Becoming

If you had told me a year ago that I would still be at home seven months after I graduated from college, I would have cried. Well, here I am. And a few days ago when I received the reality check, I admit that the tears came.

I feel as if I am still no closer to figuring out what to do with my life than I was seven months ago, but I know--deep down somewhere--that I am. Though the process is slow and at times painful, I am becoming someone. I am trying to hold onto the good and weed out the bad and the ugly. But the bad and the ugly are not going without putting up a fight. With the grace of God I conquer one obstacle, then find myself faced with another even uglier. A constant battle.

It reminds me of a quote (I think it's a collection of quotes, but they read as one) that a dear friend of mine slipped to me a few years ago when my heart was in turmoil. I think about this quote often when I realize that I have been getting ahead of myself, when I find myself drowning in my weaknesses and failures.

"We are impatient of being on the way to something

And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made

by passing through some stages of instability--

and that may take a very long time...

Ideas mature gradually. Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today what time will make you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing that HIS HAND IS LEADING you surely through the obscurity and the...BECOMING and accept yourself in suspense and incomplete...

Since your activity has to be far-reaching, it must emanate from a heart that has suffered....

We must offer our existence to God, who neither wastes nor spoils, but rather makes use--BETTER than we can ever anticipate--of the struggle in which we are enveloped."

~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Green is for life.

Nestled on a clearance shelf in the back of the store, it called to me. Shades of green and funky weed things sprouting on the front made it look exactly like the kind of journal I would buy. Pretty leaves mark the bottom of each page--I love that kind of thing. The eco-friendly label also informed that no trees were used to make the journal. Here I must admit that I am something of a Go Green girl. You won't see me waving banners to save the trees (unborn babies are still my priority), but I do believe it is important to have a deep appreciation and respect for all of God's creation. The simple beauties of nature are a constant reminder of God's power and majesty. But these sensibilities and the fact that the journal is my favorite color were not enough to persuade me to buy it.

I confess that I have something of an obsession with journals. There are currently enough empty journals lining a shelf in my room to keep me covered for at least the next three years. There is just so much potential in a blank journal, so much hope and excitement for the words, dreams, secrets, and prayers to come. Writing is a discovery process for me, allowing me to piece together the crazy-mixed up pieces of my mind. Re-reading old journals helps me learn from my mistakes and not make the same ones again. I could go on forever about the joys of journals. This is why I get so excited when I find really "me" journals, especially really "me" journals on clearance....But I didn't need it. I told myself so and was about to put the lovely greenery back on the shelf, but the quote on the front suddenly made so much sense for the journal, for Go Green, for life: "What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I thought to myself, I discover by journaling...what are the weeds in my life, the dark spots in the garden of my heart that need the most tending? They are those sins and temptations that I constantly fall into, those people that I have the most trouble loving, those hurts, pains, and regrets that I don't seem to go away. Though these things take the form of life-sucking weeds in my eyes, to God, they are opportunities to work miracles. When I give them to Him in faith, He pulls them out and plants something much more beautiful and life-giving in its place. He makes all things new. There have been so many times when I wrote and wrote about the hideous weeds in my heart. I hurt, I cried, I begged God to take them away. He always did, but it was so slow and so quiet that I didn't even notice until months later when I re-read what I had written. I began to see and discover the virtues that God had given those weeds. He shed light on the tear-filled pages, and in His light, nothing is ugly. He is stronger than murderous weeds, so that in Him, even they can become flowers. Even our greatest mistakes and failures can be transformed by Love into His greatest victories.

I bought the journal with no more hesitation. As I drove home, I saw more clearly the way the tops of the green trees brushed against the brilliant blue sky, the way each tree stood in its unique beauty in the golden sunshine. I thanked God for the beautiful trees, and for the journals they had produced for me to record the words that He writes on my heart. When I got home and pulled out the journal, I thought, What is a flower? A plant whose virtues require rain to bloom so that they may shine in the light of the Son. I laughed and smiled up at God.

It's the little things.