To love and to have faith

     It's hard to believe we're almost at the end of another year. Last year seemed to last so long and though we're still fighting the same battles, things seem to have gone by so much faster. Summer has still gone on far too long for my liking but I'm able to sleep with the windows open again and the autumn equinox is just a week away, so there is hope for me yet. The mosquitos will die soon and I shall rejoice in it. With that said, I promise not to go too deep into my hatred for summer again. I'm just excited for the change. Life can feel so stagnant in the day to day, that's something I've been struggling with a lot this year, and I'm especially excited for a physical change. I'm excited for color and the shedding of old leaves. I love the poetry of autumn, the aesthetics, as much as the change in temperature. I love the picture of letting go and surrendering, allowing the trees to endure the harder season. Maybe this is just me romanticizing things again but I think it's such a beautiful picture of what it looks like to be a Christian and walk out one's faith. We're told time and again to surrender, lay down our lives. I know I've talked about it several times in the past but it's a concept I can never fully grasp. That, and my love of words and stories, is why I'm so quick to make metaphors out of the physical seasons. I am ever the romantic but, between you and me, I like it about myself. 

    All I talk about on here is my faith and my walk as a Christian. I have a lot struggles and that definitely overflows here, which I hope is okay. I've been going to church my whole life but I feel like I know so little. I still need to work on establishing the habits that I want, like reading and studying my bible every day and establishing quiet times. My faith is not my priority and I don't always seek God first. It's a relationship and that takes time and effort and prioritizing, like I've talked about for the past couple weeks. It's easy for life to get in the way, to make my responsibilities my excuses. It's hard to be brave, to let go like the tress in autumn. I'm so scared of getting things wrong or that it won't go the way I expect. I don't even make space or put myself in positions to grow because of that. 

    Fear is something that I experience a lot of in my life. And I'm not even afraid of letting God or the people around me down, to an extent. I'm more afraid of letting myself down. I get so focused on myself and set limits to what I can and cannot do and that determines my worth. I get frustrated when things don't go the way I want them to but I don't put myself in situations for things to work out. I don't try to develop those habits. I'm sure I've ranted about this before but this is where I am at the moment. I suppose that's why I've been talking so much about priorities, because it's something I need to determine for myself. Fear is what I face and fight with the most in my life. I'm easily overwhelmed, get trapped in my own thoughts, and I don't like being in those places. I don't think anyone does. And this isn't just in walking out my faith, it's with moving forward in my life. It's not just talking about being published but perfecting my query and sending it to agents. It's making adventures for myself instead of just daydreaming about them, even if it means filling up for gas more often. Maybe this is what growing up is really about, I don't know. I guess it's time to find out. 

    I hope this isn't too worrying. I really do have the faith for things to work out, I'm just frustrated with the length of the seasons. Another thing I talk about here is love. I was thinking about this a lot last night. In 1 John 4:18, it says that there is no fear in love and perfect love casts out fear. The two cannot coexist. Because we know God is love and we can have a relationship with Him, we have access to that perfect love and we don't have to live in fear. The previous two verses, 16-17, says that if we abide in love, we abide in God and He abides in us. In that, love is perfected in us and that's how we deal with our fear. That's how we move on and change and grow in the seasons, is by loving. I have to love, that's how I was created. That's one of the most beautiful parts of humanity, is our capacity to love. That's how and why we were created, to love and to be loved. Love is complicated and messy and awkward but it's true and strong. Go read 1 Corinthians 13. There's so much beauty and freedom in love but that's a choice we have to make. Loving mean overcoming differences and offenses, forgiving and letting go. It means sacrifice and selflessness. 1 Corinthians 7 say that love "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. It sounds really cliché, I know, but if we have love, we will never have nothing. This is the only way I know how to be brave. To let people love and support me and to love and support them in return. It means loving my creator to the best of my human ability and letting Him love me. If God is love, then it means that His promises to work things for good are made selflessly. It means that none of our seasons are in vain.

    This is why my faith matters so much to me. I need this hope and this courage, the world does. I need courage in every day and I'm so grateful to have comfort in everlasting love. I know it sounds too good to be true but I believe that it's real and that it's worth the effort. It's worth the discomfort and chaos of prioritizing. It's worth the time it takes, the awkwardness and difficulties. It's worth the surrender. 

Yours Truly,

Rey