This is not where I want to be.

This is not where I want to be.

I am hurting over an ended relationship. I distanced myself from a criticizing and judgmental relationship with my father. I am back in a city that I moved away from 2 years ago to pursue a dream that never happened.

I feel betrayed. I feel like I didn't and don't matter. I don't feel like I'm enough. I was lied to, used, and was I really even loved?

I give my all in anything I set my mind and heart to. And I set my mind and heart to my ex-boyfriend and loved in ways I didn't think I could. I learned a new culture, a new language, a new role. I integrated myself into his family, assimilated to a culture, and continued to try and learn more so that we could become better, closer.

But one person can't control a relationship. I thought I could propel him, encourage him to know who I am. I thought that if I changed, he would respond differently. I thought that if I learned more about his culture, he would accept me. I thought that if I just did something different, he'd love me more.

At one time we were great. Things were so good I didn't think that I deserved him. He was compassionate, kind, responding, attentive, strong, caring, thoughtful, honest, loving. Then something just changed. I wish I knew what it was. But long story short, he got hurt in the process and I got hurt in the process.

We tried to make it work for longer than it should've been.
We may have grown apart.
We may have held judgements on outside circumstances that affected our relationship.
We may have been seeking ourselves in each other.
Whatever we may have done, may have ended us.

And I'm so angry. I'm so hurt. And yet I still want him back? There's something wrong with me. I laugh in the middle of my tears because that's where I'm at right now. He lacked decency, he was not honest. But I wasn't fully either. We're both flawed humans at fault.

Yet I can't convince myself that I deserve better. I would gladly turn around and be with him if the circumstances were right. I'm not ashamed to say the truth. I think if any girl saw a change in their love they would crumble into pieces and let him crawl right back into her heart.

I'm not strong enough for this. Honestly, I'm not. You may see me, see my life and think I'm the bravest person you've met in awhile. You may even envy my life, but please don't. I'm falling apart every day, and it's slow and painful. I wish I could see some silver lining, but it's not in my daily horizon.

It sometimes feels like a sick joke that God is playing on me. I don't know if this is character building, or if this is the enemy just wreaking havoc on one of his "fun" days. My whole past year has been a continuous "fun" day for him. Just being honest.

I'm just hurting; I don't want to see this as character building. 

I don't want to flip this and see it in a different light like I've always tried to do. 

I just want to see it for what it is right now. 

That I've been hurt deeply, that I want to cry, I want to be loved, and I want to be rescued - to know that I'm worth something more than what I currently feel.

Is that so much to ask?

Change Sucks.

To say I've been in a lull lately is an understatement. I haven't felt "myself" this whole year.

Probably because I haven't known my true myself, probably because I'm growing, probably because I've been learning how to change with all the change around me. 

Sounds confusing, and it only gets worse. 

I've been nuts geographically... I lived in 3 countries in 2013. Rented a room with a Peruvian family, settled into a Honduran community, and lived in a hotel with my puppy for 4 months in Nashville, TN. I rang in 2013 in Honduras, celebrated July 4th at a Chili's in Peru, and had Christmas in the US.

I'm transient but I'm in love with it. I have come to enjoy the struggles of traveling and then returning to the same place but processing the new way in which you see it. I like to call it the "cultural lens". Even home looks strange, customs sound odd, and you begin to question if you're losing parts of your culture because of your upbringing or if you're losing parts of yourself.

Don't think I'm an overcomer. I struggled and did it hard. I have shed more tears than ever. I have felt more abandoned, more alone, more forgotten, more unimportant than ANY other time in my life. Not only do you get to deal with trying to understand who you are in your travels, you're faced with the bombarding questions of who are your friends, who cares that you're gone, and who actually takes the time to let you know you're missed. I promise you, the latter is what you rarely get.

So, now that I've let you in on the issues, I come to the point where life is supposed to turn around and get real good, right? I'm supposed to share a positive, turn all around story, right? I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going there.

Now, I get to be confronted with my worst fear...

Living in one place...In the U.S...In the cold...In my hometown...In Warsaw, Indiana. NO!

This is why it's my fear. Routines are boring. It's too easy to get complacent. I want to see all the culture that God has created in this world. I want to experience what life is like for His loved ones. I want to walk alongside those that live abroad, those that are missionaries, those that need to know the love of the Lord.

This song below was a prayer to God just throwing my willingness into His hands, asking Him to take me anywhere to serve Him. ...

"Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior"

And He takes me back to tiny, country Warsaw, IN.

I pray along with this song, all this time I'm assuming He'd get that I meant I wanted my faith to be pushed outside the US. I have no problem traveling anywhere in the world to serve Him and help others. That seems to be the big stumbling block where people want to be called but don't want to go. I have no problem in either so shouldn't I have been a good candidate to be called to the most remote places in the world?

It's so ironic how we have one idea of our lives and God has the correct one in mind. Never would I have thought that I'd be back to my hometown for a period of time. He couldn't have made it an easier process though. I have a church, friends, a house, and a familiar place to be, to grow, to invest, and be invested in.

I don't know what this time includes, but I do hold it in an excited anxiousness. I'm curious to see Him work in me and through me. I'm still coming to the terms and accepting this new path of my life, but I am fully confident that God has the best intentions for me, even though it means confronting my worst fear.

God knows my heart, He knows my desires and passions, and I trust that more than I trust myself.