I can't believe that my last-minute vacations, sleeping in (probably a little more than the "healthy" amount), and days fully devoted to embarrassing family bonding are drawing to a close-yes, summer is almost over. Where did it even go? I can perfectly picture stepping out of the school doors and breathing in my first breath of summer, of relaxation, of freedom. Yet here I am, packing my backpack with crisp new school supplies and thumbing through the pieces of my uniform for the perfect outfit for the first day of school tomorrow.
Boy, has God taken me on an adventure this summer; sometimes I skipped happily down the road, other times, He practically had to drag my grumpy self along. I am constantly amazed by his patience and grace with me. And here, looking back on two crazy months, I feel like a different person than I was. Traveling has a way of opening your eyes and bringing your heart into focus, and I traveled not one, but three times this summer.
In May, my grandmother passed away due to heart complications, unexpectedly to my family. I have never lost someone remotely close to me. The blow sent me reeling, and left me out of breath. Our trip to Pennsylvania, where they live, was difficult, to say the least. I had to wrestle with emotions I have never experienced before, and the harsh reality of death struck me straight in the face. But there is something about death that points you to Life. There is something inside you that whispers
there has to be more than this. There is something about tears that make you feel so raw, so fragile, so real. For the first time it was me with pictures in the slideshow, it was me in the black dress, and it was me that everyone watched walk down the aisle as I struggled to hold it together. If it was solely my strength I had depended on for that week, I have no doubt that I wouldn't have made it through the first day, but God carried me, comforted me, cried with me.
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| My family at the funeral. |
The day of the funeral, I wrote in my journal: "We all just...stood there. The wind brushed my face and rippled my dress, and I lifted my face to the countryside, to the bright blue sky, to the perfect green grass. It was silent. And time stood still. I felt like I could see the scene playing out from above. It was absolutely, breathtakingly, beautiful." While one of the most painful, ironically heartbreak is also one of the most beautiful things in the world. Maybe because true heartbreak is a result of true love. C.S. Lewis said, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken."
My next destination was Kibwezi, Kenya for most of June. I smiled a lot, laughed a lot, cried a lot (I just cannot escape the erratic emotions that come along with being a 15-year-old girl). If you want to read more about my time there, you can take a look
here.
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| Nothing can put a smile on my face like the smile on theirs. |
Last stop for the summer: Dauphin Island, Alabama for some much needed family time. Two weeks of soaking up the sun, mo-ped riding, and toes in the sand-what could be more relaxing than that?
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| We weren't a very intimidating biker gang. |
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| Sandcastles are required when on vacation at the beach. |
So what am I really trying to say? I have no idea. This post is scattered, unorganized, and random. But I do know that God used this crazy, topsy-turvy, hang-on-for-dear-life summer to grow me, mold me, change me, closer to the woman He wants me to be. It wasn't always easy. It wasn't always fun. It wasn't always anything. In a world where everything is constantly moving, constantly uncertain, constantly changing, it is the most wonderful thing to lay down in bed at the end of the day in the presence of a God who is simply constant.
