A Sunny Day in March

I woke up this morning at 8:05, and wound up in my 8am English class at 8:25 despite my best efforts to walk right out the door from the horizontal position I was in for the 6 hours before.
I felt the anxiety that was whirring around in my head hit the pit of my stomach in all of its thickness when I grabbed the door handle to enter the class. The words a friend had said to me the day before resounded in my head and the deep breath I took wasn't enough to quiet the resonance or lighten the brick in my belly when I found my way to an empty desk in Moreland 332. As we discussed the brilliance of Christina Rossetti, naturally, my mind began to wander...
School doesn't happen to be my first priority these days. I would attribute the fact to my academic standing being that of a senior and it starting to be sunny outside, etc, etc. However, I know it's just that my heart is somewhere else at the moment. I'm not doing the best academically lately, and am struggling to pass 2 of the 5 classes I'm taking. It's easy for others to have input on how my life has been since October, and it is even easier for them to interject that input in facial expressions, words and actions. Change is hard for a lot of people, and unless you sat me down and asked me to explain what has been going on in my head and heart the last 8 months over a cup of coffee, I can see how you would assume things about my life. Please don't.
I am not perfect, and I know that the path I have chosen to take is not what everyone else would decide for me (I have repeatedly seen the disappointment on my mothers face when I stick up for the fact that I am not going directly into graduate school after I graduate in June), but I am in dialogue with God about it all. The community I once had, has now dispersed and everyone has gone their separate ways- pursuing with stamina and passion what He has for them. I am on the same path.
There is something that a boy can do to a girl (and I'm sure the reverse is true) that can cause a bit of a character malfunction/ freak-out to occur. I believe this is part of life. There is a level of caring, a threshold of loving that once released has the ability to be the most beautiful thing to happen in ones life. And the same time as the beauty is apt to happen, so is taken the risk of the heart that is so full of love to break. I believe that it is once this break occurs that a bit of insanity is released. Hear me out: I have several amazing, level-headed, motivated, brilliant female friends who happen to be ridiculously gorgeous. These women have taken the risk, and fallen hard into love. Life happens, and as quickly as their hearts fell, the boy that they trusted to catch it, for some reason or another didn't (not to blame it on the boy, there are things both parties bring to the battlefield that is a relationship). And I have seen a series of phases occur. First it is a "I'm hurt but will be okay"-phase that comes out through a coffee-date or a quick run in at the gym. Next comes the hysterical sobbing, "I wish he still loved me/realized we're supposed to be together"-phase that usually occurs several times via midnight or later phone calls. During these two phases there is intermixed crazy behavior- normally things that are out of character for that person: be it drinking excessively, dancing, kissing other boys, sleeping with other boys, pretending to have their life together and acting like they are just fine and that they have made the decision to move on. And it's true, that when it is all said and done, and the girl realizes that she can slowly gather the pieces of her heart and draw nearer to God while he holds and heals her, that she knows beyond what she hears her friends and family say, that she will continue on and be okay.
Not everything is good and lovely. Not everything is healthy and beautiful and good for a person. But it is what is horrible and hurtful, dark and painful, that encourages one and gives one the strength to continue on a path towards beauty and love, happiness and light. It is through the pain that there is beauty, through the hurt that there is grace and forgiveness.
I have been a Christian my whole life, and done a lot in my life to strive for perfection. And it is just now, over the last year or so, that I have felt what this forgiveness and grace I have believed in for so long really is. This realization through life experience has been what has humbled me, and drawn me closer to the God I've said I've always believed in. Before I would tell others they should believe when they asked because it was "right" or what I had been taught all of my life. Now I can say it is because I have experienced it. I am been where you are, I feel what you feel, I am crying the same warm tears and have, so many times, and what holds me when my heart is broken is this grace and love that cannot be found another place.
I like to sit in Java and soak. Because I want to operate out of overflow and love others how God has loved me. I may not be doing the best in my classes, and I may not be pursuing the life that everyone else has dreamt for me, but this is between God and I. He knows where the cracks are and he is filling them with his divine putty. For the first time I am trusting him to heal what I had hidden for so long. This life I live isn't easy, and I'm sure I make it harder than it needs to be, but I have a savior who loves all of my imperfections. I'm not asking you to love them, but instead to take the time to know how He is filling them with His grace and love, and how he is teaching me to give that same love and grace to others through Him which is what it's all about.
So, here I sit, on a sunny day in March, on my face before him, pursuing a relationship with the divine...and it is nothing short of beautifully amazing.