God Treats Me Like a Princess

     "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise it, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same."

--C.S. Lewis, from the Hope chapter in Mere Christianity

Friday before Easter (or "Easters" as its regarded in Nacho Libre...I prefer neither!) and I'm sitting at a Starbucks, just having to get stuff off my chest before...I don't even know what before?

--a conversation about a place I may or may not go

--deciding I will leave this country--which I'd love to do but have tried before and feel really unsure of--because it kind of left me in a mess when it never worked out

--trying to hope again--for a lot of things--but feeling SO unsure

--trying to figure out my life--which is impossible and completely exhausting

--hanging out with fam for the weekend

--sorting out that we are not getting the puppy I thought we were :( (no goldenpoo's on my birthday!)

--figuring out that life is not what it seems, nor is it what I envision--and that's okay and I can let it go...even when I feel like holding on is the ONLY safe option

--wrestling with being so different from people's perceptions and what they want from me [no, my profile pictures are not always super happy ones because I happen to think those are false misrepresentations and I prefer the artsy (slightly suffering) look because it reflects more fully my experience and reminds me that I am still alive, even after all I've been through...so let me post it and quite saying how sad I look--that's freaking life!] haha, slightly opinionated here

--teaching a SHARK unit (the boys in my class are going to DIE!) I'm so excited--I put it all together yesterday and we are going to have FUN!

and then there's the Cinderella movie...

haha, most random blogpost ever--but this is exactly the mess that I feel my life is in and instead of moping I'm writing--so chill out and hang with me--we're going somewhere.

     I reached this point yesterday where I just felt like such a mess, crying as I drove away from my friends house, and just feeling tired and purposeless. It's all just feelings, I know--nothing based in reality, my life is good--but there's this piece of me that is really unsure in this time and just searching--almost frantically. And I have no answers, so this piece of me keeps getting more and more undone. It was the worst last night--but that's often when you are truy able to deal with whatever is going on inside you, when it comes to a head, IF (and people miss this and cope out--you know how) you keep pushing through. So I did...kept asking, hanging out, calling out to God--and He brought me back to that movie, one scene in particular. I have watched this movie three times now (3! I never do that!) and the scene is the one where her dress is being transformed. She's spinning around and around as her rags are transformed from tatters to glorious ballgown and hope comes to rest on her (in the form of butterflies) and the adventure--everything she'd ever dreamed about and was never sure could come through--suddenly becomes possible. And it's literally more than she ever could have dreamed.

     And she didn't get there in that instant. That instant was the moment when it all became transformed and she was shown for  who she really was. But the true transformation--the good heart that the life of the Father in her finally brought out--had happened in all the moments before this one: every moment she chose to say 'yes' and served those who despised her or didn't even acknowledge her at all...all those hours when she did the menial tasks when she'd much before anything else...being submissive when it seemed humanly impossible to do so, choosing kindness and forgiveness and letting all the ugly, bad things done to her not make her bitter but more able to love, filled to a fuller capacity.

     It was the journey of a thousand yes's, a thousand times of letting the world work her over and expose not the ugliness inflicted upon her but the true beauty of her heart--refined. Tossed through the fire and not overcome but made more beautiful and of more worth. All that tried to destroy her only showed her off as more of the beauty she had become.

    And then she got the dress. And then she was shown off for all that she had become. And then she moved forward into her destiny.

    And I'm right in the middle of that--not sure at all what is to come but knowing it will be glorious--for He is good, and He is at work in me.

God treats me like a Princess.