“The world may tell us we’re too much and never enough. But we can walk wildly in who God created us to be and rest freely in the work Jesus did for us. We do not have to be confined or conformed by cultural expectations. We are unchained from our past and unafraid of our future. We choose compassion over comparison. We love without condition, without reserve. Our eyes are on God; we hold nothing back; we run fast and strong; we do not hide our light. We aren’t wild and free for our sake alone; rather we sing life, hope, and truth over the world with abandon- just as our God sings over us. We are wild and free. And we are poised to do mighty things, in Christ alone.” 

– Wild and Free; Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan 

2020… What a crazy year it’s been so far. Uncertainty and unpredictability seems to be the underlying theme of just about everything going on in the world right now. I know for me, and I’m sure for so many others, the past months have been scary, stressful, frustrating and honestly just really, really hard. It seems like fear has had its way in the world lately. That can be said for my personal life as well. 

A little background for you…. Anyone who has known me over the past couple of years knows that those years have been a bit of a roller coaster. (“A bit” is very much an understatement.) I’ve struggled with addiction, depression, anxiety, grief, insecurity… you name it, but each struggle carries its own weight of fear in its own way. Together, they’ve combined to create a really difficult couple of years and created a life that is so rooted in an almost debilitating fear. 

For me, fear often translates to me hiding. Hiding how I’m feeling. Hiding how I’m really doing. Hiding my struggles. Hiding from accountability. Hiding from reality. Hiding from just about everything. Growing up, when I was scared or unsure, it was always my go-to to hide in my dark closet and lock the door and stay there until I felt ready to come out. For whatever reason, it made me feel safe. That same mentality carried over into my adult life, but as I reflect on it now, I see that it created such a false sense of security.

Hiding doesn’t solve anything. Especially when you’re struggling. It isolates you from everything and everyone and fear THRIVES in isolation and darkness. When I think about how as a little girl, I would hide in a dark corner, all alone, shutting out everything and everyone from getting to me, it really opened up my eyes to how I handle life as an adult. 

My point in all of this is to say that I’ve recently come to a place where I’m tired of hiding. It’s exhausting. It’s scary. It’s destructive… for me and for everyone around me. God didn’t create us to live our lives in fear. He didn’t create us to struggle alone. We are designed for fellowship and for me, Satan really gets his grip on me when I’m alone. 

It’s been quite some time since I’ve been truly transparent about the happenings in my life. That’s something that’s really hard for me to do, especially when I’m sitting all alone in the dark corner of my life. But I believe there is so much freedom that comes from putting it all out there. Bringing our weaknesses and struggles and putting them right out in the open can be terrifying, but I believe that’s when true breakthrough happens.

I believe it takes stepping out in total faith into the uncertainty of everything to really let God work. I believe healing and restoration happen through sincere humility and vulnerability. Letting go of the fear of judgement and surrendering absolutely everything is incredibly difficult, but I believe you have to in order to move forward. So that’s what I’m doing. 

It took some pretty hard lessons and some really big mistakes to get me to the point I’m at now, but I have learned a lot and grown from each of them. Looking back on everything, I can see God’s hand in everything that led me to the place I’m at now and there was never a moment he took his hand off of me. 

So that brings me to now… 

Someone asked me recently if I remembered the story of Moses and the Red Sea. She asked me if I remembered what God said to Moses when he got there. It seemed like he had hit a dead end and he didn’t know where else to go because he couldn’t go back to where he had just come from but he couldn’t get through either. She reminded me that when he had nowhere else to go, he cried out to God, and God responded and simply said, “The Lord himself will fight for you, you only need to be still.” And Moses was still, and God parted the waves and made a way through. Be still. Move forward. 

At first, this didn’t really make sense to me. How can you be still and move? As I prayed through this, I started to think that maybe in order to know how to move forward, you first have to learn to be still. Maybe I have to surrender my will to move forward in my way and in my own timing and let God take over and lead the way.

The more I sat on this, the more it resonated with me because that’s now where I find myself. In a place where I know that going back leads to destruction, but moving forward seems nearly impossible. It’s uncertain. It’s scary. I don’t see a way through. But for the first time in a long time, I’m truly trusting that God is going to make a way. 

Over the last few weeks, I realized I needed to make some serious changes in my life. There will be a time where I can really get into and share more about that I just don’t feel like I’m ready to do that yet. So, for now, I will just say I’m taking some huge steps out in faith and really trusting that God is going to bring freedom and breakthrough in my life.

This past week, I packed up and stored my whole life here, and this coming Friday (July 24th) I will be moving to Montana. I am leaving my whole life here and taking the next year to really focus on my relationship with Jesus and find some much needed healing. I’m going to be off the grid for that year, but I think it’s a very necessary sacrifice for me to be able to move forward.

I have no idea where my life is going to take me from there, but I am really excited to see what God does through all of this and I am open to anything and everything he has planned for me. I am very much at peace with everything and I look forward to being able to share what God is doing in my life! 

Thank you to each and every person who has come alongside of me and stood by me through all of this. I know it hasn’t always been easy to do. Thank you to every person who has called, checked in, supported me and covered me in prayer. I am beyond thankful for the support and encouragement and I love all of you so very much!

Until next time….