what i'm learning

about purpose:
though sometimes i don't feel like i have a purpose in points of my life [sometimes like the time of support raising] i have actually had a number of - i'm sure divine - revelations on the matter. i was in the shower the other day just feeling so utterly lost in myself, you know those times when you just feel like you're whole world is collapsing - you're on the verge of a mini-anxiety attack - times. well it just came to me all of a sudden that there is SO MUCH PURPOSE in life itself. no matter what i'm doing, what life stage i'm in, what my career or ministry looks like - it's always more than it seems. for instance, i have been seeing that right now, while support raising, on the exterior i am meeting with people, hopefully having some sort of impact on their lives, and raising money for our livelihood, inwardly the Lord is doing huge things in my life. and it's just come to me that there is purpose in my cooking for my father-in-law, purpose in spending more time with my husband and the Lord than i am used to, purpose in rekindling old friendships, purpose in learning from my parents. i've been realizing that i don't have to be doing something earth-shattering to have purpose (so basic i know but apparently i am a slow learner). i can be just living in sweet harmony with the Lord and i can be slowly refined by him and there is purpose. just in that. even if there was nothing else. brilliant.

on grief:
i have been becoming aware that with any sort of loss, whether monumental like the tragic loss of a family member or the loss of a friendship or the loss of an old sin, we have to undergo a process. though i've always thought the end result of this process of grieving is hopefully full healing and life as you once knew it, i now believe it's actually not. once we experience loss we must find a new normal. a new reality. life will never ever be the same. and that doesn't mean that it won't be good and happy and wonderful again. but it will never be the same. we are changed people, hopefully for the better, because of the losses that we go through. loss is all about how you handle it, how God uses it to shape you, and finding a new normalcy with Christ at the center.

about marriage:
it's hard. and wonderful. and a perfect combination of so many things that make it the true gift from God that it is. i have been learning one of the most important things i can do for my husband is to build him up. my confidence in him is so important. the other thing i've been struck with lately again is how regardless of how wonderful and amazing a man i have, he will never fill the void i have in my heart for Jesus. he cannot meet all of my emotional, spiritual, social, or psychological needs. that is and always will be only something that God can do with his infinite love and provision and grace. these are good things to learn early in marriage i think.