:) starting a new school year

AHHHH here is how i post! so, it has been a while since i have written on this blog. i have been inspired lately, however, to write some thoughts down and this is the best outlet for that. i miss ya'll so much and i miss this blog!! we need to get back on regularly writing on this website and keeping up with each others' lives. life has been pretty hectic the past few weeks. my life has felt so unorganized and it has made me feel pressured and stressed. whenever my room or books or anything are out of order, i feel like everything around me is out of order. i don't like that feeling! school has already been challenging and difficult...i think especially since i did not crack a book open this summer. i want to hear how ya'lls schooling is going, and sarah---i want to hear about charleston! have ya'll moved there yet?
well the dating life---if you haven't noticed from my "relationship status" on facebook (i feel so funny updating ya'll this way), i am dating the same guy again. it has been a slow process of moving into our relationship, but it has been a GOOD slow process. normally, i am the most impatient person when dealing with relationships (as seen in older posts, i wanted everything in my timing) and the Lord knew His perfect timing and plan for both michael and me. it has been different than when we dated before---even though it is long distance and it's hard, i feel like we've grown as individuals and we are more mature than when we dated previously. it's so hard to put in words, i wish there was a way to! but you definitely know when people around you have grown, but especially you know for a fact when you have grown. the Lord used SO many things--good and bad--the past 2 years that i look back on now and know for sure they were His perfect Will...even though at the time i was going through them i felt weak and unsure if it really was God's perfect plan because it was not what i wanted. anyway, all that to say relationships are hard, but good, and it took alot of trust to get where we are now in dating...and it took trust in the Lord to get me through the past 2 years that were really hard.
i have been visiting 2nd pres., a larger presbyterian church here in memphis. i have been going to the sunday school class for "young adults" which has been SO SO good. my need for communitry grew and grew the past year or so as i realized how much it was not only beneficial for us as Christians but how it IS what the church is all about. the speaker this past wk was a guest who was a younger man who gave his testimony. needless to say, when guys have emotional, heart-wrenching stories, i get emotional....and i am not an emotional person. this guy's testimony was one of the most convicting ones i have heard in a while. he talked about our "plan" for our lives vs. what the Lord really wants for our lives. he talked about how he had kindof mapped out this perfect life he looked forward to---wife, home, good job....but how the Lord's plan was completely different and ultimately better. he grew up in a Christian home and school and had become a "Christian" at an early age, but he didn't really KNOW the Lord. he got into some deep sin during middle school/high school and he tlaked about his struggles with that sin and how he knew he was "guilty" and he would pray about the sin and ask God to intervene, but when he saw the Lord wasn't doing anything or wasn't really taking it away, he would just shut his Bible and think "God really isn't powerful, He's not taking this sin away from me". so he continued in that sin and struggling with that. when he got to college, he had found "the girl" and they got engaged. and during their engagement, they worked at a camp and he spent some time with the Lord praying about the engagement and had read several things talking about being open and honest with one another and with the Lord. during that time, he confessed to his fiance his struggle and that it was still with him, and they sortof worked it out and forced "making it work" and they got married. life went on and his "perfect" life was seemingly ok to the outside people looking in. he had a good job, a wife, money, a home, etc....but he felt empty and drained. he would come home and even though he knew he had to make it work with his wife, he had no energy and nothing left in him to force making that relationship work. the Lord was obviously working in his heart and guiding him, even through the hard things. one day his wife and him got in sortof an argument and she left saying "you just need to go talk to your dad". they had not talked about a divorce or anything, but that night really really late, he left to go talk with his dad. he said they drove around for almost 4 hours talking about this life he was living and how he felt empty and felt his wife and his relationship was not working the way he had planned. while driving around with his dad, they talked about the verse in james 5:16 that says "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." he said that night he knew that verse was real and KNEW that God really valued him and really valued his struggles and this broken relationship he had with his wife. he said he got home from that talk and was sitting on his couch and waiting for his wife to get back and prayed "Lord just let me get back to my bedroom before i break down". he said he hadn't made it 2 steps into his room before he fell on his knees and just wept. he wept over this life he had been forcing that was not according to God's will but what he wanted and forced for himself. but the Lord had used this for his GOOD. he had realized so many things about himself and about the Lord and really knowing Him, that if he had not gone through this hard situation, he wouldn't have maybe come to those realizations. his personality was one of people-pleasing and working things out, and when his wife came home that night he said he wanted so badly to just go talk to her and figure whatever out that was wrong and share with her what he had realized and figured out about himself and that maybe that would help. but she came in and walked into his room and said she wanted a divorce. he said they went to counseling after that and tried to renew things in their relationship, but it just didn't work out in that regard.
this is a long story and probably one that is pretty common among Christian circles. i'm not sure...but it was so convicting how much we manipulate things to go in our favor because we want things in our timing. but God knows our hearts at those times, He knows what is ultimately best for our lives. and sometimes that calls for hard times and for being extremely patient, but it is His perfect plan.
this is so comforting to me and this story has been in my head and on the tip of my tongue the past 2 days. i want to share it with everyone i come in contact with. it brings so much joy and relief to think our Father cares about us that much and values our feelings and our brokenness and uses those for our good and to glorify Himself, where the glory is due!
well that's all for now, off to studying!
love.