love and trust.

love. one simple four letter word that is utterly impossible to define or describe. trust. easy enough to define, but incredibly difficult to build up. God has been teaching me a lot about love and trust lately. {which actually seem to go hand in hand.} i feel like he is tearing down all of my preconceived notions about these two things, whispering in my ear telling me that he wants to wreck my ideas of love and trust and reshape them in a way that brings honor and glory to himself.

first of all, he wanted to teach me about trust. you see...i have some trouble trusting people. i let people get to a certain level of depth {or closeness} with me, and then when they reach that, either i push them away, fearful that they will hurt me, or i build walls to block them out. only a select few ever make it past these barriers. for a long time, i've told myself that God is the one that i trust most. that i would trust him with anything and know that his plan is best for me. last weekend, however, God tested that. you see, i have had my life planned out since i was like eight years old. {go to college for elementary education. move to papua new guinea. teach first grade at ukarumpa international school.} last weekend, God asked me to give that up. to give up my dream for moving overseas and trust that his plan is best. i'm sure you can imagine how that went over...{not well, in case you were wondering.} i had my arguments with God and asked my questions and begged him to not say what i thought {knew} he was saying. well...God didn't relent. so i gave up my dream to him. now i have no idea what i am going to do after college, but i am learning to trust my Papa that he has the best purpose for me.

love...oh love. you see, this is another topic that i proudly declare "oh...i understand what this is all about. i know what love is. maybe i'm not very good at it, but i definitely know what it is and what it looks like." over the past couple of weeks, God has completely been changing my viewpoint about this as well. i am currently reading the book "redeeming love" by francine rivers and it is completely wrecking my view of love in such a good way. {this book is a novel based on the story of hosea from the Bible. read it.} in this book {and in the story of hosea}, hosea shows an unreal grasp of what love truly is. {read the story to fully understand what i'm talking about, of course...!} although his wife leaves him, he pursues her, even knowing the filth she has become accustomed to. hosea listens to God's leading, doing one of the most difficult things i can imagine. through this book and the story of hosea, God is showing me what love truly is. how unbelievably unconditional real love is. i am being blown away right now...that is for sure. i feel as if i've never known what real love is, and through this book and the story of hosea, God is showing me how vast and incomprehensible his love for me is, as well as how much he treasures me. in doing so, he is giving me a passion to love the people he puts in my life in the same way he loves me.

the lessons that i'm learning right now are not easy. they will not be fully implemented overnight or even over the course of years, but i am definitely learning and i am definitely taking steps in the right direction. i cannot wait to see where God leads me and what he has in store for me this week, month, year, and lifetime. all i know is i am blessed and God is good.