Ready, Set....Slow Down.

You know all the times that you've procrastinated a big project by cleaning the house, hanging out with friends, calling that family member you haven't called in several months, learning a new instrument, spontaneously starting a workout routine, creating an excellent, detailed plan for doing the project...
...Basically, doing everything but the project?
As long as this tendency stays on the level of homework assignments and calling to set a dentist appointment, it's pretty harmless. (And a great way to make sure my room stays clean.) The problem is that it doesn't stop there. It goes deeper.
The past year or two, God has really been showing me parts of my heart that need healing--things that are an inherent part of how I view the world, and pet burdens I've carried for as long as I can remember. As someone who believes in the cumulative effect

of time in making things harder to move, addressing these problems is, well, mildly terrifying. At ORU, it was easy for me to walk away from working on these things--I had plenty of projects, hobbies, friendships, leadership roles, and clubs to work on instead. I felt productive and achieved goals, even if I wasn't addressing deeper issues. Being uprooted from my friend group, my leadership positions, my other commitments, and being set by myself in a different country completely disrupted this order. Suddenly, nobody around me had any expectations for me to fill. I didn't have a friend group to turn to and I didn't have anywhere to run. I just had myself and God.
I wish I could say that I took the hint and started actually working through my issues. I did not. Instead, I let them grow and assigned blame for my growing feelings of depression, restlessness, and isolation on my enviroment. Instead of taking this opportunity to rest and let the Lord work in my heart, I tried to run, even though I had nowhere to go.
As tends to happen when you try to run through a dead-end, reality hit me like a brick wall in the face. I was so stressed that I was struggling to

just do my homework--I would need to read the same chapter of BLAW or Strategic Management at least two or three times to even start to comprehend it. (Context: I got a perfect score on the critical reading portion of the SAT with about 10 minutes to spare on each section.) I struggled to form friendships and to even get out and buy groceries. I still didn't slow down and try to work through it. It took my breaking down in the middle of language school to prove to myself that I really, really needed to take a step back and admit that I wasn't OK.
Turns out, trying to push forward with brokenness in your heart is about as effective as trying to run with a broken leg. Depending on your determination and pain tolerance, you might be able to press on for a few more steps, but in the end you'll be even less capable of moving. I had been using my leadership, hobbies, and the familiarity of ORU as a crutch, but removing all of that left me fully realizing how much I needed to slow down, open up, and let God open up my mind-closets so I could deal with the monsters inside. It's been really scary, and I feel really fragile, but it's becoming a time of healing and growth in areas that are some of my greatest weaknesses. I have the space I needed but never wanted, the space to admit that I'm not perfect, or even OK sometimes.
The Lord gave me a Scripture from Hosea 2 for this trip before I left: "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor [Trouble] a door of hope." In the passage, Israel is running away from intimacy with God, until she finds herself in the middle of the wilderness. But here, in a place where she has nothing, she finally finds God, and the wilderness that seemed so hopeless is turned into a vineyard and a door of hope. I think that perhaps, this is my wilderness, the place where I lose my other loves and find the One who can truly heal me. Across an ocean from my comfort zone, in a place where I don't know directions and don't speak the language, I'm finding my roots and learning to once more speak with God.