The Art of (re) Finding Myself

This blog begins with a girl in search of who she is. I've been pondering so much the last few days. So much has happened in the last few years, especially since I moved to Redding. While so much of it has been good, and much more than I ever could have expected, I'm realizing how much of it has been so very hard. Along with this move came an unexpected twist of going back to school.

On many fronts, this has been the single most life-changing experience ever. The teaching I get on a day-to-day basis is enough to make even the most intelligent mind spin. Because of school I've been given space with Him to hear in a way that I haven't ever before. Because of school I was able to really see what I was truely made for, and to travel to that place in order to forever fall in love. 

But along with the sacrifice that school has been economically, it has been a massive sacrifice on the front of time and self. This year it has not been rare for me to work 30-35 hours, very early in the morning, then turn around and go to school 5 days a week. In the midst of that I've been trying, often unsuccessfully, to cultivate the few relationships that I do have and the other hours of the day I am usually sleeping or exhausted. 

I realized the last few days, that in the midst of that, I have, in a way lost myself...and not in a good way. I read back over the early days of when I was first really falling in love with Jesus. The things I wrote, the songs I sang, they were profound and are definitely the reason I am sitting here, 1900 miles away from anything I saw as normal before. 

Since Christmas I've been in a funk. There are many reasons why, but I think that this has a massive reason to do with it as well. Somewhere, in the midst of the crazy, the good and the bad...I lost myself. It wasn't that I was being mean to myself, or purposefully neglecting...but I forgot to give myself permission to just be me. To write for hours, to go on an adventure, to draw, to create just for the sake of creating. 

And sadly so, I allowed what other people said and did affect what I decided to say or do. I stopped writing because it wasn't 'profound.' I stopped singing because it wasn't my 'call.' I stopped adventuring because I had a list of 15 other seemingly more important things to do. I stopped loving because it wasn't the best form of love I knew I could give. 

It's fascinating and sad how different we function when we aren't just fully who He's made us to be. I don't write to impress someone else, I write because of Him. I don't sing because others can hear, I sing because I love Him and I want to let Him know. I don't paint or cook or love because I want a pat on the back, I do it because it's within me and it is a pure expression of Him in and through me.

 

We owe the world an encounter. We owe them a taste of His goodness, of His love, of His extravagance. But the truth is, though, that we cannot possibly give the world anything unless we have fully come to terms with who we are and when we decide to love that. 

I may never write anything profound in my life. I may never travel, or cook another meal. But one thing is for sure; I am done worrying or thinking about what people think. I want to be who God made me to be, and I want to take time and make space to express that. When I love who He's made me to be, that's when the world gets their encounter. True and authentic expression will release the kingdom everywhere I go. 

This blog ends with a girl relearning to truely love herself. With a girl that just simply wants to delight in the way that her daddy created her. It ends with a girl who wants to learn, as my dear friend Brenda would say, 'to love herself to life' and because she will be fully alive, love others to life as well. 

Lara 

(check out Brenda's Blog @ http://www.bespokeninternational.com )