To New Beginnings & The Common Thread

2020 has been one heck of a year, am I right?! I’ve had a ton of changes happening this year and I really just want to talk about how breathtakingly and beautifully God has been working in my life, so let’s get on into it!

This year, over a course of three months I: changed jobs, changed churches, started working full-time while in school full-time for the first time ever, broke up with my boyfriend two weeks before our 3 year anniversary, got hit by a car at a red light & had my car totaled the night of what would have been our anniversary (so it was already a sad day) (which also happened to be the night before my birthday), bought my first car (!!!!) picture below! (but car payments 😖), had major family drama, & got corona virus to top it all off. You could say I was a bit emotionally unstable for a few weeks and maybe even cried to coworkers the first week at my new job.

If you take a look back at that list, the precursor to this string of events was me changing my job and church. Both of those are super big changes that had a lot of lists, thought, and prayer backing them up. But whether good or bad, new beginnings can be sad, a lil anxiety producing, and exciting. I believe that these two changes were literally God setting me up for my breakup. He knew what was coming and He prepared the way for me before the storm hit. Gosh I just love Him so much it makes me cry!

After getting laid off at the beginning of covid, we returned to new management at my previous job. I quickly went from loving my job to needing to get out. The week I realized I actually wanted to quit and look for new employment, someone from my old church told me they were hiring on their school side (picture at my new job below :) I love it so much.) I was hired without an interview and started the job that same month. Providing me with a stable full-time job that I’m really happy at (one less stressor for the upcoming crazy months!)

The reason I left the church I was at was because there honestly just wasn’t a market of people my age. There wasn’t a group of twenty year old girls going through college and life, and I knew I needed a group of good Christian girlfriends. Because of this, I had started thinking about trying other churches and trusting God to bring me to the group of girls He knew I needed (He’s done that exact thing for me before, after all!) At this time I went and visited my best friend in Kansas and we ended up going to her church that Sunday. The worship knocked me off my feet and it took everything in me not to grab her hand and burst into tears. I knew at that moment that I was also in search of a church with more intimate and passionate worship. The first church I tried hit me just like the one in Kansas. I didn’t want to make a hasty decision so I kept trying other churches on Sunday mornings, while coming to this first one on Sunday nights. I ended up choosing that first church and one night during a small group we all got emotional and word vomited all of our pain to each other, and that night I got the number of three of the girls and we started making plans to hang out. I now have plans every Saturday and people I’m not afraid or embarrassed to open up to when needed. The way God will answer a specific prayer every single time will never seize to amaze me. This is the second time He’s brought me a group of Christian girlfriends and I’m so, so thankful for that.

It was after those two steps that I went through my first breakup of my first long-term relationship.

It gives me chills to now realize that God saw what was to come and He went before me and set in place solid ground for me to land on. CHILLS. Obvious favor that I can't not say something about! I have been thinking about that and thanking God for it every single day for a month straight.

Breakups are hard and painful but God was ever present throughout this process. I prayed He would make the decision, whichever way, super obvious to both of us and that He would put us on the same page so we would't keep pulling each other back in to something that was now unhealthy, if we weren't meant to get past this. And on the same day, God showed us both, separately, that we were over, it was for the best, and that it was a hard decision that we undoubtedly needed to make for ourselves. This was extremely hard, disappointing, and shocking to me, but God has given to me so abundantly and graciously that I honestly don’t have that much time to be sad. He’s waiting at every corner of the day to remind me why this was a good idea and remind me through new and old friends that I’m loved and valued and worthy to be treated as such.

The point of this post isn't to go on about how I feel like I've been through a lot this year or overshare personal things about my breakup. My point in sharing this journey that I have had over these past few months is to show you how trust worthy God is. Prayer is SO powerful. I can't help but cry when I think about it and cry when I do it, because the fact that God is going to listen to someone so little and set a path for me right before my eyes is so breathtaking and I never want to forget all the He has done and all that He is capable of.

If you're starting to doubt a relationship or friendship PRAY OVER IT. I prayed my entire relationship for God to end it if it didn't honor Him or treat me the way I deserved. If you're going through a lot in life right now and the list of bad things just keeps stacking higher PRAY OVER IT. I know it's become a cheesy Pinterest quote, but if God brought you to it, He WILL bring you through it.

If there is one thing I am passionate about it is the power of prayer and I urge you to start praying over your friendships, jobs, relationships, even/especially breakups, and everything else in your life.

I pray that this helps you to look back and see how God has walked you through some of the toughest times of your life, and how obvious His hand was through it all. One of my favorite things to do is keep a gratitude journal. I keep it on my night stand and every night before bed I write down three things I am thankful for. My only rules are that I write at least three and I don't repeat any for at least a week. I encourage you to do this in your toughest seasons to force you to look deeper at just how much God is blessing you in this season.

As always, I love you so incredibly much and God loves you even more than that. If you have a prayer request you can head over to my "about me" page, scroll down, and send me a message! You are loved and valued and God's plan is so much bigger and makes so much more sense than yours. <3