morning pages.

Years of struggle, a million different jobs, times of joy & times of uncertainty, & a few months of quarantine later…

I’ve only recently come to realize how deep I’ve been sucked into this world of self.
Self sustainment, self success, self brand marketing, self doubt, even the supposedly healthy self reflection.
The simple life of a child who loved Jesus and knew nothing else but to approach all of my responsibilities day by day, seemed so far down the path of my past. That child was now grown, the simplicity gone, the responsibilities heavier.

I had a conversation with my sister about when we were younger today.
It felt… refreshing. But it left me helpless. Because life wasn’t the same anymore, & those memories seem irreplaceable. You can’t turn back time & even more so, you can’t recreate the same circumstances, the same people. There are no redos & there are seemingly no second chances for redemption. & sadly so, my current self is unfamiliar & sometimes even unrecognizable.

Little did I realize that the reason why I felt this way wasn’t a matter of past, but a matter of environment. God is waiting at every doorstep of opportunity - when you step into it, He would be there to step into the seasons, the struggles, the doubts that come with it. Life could change at any moment, & our environments change even more often. Because the environment you place yourself in to make your childlike heart accessible, to love God the way you truly want, is something YOU can create & cultivate. It’s not something that slipped between the fingers of time. You can grasp ahold of it again because we are not slaves to past decisions or expectations. The environment you are entering might not look like what you had planned for yourself, but the ability to surrender to the One who has real power over your life circumstances will invite His heart & His plans to manifest accordingly.

I’ve found more clarity in my disappointments of “lost time”, through accepting that I can’t recreate my past environments in my current life. But I can understand what about those past environments made me happy, how they helped me draw closer to Jesus, & apply those elements into working towards a healthy relationship with God now. I can allow the most important core belief I once held onto so dearly to take root in me again… the simplicity of Jesus.

The understanding that at the end of the day, even though I am left in abandon in the world’s eyes, that I am left in the abundance in His presence. The worldly things that have fractured my childlike innocence are molded back into perfection when I choose to give them up & focus my eyes on Him instead. & though, my childhood is greying away & I’m but a lost adult blindly striving to live this one life correctly, He has been steadfast in His plans for me. That for some strange reason, the complexity of seasons that brought so much confusion & doubt was His version of loving me into a simple destiny of knowing more of Him.

And I am at peace.

Though I know not what lies ahead, when I take my eyes off of self & I refocus on the Lord, He will allow me to let go of my past & move on into a better future. Because to Him, the struggle of the now is the reflection of a beautiful past, looking into a very promising future.

A very promising eternity.

And an eternity with Jesus is the only version of life I want to live.