A new stage of life is coming... I feel it... For the past few months I have spent a lot of time KNITTING. Which is not bad. I have made many things that are fun and a few very practical things... the latest being a precious baby blanket for a good friend of mine who is having a baby this June. Isn't it cute??

I have been working through a lot of ... stuff... and in a quiet place of surrender I have been allowing the Lord to work a lot OUT of me. I feel like it has been a long and grueling process and I know that it is not over. that it will be a lifetime journey... but I see some hope at the end of a long tunnel.

Also it dawned on me today that I have been home for a year. It's been a year since I walked back onto American soil after 4 months of living in Haiti. It seemed like such a great accomplishment 12 months ago. Today it seems like truly it was just a breath of time. It was and then it was over. Adjusting to life in the states after that brief, beautiful heart breaking, life molding time in Haiti has been difficult. 'You are going home to a battle' was a word spoken over my life days before I left Haiti... I could not have anticipated what awaited me in REALITY. In reality it was going to mean that everyone that I was close to would be distanced from me in almost all arena's of my life. That by my choice or not many of my friends were no longer going to be a part of my life, at least not how i knew life before I left. It meant that life as I knew it no longer existed. It meant that I was going to be shaken to the core of who I was, in ways that I had not yet experienced in my life.

God has helped me to build bridges in many of those broken relationships, but some I fear will only be a brief scent of some wonderful part of my history. I miss a lot of people that have walked away or that I have walked away from. God has blessed me with many new friends and influences, that I know would love to be a bigger part of my life, but the truth is I haven't known how to express myself which is so different for me. I hardly ever have had a problem with that in the past... but these days I find myself having SO MUCH To say that I don't think I can share with everyone that means something to me like i would in the past because perhaps I have learned not to burden others? Perhaps I have learned not to push myself and my issues on others or perhaps I am scared to trust. Or perhaps the Lord is teaching me to lean on him FIRST and to share my burden with him instead of loading it on others before going to him as my source of peace. Anyway you look at it there are many people in my life that I am so grateful for and I don't know if they truly know how much their consistent love and support has meant to me in this last year of change and growth. I am truly thankful for the people that have crossed my path.

As I said I feel a change in my spirit, a shift in the course of life. I feel like I have been going on a stream, floating, surviving, not working much but I feel like the 'rest' is coming to an end. The preparation for the "next stage" is coming to a close and Life is going to start again. The battle, the fight and reality is coming. i have no idea which way the Lord will lead... but I am open and ready to see where he will take me.

Thank you again to all of my friends who have stood by me with patience and love and prayers. You know who you are. Thank you.

Knitting and Anne of green Gables

Oy yoy... I got my hair cut today! I decided that I was going to chop it off. it was impulisive but i know that in the past i had it super short and loved it... so - i did it again! it's just hair, right??

I love it.

I am so grateful for the moments in time that I have with my brittany friend too. she is so wonderful. I am so glad that she is in my life...

I am so dang emotional today and what movie do you think I chose to watch?? Anne of Green Gables. It is so ... wonderful. It still makes me laugh the movies that I have seen over and over where girls say "I am 16 years old! I am not a child anymore!" It is SO strange! I remember when I was a child thinking, my my that sounds SO OLD! Now... whew... 6 years past that! And I know how young I really am... There are days I claim my adulthood at 22 and I feel "so grown up" and then... there are days I still feel like a little girl... so unsure of my life... of who I am and where I am going. And there are moments of complete peace and confidence...

and moments when I still dream of my prince charging into my life on a gorgeous steed to take me to our future... of sacrificing and living for me... oh boy. I should stop watching so many chic flicks! I think its rotting my brain! ;) And yet, I love it!

until tomorrow...

Weeks and weeks later! oy vey!

Can't believe that so much time has passed again. I am sure it gets boring to hear that same old lame excuse but it makes me realize how scary it is that my life is just passing me by. I have been doing a lot of evaluating in the last few weeks of what I want my life to be really... I have started reading my Bible again daily, such a small thing that makes all the difference in the world... (and sad because that means i am admitting some time has passed that I have not done that.) I remember pastors and leaders telling me when I was growing up that daily devotional time was so key to a healthy life... to a strong life.... to a life with purpose... oh how quickly I let that fall to the wayside. it is so sad really and so key to making my life full!

Anyway... it has left me longing for more of Jesus' presence in my life. Not just living a boring life... working day to day and settling for mediocrity. Compromising in even small ways makes my life seem so shallow and empty. I am trying to learn again to abide in his presence... to not let the daily grind kill me and make me downcast.... I remember a pastor of mine used to remind me, "why so down cast oh my soul" and then would move on to remind me that my God has not left me and that his presence and life will sustain me...

I had an amazing night with Callie and Sharon the other night. It was going to be the last time we hung out before Callie headed back to New York... we ate at the Thai Carrot which was wonderful! and then we went over to Devin and Jane's for awhile.... we talked, did updates on our lives... "weather reports". My weather report was cloudy... that I felt truly I have been in the fog and gray in the spirit as well as in the natural here on the harbor. :P I didn't know and still don't know sometimes why God has brought me back to Grays Harbor. It is hard to be here... and things continue to change and to be hard... not that I think life would be perfect somewhere else I know that is not true! but I wonder... I wanted to be home for the holidays. I wanted to be here for Thanksgiving.

I was.

Christmas...

I was.

I wanted to be home for New Years.

I was.

I have been home nearly 10 months. I can hardly believe it. But I have.

I am listening to music and a worship song: "I feel a change a comin" is playing... How fitting for this moment that I am typing...

I think it may be time... Hmmm....

God, what do you have in store for me?

In the mean time, I continue to knit and learn and seek out what God has in store... and more importantly I seek HIM... What a good reason to be alive, to serve the love of my life...