broken

i’m at the sunset beach house.  it’s amazing how i can barely drag myself out of bed these days during the week at 630 when i should have been up at 530.  you’re probably thinking “amazing? that’s normal.”  sure, but it’s a saturday morning… i have nothing to do but sleep in and relax… and i’m wide awake at 545.  so like any other normal person, i get up and start running through the lyrics for sunday so i can send them to mike later

after i got through the last song, my itunes went into a sunday morning recording of the “revolution” series where missy and raff led after darrin’s powerful baptism video about his redemption from his life that had been devoted to serving satan.  for those of you that don’t know, i listen to this set and watch that video… lets just say a lot.  so when i heard the songs transition over, i went outside onto the porch and sat in a rocking chair and just tried to soak it in.

i get to love song… and i’m still to this day confused as to why they put missy talking (and crying) to the crowd and her prayer to God in the beginning during the recording because normally they track out the prayers on the recording, but i’m so thankful they didnt.  she says “there’s something realy real about being broken… and KNOWING you’re broken and saying ‘i can’t… i can not do this on my own anymore’ and laying it down…”

God is breaking me.  Normally that means that i’m feeling distant from God or i’m doing something wrong and God is in the process of bringing me back to Him.  maybe that’s what’s happening and i’m just blind to the space inbetween God and me.  I had two job offers this week: one at Archer Lodge Middle School which is 2 hours away from Wilmington and a half hour from Pine Level.  The other is at Leland Middle School–somewhere I’ve said I’ve wanted to work for the past 3 years.  I prayed about it, Tom prayed about it, and I had a lot of people praying for me.  I couldn’t understand why the decision was so hard.  Leland is here, and Archer Lodge isn’t.  It seemed so easy.

But Thursday afternoon I was driving to meet my mom for dinner and I decided, and yesterday I emailed the principal at Leland Middle School and politely turned down the offer.  Today I’m sitting outside with a blanket and a computer, and I can’t stop crying. What have I done?  I’m moving away from a church that has facilitated this complete change my life.  I’m walking away from people who have shown me what it looks like for God to love me, who I have loved back.  And to me at this point, the most important, I’m moving away from Tom.  He’s been my best friend for the past year and I have never felt more loved in my life, aside from my own family.  That doesn’t mean we always do what’s right for each other, but we’ve been “broken” together.  We stumble a lot.  We fall just as much if not more.  But having someone there that’s so imperfect and so human… but that’s so… intent on giving me everything God intended for me.  I’m just stuck in this darkness as to why God wants me to distance myself from everything that’s brought me so close to Him.

But He told me.  I have to believe that.  That my ways… my plan for my life just isn’t good enough anymore.  God wants to give me my heart’s desires.  So I’m praying for it all, tearing myself apart begging Him for everything I want, and trying to just be still enough to force myself to pray that God’s will be done over my own.  It’s hard.  It’s just hard and just as she said it would be, it’s so real.  i know i’m broken, i’ve laid it down, and i’m now in a place where i can’t do it own my own anymore.