Beautiful Girl...Let The Sunrise Come Again

I know it's way too late/early in the morning but I couldn't help myself. I haven't blogged in over a month and I'm feeling the weight of thoughts overflowing my mind; and of course I would choose to write during the craziest part of this month. I honestly don't know where to start so I guess I will start with a summary of these past several months.

To sum things up:

Dearest May, 

you were pretty exciting. I wasn't sure what the later days would hold but Lord knows I was in for a life impacting experience. I spent a glorious week in a third world country loving on little ones and placing my craft before the Lord to use to help His people. I came back exhausted and sick but pushed through and pulled through to end up on the other side, a more driven and passionate form of myself. Then you were gone. Just like that.

My Sweet June, 

you held such gladness and sadness. I longed for the 18th day to arrive, a fresh start, a new year, a chance to greet life with new inspiration and goals. Twenty-three, what a funny, uncomfortable, interesting, hard, and lovely age to be. (so far that is)... Then you brought me sorrowful news that had my heart longing for Virginia and my family afar. I can't help but tear up thinking about that early morning phone call and how beautiful it was to see the Lord's hand at work in the midst of all our grief and mourning. Before I knew it...

Oh Hello July, 

we've been together for quite some time now thought I feel like it was yesterday that we began day 1. I don't remember leaving the earlier days behind us only because I was yearning for that 8th day to begin the most beautiful adventure of this 23rd year yet! Oh the forests that captivated my heart and the sounds of effervescent voices I knew so well. It has been in your days I have found a glimmer of hope for whats to come in the month to follow but it is also within your weeks that many of my covered weaknesses and inner struggles have surfaced. So here I am, in the midst of them, still processing, learning, healing, and growing...

So I've been a part of this really awesome bible study with some girls from my church. I didn't know what we were going to be studying when I joined in on the first day they met until I was sitting in the living room with a bunch of girls I didn't know so well and they brought up the study we would be doing was one on Gideon. Nooowww, I don't know about you... but I didn't remember much about Gideon........let's be real though... I didn't remember anything about Gideon, other than in my head I was like 'Hey! I know that name! It's in the bible somewheres...' yep. So I went out and bought the study book the next week to go along with the video we would be watching before discussing the message Priscilla Shirer brought. Now I do wanna make a comment about this lady cuz she's just awesome and reminded me of Pastor Tina from New Life Providence in Virginia Beach... for those of you who know who I am talking about you know that Pastor Tina is pretty awesome and so anyway, this Priscilla lady reminds me of her. ::Ok, end random tangent:: So the tagline or 'log line' of the book I guess you could say is "Your weaknesses. God's STRENGTH." I didn't go into this bible study really expecting to come away from it with anything specific. I had no goals for myself other than forming bonds and fellowship with the girls...but in reality what I have gotten from the study itself has been priceless. 

I'm gonna skip over talking about the first session even though it was like WOAH awesome! Only cuzzz I am going to write a lot anyway...which is one of the things I wanna talk about here... So the first session was super sweet and all but then later sessions began to stir something in me I wasn't expecting. 

I'm just gonna throw these words out there bluntly...

Inexperienced. Intimidated. Incompetent. Too Young. Rejected. Unwanted. 

It's really hard for me to write those words because of how I relate to them. Let me preface what I write by saying that I recognize now that I am in currently under attack and in a constant battle against an enemy that would have me destroy myself if he had his way. With that said I will explain my relationship with those six words above. It's probably a given to most that a person would struggle with a lot of those things when they are in the shoes I am in currently. That place in-between completing sixteen years of schooling to step out into the real world to get a job and be jobless for a time before stepping into the next season...it's pretty uncomfortable. I mean, let me be real, I haven't been stressing over the fact that this season has been uncomfortable... let me make a metaphor since I like using them and really only the ladies will understand... it's like the uncomfortability (that's not even a word but deal with it) of wearing a bra, it's not the most comfortable thing but the bra is a reality and there's just no way around it until that glorious moment when you get home and you can shout 'FREEEEEDOM' as you throw it across the room.... hahaha only me??? ....awkward. Well anyway, it's kinda like that...it's not something I can really get away from right now and I've learned to live with being uncomfortable but it sure would be nice to move on from this season sometime...soon...maybe? God? He's workin' on it, He'll get back to me. Anyway, now that I've embarrassed myself a little... we move on! 

"The enemy would have us look inward and be insecure about our strengths and weaknesses. We are to look outward and upward at the power of Christ and He in us!"      -Priscilla Shirer 

The funny thing is now that I am two weeks out from that second session and have taken a personal vacation to Tennessee and come back for that third session and had several conversations with valued friends I can honestly say that I see the pattern. I can see where the underlying internal struggles have surfaced I can see that there is residual hurt that I am needing to deal with before I move on from this season. When I say hurt I am not referencing hurt inflicted on me by another, I mean self inflicted hurt and no not physical hurts but psychological hurts. I know we all deal with those, we all have our own poisons these are just a few of my own, I am my own poison. I won't say I am my own worst enemy because that's just not true, but there is an enemy that's mixing the poison and I'm full and well taking it, or have been, or did. Like I said, I'm working on it. The best way to combat struggles and lies is to call them out right? Well, I'm calling them out. Right here and right now. Not only am I calling them out here but I have also called them out within the company of a few friends who were to kind to listen to my heart break over my own self defeat. 

"When life's shadows distort our reality, those distortions can easily become our truth, ripping us away from God's truth and thwarting our purpose." -Priscilla Shirer

I have this feeling... this feeling that this season is coming to it's close and another one is about to begin, whatever that may mean. So with that I am reflecting on the struggles of this past year and some of the battles I have had to fight were battles against these lies: Inexperienced. Intimidated. Incompetent. Too Young. Rejected. Unwanted. Thank God for saving me from myself and revealing his truths to me because the past couple weeks I have been overcome by all of these lies and I was drowning in them. I had began to believe them about myself and started to throw them around my neck and shoulders like a new accessory. I took my former parts of me I didn't like and began to believe that those past hurts were still a part of me. I think it's because I am dead-set on not ending up back there. I didn't like me then, but I am not the same person I used to be. I'm going to continue to battle it, I will have an enemy constantly trying to convince me that I am that person when I start to loose sight of who I am in Christ. The good thing is that I'm learning how to fight that battle and I don't have to do that alone. 

I had a friend put it bluntly to me the other day as I sat in my car in my driveway after an exhausting work out: "I don't think that it's that you are concerned with what other's think about you Gabrielle, but more so that you are hung up on what you think about yourself." &&&&& with that I was done. She kept talking and speaking over and into my life and I was just wrecked, sitting in my car and realizing that God was calling me out on my self destruction. I had had a friend earlier that week tell me when I told her that I am striving so hard to be a lady, that I long to be a woman and just don't feel that way, that I am the only one that thinks that I'm not that and another friend agreed saying that no one saw me as a child. I've had a best friend tell me that I am too hard on myself, that I beat myself up over things that I should give myself more grace for. All of these lovely ladies are completely right and I am so thankful for their words for helping me face this battle head on. 

This post is oooooberly long but I've decided I am not going to apologize for it. I am learning to accept that I am a verbal processor. Both of my parents are and neither of my sisters are so here I am the one in the middle with all the words. I will say more than I need to say. I will overwhelm myself with how much I talk. I will spend way to much time exhausting the same subject till I'm blue in the face. Recently I have hated this aspect of myself, it's so hard not to exhaust everything I have to say when I talk with friends when I'm over here in Texas and I don't really have any of my east coast friends to process through life with face to face or a significant other to walk through life with. (& oh my dear ashley I fear to have overwhelmed you too much although you have repeatedly said you love my 'word vom'.) So this is me. Processing. I am going to work on my verbal processing rather than hate myself for it. It's funny because I have projected my own overwhelmed state on others... meaning when I have said in the past 'I'm sorry for overwhelming you with all of this' they usually say that they aren't overwhelmed in the least but what I'm realizing is that it's really me who is overwhelmed by it, maybe not necessarily because of talking about it out loud but also because it's all been internally running through my mind and my heart that when it finally comes about in word form I've already spent hours, days, weeks or months mulling it over inside. So to all my dear friends who have experienced my so called "word vomit" over this past year I want you to know how appreciated and loved you are. Thank you for listening. Thank you for helping me process this season of life. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for your wisdom and shared advice. Thank you for letting me be me and as messy as I may think I am thank you for loving me in the midst of it. 

I think that's all I have... It's 3:30 in the morning and I really should turn in for the eve. If you care to, leave me a comment, I'd love to hear from y'all. I'm not even really sure any of the above even makes sense since I'm basically sleep typing... Goodnight Moon!

With Love,

Gratitude

Two posts in one day! Whoop! I honestly couldn't wait to write this one so that's why there are two posts in one day.

Let's start off with how this morning kinda went down. I have this bad habit of staying up till the wee hours of the morning so here I am at 1245 in the morning just laying down to catch some Zzz's when I decide it would be a good idea to check my email because I was expecting a reply from someone whom I had asked about meeting with that day. Well I check the email and find out that the person wants to meet before 8am and I'm like woahhh woahhh woahhh. Before 8am? That's a thing? I totally kidding but honestly I was a little frustrated that I didn't get the email until 1245 in the morning. Realizing I have to get up at 7am I lay down and of course of all nights my mind is reeling. I look back at my phone and its 2am. Poop. Really? Of all the nights I can't sleep it had to be this one? Alarm goes off at 7am and my body and mind didn't know what was going on. It's one of those moments when you honestly can't tell why there is noise and where it's coming from although you wake up to an alarm everyday today is different because you got less than 5 hours of sleep. Bleh. I get up and start the day a little frustrated till I get outside and its gloomy and immediately I am comforted. I put on some copeland and make the drive out to the meeting which I was late to. Afterwards I was sure I was going to head home and lay back down but I guess I felt a little inspired and romanced by "coffee" by copeland so I made my way to starbucks. The Starbucks near the college campus is super urbany and cozy, with edison bulbs and all. So I got myself some breakfast and a vanilla nonfat latte and sat down to read my bible app. I spent a couple hours there and then decided to head home to be productive and prepare for a phone conference I have coming up in less than an hour.

I get home and decide to do some more reading. This time out of my Altar Ego book by Craig Groeschel. I had left off the last time in the middle of a chapter on living with gratitude but it had been several weeks since I last read so I refreshed a bit and then finished the chapter. & Oh... muh gosh. On the second to last page I broke. Like, had to put the book down and grab a tissue because I couldn't contain the tears. Wanna know what that sentence was? ::: "Know that you have everything you need right now." --- So simple right? Yet, so profound. I think we focus a lot on God providing for here and now and future but we forget that we have what we need right now. Right now! Today he has given me my daily bread. Today he has provided me with the ears to hear my alarm go off and get me up to start the day. He has give me a car that's paid off and has gas in the tank and drives me to and from wherever I need to go, whenever. He provided the meeting this morning to connect me with people that will eventually help me to get clients to provide me with funds to pay for my trip to Guatemala. He has provided me with this computer and all my software to use to be able to work and be productive and work as a freelancer for the time being. He has provided me with a bed to sleep in that gave me the best rest I could have received in the 5 hours of sleep I did get. So many things. He provided me with ears to hear and to listen not only to people but to music. Thank God for music. I have everything I need right now yet I am so ungrateful and I am so shamed and humbled.

My frustration this morning with having to get up so early and not knowing till so late was totally unnecessary. So I think about today and how I have everything I need right now because it has been so graciously given and I am so unworthy. Then I begin to think about tomorrow and the further future and think about how the things of tomorrow or the further future that I have at those points may not be the same as the things that I need for today. Needful things constantly change in these seasons of life, and although I may want something right now because I feel that I need it doesn't mean that I will get it and doesn't mean that that Lord should give it. In His perfect timing. &&& the things that I have right now may not be what I have in the future. Any worldly thing could be taken from me at any point in time. Any person I hold dear could be taken at any point in time. I realize I am not showing my gratitude enough.

Craig said it pretty well in his book: "Have you ever gone to a lot of trouble to do something special for someone, but they barely acknowledge your effort? You planned. You saved. You prepared. You thought of every detail. You made everything just right. You worked like crazy to surprised someone, bless someone, honor someone. And they didn't say thank you. Of course you didn't do it to be rewarded, but an acknowledgment would have been nice.
Imagine how God feels when he gives us life, his love, his presence, his blessings, his Son. And we ignore him, continuing to do our own thing. Or perhaps we're a bit more gracious and give a polite token "thanks, God." ...Gratitude kills pride. Gratitude slays self-sufficiency. Gratitude crushes the spirit of entitlement." 

Shoot! Ok, go ahead Craig! So I think what really hit home for me in reading all of this is that I have all that I need right now. Right now, I have what I need. I have to keep telling myself this over and over. I have what I need right now. Looking towards the future its easy to forget the present and it is a present! haha Punny! I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. So here I am preparing for a trip to Guatemala in May (which I will talk about hopefully later this week) and I am realizing that although in the future I need to have raised $1000... right now... I have what I need. It's hard to think that way when we think about money because a lot of what we focus on with money is what we need for the future. Needing to pay bills, rent, mortgages, for food, clothes....camera equipment ::cough cough:: haha. If I can trust Him with today and that He has provided me with today what I need to make it till tomorrow then I am thankful and grateful. Perhaps with this I will continue to learn and grow in trusting Him and His future provisions.

Signing off, God Speed <><