wip

These past two months has been nothing short of amazing - but at the same time, so challenging as well. It’s seen me reaching for - and accomplishing - things I would have never seen myself doing and feeling like I’m growing so much in the process. It’s also seen me wrestling with a lot of self-doubt and fear. It’s seen me crumbling into tears more times than I’ve ever cried in the rest of the year so far - because I suddenly didn’t think I could handle the things that I was facing.

I’ve never depended so much on the support and encouragement of people around me, or on desperate prayers and long journal entries. It’s only because of those things that I can say that as challenging, tiring and draining as the past two months have been, they’ve also been so fulfilling, rewarding... and so good for me.

It’s made me confront a lot of things I’d been running from, like past mistakes and struggles, and fears and worries about the future. It’s reminded me to be present  - to live in the now and to cherish and live each moment to the fullest. As Josh Foong, an old friend I recently caught up with, put it, “We shouldn’t live with regrets... because the choices we made at any given point in time were likely the best ones we could have made, given what we knew, given our maturity, and given the situation.”

The past two months have taught me more about what it means to open up to people - to have people around you believe in you and cheer you on. I think hearing someone tell you they’re proud of you makes any challenge worth overcoming, just to hear those simple words. These two months have also reminded me so much about what it means to trust and depend on a higher source of strength when I’ve come to the end of my rope.

Reading through my old journals, it often feels like I’m learning and relearning the same lessons over and over again - but I know that each time I relearn an old lesson, I’m becoming that little bit better at dealing with it.

It’s such a welcome relief to know that in all my struggling and striving, I can rest and be at peace, and take things one step at a time, because He doesn’t expect me to have all the strength and maturity and patience and grace in the world to do everything perfectly. (I often, unrealistically, expect that of myself!) He sees me as a work in progress - as His work in progress, not mine - and He’s in no rush, as I am, to refine me, shape me, and perfect me.

On days when I feel like I’m carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, and feeling crazy overwhelmed by responsibility and expectation, He reminds me of this by sending amazing people my way, who gently remind me that, “You need to let go. You need to give yourself a break. You need to stop being so hard on yourself. You’re doing okay.”

“He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” // Phil 1:6

“It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure.” // Ps 18:32

I want to always be able to stand on this truth of what He says about me, on days when my emotions lie to me and tell me I’m not doing a good enough job, that I’m not capable, or that I’ll never measure up. I’m praying that you’ll be able to do the same too.