well by those near me.  God teaches me to rely on His strength daily.  It’s a daily surrender, it’s a fight.

God is constant in an ever-changing world.

If I had known what these past 365 days would look like on May 19, 2019, I would have spent the past year in fear, dread, and despair, but God prepared me well for the endured trials.

Somehow, I am surprisingly optimistic about the next 365 days.  I pray for a season of abundance and joy and warmth.  This next year might be horrid.  It might be.  But even in the most terrible times, so many wonderful memories are made.  There is light and hope in this world’s harshest moments, and, even while this year was most certainly the worst/most difficult/saddest year of my life [so far], it’s been a beautiful year.

God is so, so good.

The Reset

And it was the end of an era I was not ready to let go of…

IMG_5733.jpg

Two-Thousand and Eighteen: a year that completed four years of alteration. 

– 2014 –

We moved to Virginia days after I graduated high school.  I was sixteen, driving from Arkansas to Virginia with Shadow as my copilot, and leaving everything familiar behind except my family.  We knew nothing of Virginia nor the East Coast, but I was supremely excited for the anticipated adventure.  Though I had many dear friends there, I was ready to leave Arkansas.  June 4, 2018, we arrived at our new home and a series of changes rapidly ensued.

[Journal Entry, dated July 25, 2015, italicized]

Sometimes I stop myself and take a breath and let it sink in; this is what I wanted, and this is how I imagined it.  I have lots of friends who love me…we stay out late and stay up even later.  We laugh and cry together, and I’m independent.  This is what I always dreamed of. Yes, it’s horrifying, but if I’m really being honest, I’m in love with the constant chaos of everything around me. 

Somehow, it’s terrifyingly beautiful.

I love my life, and I’m so thankful for where God has placed me.  This past year has been a year of healing that I never could have dreamed of, and of rejuvenating that I didn’t know I needed.

I was exhausted when I left Arkansas.  Now, being here has helped me so much.  I love it, and I’m not ready to leave.  But God is preparing my heart, and He will be with me.  I love him, and I love my life.  I am mortified of what will become of me, but I’m not afraid of who I will become.  If I keep Him centered, what is to fear?

12465568_10154294980021729_1345779115_oI wrote that a month before I left for Liberty University in a leather-bound journal that Laura Denson gave me.  Thanks to the community God provided me with, Hampton was everything that I prayed for when I left Arkansas.  I thought that going to LU would terminate many of the friendships I had made over the past year.  While some naturally faded, others wonderfully strengthened. 

[Journal Entry, dated December 11, 2017, italicized]

By the end of 2017, few people remained in Hampton whom I had met in 2014.  Much of what I had grown accustomed to slowly faded away, and I no longer spent ample time with a majority of the people in these photos due to peoples’ moves, church changes, and/or other miscellaneous life transitions. 

I was growing restless. 22549927_1433640100022655_4125797685064880172_n

This season pains existence.  Questions never cease, and answers never come.  The twenties are so much harder than everyone tells you… Unpredictability characterizes this stage.  My heart rips between here [Lynchburg] and Hampton… I’m exhausted from being alive.  I need something new.  I’m not even sure how I’ll make it next semester.  I am so burnt out.

And thus, I drove home for Christmas break, and my friends and family reminded me why I held Hampton so dear.

– 2018 –

[Journal Entry, dated January 1, 2018, itlalicized]

I began the year by running away to Europe—I specialize in running when I’ fear reality—and came back with a refreshed perspective. 

The Lord reveals things, not in our timing, but in His; yet He laces hints in unlikely moments.  My stubbornness falters me, yet He gives perfect grace to woo me to Him.  He called me out from the wilderness of my own mind and brought me back softly to His presence.  He’s reminded me of His sovereignty and His plan.  That’s right, God has a plan for me.  It’s a truth I’ve treated as a lie for quite some time due to my sin of disbelief.  

– – –

Walter was with me during my first year in Hampton, and he was the last person from that stage of my life that remained close.  When Walter died, so left the last consistent reminder of 2014.  IMG_5941.jpg

Thus, it was reset.

[Journal Entry, dated January 1, 2018, continued]

I allowed my ignorance and frustration to warp my mind; so I looked to my known God—a good God, a creator, an assigner of work, a loving Father, a sovereign king—and ascribed to Him all of my anxieties…I embraced negativity and ran from my Savior because of the pain in my heart.  I hurt, deeply, and I blamed God for it. 

Yet, all the while, it was He who spoke kindly to me.  It was He who whispered truth, even when I barely listened.  All the while, He was stirring up my affections, burdening me with trivial matters, exposing my heart slowly… Slowly, softly, gently, because He knew I could not take it all at once.

I lost Walter, my mini-cooper, the familiarity of Lynchburg and college life within two weeks.  My family moved the day I graduated, I quit a job I enjoyed a month later, and Shadow passed away shortly after that.  

I’m ready for 2019.  I’m excited to see what God will do.  He’s growing me and He’s healing me.  2018 made me realize the depths of my weakness, but I am relearning to abide in God’s strength.  I feel stronger and braver than I have felt in quite some time. BDBED1A4-9156-48D4-AED9-F87B59F016B5.jpeg

It’s like one of those movies that ends where it began—when I returned to Hampton in May, everything I became familiarized with in 2014 was gone. 

2018 was terrifyingly beautiful.

I moved to Hampton days after I graduated college.  I was twenty, driving from Lynchburg to Hampton with Spotify as my copilot, and leaving everything familiar behind except my friends.  I grew to love Virginia and embraced the East Coast, but I somberly and optimistically anticipate the next adventure.