Dear friend,
Moving. Alive. Transforming. I can feel him moving and molding my bitter heart for the first time in a long time. Last November I gave my testimony at my church. That was a year ago now and I often think about what I said in my testimony. I shared that God had given me a new heart, i shared that he had replaced my heart of stone and given me a heart of flesh... Well I was wrong, he had only removed a layer of stone. He is now working diligently at chiseling away the stone that remains and at times when my heart of flesh is reached and I am vulnerable it hurts and pains me but that pain is a gift. A wonderful gift at that.
This junior year came with many challenges dealing with change and I didn't like it, so what did I do? As my defense mechanism, as my youth group leader and friend calls it, I started to push my friends away and draw and rely on myself. Which in case you don't know is a very bad things to do. I started to get bitter, cold, and distant. I stopped talking to my close friends, I stopped going to church on Sundays, I found no joy in small groups and my youth group. I lost interest in a lot of things and it felt like my whole world was crumbling beneath me but I held it together as best as i could because i thought i knew better but oh boy was i wrong! There were many nights where I would stay up and stare at my ceiling and i would just think and once I started thinking the tears followed. Why are you doing this to yourself Mireya? I would ask. Why can't I just be happy, I pondered. Why is everything I know slipping away. I couldn't grasp anything. I felt like I would break at any given moment. It had gotten so so bad. And I don't know how and I don't know why but he has reached me.
There wasn't one specific time or moment where I completely fell back into the hands of our God but series of events. One of the big events was were I lead my small group about something I felt passionately about and I felt him.
Forgiveness is another event. I sought the friends I let go of and asked for forgiveness and they openly and readily gave it to me and for that I'm beyond grateful.
And tonight as my youth group leader and friend, Sara, was dropping me off from SYF I shared with her how I felt content in the longest time and as I continued to share with her what had been placed on my heart she spoke great encouragement to me on how she loved my confidence, even if I didn't feel confident, she loved who I was and how she loved my strength and how I was learning all this stuff about myself even with me being so young. She also urged me to continue to write because as you can tell from this blog I haven't written in months! So my prayer is that we can go and see God and feel him in everything we do. See him moving in people and ourselves. Let him chisel away at your stone heart and keep running the race that is set before us.
Much love,
Mireya
