ramble ramble ramble

I didn't think my life would be like this...single at 27 almost 28.  I remember years ago sitting with my dad in a McDonalds late at night having coffee...I was telling him how I wished I could fast forward through my teenage years to my early 20's where I was married and had kids.  I didn't know...how different my life was going to be.

Don't get me wrong I LOVE my life.  I am thankful daily for what God has given me but sometimes that pang of lonely comes along.  Growing up as a kid I knew I wanted to work with horses, wanted to sing but most of all I wanted to be a wife and mom.  That was all I could think about, it was my life goal you could say.  When I started in goats back when I was 15 my first thought was "I want to farm so when I have a family of my own my kids can grow up on a farm".  You can see that I clearly still wanted my childhood dream.  I always figured I would be married in my early 20's and have kids by my late 20's.  That hasn't happened...well if you count the goat kids then the last part yes ;).

God has been really working on my heart these past few years.  Showing me that while that dream wasn't bad I was putting my happiness....my worth....all my eggs into a basket that maybe wasn't where He was currently leading me.  More than that I was looking to get my needs met through this world and not through God.  Now don't misunderstand me, marriage is amazing and is something that is VERY Godly but that doesn't mean being single is ungodly or wrong.  If being single is where God has you, then GREAT!  It isn't a failure to follow what God asks you to do, if being single for now or maybe even for the rest of your life is what God calls you to do than by golly you do it.  Because there is no better place to be than right where God wants you.

That being all said...that doesn't stop my heart from aching at times.  There are times I am curled up crying because I ache SO much for my childhood dream to come true.  God has put some things in my life that challenged that...finding out two years ago I had pretty major endometriosis and a tumor on my ovary was scary and had me seriously questioning if I could ever have my own kids.  Even now after having surgery to "clean" everything out and being on hormones I still don't know if I will be able to have my own children or how hard that will be to get pregnant.  I have come to peace with that, I am choosing to trust God with all of that (sometimes it is hard and I still cry and wonder).

I have decided....I am okay with not getting married or having my own family.  Now this varies from day to day...sometimes I decide I am NOT okay with not getting married or having my own family.  Not a single durn thing I can do about it either way really except pray.  God knows my desires, He placed them in me for pete's sake.

I honestly have NO clue where I am going with this blog post.  I guess a part of me wanted to whine about how I am single at my age and have a mini pity party about how I can't find a man....*sigh*. 

My life...is so different from what I imagined it would be.  I never imagined I would be where I am today.  It doesn't look like much to the outside world maybe, but to me it is God's grace, my blood, sweat and tears and even more of God's grace for giving me those blood, sweat and tears.  Do I always follow God?  Nooope....I have a VERY strong willed nature and I like to do my own thing.  This has proven...interesting in more ways that one.  But God continues to work on my heart and teaching me to seek Him.

All I can say....is I am thankful for the life God has brought me to.  I have learned a lot, so much more than I could put into words.  I know myself well, I do not have any illusions as to where I would be or how I would have turned out without God in my life or things turning out this way.  My life isn't as hard as some peoples but my life is also harder than others.  That is neither here nor there really, God has me RIGHT where He wants me.  So I am going to continue trusting in Him, letting Him lead and wondering how He will reveal Himself to me tomorrow.

Good night, good job for sticking through my late night open heated ramblings annnnnnd peace out!

God bless y'all! - Justine 

Fear

Sometimes an overwhelming sense of fear can just paralyze.  An urge to scream, cry or just crawl out of your own skin but yet no sound can make it past your lips.  It sits festering in your belly, writhing like some living being trying to get out.  I sit here, tears sitting on the edge ready to tumble over, afraid of....of what?  I try to not allow myself to look past, measure my present by where I was in the past.  But it still happens, I still look back and I still measure myself up to my past.

I am afraid, I took a temporary part time job.  It will last but 6 weeks which works out perfectly with when I start with kidding season and milking the goats.  But I find myself terrified, terrified that where I am right now isn't where God wants me.  I find myself questioning, am I truly following what God asked me to do.  I am amazed at how little my faith can be even when I am face to face with everything God has done in my life and in those around me.

I am sitting here struggling to put words on paper so that it might make sense in my mind.  It doesn't seem like it is working to much, at least they are out of my head and in front me.  I feel like I am failing, I feel inadequate or insufficient at leading others, be it in their walk of faith, in teaching them things I have learned, in the simple task of taking care of a child.  I feel ill prepared, I can't even handle looking at my own life too close, how am I supposed to help others without failing them or letting them down.

I don't have a lot in my life, I don't keep a lot in my life.  I have come to realize I am rather a minimalist not by nature but by life.  Almost my entire world could fit in probably less than 10 boxes, most people my age have accumulated much more than that.  I don't mind, it doesn't bother me, I don't even know why I felt the need to write it down.  Maybe because it feels odd to me, in this day and age we put value based on how much we own, what we own and sometimes even why we own it. 

So many things weighing on my mind and my heart.  Sometimes I think I should blog, that I should write things I have learned or maybe what I have felt as God brings me through these different times.  God has given me grace to see the small things that He has worked in my life for my good.  But this big huge one still stares me right in the face and I honestly have NO idea where it is leading, how it will turn out or how it will end.  That great illusive mystery is my life, don't scoff and think "Oh that is what everyone says" even though you are very true.  What I mean is the different things that God has put in my life and brought me through, right now when I look at my life I only look to the next day, I try not even to think about the next week because honestly if I do I get terrified.  I used to be able to not be scared by the future or making plans, but now the simple thought of planning my future no matter how near or far, stops me in my tracks.

Maybe this is a good thing, God does say worry not about tomorrow right?  I could be getting my scripture mixed up so forgive me.  I am not even sure I am making sense right now, I am just writing whatever comes into my head at the moment so forgive me if it is jargon and hard to follow.  I guess what I am saying, I am trying to live my life with every day me looking toward God to get me through.  God has been showing just how weak I am, in my flesh when I struggle with sin and with my soul when I struggle with trust and faith.  It is a sobering mirror to look into, it shows just how....incapable we are without God.

I will complete this by saying I am not perfect, I am a child of God.  All my messy bits, my hard bits, my selfish bits, my proud bits, my scary bits, even my good bits (I need to stop saying bits) are in God's hands.  This is a peace I can rest in right now, God has my bits.