Jesus.

I woke up this morning feeling convicted. 

For some reason I felt like I absolutely needed to go back and read my journals from the past four years.

So far, it's been quite the adventure. 

This past year, as in school year,  has been what I'd like to call indescribable...and yet I'm going to try to describe it.

I guess I'll have to use the cliche Christian expression to describe it. "I fell away from the Lord."

This year has been dirty and rough. I turned 21 and went to New Zealand where lots of drunken debauchery occurred and I was the lone believer on my month long journey. I tried to stand firm in my faith and be a light to the peeps around me but I wasn't strong enough. I crumbled beneath the pressure and became a horrible person for three weeks. I became one of "The Mean Girls" and pranced around licking my paws and being ruthless with my words. 

I drank a lot. I pashed a lot. And I was becoming my worst nightmare. 

This trip changed me in more ways than one. Not only did I discover the person I am capable of becoming without Jesus in my life, I discovered my passion for adventure during this wild month. Hence The Adventurist.

Tangential. 

Back to the fall. I came back from New Zealand and Fiji a different person. I had befriended a girl named Isbelle while in NZ and I had convinced myself that I was hanging out with her so that she could see God in my unconditional love for her, when in all honesty, I was spending time with her because she was my outlet, the person I could be heartless with and frolic around with while sinning up a storm. Lovely.

This year can be summed up in one simple expression that my basketball coach used to shun us for doing. I've been simply "going through the motions" of being a follower of Jesus. 

It's so easy to pretend.

I led YoungLife as half assed as possible. Not going on campus. Not meeting new kids. Coming to club late. Bailing on meetings. My heart so desperately wanted to be in it. But I had lost sight of Jesus. 

The concept of alcoholism really baffles me. Scares me in fact. Not that I've become an alocholic. Far from it. 

I like to have a good time. But why does alcohol have to be involved for me to do that? The infamous question peppers the lips of ladies everywhere. 

Addiction is hereditary. I can't count on two hands the number of substances the members of my immediate family have become addicted to throughout their lives. 

Hence my fear.

I've learned a lot about myself in this broken year. I've made a lot of connections about why I am the way I am. Why I act the way I act. Of course I'll never have it all figured out but I'm trying to look myself in the face and come to terms with the person I've become.

All this to say I had the first spiritual high last night that I've had in an incredibly long time. I spent the evening with a friend of mine, a certain boy I've been dating. And I don't date. So this is new. Exciting. But new. And scary. 

Tangential.

We had dinner together and I asked him what he thought about God. I was telling him the story of how I came to be friends with Jesus and talking to him truly reminded me why I fell in love with Jesus in the first place. It was magical. 

After dinner I proceeded to have a conversation with my good friend David about this very same topic and how it's so easy to walk through life with our Christian friends not even really talking about Jesus and challenging each other in our faith. 

The true majesty reveals itself when we are sharing our beliefs with non-believers. And I experienced that whole-heartedly for the first time last night. Yes, I've been a YoungLife leader for four years and should have been professing my love in words, conversations about Jesus, to these high school kids but I was so caught up in vanity and self assurance that I chose to love through action rather than words. Talking about Jesus and what I believe has always made me so uncomfortable and last night was the first time I was able to speak freely and I think it's honestly because of the way I have been living my life this past year. 

Stepping away from Jesus and really looking at the person I can become without Him has helped me to realize how much I don't want that life. 

Reading through my old journals has helped me to remember the kind, loving, prayerful girl I once was. All the kids names I wrote down and prayed for. The friends. The prayers answered and lives changed. If you don't journal, you definitely should. It's so incredibly rewarding.

I found this quote and got caught up on it: "He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed."

It's so unbelievably easy to hang out with people who make us feel good about ourselves, who build us up and pamper us with compliments and adulation. But I wanna hang out with people who think I'm quite possibly the uncoolest person they've ever met in their lives. This boy I'm dating doesn't think I'm cool at all and I absolutely love it. It's so humbling. 

We all need to be humbled. 

There. I just spilled my heart out all over the floor. I'm gonna go grab a mop. You heed this advice:

Life's an adventure. God calls us to live life abundantly. Just do it.