Ready

This year hasn't been easy for me. Not that my life has been entirely bad, or that I went through some crucible of suffering. It seemed like small things that were around me going into this year and more that built up as it went on. Missing my brothers, being an upperclassmen, missing out on being in my Fall drama production, rifts in relationships, and all the pressures of being a leader in a Christian environment. Much less than many people I know, but enough to make me wonder when it would end. The year progressed, I sank deeper into my self-pity and self-righteousness. I was scared for the coming months, the things I had to do, the points I had to prove, the relationships I needed to mend. I was (and still am to a point) anxious over next year and being a senior. Looking for a college, being on my own, these things scare me. But as I drove home tonight, I realized something. God has been preparing me over the past months. He's used minor hurts to teach major lessons. And isn't that exaxtly how our God works? He uses the strife, menial and excruciating, to teach eternal lessons. That's the God I serve, not one who gives us soft, gushy lives full of mountaintop conversations, but lives of pain, sometimes pain we don't understand. Because of that pain, a word which is so often synonymous with experience, I am ready. Ready to lead. Ready to grow. Ready to mend. Ready to mature. Ready to learn. Ready to praise. Ready to throw off the sin that so easily entangles and press on towards the goal. God has brought me through times where I didn't feel like me, he emptied me of myself, just to prove that I don't need it. He is sufficient even when i am not me. He doesn't need me, so why should I?