On this journey I'm learning that...

[not moving at all, is the same as moving BACKWARDS]

This past (almost) year now has been filled with growth.  A LOT of it.  I started this blog almost a year ago and as each turning point or realization happened in my life, I wrote about it.  All of this blog, as I go back and read, reminds me of a blooming flower...  Now, coming to almost the end of the first year of this journey, I compare myself to a car running out of gas.  It seems to run rougher, it seems to not have as much UMPH in it... and then slowly, you pitter patter until you are stuck along the side of the road with this look of "oh, crud" and a lot of "I should haves" going through your mind. 

As I thought about that, I thought about another example of how my life has been.  Do you know how water, when it's stagnant, becomes nasty?  It becomes dangerous to drink because bacteria lives in stagnant water easier.  So I go from a blooming flower, to a car without fuel, to being
...dangerous water. 

I don't like the way it went down, as if it were a rollar coaster, only without brakes or restraints... or a track.  I don't like the way I didn't feel like I was growing for so long. 

God took me on this journey for a reason.. He's TAKING me on this journey for a reason... the part I'm on right now, that I felt stuck at - stagnant... was when God asked me to forgive my father.  He asked me to forgive him & write him a letter sharing with him the Gospel that saved my life, and that God wanted to save my dad's with...

It's hard to do that when bitterness lives in your heart, ya know?  When it takes a spot in your life and sticks around.  When I got all stagnant, that bitterness became the bacteria that thrived inside of me. 

But I'm not letting it take over my life. 

If God is for us, than who could ever stop us?  And if our God is with us - than what can stand against?!

As I moved forward, I was filled with joy... as I stayed stagnant, I was miserable.  And now, as I stand against the enemy and put my faith up against my bitterness & fears - I realize that staying still pulled me back...

                      and I REFUSE to go back. 

So here I am, all of me - finally, everything... wholly, wholly Yours... I am wholly, wholly Yours....

(-Monica)

         [Philippians 3:13 -

                 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead...]