A New Beginning

I finally felt like today was a good day to begin writing again. I am beginning to find myself again. I started by cleaning my room. Sounds silly I know, but my mom assured me that once I cleared the physical clutter out of my life, then the unseen would follow suit. I did laundry, washed sheets, dusted surfaces, vacuumed my floor, scrubbed my toilet, emptied trash, got rid of old clothes, and I even cleaned the hair from my shower drain (don't think ewww gross, your shower has it too). After three hours of intense cleaning, I sat on my bed and looked in awe at my work, not wanting anything to taint its cleanliness. To my surprise, (well sort of) my mom was right. Once my room was clear, I was able to focus on the unseen, the mental part of my life, my thoughts. I began to hear myself think. I could still hear myself planning all of my next moves. I could hear myself still calculating every mile to the tenth. I could hear myself still relying on Kate. I hadn't really changed at all. To be honest, it made me cry. Tears poured. How could I not see this? I was writing and saying all the right stuff, but why hadn't anything changed? Because...I wasn't truly acting on those words. Just because I said yes ma'am to my mom when she told me to do something doesn't mean i'm honoring God's will to honor my mother and father. Just because I was telling people that a bad workout wasn't going to ruin my day doesn't mean that I was honoring God's will to worship no other idols. Instead of being a true christian, I was acting the part of a "perfect" christian. Let me explain. A "perfect" Christian is one who can fool others into believing that he/she is one by a few words and a name tag saying "Christian" but then lives their life the way that he/she chooses. A true Christian is one who claims the name Christian and lives out life as that exactly. A follower of Christ. I looked back on the past few weeks of blogs and reviewed all of the things that I wrote to yall. Giving up control, not holding grudges, forgiveness, humbleness, etc. Then I looked at the past few weeks of my behavior. I still held grudges, still held control, still judged others, still lived selfishly, etc. What good is my advice to you if I don't follow it myself? No good, that's for sure. These past two weeks have been a really great time for me to work one on one with God. Just like friends at a coffee shop, everyday I just sit down and talk to Him. About life, friends, boys, school, running. Everything. I pray to Him daily for healing, both physical and mental. I am working to build a relationship based on action and words rather than just words. And I am becoming so much more at peace with myself and so much stronger in my walk with God. From now on, I am not going to write this blog as somewhat of an "advice column." Instead I am going to write my conversations with God. Whether it comes in the form of prayers, stories, songs, etc. I am going to write about the areas in my life where I need His help and the actions that I take to improve them. I am going to write what's in my heart that day. It may not be an everyday thing. I don't want to write just for the sake of getting something on paper for the day. I am going to write when God has something He wants me to say to all of you. I know this post seems rather jumbled and confusing, but it's real. God has really helped me to clear my head and to act in His name. I am excited for what is to come. My fire never went out..however, now it burns even brighter.