He is Planting Here.

Hi everyone! Long time, no post. I have been waiting/wanting to post on here for a very long time, but honestly every time I sat down to write something new I would run straight into writer’s block and give up a few minutes later. So here I am, after a lot longer time than I intended it to be, but very ready to share what the Lord has been teaching me in this season!

I think it is safe to say that 2020 has been a rough year on everyone. We all went into this year with bright eyes and high hopes on what this year would bring, and I think a lot of us were very quickly let down. Speaking for myself alone, I entered 2020 ready for the best year of my life- getting all the perks of senior year, graduating high school, and FINALLY getting to go to college. Well the Lord definitely had other plans for this season. Before COVID even started this year was met with loss from all directions. Without giving all of the details (as this post would become a novel), within the first two months I experienced the loss of a friend in my class, the loss of my lacrosse team, all while dealing with family hardships at home. I remember praying and asking the Lord for patience and trust in that time, a trust that would allow me to surrender to Him even when I was not entirely aware of what He was doing. It's ironic that I thought I needed that prayer so much then... I was so unaware of how He would soon bring me to a place of complete desperation for Him and require my entire heart to be His.

Last week I moved to North Carolina for college- without having ever visited before. If you know me at all, you know this is VERY unlike me. I had originally planned to come visit my new school in March, but as yet another lovely outcome of this pandemic, that trip was cancelled. If I am being completely honest, I was not prepared at all to leave. In the months leading up to leaving, I continually prayed that the Lord would use me in this season- that I would be all His, and whatever I could not surrender to Him myself, He would take away. Apparently, He took me up on that offer because I suddenly realized that I was about to leave and the Lord had truly stripped away everything I had been holding on to so tightly. I never really thought I put my identity in things of the world, but I quickly realized that instead, I found my identity in controlling every aspect of my world around me. I had spent my entire high school career planning for college, controlling all that I could. I felt that loss of control when I was never able to visit, and I was forced to jump blindly into what this year would look like. I had relationships drifting away because of the distance college would create, and I saw how much I had found a safety net in those relationships. These coupled with the impacts of quarantine and Corona left me feeling helpless. I sat there the night before I was about to leave, frustrated with God that He had come through on His promise when I asked Him to take my control, and I thought about how much He had stripped everything around me away. I was officially in what I would describe as a “desert season”, and the Lord reminded me of what he had shown me a few weeks before in Hosea 11:3-4.

“Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk;

I took them up by their arms,

but they did not know that I healed them.

4 I led them with cords of kindness,

with the bands of love,

and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,

and I bent down to them and fed them.”

In His gentle voice He showed me that He was a God who had been faithful in the past to get me to where I was then, so why did I think that He was going to be any less faithful in this new season? He shows up with a fullness of provision for us in every season. He is the one that moves our feet when we cannot walk, and moves our arms when we don't know how. My lack of control felt like I no longer knew how to walk forward, but as He stated in Hosea, He picked me up and did the walking for me.

Fast forward to now.

My first week in college has been a series of high highs and low lows. It is so exciting meeting new people, yet equally as hard to feel the sense of starting over. I cannot tell you the amount of times I’ve said hi to the wrong person because I did not recognize them behind the mask...only adding to the awkwardness of trying to make new friendships. Amongst all the awkwardness, I have already been blessed with the beginnings of genuine friendships. I have seen why Jesus chose to spend His last night over a meal with His disciples, finding the sweetness of His presence in community meals. My days revolve around meal times, the only time I can be with people and see what their smiles actually look like. The change has been good, needed even, but I also I never realized how much I disliked change until now. I love being able to control everything around me, with all things in their perfect little box and this time is certainly not that. But as I sit here and think about how the Lord brought me into this time completely stripped down, I can already see why He did it. I needed to come into this time completely reliant on Him to know that all of the goodness along the way was of His accord, and not my own. I have already been tempted to try and take control into my own hands, to try and over work myself to make friends, and do well in school. When I feel insecure I grasp for the one thing I have always done well, control all things around me. The other day when I was reading in John, it talked about how when we believe in Him, we see Him. I have seen the truth in that: the Lord glorifies himself and us in every situation when we bring it to His feet, but without my surrender I am blind to Him. There is a reason that seeds come off of the plant when they wither away. God uses old life to bring fresh, beautiful life out of it. Seeds must be stripped down to develop their roots, to find a place to be watered, and to grow. The Lord ingrained it in creation that we would be planted as seeds, the most simplistic form of life, and that fruit would grow as a result. As comfortable as it is to stay exactly where we are, that is not where the Lord is calling us to. He has prepared this life for us that is better than we know. A life where the more we look to Him, the more He makes us look like Him. It makes sense then why we both desire and hate change so much. Our worldly minds don’t realize our divinely ingrained desire to become better versions of ourselves, and they rest in the enemy's tactic to leave us where we are. The Lord does His best work in our surrender, because it leaves the most room for His glory to shine through. We can’t make up for the change the Lord wants to do in us. When we attempt to change ourselves without abiding in the Lord, we move more towards the world, the opposite direction of the goodness of the Father. He promises to lead us with kindness and love, and He has not gotten us this far to leave us now. Our Lord is continuously doing intentional work to rebuild us into better versions of ourselves. The Lord plants in desert seasons, and He brings life from the ground up. We will all endure our desert seasons (whether that is now or later), but I hope we don't let them pass by. The Father wants to grow you into a new creation yet again. Loosening our grip on what we have been holding onto does not mean we lose those things, but instead grow them into the perfection the Lord has in store for us. In His kindness and our surrender He will carry us in His light.

I think with prayers of surrender, it is very easy to be like Peter when he walks on water (Matthew 14:22-33), or when he asks to go with Jesus to where He is going (John 13:36-38). In both cases Peter asks to be called out to Jesus, thinking he is ready to come with Him, but doesn't realize that part of his heart is held back. Jesus gently tells Him that until He comes to Him with a fullness of faith, He will not be able to go where He goes. The sweetest thing about both stories though is that in Peter's lack of faith, Jesus walks with him anyway. He makes up for the faith Peter was not able to have to perform His will. He shows us that despite our faithlessness, He keeps His promise to use us anyway. As I continue on in this season, I hope I am not only half in. I want Him to use all of my heart for His purpose. I hope that I am not so quick to tie a bow on it and call it complete because no matter how uncomfortable change is, that is where He does His best work. The moment I decide I am comfortable is the moment I stop pursuing God with everything inside of me.

With all that being said, I wouldn't take back any of the craziness of the past few months. I am ready for the uncomfortable moments when I still want all the control for myself, because God isn't complete yet. He is far from that, and soon all of those seeds He planted our lives will become a garden for His glory.