Ev.

Hey, it's been 10 months since my last post. I can tell you are all so surprised. Also I changed the background from that camera thing to polka dots because I don't know how to do anything else to this blog to make it more interesting.

I moved back to SC to my parents' house from NYC to go back to school and stuff and now I'm working to pay off some bills as well as getting some credits out of the way. There, for the possible one person who I'm not friends with who reads this, you're pretty much caught up on the basics of my life.

Two Sundays ago, April 30th, I went to church then went to work. Pretty standard Sunday. My church is doing a series called "How to Get Unstuck" which has been awesome because, yours truly, is still having a hard time. I'm not nearly as low and down as I was in THE post I shared last summer, but I'm still not totally great. Then I went to work and it was a rather busy day because it was the last day of a sale. I got off at 7.

I got home around 7:10/7:15-ish and walked in my house to my dad talking to my brother about school while my mom tided the kitchen. I was home for a few minutes, told my family about my day, and my mom looked down at her phone and said, "Oh crap. Heather (her sister, my aunt) called me three times in a row. I'm gonna go call her back" and she went outside.

My mom was outside for about a minute when I heard her scream. Her excited screams and her terrified screams sound the same, so, for a brief moment, I thought, "Oh! I bet someone is pregnant or engaged or something," so I ran outside only to see her sitting on the ground, sobbing, with her hand covering her mouth. I just sat next to her for a few seconds when my dad and Alex ran outside. Then she said it. My 18-year old cousin, Evan, died. 

It didn't fully smack me for about a minute while I just sat there, stunned and in disbelief that those words had come out of her mouth, then I lost it. Evan Blair Campbell, my wonderful cousin, lost his life in a car accident that day. 

I hear stories from people I know where they don't see family members but every few years or so. My family isn't like that. We all see each other, at the very least, twice a year at Christmas and at our summer Kiawah Island trip. My family is close. My family loves really big. My family needs each other.

I'm the oldest cousin and Evan is next in the lineup. My Aunt Heather named him Evan because I, at the mature age of four, insisted his name had to start with an E. He is my buddy. He is my partner. He is one of my best friends. We drifted as we got older and became teenagers, but we were making our way back to having a better relationship as we both were entering adulthood. 

He and I and his younger sister, Erica, refer to ourselves as "The Original E's" since the E trend diminished after us and became just a girls thing. Even though the three of us were "The Originals", Evan loves one-on-one time so he used to always ask, "Emmie, can just me and you spend time?" He would always refer to our time just the two of us as "Spend Time". When we were really little, Spend Time involved some sort of animals. We often made zoos out of blocks and filled it with toy animals. Since elephants are both of our favorites, our zoos were mostly just elephant sanctuaries. 

I didn't appreciate enough how much Evan valued Spend Time until I got older. He hasn't asked me to have Spend Time since he was probably 10 until last Christmas when I promised him we'd find time for just us when we would go to the beach this summer. It hurts my heart knowing we won't have one more Spend Time. 

The day after Evan went to be with Jesus, we drove down to be with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. My uncle and I had been on the rocks since a fight we'd had last year, but when I saw him, I stopped caring because I realized how stupid it was and I just hugged him and sobbed. He's my family and I won't waste time I have with family on being angry about an argument anymore.

Because of how big my family loves, there were a lot of tears and hugs over that few days. I got to see Evan before he was cremated, which was the hardest thing in the world, but I knew that I'd help me process everything. Evan had Asperger's and was on the autism spectrum. When I saw Evan, lying there, a million things shot through my mind but the biggest one was "He's in Heaven. He's with Christ. He's perfect. He doesn't have Asperger's anymore."

The two weeks it's been since Evan left have been hard, but I can't remember the last time I've leaned this hard into God's love. I genuinely do not understand how people are able to grieve without it. At a time when one would feel so empty, I feel full. Words cannot describe how much I miss him or how much I wish I could've hugged him tighter the last time I saw him, but at the same time I feel an immense peace that's absolutely unexplainable except by pointing to Christ. 

I'll be honest, me and God, we haven't been that cool for a while and I really haven't spent time with Him or in His Word in a really long time. But after it happened, the only thing I wanted to do was just sit and worship Him with everything. The song that I've been crying out has been Hillsong's "Prince of Peace"

"Your love surrounds me when my thoughts wage war

When night screams terror, there Your voice will roar

Come death or shadow, God I know Your light will meet me there

When fear comes knocking, there You'll be my guard

When day breeds trouble, there You'll hold my heart

Come storm or battle, God I know Your light will meet me there"

I never fully grasped the God's name, "Prince of Peace", until now. A friend encouraged me to read Psalm 91 (which I also encourage you to read) and the imagery of finding refuge under God's wings is exactly want God wants us to do in times of tragedy. He is refuge. 

I don't feel like God is punishing my family. I don't believe God "needed another angel" (which He didn't. God needs nothing. Also, people don't become angels when they pass away. Mini-rant). I don't believe God is cruel for taking him. Evan once said that he wanted his legacy to be one that led people to Christ. Since he died two weeks ago, 12 people (that I know of) have met Christ at memorial services for him. How beautiful is that? An 18 year old kid left THAT big of a legacy?!

I know that if he had the option, Evan wouldn't come back. Why would he? He is in the Perfect Place where there is no pain, suffering, (or autism) and there's love, worship, peace, and Gramsie can make him her chocolate cake HERSELF.  

So, like all my posts, I don't know if wrote this to help someone, to annoy someone, or to just journal it all, but here you go. 

I have something to tell you.

Hey. I did that thing again where I didn't write a blog post for over a year. Whoops. It's not you guys, my journal gets the same amount of love as this blog does.



Truth is, I didn't have anything to blog about last year and this year has been shit-tay. 2016 was supposed to be awesome and Taylor Swift made turning 22 sound like the greatest age I'll ever be. Neither of those two things turned out to be true so far.



For the first half of the year, I chalked up my depressive state as period hormones (I'm not one of those who pretends it's not her period that gives her mood swings. It's totally my period, most of the time). But it wasn't until a few months had passed when I looked at myself and thought "Um, my period isn't a constant thing, so why am I feeling this way?" But, because of my half-full attitude, I decided to pretend like these feelings weren't real.



I went on living as happy-go-lucky Emily when I was out and about, but when I was by myself, this cloud came around. This cloud only ever showed up when I was alone. The cloud was really dark and it would sometimes rain (not in a good way, because I love real rain). It was the worst when it rained. It ate at me. It whispered confidence destroying thoughts. It made me doubt my faith in God. It made me feel like my life had zero meaning. But the majority of the time, I'd try to talk myself out of the cloud until something or someone distracted me and it would disappear.



Then it happened. I had a panic attack.



I had never, ever had a panic attack before. I've had so many friends in high school and college who had them relatively frequently and struggled with depression, so I knew how to talk people down from them and help them cool off. But that wasn't working on myself. I was weeping and shaking and I was by myself in my room. I went into the kitchen and grabbed a knife for the first time. Before I did anything, I looked up and told God that if I wasn't supposed to do this, then to wake up one of my roommates. I held the knife above my wrist and I heard the door open and one of my roommates walked in the bathroom to pee. I dropped the knife on the ground and fell and sobbed harder. I felt God whispering to me, "You're still mine." I cried, listened to some worship music, then eventually fell asleep.



I was good for about a week. I was feeling myself again and doing okay. Then I had another one out of the blue on the subway. The subway was PACKED with rush hour traffic and I was shaking, sobbing, snot-nosed, and out-loud weeping and not a single person acknowledged me. Then I remembered we had church group at my house that night and I freaked out about the idea of being around people that loved me because I didn't want people to know I was going through this. I texted my roommate that I was going to stay in my room for group because I just couldn't be around them. I ran to my room and started googling how many aspirin it would take to kill someone of my height and weight. I was about to go get the meds from my kitchen when I remembered my living room was full of women. Something came over me and I called my parents.



My mom answered the phone "Hello?" and I couldn't find words. I just paused, she heard me cry and asked me what was wrong. "Mom, I'm not okay." She told me she could tell I hadn't been myself, despite my illusion that I was normal. I wept and I told her about my panic attack and she talked to me for a little bit. She asked me if I wanted to talk to my dad and I said yes. He got on the phone and I told him about the state of me and the cloud that was always around. He encouraged me to go in my living room and be with my friends, despite me being terrified of them seeing me like this. He then put me on speakerphone and told my mom and my brother that they were going to pray for me. He prayed for 10 minutes and he sobbed. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen my dad cry, and this might have been a close second to the hardest I've ever seen him cry. I remember him saying "Lord. We don't want to lose her." and I cried too because I hadn't even told him about the knife or the aspirin. After my family prayed for me, and I promised to start looking for help resources at church, I hung up and sat with my friends in my living room.



Nothing as extreme as those two instances have happened since then, but the cloud is definitely still real. I reached out to the mental health team at church and told them what was happening. They gave me Christian counseling and therapy recommendations in the city. I called my parents and told them that I met with someone about getting help, but I still put off actually calling the recommendations I was given. I still wasn't fully convinced something was wrong with me.



Then one day, the cloud was around and followed me to the subway. It whispered to me "If you jump in front of the train, it could look like an accident and no one would know" so instead of running the errand I was supposed to run, I went straight to the counseling office and filled out an application.


While waiting for my application to process, I visited SC to see friends and family like I do every summer. While home, my parent's church was doing a night of worship. I love nights of worship and my church in NYC doesn't do them very often. After it was over (I cried, a lot. The whole dang time) my friend's mom came over to me and asked to pray for me and to talk with me. She didn't know what had been going on with me, but she told me God just gave her a picture of me, wearing a Red Riding Hood cloak ("in very Emily Krull fashion" she put) but the cloak was black instead of red. It was black because I was hiding and running away from God. And that I needed to stop running so I could wear a red cloak again and BE Emily again. She prayed for me, a lot more tears came.


I've now been going to counseling for a few weeks. It was so weightlifting to tell my counselor about these suicidal thoughts without having them burst into tears and tell me how my life had worth. Instead she told me that we were going to work on finding the root of this cloud. She explained to me about the "positions" we take with God. How we're supposed to be on our knees in surrender vs standing on our own trying to fix ourselves (which DING DING DING, what I have been doing). She told me that she wanted us to work on me to find my way to a sitting position, instead of standing and working my way to my knees in surrender again.



I took a step back from both my leadership positions at church as choir director and youth group leader. I need rest, desperately. I need time to remember how to sit so I can eventually surrender to Jesus again. I'm not in a place to encourage others. I told my leader, our youth pastor, that I needed to take a break and he said "It's our job as Christians to help build the church. But you're part of the church, too. And if you're not being built up, then you absolutely should take the break you need."


So this is what's happening. I'm going to counseling. I'm finding who I am in my faith again. I'm learning to breathe again (cue Switchfoot song).


It's taken me a month to write this. Well, I wrote it, edited it a few times, saved it as a draft, re-read it, thought it was dumb, then didn't look at it again for a week. I'm really scared about opening up this much to my friends and family all at one time with posting this. But I decided it was time to share it because last night a friend told me about what they'd been going through and it sounded an awful lot like what you just read. I guess I just wanted to encourage people who also have a cloud that no one knows about to tell someone they're not okay. Because I was the queen of creating the illusion of bubbly-best-mood-ever girl. My social media was loading with nothing but wit and silliness as much as possible (I PRIDE myself in have the goofiest snapchat stories). Only a handful of people knew that I wasn't my full self and even less people knew just how bad it was.


So if you're still reading this, please don't be upset that I didn't tell you what I've been going through. Please don't blast me with "I'm so sorry!", "I had no idea!", "Why didn't you tell me?", and other comments of that sort. Because that's not why I'm sharing this. I'm not telling the world this story to get sympathy or to ask people to feel bad for me. I'm telling you this because I want you to stop pretending like you're okay if you're not.


The almond branch is the first to blossom in the spring and the last to bear fruit in the fall.


Jeremiah 1:11, Mark 5:34, Psalm 23, 2 Cor. 4:6

Two letters-An apology and a change

Majority of my friends know and are full aware that I've been a Jesus freak for most of my life. I used to be one of those "love the sinner hate the sin" type of Christian, but my perspective has changed a tad. So I've decided to write two letters, an apology for nonChristians and perspective change for Christians.

Dear Non-Christians,

I, Emily Krull, would like to publicly apologize for the way many Christians act/treat you. We're supposed to be loving towards you and the majority of us are not. I'm sorry. 

If any Christian has ever told you you're a sinner and you're going to hell because of your lifestyle or what you believe in, I'm sorry. I don't know why so many of us think we have the authority to talk to you that way. 

If you have been hurt, bullied, looked down on by a Christian ever in your life, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry we don't live what we preach. 

Christians who treat you the way that you do are the reason I have to clarify WHAT KIND OF Christian I am when I tell people. 

All I ask is for you to give Christians a second chance. We're not all like Westboro Baptist Church (people like that embarass me). I refuse to surround myself with "Christians" like that. I hate that we built a reputation for ourselves that is the exact OPPOSITE of what we believe in. If you ever hear me, personally, saying anything hurtful, please, call me out on it.

Again, I'm so sorry. 

Emily 

Dear Christians,

I'm pretty sure we all love Jesus (hence why we're Christians). But I feel like some of us forget that that's kinda the important part. Being a Christian isn't about telling people they're sinners, it's about telling people about the unconditional love our Savior gave us. 

"Love the sinner hate the sin" ISNT YOUR JOB. We were given two jobs as Christians in Matthew 22:36-40. (We all read our Bibles, look it up). If your Bible isn't around you, let me paraphrase-

Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was. He gave two answers

1-Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength

2-Love your neighbor as yourself

Pointing out sin isn't our job. Unless you're a pastor or a mentor-type figure in someone's life, you don't have the authority to tell someone they're sinning. 

How about instead of "love the sinner hate the sin", we just...love? Don't even acknowledge the sin. We're not Jesus. It's not our job. We're supposed to be "Christ-LIKE" not Christ himself. 

So please, stop. Just love people. That's all. If you just love, you're doing exactly what Jesus told you to do. 

Emily. 

Beauty, Twitter, and the VS Fashion Show last night.

As per usual, it's probably been forever since I've posted. I wish I was a cool, frequent blogger like some of my friends, but I'm kind of scatterbrained and don't always think all my bouncy thoughts are all that important most of the time. So to the 3 people who actually pay attention to my blog-I (again) apologize for the extreme gaps between posts.

Also, anyone who knows me knows I'm a total Jesus-freak, but I'm gonna leave Jesus and religion out of this post as much as possible because I believe this applies to everyone regardless of your beliefs and I don't want anyone who's not a Christian to think I'm trying to convert you.

This is not another one of those "VS MODELS ARE UNREALISTIC" type posts, either. (Basic.)

Last night was the Annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. While although I didn't watch it (I was too busy hanging out with some of my favorite people in all of NYC), VS IS my employer, so I'm a supporter of the fashion show (or else I'd get fired…just kidding). I DID however keep up with Twitter throughout the evening and saw the never-ending feed of tweets from girls about how they'll never look like the models do. One post actually said, "models vs me" with two photos underneath: one of Adriana  Lima and another of a potato.

I mean, c'mon, a POTATO?! Don't we ladies realize how beautiful we are? Whether you think we were all designed or we were all by chance-don't you recognize how unique we are individually? Why do you need to look like Candice Swanepoel (who many of my co-workers have met, she's pretty nice)? She's beautiful. YOU'RE beautiful. You want to know why you're BOTH beautiful? Because who gave us the authority to decide who/what is beautiful and what's not?

Why can't you just be…you? Let Candice Swanepoel be Candice Swanepoel. Let Emily Krull be Emily Krull. And you let yourself be you. There's an awesome quote by Amy Poehler where she simply states "I always wanted to grow up to be Amy Poehler." You should have that attitude about yourself. Look like you. Be you. When you're getting ready for the day, don't put on an outfit because you liked the way it looked in the catalog, put it on because you look hot in it. Don't' do your makeup a certain way because winged eyeliner is in, do your makeup in a way that makes you feel good about yourself.

Some people that I'm close with have expressed to me that they think I look better with a natural lip versus the bold red lip that I like to use everyday. My response? I politely tell them that I don't care because I like the way I look. I like my red lipstick. Not because I want attention. Not because I wanna look like Taylor Swift. Not because I'm seeking your approval. I wear red lipstick because I think I look badass in it and it gives me confidence.

Do what makes you confident.

Another woman's beauty doesn't devalue your own. Honestly, we should appreciate each other's beauty. I think Audrey Hepburn is the classiest, most radiant lady to ever grace planet earth. Do I want to BE her? (Well,…I mean…if I'm being honest-sometimes). But at the end of the day, I want to look like Emily Krull.

YOU GUYS, we should compliment each other more. Tell your best friend her eyes look really cool with the headband she's wearing. Tell your mom she looks hot today. Tell your Starbucks barista you like her eyeshadow. Tell the H&M cashier you like her blouse. Tell a random girl on your morning commute that her boots are cool. We need to encourage each other. Build each other up. Because the constant comparison is ripping us apart. And little do you know-it's ripping you apart.

Don't insult the way another person looks. If someone's being a douche, call them out. There's far too many douchebags in the world. But don't ever insult the way another person puts themselves together. Because guess what? It actually kills.

Kylie Jenner got a lot of crap for the rumor as to whether or not she got lip injections and she doesn't really seem to care. If she did or if she didn't, she likes the way she looks. Let her feel confident. That's awesome she feels good about herself.

I guess all I'm trying to say is, don't let another woman's beauty belittle how you look at yourself in the mirror. Encourage others. Because when you compliment another woman, you'll slowly but surely start to believe that compliment about yourself, as well. You're awesome. I love when you just be you. You badass, you.

*Delete*

Isn't it funny to think that being deleted from someone's friends list is considered insulting? The average person has about 500 friends on their list (I don't know, that's a guestimation) when 200 years ago, the average person didn't even meet 500 people in their lifetime (okay, another possible inaccurate guestimation). And if we get deleted from someone's friends list, we begin to question everything we've done to that person that would give them reason to delete us. We analyze the past month of conversations and wonder where we went wrong. (Oh, not everyone does that? Only me? Oh well. You can stop reading now then, cause I'm just silly).

Sometimes people need to be cut out of your life, though. It sucks. It's tear-jerking. And it all around makes your internal organs unhappy. It sounds cliche to say that people will always be coming and going through your life, but it's true. Some people just quietly fade in for a season and then quietly fade back out when the season is over. Other times it's abrupt jump into your life and then a crazy sprint out. (In case you didn't know, the second one is usually the harder one).

Like I said, it sucks. And even though it really makes our hearts super duper sad, the reality of it is, is that we're taken from strength to strength if we truly believe it. 

I usually have a pretty optimistic viewpoint on life, but sometimes that glass half full mentality is annoying. You know, those days where you just want to sit and be mad for a little while, we all have them, but we gotta suck it up, guys. The glass is half full whether we like it or not. 

That old season that you loved so dearly and held so close? It's time to be like Elsa and let it go. I KNOW. IT SUCKS. But this new season will be so much better than we can imagine. The transition between these two seasons can really be a pill and a half, but we gotta keep tugging on.

 It's like waiting for the next book in your favorite book series to come out. You REALLY loved book 4 of Whilly the Walrus and you're sad it's over. You may even go back and re-read some of your favorite parts, but it's not the same as the first time you read it. But Whilly the Walrus book 5 doesn't come out for 2 more months. What do you do until then? Keep yourself busy with things you need to work out and work on and next thing you know, it's time to go to Borders (which I know is currently out of business, but Whilly the Walrus isn't real, this is just a fantasy). 

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that that heartbreak that makes you want to stay in bed and eat ice cream is only going to lead to something better (IF YOU LET IT-but that's a different post for a different day). 

I apologize (as I seem to always do) if this post seemed scatter brained, but that's kinda who I am sometimes. 

Just remember you're not alone. And you're loved. 

Silly Emily, You're Not God.

I was texting a very near and dear friend (you know who you are) asking them about their day. They were being very short and quiet (yes, you can be quiet via text message) and I asked if everything was okay. The reply began with "Em, I'm gonna be honest…" which you know means you probably messed up.

My very very important friend proceeded to tell me that they had been distant from me because they always bend over backwards for me and I don't reciprocate. In fact, I got mad being told no when I wanted to hear a yes or yes when I wanted to hear a no. I'm stubborn. I want my way too much.

One of my little cousins (who was actually VERY little when he said this) once said, "'Fair' is when I get exactly my way," (that's probably not word-for-word, but you get it). I like fair. Everyone likes fair. We all would like life to be fair. But life's not supposed to be fair.

When my friend told me that, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm not one to defend myself easily unless it's someone I'm close with. If someone I don't know that well told me something I didn't like about myself, I'd just be all "Okay, thanks!" But if you're close with me, I will fight you and defend myself until you give up (9 times out of 10 though I realize that that was dumb and I go back and apologize).

But this time was different, as soon as I read that I realized how right they were. I do expect my way. I began to apologize to my friend and suddenly I began to rant about how I needed to not expect my way in several aspects of my life. I'm not God.

As I was ranting to my friend about how stubborn of a person I actually am, I realized that I was doing that with God. Several times in my life God has told me things I felt-I like to call them-absolute. I had felt like God told me some "absolutes" (but at the end of the day, it's God's plan, not mine, I shouldn't call them that anymore) and I was just kinda waiting around for them to happen. I liked the sound of the "absolutes" so I just kinda expected God to just make it happen.

It was like I was playing God and God was my butler who got me what I wanted. Which is ridiculous. And flat-out silly.

The other day I lost it in the middle of work because I felt like I was going nowhere in my life and I had no idea what I was doing. But what was I doing the past six months? Waiting for God to make what I want happen. But God's not this genie that we just ask for what we want and we get it. Nope nope.

I left work early that day and cried my eyes out-angry at God for not giving me what I wanted (people say that my two-year old cousin and I are kindred spirits-I guess we're really not that different after all-I throw tantrums about my way too). I called my mom and she told me that I can't just sit around waiting for God to just give me all the answers. That in the mean time I need to pursue something and He will reveal himself in time-like he always does.

After further pursuing the things that my mom recommended to me, within a week I had interviewed for an elevated position at work (which rumor has it I'm probably going to get) and got an email about a director being interested in me for a commercial. While I don't know if I got the job or the commercial yet, at least I'm finally pursuing something. I'm not sitting at home watching Netflix (as much) and watching the clock on my phone pass me by.

I'm not God. I don't get my way. And I can't wait around for God to GIVE me my way. Because He has so much more in store.

A House is Not a Home-Unconditional Love.

I spent the past two weeks in my home state, South Carolina. Going back is always just what I needed. And my trips never seem to last as long as I'd like them to. New York City never really felt like HOME to me.

Before going back to SC I was so incredibly excited to finally go back, I told everyone "I'm going home in a couple of days!"

But this time everything just felt different. I had the brutal (and one would think obvious) realization that my friend's and family's lives didn't stop while I was gone. The changes I felt weren't major but they were enough to make me feel kind of queazy.

One night I sat on my bed and cried my eyes out because I felt like I didn't have a home anymore. NYC never felt like home. My SC bedroom didn't feel like my bedroom anymore. I won't hyperbolize the situation and say that I was "homeless" but my heart was really hurting.

I hate crying because when I cry, my heart starts to physically hurt and the chest pain becomes so great that I start to cry over that on top of the heartbreak cry. This cry was rough. I cried out to God, "Why did you send me to NYC? I don't even want to do what I originally went there to do, so can't I just start over somewhere else? Why can't I stay here with my family and live life with them?"

I was so heartbroken that I called my best friend to talk to them. As soon as they said "Hello?" I couldn't find my words because I was so out of breath from crying. "Just breathe, take your time. I'll stay on the phone until you're ready to talk". And they just listened. "Breathe." they reminded me (sometimes I accidentally hold my breath and I don't realize it until I let out a huge breath, it's bad).

When I finally caught my breath and had the ability to speak, I told my best friend just exactly what I was feeling. They tried to convince me that because I was surrounded by people that loved me, I was home. "It's not the same," I kept repeating, "It's not the same".

Finally they said to me, "Emily, you have Jesus in your heart. You have a Father up above who loves you so much more than I ever could. Home is where the heart is, and if your heart is focused on Jesus, you're always home. Paris, NYC, Australia, SC, you're always home because Jesus has you."

I'd been struggling with calling NYC my "home" for two years (which is actually how long I've lived there). I always referred to it as home just because it was too much effort to say "the place where I'm currently living".

When I first moved to NYC, the song "Home" by Phillip Phillips played as I drove into the city (which I'm fairly certain I've blogged about before). The lyric that always stood out to me was "Just know you're not alone, cause I'm gonna make this place your home," and I always heard it as the Lord telling me that NYC was going to be my new home. But it's not what it was, it was my Jesus telling me that "Home is where I am, and I am always with you."

I felt so incredibly loved when my best friend told me that. Loved by my Father. An unconditional love.

This is why I'm a Christian. Not because I want to follow a rule book. Not because I think I'm better than others. Not because I like my church. Not because I like the music. I'm a Christian because I get to know an unconditional love. I get to have moments a few nights ago in my bedroom where I'm reminded that I'm never alone (I don't know why I need a reminding, but I never get scolded for needing it).

Proverbs 16:9 says "In their hearts humans, plan their course but the Lord establishes their steps." I think that's why it's called "WALKING" with the Lord. It's like learning to waltz with Jesus. You make the decision to learn, He takes you in His arms, He teaches you and guides you until you learn the proper steps; but instead of letting you go on your own, He still holds on.

Sometimes I think that I can dance on my own and to my own beat, but I'm reminded who the perfect dance partner is. Sometimes He moves me in a direction that doesn't make sense to me, but it always ends up becoming a beautiful piece of the dance.

Dancing with Jesus is my home.

I hope this post was a little less scatter-brained than some of my previous posts, but I post these for me.