After, After.

Today, I was very cold.

Physically, because it's about 45 degrees on Liberty campus today. But also emotionally cold, because realizing that I can never really go 'home' (To a place that is safe, a place where everything is just right, a place that is comfortable.) again has me feeling no warmth, no desire to be friendly or pleasant, just alone and disappointed.

They (whoever 'they' are) say "Home is where your heart is." But what if your heart is somewhere you can't go back to, like a 'before' period where you are now stuck in the 'after' period- with no where to call home?

In the before period I was a little girl, in the after I have been forced to grow up quickly and harshly. In the before I admired my Mom's alluring love of life and listened to her real unrestrained laugh, watching as it infected those around her. In the after, that woman is gone, beaten down. In the before there was bright intense hope for the future, that in the after has been replaced by heavy decisions and loud regrets. A love for my people, my home and a heart to help the broken in spirit was crushed into a distaste for most, a loss of a safe and peaceful place to call my home and a terribly broken spirit of my own. 

On this new path I am on with God guiding and directing, I have been filled with supernatural joy that has helped me through bad days on numerous occasions, but today I just couldn't shake this cold feeling. I hadn't taken time for God, and was seemingly enjoying my little pity-party of loneliness longing for a 'home'- when I finally realized that my heart does not have to be stuck in the 'before'. My heart should be in God, my home should be in God- no where else. He has the power to save me from all that, with Him the story doesn't have to end at 'after' because God has an 'after, after' still planned for me and I just need to focus on Him and on keeping my trust in him.

I pray for peace and contentment, that soon I will find the people God has for me to live my life with and that I could get going on that, and that the current 'after' would be less painful and I would be able to keep all I have realized today in the front of my mind and be focused on God and his 'after, after' plans.

RSG