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Happy New Year my dear infant blog! Perhaps one day I may actually grow you to a worth reading size. After all, as much as you are for me and my faith journey, it is my prayer that I may use you to reach others.

So far, these last few weeks have been settling for me. Moving back home (my growing up home) from a place that I felt in every way was that special "home" for me has been,to say the least, very difficult... and yet, it has given me a fresh start.

My "big college" semester was a retreat and boot camp for me all wrapped into one. There is no doubt in my heart that God called me there in that small season of my life. It allowed me to break away from some habits and relationships that had been holding me back, and in this process some beautiful people came into my life that continue to support me and love on me, even when I feel unlovable. If I could describe those few months in a couple words, it would be raw emotion. For the first time, I felt as though I really saw myself... and what I saw was a blurry. Who was I?

I turned to my faith for answers. I believed... But I felt alone and was ashamed... I had been running and only looking up on those darkest nights. I remember tearfully praying the night after I moved into my dorm, "Father, I know I need you! I want to want you with all of my heart! But I'm scared! So Scared! Help change my heart through this place!" I began to feel the heavy burden of going against the grain of God. He began to gently show me the worldly things I was clinging to so tightly that were keeping me from living fully in His light. That began the painful process of actually getting rid of those things, though I know it will be life long battle. The hardest purge for me, was breaking off the long relationship with my boyfriend. It hurt so much, it made me sick... the tiniest reminder of it, and my stomach knotted into a hundred knots instantly!

Thankfully, in a new town, in a new school, and a new outlook rooted in the truths of God, those reminders faded, and I was able to see some new love within my blurry heart. A love for sweet worship with my Father, and fellowship with my sisters in Christ, a love for horses and a love for handicap children through my new job, a love for keeping house(dorm), a love for being urse and listening ear for my hall mates, and a love for pushing the boundaries of human love shown to others, because this is all just an overflow of the love of Christ in me!

So why did I leave this new home?

God called. I could feel in my bones that I could not continue there, on a path which I was never certain of to begin with. This was difficult to explain, to myself and others. But with bittersweet goodbyes, back to my family home I came, and on my parents wishes, enrolled in our community college for the Spring semester.

The years I lived here, I felt it wasn't my own. Now, I get to truly inhabit this "home". No regrets. Intentionally, living. Finding those roots again, and growing them deeper. To be the daughter I wish I could have always been for my parents, and help show them too what home means again.

To be fully shaped by His every stirring of my heart! Oh yes, with my Jesus, I'm home sweet home!