I guess I hinted at this last time, but I feel like there's something bigger on the horizon. This recent season of life has been rough. It's been a season where I've made a really bad mistake. It's been a season where I've hurt someone that, while not perfect, loved me when I didn't deserve to be loved and will probably forever occupy a giant chunk of my heart. I watched him show up at my house with a U-Haul and remove every one of his belongings. Things that we thought would be part of our future together. And all I could do was cry, and shamefully, try to blame him, even though I knew I was the root cause of it all. (And through the tears ask him if he was going to say goodbye to the dog because I'm dramatic and maybe a little petty). It's been a season of uncertainty and stress at work. It's been a season where I've dated the wrong boys. Where I've learned that while very cute boys and very young boys are also very fun boys, they are probably not the very right boys (men) that I need to be dating to have the very good life with a very good husband and very adorable children that I want.

And you know. That's all okay. I recently read a piece about how sometimes there are chapters in our lives that we want to skip over. I totally get that. On a very surface level, I want to erase the last year more than anything. But the piece went on to say we can't skip over them. Numbing ourselves, not allowing ourselves to feel the pain that we need to feel, to make the stupid mistakes that we need to make, doesn't get us anywhere. We have to grow. We have to sit in the pain and feel it and cry and hurt and question ourselves.

It hurts me to admit this, but I've even questioned God during this season. God, why did you make me like this? God, why can't I be loved? God, what is wrong with me? God, Are you listening? But, as much as that hurts to say, I think all Christians have questioned God, even if they don't admit it. It's part of the process. He knows and He's always there. When you're done questioning and asking where He's been He wraps you up and says, "I've been here all along. You just wandered. But you are back and I am here. We've got this." (My God apparently speaks in 2018 motivational slogans, but that's cool).

But you know what? If I didn't have this season of life I wouldn't realize how much I need God. How when I stray from Him I feel lost and disconnected. How much I need my friends and my family.  How they've sat beside me through the pain and prayed and loved and made me laugh my head off. (And that it's okay, no VITAL, that you have moments that make you laugh your head off even in the thick of the pain. The friends that make that happen are angels from God.) How much I need running even when I say I hate it. What I want in a husband. What I want my future life to look like. That I miss writing more than I ever knew.

We can't skip through chapters even when we want to. This past year has hurt like hell in about a million ways. But the clarity is finally happening. As Glennon says, "first the pain. Then the rising."