Growing Pains PT.1

I normally write a blog on my birthday and this years is really late but I wanted to write one anyway.
I'm having a hard time grasping that I am 22 years old now. I feel like I am officially an adult now. There is no going back to being a teenager, no more using my age as an excuse for why I can't do something. I am no longer "too young" to attempt something.

The past year has definitely been one of growing up. Being involved in DLA and growing closer to God and others has changed me in ways I never could have imagined a year ago. God has been doing so much in my life that I feel like an entirely new person. When I started DLA I honestly had no idea what I was getting into. If you had told me before DLA the things that I would be doing and that I would actually be enjoying it, I would have told you that you were crazy. Now that my first year is over and my second year has begun, I'm starting to look back and remember what I was like at the beginning of DLA and I can see how much I have changed.

While I have come a long way I am still struggling with a lot. My flesh isn't killed all the way yet and it sure does like to cause a lot of problems. Surrendering all of me is a lot harder and a lot longer of a process than I thought.
Being asked back for Missional is great, but at the same time it is the last thing I want to do this year. A part of me is like "Why are you doing this to yourself again? Last year was the hardest year of your life and you want to do a repeat?!" This has been my battle lately. It is so hard to trust and follow God when I have no idea what He is doing in my life. When I am left to just put one foot in front of the other because I have no other option. I want to just stand still until He shines light on the path ahead; until He tells me in exact detail what He wants me to do.
Instead He just smiles and says "Trust me, I've got this." And my initial response  is "NO FREAKIN' WAY!"
Because what it comes down to is that I am afraid to fully trust God. Oh I say I do and in areas where He has proven Himself faithful again and again and again I trust Him. But not in this area. Not in these circumstances. I am so scared of being let down. I am afraid He will drop me. That He is only manipulating me for His purposes, that love and change for my good isn't His objective but just to use me however He sees fit. I don't want the process, I just want to already be there, to already have great faith. I don't want to deal with all the pain. I don't want responsibility. I don't want to choose. I don't want to grow up. I don't want change.

But I do want to change and mature. I do want to choose, to grow up and be responsible. I have to keep reminding myself to fix my eyes on Jesus. To not let myself be discouraged or distracted. I have to go to Jesus everyday with my fears and failures and say "Here I am, do with me what you will. I take up my cross and follow you." I guess this is part of growing up. I never knew dying to myself was so painful and so hard. Its like standing on the edge of a cliff and deciding whether to fall or not. Do I trust that God will catch me? Do I dare stay on the cliff? Isn't there an option that's in between?

But God says there isn't. I'm either all in or all out. I either choose to walk in the light or to walk in the dark. Learning to follow God this past year has been the biggest adventure of my life. I wouldn't trade it for anything but I don't think I would chose to go through it again. 

God keeps reassuring me that this is where He has me. There are so many verses I have received this past year that keep reminding me that God is holding onto me. He has placed so many awesome brothers and sisters in Christ in my life to help me, speak into me, and love on me. In the prayer meetings He has shown me again and again His faithfulness by bringing verses to mind and by people praying over me.
I am slowly but surely realizing that I am going through all this for my own benefit. God does know what He is doing and it is for my good. I am experiencing God in ways I never have before and I am closer to Him than I ever have been. I think that just possibly 22 is going to be the one of the best years of my life. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.