Waves of Time come crashing in...

So lately, I've been looking back a lot on my high school days and reading over conversations that I have had and pictures that were taken. I remember in those days thinking to myself about how much drama and stress there was and about how much i couldn't wait to move on with my life; to move forward. I first of all remember feeling so overloaded with work and thinking it was so hard and now I can truly look back and laugh at how little was actually expected of me. I can look back and see the little 'dramas' that would take place with my friends and I and see that they also haven't disappeared but also have only grown to be more difficult in content and depth. I look back and although I truly have so far to go, I can see so much growth since then. I remember how I used to think and feel about the world and people around me. I was so selfish and righteous and thought that I was about reprimand, but yet I was so naive and so ignorant in reality. I remember all of the 'nevers' that i spoke against myself...saying: 'I will never..this and never..that' and how I looked at certain close friends of mine, whom I thought I had an eye of love towards, with such an eye of judgment and condemnation. I thought I knew what life was about but yet I had truly never lived. what a hypocrite! and yet the people I loved the most were suffering so much and valued so deeply what I said to them and the advice that I gave to them.
I guess these are times that we must go through so that we can look back at them and learn from them and improve ourselves. One piece of insight that I have gained from looking into my 'high school thoughts and years' is the value in believing in people. Truly believing in them and trusting that despite the ways in which they fail and have failed, they will make it through and are capable of living lives of great power and insight.
I can also look back and see many admirable things about myself that used to come so easy for me which now I have to work for and struggle with to continue steadfast in, such as my faith. I used to be 'unmovable' and never swaying in my constant passion and zest...and maybe that was pride just as much as it may have been a blessing but I do miss that determination that I once so energetically had.
Time has such a way of smoothing out the rough edges and curving us into the people we are and will become. As one wave moves in and crashes onto a rocky shore and just as quickly is pulled back out into the sea, we yearn for those waves to return to us and we ache when they leave but with each wave that goes out another one will come crashing back; continuing to smooth and shape us into whom we are meant to be. It's learning to be patient and enduring of these waves and the process of 'give and take' that we need to learn to live with and accept...

Time

It's really crazy how fast time goes by. It has been a year since I have actually thought about this blog site, A whole sememster of college and a summer and fall have gone by. friends have changed, family has expanded and I am back at the same college in the same room, on the same bed but with a new roommate (who has the same name as my last one). It's amazing to look back and see how much I have overcome in the last year since first leaving for college. There has been so much pain to overcome and so much hurt to forgive and so many people to meet and relationships to build and insecurities to overcome. When I first started the long (three day drive) out to the college with my family, I had just finished spending a year at home working and spent an extended summer back in an old, unofficial relationship which had been going on (and off) for way too long. When I left, I told myself that I was leaving it all behind me and I tried only to find that people are so quick to forget about me and abandon any hope that may have been. (which may have been just what I needed). In March I officially ended this relationship that had unofficially caused so much hurt and confusion for so long and it felt so good to know something about it for sure: it was over and I finally had a sense of stability in it.
Coming home for the summer re-opened great wounds that I had been carrying still but it also helped me to be able to close them once and for all. it reminded me of the book the shack and having to go back and look the painful places and people in the eyes to be able to see them for what theyre really worth. So much had also changed in my friends, or maybe in me and it just wasnt the same joy to be around them anymore, i was dissatisfied with them. I felt lonely but also experienced many new things and built on relationbships that had long been overdue to develop.
Now here we are half way through November, the miracle month, as they call it, and I am once again trying to survive it. The dynamics at this place are so much different than last year, no one is as connected with eachother as we were last year, our friendships have become distant and I hate it! Life seems all the more busy, which is only because I have been taking on more and more but not less lonely than before. I am so blessed with amazing close friends and new friendships developping but am still praying also for God to move in bigger ways in us all.
I have been praying that God would move in me in new ways and even took some brave steps and made some bold commitments to Him and have seen the affects of that. when you ask God to move and change you, He will and it's good but a thick road to walk on. May He start a revival and may He start it in me.