breaking the silence

It's been more than a year since I've last written on here, but I've often thought about this blog from time to time-- it records so many of my passing thoughts and weighty contemplations alike that it has always seemed like a waste to shut down forever.

But it's been almost seven(!) years, and I am such a different woman from the girl who began this blog with an admittedly self-serving desire to make my oh-so-eloquent-and-insightful thoughts known to the (albeit contained) world.  So...what?  I guess I just wanted to write a formal goodbye (you know, just in case all my fans were waiting with bated breath for the last year plus).  The silence has hereby been broken, but only to say that it will continue to be silent for the foreseeable future.

But before I go, a few thoughts from the time that I've been absent:

(1) Faith life is hard.  I realize this more and more as I grow older.  As months and years pass, we understand more, but there will definitely be days when we find ourselves in the same struggles as those from five years ago.  We experience more, but there will definitely be days when we feel like we were "more alive" or more fervent in the past.  We taste more of His goodness and go deeper into our relationship with Him, but there will definitely be days when we find ourselves content with--or worse, craving--the staler things and the shallower places we left behind.  We are no different from the Israelites who witnessed firsthand the parting of the Red Sea and who walked with the pillar of fire and cloud and yet, in that desert place, seriously contemplated going back to a life of slavery in Egypt.  But why?  Because (a) we forget to acknowledge Him and be thankful and (b) waiting on God is so hard.  We yearn for the hujungous banquet while becoming tired of the daily manna, unaware that the joy lies in being with the host/source, not with the spread.  The past always seems better than the future when the present is tough.  Nevertheless, I am thankful that He is so patient with me, that He remembers my frame and knows I am but dust, that He pulls me to keep step with Him after I've stumbled or fallen back or maybe even gotten too far ahead.  It's true, I get weary of running when I feel no closer to the prize than I was yesterday, but I do not abandon hope.

(2) Prayer is not idle babbling.  I've been faced with plenty of situations where the only thing I am able to do is pray, and sometimes that feels discouraging because it seems so...stagnant.  I want to say something!  I want to act!  But no, I must enter my closet and pray.  And how powerful one single prayer can be, God has shown me so many times.  So yes, prayers are "coveted" for good reason-- they have the power to move mountains and change hearts of stone!

(3) I am still young, and I am a work in progress.  Like I said, I started this blog when I was eighteen, an age that seems so young to me now.  As people around me switch jobs, get married, buy houses, leave for missions (like, for more than one week at a time), it's really easy to feel like I am old (not to mention, a little behind lol).  I should know a lot, I should be more mature, I should be more responsible for my own life-- all of these instincts are generally commendable ideas.  But I must be wary of the sneaky undertone of those thoughts: I need to be perfect today.  I will not attain perfection in this lifetime; even when I am sixty years old, I will still have more to learn and I must still humbly go before the cross and confess that I am weak and silly.  The pressure is real, and although the goal is not wholly unholy (ha), I want to strive for a humble heart that is open to both correction and encouragement.

That is all-- thanks for reading!  Although I actually don't know who has read (let alone still reads) these words, I hope some of them have been an encouragement, perhaps even a challenge, but hopefully never too awkward.