All I need

So it's been a long time since I last wrote, but that's okay.

College is going very well. I absolutely love it here and have made so many amazing friends and have developed such beautiful, God centered relationships it literally brings tears to my eyes to talk about how blessed I am by the people here. They are simply amazing, beautiful, encouraging, Godly people. My classes are challenging, and I'm trying my hardest to keep up as best as I can with them.

I love my life here, and am definitely the happiest I have been in years. Even with all of that though, I am still definitely being challenged. I'm being stretched and pulled in all sorts of directions: to trust, to believe, to love, to be patient, to have faith, to persevere, to be still and know that He is in control.

Lots of new developments have come into play in my life since I've gotten here; things from this new chapter of my life, and story lines from the previous ones seeping through. Being the type of person I am, I don't deal with anything as it comes, instead I just bottle it up and try to hide it in the back of my head. Consequently all of these stored emotions have been bursting out in waves, and it's all I can do to keep smiling at my friends and participating in class. Life has a tendency to all be so very overwhelming and I don't know what to do, how to handle it, how to process it. So I just keep bottling it up and pushing it back as much as I can.

These past two weeks though that hasn't been working out so well and I've been having a very hard time. I laid in my bed last night staring blankly at my open bible, wishing some scripture would just jump out and give me an answer to this dull ache I've found to be constantly hovering over my heart. I tossed the pages back and forth skimming randomly, trying to find some verse that spoke about stress, anxiety, hurt, trust, faith. Nothing jumped out at me and I was feeling very frustrated. I started praying asking God to take away the aches, the confusion. I continued to just pray, asking God for things. Give me this, give me that, take away this, fix that, make me happy. Me me me me me. Give give give give. Make ME happy. Make ME fixed. Make ME whole. And it hit me. Why do I just whine so much? Why do I always go to God when I'm hurt? When I feel lost and confused? Why do I always complain to him about what's going wrong instead of thanking Him for all that is good and right in my life? Because let me tell you, there is ALOT for me to be thankful for, and yet I rarely ever actually thank Him. I'll praise Him, but usually only when He's recently done something for me.

...Really? How selfish can I be?

Right there and then I got up and turned on praise music and just sang. I stood in the middle of my dorm room and just sang praise and thanks and that burden was lifted.

What on earth took me so long to do that? God has given me so much in my life! He has blessed me so much and has taken care of me continuously, no matter how many times I screw up, He loves me at all times, and He is constantly giving. Yet that's never good enough for me. I feel one little prick of pain and I come whining to him, begging for the healing to my pain and the reason behind it. I think that if I were to praise God and thank Him for all that is good in my life, I wouldn't be able to feel the most excruciating pain. Because lets face it. I'm 17, I'm in a private college which my parents pay for, my parents are still married, were both very loving and supportive my entire childhood, and I have never been left wanting for anything in my life. God has been so good to me. My life is beautiful and it is blessed by Him and I am so incredibly amazed by God's grace to me. Even with the many different pains I have had in my life, they pale in comparison to the joys He has given me. I just need to focus on that.


All I Need, by Shawn McDonald

As I sit here and think
About all that You've done
About how You gave me Your one and only Son
And I'm trying to fathom
All that You are, but so far, Lord
You're so beyond me
I fall down in reverence
And I fall down in fear
And I'm asking You, Lord, won't You please draw near
Won't You open my eyes
So that I can see
The way that You are working in me
All I need is Your love
To come and fill this heart of mine
My heart is a desert that has gone dry
And I need Your love to carry me by, by, by, by, by
To carry me by, by, by, by, by
To carry me by
And I lay down my life
And I put it before You
All that I am is in your hands
And I’m not gonna question why you’re so faithful
Why that You give me the blessings that You have
Let the glory be known, let the glory be shown
To lift You up unto the throne
You are my God, You are my King
To You I give, I give You everything