different.

i've typed out at least 10 different opening lines for this one... none of them have been enough. all of them have been "good enough" - but none of them have been enough.

there is so much to say.

there is so little to say.

it's just... things are so different than what i expected. i know... boo hoo, right? but truthfully. i believe that most people can (or will) empathize with this feeling at some point. our lives, our jobs, our loves, our dreams... they often work themselves out much differently than what we thought. sometimes this can be wonderful! (and often it is more wonderful than we realize at the time) but at a certain point, all of us will have an inevitable moment of reflection - and in that moment? the contrasts we see will either excite us... or break us.

it's that feeling of wondering......... has He forgotten?

our very heartbeat is a time bomb of entropy, our minds are a tangled mess of a sinful nature - so, of course - those moments of feeling forsaken are selfish, in need of redemption. but no matter their name or their nature, those moments? something in us is dislodged. only a God of love and mercy can bring peace and purpose to such empty moments... and He does.

... still,

my life is very different from what i expected it to be at age 25. half of my days, i enjoy the differences... the other half of my days, i kick and scream against them. my absolute favorite days (and surely the most entertaining) are those when i wake up feeling the enjoyment, and somehow go to sleep doing the kicking and screaming. or (to be fair) - the days when it is the opposite... i wake up fit for fighting and by the end of the day, i am sleeping peacefully in this bed, with contentment unparalleled by even that which my own previous expectations would have given me. those days, there is nothing to do but get on my face and acknowledge how fickle of a heart mine is, and reach for the God that is Love.

today has been one of those days.

i am lying here all tucked into this warm bed, in this beautiful apartment, with a candle burning that a friend gave me for my birthday, typing on a computer that my parent's bought me, listening to the quiet that my paycheck can afford me... and i am fighting. something within me - within this peaceful, blessed context of my current condition, remains still fearful in these foreign surroundings... merely because they are foreign.

merely because they are different than what i thought.

the dreams we long to act upon,

the prayers we whisper,

the prayers we scream,

the hopes we hold secret,

the confidence we wish for,

the goals we strive for,

the people we seek to love better,

the purpose we pray to feel...

the things we expected.

Lord... please give us the courage to embrace what we do not recognize. forgive us, for second guessing what comes from your hand - and God of mercy, please draw close when we relinquish our fear, that those two things might be the same.

it's just different than we thought.