Looking Back

I was recently advised to look back over the past year of my life. This seems like a pretty simple task, but as I began to go back it became obvious that I was going to need time to really think about it. 365 days doesn't really feel like a lot in comparison to the 19 years I've been alive, but I think more life changing things have happened in the last 12 months than in any other time in my life.

In March of 2012 I was in a completely different place than I am now. I was in very serious relationship that I thought would end in a marriage (I was just a little naive), and I was still a senior in high school. My future plans were to go to the University of Mobile, major in education. and live on campus. My parents were divorced, I went to church in Wilmer, and I always had something to do on the weekend. Now exactly one year later my life has not only changed drastically, but I'm also nowhere near what or who I thought I would be. I'm no longer in a relationship (which is a very good and happy thing), and I'm halfway through my second semester of college at the University of South Alabama. I live at home with both of my parents who are remarried, and I'm a part of the amazing South City Church.

It's obvious through those things that my life has changed, but it goes way beyond that. I have changed. I don't mean jut my address or my relationship status but who I am. I'm not the same person I was a year ago. 2012 was one of the driest times I have ever experienced spiritually. It would be easy to blame that on a boyfriend or starting college or even on my parents getting back together, and for a long time I did blame it on those things. But the truth is, I spent 2012 running from God. I was running from my responsibilities as a believer into the arms of anything I could find: an unhealthy relationship, graduating high school, starting college, getting a job and so on (you get the point). All of these things, aside from the relationship of course, are good things, important things, but I was using them as distractions. I was so far from doing the things the Lord was calling me to that I had all but lost communication with him.

I was told recently that as we mature in our faith, the Holy Spirit gets pickier about what he convicts us of. He no longer is just convicting us of sin but also of our motives behind the good things we do. Now even our attitudes come under scrutiny. Well, I couldn't handle that. I wanted to push the Holy Spirit as far away from me as possible, not even taking the fact that He's a part of me into consideration. I spent from March to the first of August putting all the energy and thoughts and emotions that would normally go into my relationship with God into my relationship with a guy. I put him up on a pedestal so that when we broke up, I was devastated. I no longer had anything or anyone to put my faith in since I wasn't planning on giving it back to the Lord. Next I turned to school. I was going to have the best first semester anyone has ever had, and come out of it with straight A's. That lasted all of 2 months, and I ended up making the first C of my entire life. After that it became about just distracting myself with various activities to stay busy, but I was completely empty.

I hope you can see the pattern here. Without the Lord being an active part of my life I had nothing. I was still a Christian for all those months, but I had blocked out all communication with him. I was totally miserable with every part of my life, but I was sure I had everyone fooled. I'm not sure if I actually had anyone convinced I was okay, but I did have a part of myself convinced I could do it without God. I was forgetting, or just ignoring, that we all have a God-shaped hole in our lives that nothing else can fill. I was finally forced to face the music when the holidays rolled around and I wanted nothing to do with them, and I realized just how much I needed him back at the center of everything. It was at that point that I began the slow and difficult process of getting back where I needed to be. I don't really think I'm quite there yet, but I'm on the right track and happy about what God is doing in my life. When I look back, I'm nowhere near where I thought I would be: I'm in an even better place!

This is my story of the past year, and as I was reminded Sunday, our stories are important. With that being said, I want to hear yours! What is God doing in your life? What has he brought you through? Are you where you thought you would be by March of 2013? I want to hear it all!