I think something is changing in me.

I don't really know how to explain it. 

 

Nothing huge happened this week. I didn't wake up one morning having life figured out. No, my circumstances didn't magically change. I'm still very much an overthinker. I still worry. I still have things I'm praying about for what feels like the 700th time. But I feel different.

 

Internally. Spiritually. Emotionally. Even mentally. It's hard to explain when I can't exactly point to the moment it happened. A few weeks ago, I started this whole journey because I kept asking God one question→ What is missing in my life?

 

I KNEW something was. 

Maybe I had gotten a little lost, but not in some big, dramatic, “I don't know who I am anymore” kind of way. I was still doing life. Still working. Still taking care of the people I love. Still handling the routines, the responsibilities, and the 300 other things that somehow need to happen every week. 😂

You couldn't tell from the outside looking in I don't think.

Spiritually?… I felt far from God.

Mentally?… Whew. I was overwhelmed.

Emotionally?… There were things I had carried for so long that I think I had just gotten used to carrying them and didn't realize how much of it was eating at me.

Over the last few years, life has taken me down a different path with friendships. I had disconnected from most of the people I once considered the best of friends, and eventually I realized that outside of the people who live inside my home and maybe a few exceptions- I felt pretty alone. I don't think I realized how much that was affecting me until everything felt like it all hit at once. That was a very bad week. You know, the ones where the normal stresses of life pile on top of the emotional stuff you've been quietly carrying, and suddenly you're just standing there thinking that something has to give.

 

I had absolutely no idea what that was. 

Out of nowhere, I felt this urge to start reading. Here we are a few weeks later, and I think God just said “Let me show you what you're missing instead."

This week I found myself back in Joseph's story. There was one little detail I couldn't stop thinking about where he was doing the right thing... and still ended up in prison. Wait, what?!

 

Ever believed that doing the right thing should equal getting the right outcome?

 

→ → Except sometimes they don't. At least not immediately.

 

Now I don't know why, but that really got me this week. Think about it, how many times have we thought, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do here... so why does it feel like everything is still going wrong?  I wrote this in my Bible..

 

Okay, brace yourself- stay with me. Joseph is sitting in prison for something he didn't even do. He helps the cupbearer and all he asks is that he remembers him when he gets out... and then the man completely forgets about him for TWO YEARS!

 

Can you imagine?! I would've been sitting there like, “God?! Hello?! That was our chance!” Here is the thing that got me… had the cupbearer just remembered Joseph right away, maybe Joseph would've simply gotten out of prison. Instead, he remembers him two years later—when Pharaoh NEEDS someone. Joseph didn't just get out of prison. That delay put him directly in front of Pharaoh. Where he needed to be??? See where I went with that?

 

Oh. Maybe the timing wasn't wrong just because Joseph didn't understand it.

Of course, that's easy for me to say because I already know how Joseph's story ends but Joseph didn't at all. He had to live through those two years without knowing what was happening or why it was happening- there goes that UNCERTAINTY thing.

 

Maybe that's why this hit a nerve with me… because I've had plenty of moments where I've looked at God and thought, I don't understand what You're doing. Why is this happening? What are you doing? If I'm being completely transparent, there is one moment in my life when my question wasn't even close to being polite.

I don't know if I've ever actually said those words out loud. I've sure thought them. Honestly, if this whole journey is supposed to be me being transparent about the messy parts too, then that's one of them.

 

Almost a year ago, I lost my stepbrother.

 

Somewhere inside the grief and confusion came questions I think most would ask (and did ask) Why, God? Why didn't You save him??

Could I have done something? What if we had been closer? 

What if I had known more about what was going on? Did we all miss something? 

Did we try hard enough?

 

And then comes the guilt of even asking yourself those questions because the truth is...I didn't know. I wasn't there for so much of what was happening. I couldn't fix something I didn't fully understand the extent of.

 

Grief doesn't always care about logic, does it? It will still hand you a hundred what ifs and convince you that if you replay them enough times, maybe one of them will finally give you a different ending. It never does- lets be honest.

 

Not in that household. Not on that road. Not in our family. Some things never will be. I still pray for my family every single night. I pray for the ones who have pulled away. I pray for my dad. I pray for my stepmom. I pray for my niece (she was his favorite). There are still things I don't understand. I even talk to the picture of him by my bedside. I wish I could tell you that reading my Bible has suddenly given me some beautiful answer for why it had to happen- but It hasn't.

 

I wrote that one down too. 

Shucks, maybe I've had the wrong idea about healing. Maybe healing isn't forgetting or even getting an explanation. Maybe it isn't waking up one morning and suddenly not hurting anymore. But maybe sometimes healing is much quieter than that.

 

A few weeks ago I told you I felt disconnected. Overwhelmed. Alone. Like something in me had gotten lost somewhere along the way. And today? The scars are still there.

Judah couldn't go back and undo what he'd done to Joseph.

But when life put him in a similar situation,  He chose differently.

 

Judah got me thinking about second chances this week. 

He was given another opportunity to handle something he had gotten VERY wrong before.

And this time, he chose differently. I felt that ton of bricks, didn't you?

 

Because I think repentance is actually such a gift. Not because we get to erase the things we've done—we don't and never will., but because sometimes life gives us another opportunity to say, I'm not that person anymore.

 

And listen... current-me could absolutely sit down with past-me and have a few conversations. 😂 Girl. What were we THINKING?! There are things I can't unsay, reactions I can't take back and decisions I would've made differently knowing what I know now.  

 

Maybe growth isn't about going back and fixing the old me.

 

 

I don't like conflict. Never really have. I didn't grow up around a lot of yelling, name calling, threats or explosive anger. When my dad was mad at me, I usually got silence, the deep dad voice, or that head shake that somehow said EVERYTHING without saying anything at all. 😂 You know what I'm talking about.

 

And my Granddaddy used to tell me.. “Be careful, KK. You can never get those words back.” (I have actually said this so many times over the years to other people) Boy, do I wish I could hear him say that to me now. (Get it together Kayla!) Getting older, I've experienced anger differently. I've seen what it can do to people. I've experienced anger from others in ways that genuinely left scars, and I've had moments where I've allowed my own emotions to get the best of me too. Maybe that's why I crave peace so much now. Not because I'm perfect at it. Lord knows. I have just learned that not everything deserves my reaction. Not everything needs my response. And being angry doesn't mean I have to do something with that anger. Funny enough, I just finished The Let Them Theory this week too, and there were several moments where I had to mentally slam on the brakes. SKKKRRRT. Excuse me?! We're talking about ME now?! 😂

 

Honestly— there are absolutely past, and probably a few current, versions of myself that needed the reminder: You don't have to react to everything.

 

And then I read Psalm 35. David was angry. Hurt. He felt wronged. Instead of letting all of that decide what he did next, he took it to God. Is that the part I'm learning?

 

Peace doesn't mean I'll never feel angry. Healing doesn't mean things don't still hurt. Maturity might simply mean I don't have to let either one decide who I become. Ooooof.

Apparently God wasn't finished getting in my business this week. 😂

And Luke 21…. WHEWWWW WEE.

I actually had to read parts of it more than once because my heart started pounding. All the talk about what is to come, uncertainty, things happening that are completely outside of our control.……… Hi. Have we met? …. 😂

 

 

The more I read it, the less it felt like Jesus was giving me a list of things to be afraid of and the more it felt like He was saying… Don't panic. Stay faithful and  don't become so consumed by what might happen that you miss what actually matters today. And apparently I needed that reminder too. Good grief, this week had me ALL kinds of in my feelings. Luckily I had some admin time I could move around to soak up some tears and regain my focus and it was like no one ever knew the tears were there. I'm good like that.

 

There is SO much more in my life that I cannot control than what I can.

Accepting that may not have to be scary-- maybe it's freedom.

I'm starting to notice how often God brings me back there. Not how everything looks from the outside. Not whether I've handled every situation perfectly. Not whether my life looks exactly like I thought it would.

 

Do you remember why and how I started this journey? 

 

There may not be a perfect answer, but I will tell you that something is changing in me. I'm praying differently. I'm thinking differently. I'm learning that I don't have to react to everything. I'm realizing how badly I crave PEACE. I'm learning that I can have questions and still have FAITH. I'm learning that I don't have to understand everything God is doing to believe that He is still in fact doing something even when I am not seeing it immediately. Slowly, I feel like I'm getting pieces of myself back that I didn't even realize I'd lost. ME.

 

Could that be the season I'm in?

One Band-Aid at a time. One scar at a time. One prayer at a time. One uncomfortable realization about myself at a time. 😂

 

There are prayers I keep praying and questions I still don't have answers for like I have said. Sure the wounds and scars hurt, but I feel different and that's the best way I can explain it.