Twenty Twenty

      It's 2020. And no I'm not talking about my vision (sorry corny joke since we all know I'm almost legally blind lol). Apart from my physical bad vision, being at home these past few weeks away from school, away from friends, away from my usually hustle and bustle has given me some time to reflect and get a pretty good vision from God.

  

        Coming into this semester was different than normal.  I arrived unexcited, bitter, and honestly a little angry. I wasn't where I wanted to be. I wasn't surrounded with who I wanted to be surrounded with. I wasn't doing what I thought I'd be doing. I wasn't as far along as I thought I would be. I pretty much I acted like a little diva to say the least.

     There was change, lots of it, and man do I hate change. I changed dorms, changed teams, changed job description, changed into nursing school, changed friends, changed schedules, changed leadership roles..... and it seemed like everything flipped upside down.

    Many of these changes seemed disappointing, not wanted, and confusing. Little did I realize at the time that they would be my saving grace.  I realized I was exactly where I was supposed to be, with who I was supposed to be with, in the roles God knew I needed to be in. At last it all made sense and I loved it. 

   Of course that doesn't mean it wasn't hard to change. Looking back I loved each and every change, but I also tended to struggle a lot with them. With loneliness, bitterness, anger, impatience, envy, disappointments... and I realize that in every part of my semester there was something lacking. 

Something missing that caused me to try to blame all my struggles on others. Something I tried to avoid by staying in my room on a Friday night and not deal with it. Something that God whispered into my ear that was what I had been lacking all this semester:

 I N T E N T I O N A L I T Y

  I realized I was really, really bad at being intentional. 

 I lacked at being intentional in.....

- my nursing classes and studies instead of being apathetic and wasting time.

- my time with God that I so easily put off for a few more minutes of sleep.

- my community to fight off the loneliness that I instead isolated myself and put up walls.

- in building my confidence in Christ instead of my fears and insecurities breaking me.

- being who God made me to be and not what I thought I had to be to get people to like me.

- discipling those who God called me too instead of doubting my ability to be a leader.

- in conflict with those around me instead of shoving my feelings under a rug and letting bitterness root within me.

- in loving and serving others instead of me loving and serving my comfort and

 my complacency.

- in my physical health and fitness instead of wanting to make myself feel as bad on the inside as I felt I looked on the outside.

 - in being driven and following through instead of letting myself give up on things so easily when results didn't happen right away.

      I just wasn't very intentional in my life. I had allowed all the things that had frustrated me, hurt me, disappointed me, and set me back this last semester to be the responsibility of those around me or just things that I would never be able to change. But no more.

   As much as I hate change this next semester is already going to be full of change as well. So 

 in 2020 with this next year of change ahead I know God wants me to learn to be fully, authentically, and brokenly intentional in every crack and crevice of my life. Starting today and starting right now. So heres to seeing in another year where He will have me on this journey called life.