Honestly.

I've felt like I should write this, but haven't wanted to. Its something I have been struggling a lot with, this last year, but especially this last week.

I don't want to sound self-pitying, yet I am afraid that will be the way it comes across. I am not saying this hoping someone will refute it, but because it is what is on my heart.

I have felt inadequate lately.
How ironic after reading my sister's latest blog about this very issue.
And I truly do know He is enough, more than enough.
So loving, kind, generous, healing is my heavenly father!

And so I am trying to understand where these feelings are coming from.
To figure out how to rejoice in the gifts He has given to others, without becoming envious of them.

It is not that I wish they did not have those gifts, I am so glad they have them! And they use them for the glory of the father.
It just saddens me that I do not know how to participate in that way.
So many of my wonderful, loving, God-fearing, God-honoring friends are so musically talented. They either have amazing instrumental skills, great voices, or both. And I simply do not fit that category at all. Although my voice is not terrible, it also, in all honesty, is not very good.
I so desire to join in when they start to play, but find myself on the sidelines.
Please if any of you are reading this, continue to play around me! I enjoy your music immensely and don't want you to feel awkward around me for having written this.

I desire to have a gift that I can share. Join in with other people and do.
I know I have heard people say I am good with kids and babies, and I know that helps people other than just me, but its not really something you can do in a group.

I'm not really sure how to put into words what I have been struggling with.

I guess its realizing that I don't really have a place where I fit in.
At school, I do not fit in with the Corps guys that my former roommate hangs out with all the time. I do not understand the military. I don't feel like I fit in here either, since I have no real musical abilities.
People have said, well you are athletic and you like sports so you fit in that way. But as I get older, it honestly gets more difficult to find people to play with. Most guys want to play with other guys, and girls, there are fewer who really want to play (I think some of my guy friends who still include me, you have no idea how much it means to me!).

This is rambling and really has no direction. I just feel really crummy lately and am trying to figure out why.
I have such great friends, yet I feel like I have nothing to contribute to them. Like when they start playing, I don't know the words and make it awkward. I'm the dud.
I want to give back, to them, to God.
Yet I am left with nothing, I don't know how!

Lord I know You accept me empty handed. How gracious You are! And You have given me friend who love me regardless of what I can give, thank You. Yet I so desperately want to give to You. To find a way to love You, glorify You, alone but also with a group. To be creative LOrd!
Yet not my will, but Your will be done.
Help me to accept what You have given me, but also what You have not.
I know You are good. Your plans are good.
Help me to see that Lord!
I need Your eyes to see that.
Help me.
With love, to Love. Amen

Home again

Well here I am, home again.
And very glad to be...and yet, its not the same.

I love being with my family, and actually do not miss college station much at all (if at all). I think its that here its harder for me to go places. I can not just walk across campus and visit people. And since I don't have a car, I can't drive anywhere. Not that I mind so much, its just very different.
I enjoy getting to talk to my family, be around children again, have my own room, attend my home church. And yet there is an ache that comes with being home.
Not an ache for somewhere else, but for what used to be and is no longer.
I feel no different than how I was a year ago, which saddens me, because I think I should.
In less than a month I will be 21, a legal adult in all ways in the eyes of the law. Yet I still feel like such a child.
I do not know what I am supposed to do.
I feel lost, like I am going in circles, and these emotions, memories, feelings and attachments, that I so desperately want to be rid of, continue to cycle all the more.
How do I get him out of my head and away from my heart? I do not desire that he is there. I want God there, to fill every space of it, to clean it out. I desperately call out and pray to You, Lord, heal, fix, mend, remove, burn away, restore me!

Why will they not pass or fade? I think they are gone only for another wave to sweep over me. I feel like I am drowning sometimes.

Yet, the Lord is merciful. He gives me life lines, family, good friends, and most importantly Himself.

Lord,
Help me please, to every day focus on You and what You would have of me.
Take away what needs to be taken, and fill me with You instead.
Thank You for Your mercy and love.
I need You and love You, though I am often bad at showing it.
With love, to true Love.
Amen