I started this blog a long time ago, when I was at a totally different place in my life. I have come a loooong way since than. So since that chapter of my life is closed, I think it's appropriate to end this blog as well.
Endings are hard. We were made for continuity. But I don't find the endings in life to be as wounding anymore. Now, I don't stumble over the sharp edges, instead I reach up to take my loving Father's hand, Who pulls me graciously forward into a new adventure. It's not exactly how He intended life to be, with abrupt endings, but He turns it into something beautiful anyway. The reality of that has touched my heart so deeply. At the "beginning of the end," if you will, of this adventure, God gave me this passage from Isaiah:
17“The poor and needy search for water,
but there is none;
their tongues are parched with thirst.
But I the Lord will answer them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
18I will make rivers flow on barren heights,
and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water,
and the parched ground into springs.
19I will put in the desert
the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.
I will set pines in the wasteland,
the fir and the cypress together,
20so that people may see and know,
may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
that the Holy One of Israel has created it.
I remember reading it and thinking, "uh, OK, God, if you say so... but I have no clue how any of this stuff in my life could possibly be fixed." Looking back on it, I'm pretty sure God chuckled lovingly over that and thought, "oh, dear daughter, you will be surprised." Even though I didn't understand, I clung to that passage. And now things are starting to change. Things that I thought were hopeless, like my shyness, my inability to be anything but crushed and immobilized by life's challenges, my non-relationship with my dad (had an hour life talk with him today, something I thought would never, ever happen), my financial situation, and so on. There really, truly IS water in the desert! And now I KNOW God is real because He has touched my life. Not only do I know He is real, I've experienced Him in a personal way. This is amazingly wonderful. :) I don't really regret anything in the past that has happened because it got me to the point I'm at now, this point of restoration.
Sadly, not everyone we meet stays in our lives for various reasons, but I firmly believe that everyone comes into our lives with a purpose. They teach us to better understand humanity and teach us about ourselves. They help propel us forward in life, as we do they same for them. Sometimes, though, once we start going forward, we reach a fork in the road and find our shared journey must end; the only way for each of us to continue is to part. Nevertheless, the people we part ways with were exactly what we need while they were with us, even if they cannot be with us forever; we could never have reached this place had it not been for them.
It makes me think of a John Powell quote (anyone reading my blog really should get their hands onto a copy of his book, Through Seasons of the Heart; daily tidbits of awesome inspirational thoughts): "Day by day God gives me new pieces to fit into this gigantic jigsaw puzzle of my life. Some of these pieces are sharp and painful. Others are drab and colorless. Only God, who has planned and previewed the picture of my life, knows the beauty that is possible when all the pieces have been faithfully put into place. I will know that beauty only after I have put into place the very last piece, the piece of my dying." So in this moment, as I am a little bummed out over the end of an adventure, and a little confused about why it had to be really cool in some ways and totally counterproductive in others, I'm choosing to remember that this is an event in eternity. I can't look at it only in the context of this earthly life. A lot of things will never make sense in the context of this life. We will only understand when we reach eternity why certain less-beautiful pieces were needed to create something eternally beautiful. So we can't look at things that don't work out as something that has been a waste of time or energy. I don't think God ever lets us waste anything (except, perhaps, time itself if we're being purely lazy, but that's a whole 'nother topic, lol). That's part of His blessing of working all things for good. Even if it doesn't work out in this temporal life, it worked out eternally. I think it's ok to be a little sad about it when something ends, because, like I said, we weren't made to have to experience endings. But our sadness is not as those who have no hope or understanding of the significance of the eternal. We are NEVER to despair.
And this has turned into something really long, when all I wanted to do was write a little farewell post. But I'm bad about that, I always drag out goodbyes because, well, I guess I'm keenly aware of my eternal soul being locked in a temporal condition. :) So yeah.... This is it. It's been an amazing, challenging, life-changing, profound, and even, at times, just plain ol' fun adventure. I'm glad I got to live it. And now it's time to go find the next one. Just like in Up. :)
Fini.
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