{re: change}

I wonder how I'm going to feel in the future when I look back on the 2015-16 school year?

Right now, it feels like I have never truly lived before this year. I am honestly amazed when I step back and look at the sheer number and amount of experiences and emotions that have pounded over me and soaked me to the skin.

I have experienced physical exhaustion to the point of near-fainting and emotional exhaustion to the level of sobbing uncontrollably for three hours.  

I have thrown every iota of mental, physical, and emotional strength into something and seen it end in defeat - then I have seen hope be reborn and the Holy Spirit lift my eyes to look toward new horizons.  

I have uncovered unfairness and untruth and been their victim, and from that experience gained a desire to stand up for other students who are coming behind me.

I have discovered the strength that lies in the unchanging love of friends, and I am learning that even that strength is utterly frail and helpless compared to the ever-present love of my Father God.  

I have dared to fall in love, and felt the jagged pain of rejection cutting my heart and soul - but I have planted seeds of hope in the wounded places and watched them continue to grow, fragile and sweet and ridiculously audacious.

Defeat and hope, courage met with obstacles, injustices discovered. It's been quite a year.

***

At the advice of my mentors, and after many painful meetings and long nights of weeping, I have decided to leave my clinical program of study after this semester and move to a Master's degree program focused on health education and support. Admitting failure and letting go of my dreams and plans has been one of the most painful experiences of my life, and it will take me a long time to recover from the emotional damage of the decision and the semester in general; but God has moved in every stage of the process, and I am firmly convinced that this is His leading. There is no doubt in my mind that this is all Him, and that I am doing the right thing. Despite the sadness of failure, I am excited to see what He has planned and where He will take me next year.

This year has also been the year of my first real, complicated relationship with a man about whom I have dared to use the word love. He has cared for my heart so gently through the pain of this semester, driven me home after midnight, lifted my spirits with food and stories, carefully protected my confided thoughts, and rewarded me with the gift of his trust, his tears, and his hopes. We are a beautiful team. He calls me his confidante, his counselor, his kind and good friend ... yet for all this, he still says he does not love me in the same way that I love him. Every time he catches my eye and smiles, my heart leaps; and every time he waves and drives away, it sinks with frustration and pain.

I continue to hope. It may be futile, this tiny flower in my heart may be trampled back down again; but I continue to hope and pray. And even though I don't know what the outcome of this will be, just like the situation with school, I can say that the things I have learned through our friendship will outlast the pain, regardless of what the future holds.

***

I am a different person today than I was in August. I am no longer arrogantly enamored with my own sweetness and intelligence. I have failed, I have been the "stupid one", I have wounded others, and I have been wounded. I have learned about the depths of my own sinfulness. I have lost ten pounds and am thinking about getting my first tattoo.

I am not the same person that I was before this year.

But.

God is still the same God that He was before this year.

He has pursued my soul in a visible, vibrant, astounding way this year. He has met my collapsing soul with truth in the night when I was too weak to reach for it myself. He has nourished my soul through unexpected people and given me peace and rest in places I never would have looked for it.

I love Him. Oh, so imperfectly, so inconsistently, so unworthily of His majestic grace and all-powerful mercy; but I love Him and I am truly delighted in following Him. He is everything that I need, and even as I pick myself up and stumble away from the wreckage of my failures and broken dreams, I know that I am leaving nothing behind, compared to the glory that lies ahead in getting to know Him better, and in letting Him make me the comforting person for others that others have been for me.

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

Amen.