Growing up

One day you are in elementary and middle school playing with legos, watching kid movies, waking up early to watch cartoons, and thinking the toy isle of the Walmart is all you need. The next day you are in high school where all that matters is appearance, clothes, girls, and instead of hanging out with friends playing outside or letting your imagination run wild you find yourself at some party in a run down apartment or in your bed wondering what you did last night. I think it is important to keep in mind that even when you are struggling and it feels like you are going to be stuck there forever, at some point it will pass, even the good times you had where everything seemed to be perfect will pass.  Several months ago the world seemed as if it was crashing down on me. As I began my senior year the previous years of high school had began to wear me down. The draw of popularity and having "cool friends", girlfriends and acceptance had already put a lot of pressure on me. I craved to feel loved and accepted. Sadly my view of myself and of others had been twisted by hurtful words and painful experiences that I could not see that what I had was beautiful. I have a family that will drop anything they are doing to help and will take any amount of time to make my birthday special or to make me feel loved. My senior year I fell very far and very fast to a place of shame and regret. I didn't talk, I alienated myself from others as a punishment for all the wrong I had done and all the hurt I had caused the people around me. I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I didn't mean to ruin relationships. I was misguided and desperate to fill the emptiness inside of me, although that was no justification for the things I did or put my family through. I didn't think I was going to graduate and I wondered if all this weight and pain would ever be lifted. In May I graduated leaving high school behind. As I write this I am sitting in an almost empty auditorium in Durango Colorado. I feel more myself than I have felt in a long time. I feel more purpose than I have ever and taking a gap year like I am feels right. In fact in my heart I know it is right. We are in the first of 2 separate orientation weeks that cover the information for the next 8 months. I am part of a program called Kivu and over the course of 8 months I will be living in Denver for 4 months interning at a school with elementary school kids, and in the last four months will be in haiti, Rwanda, Jordan, and the Philippines. I share this with you to give you a taste of where I came from and that every bit of hardship and painful experience has moved me in the direction I am going. I have so much hope for the future. I have enormous hope for this year alone. I have to thank my friends and family for all of their support. I am so excited to be a part of such a wonderful team. I am excited for my internship and to get to know and love the people in Denver. There is so much brokenness and hurt in this world yet there is beauty and redemption in all of it. This year I get the opportunity to experience it all. I get the chance to come alongside the homeless, destitute and those from other cultures and be with them not as someone who is there to change them but as there friend and as their equal. We are no different than anyone else and this year I get to share my heart with many diverse people. Here is to an amazing year full of great people and life changing experiences. I have faith that God will use me in the way he intended me for and that is one of the most exciting adventures of all.

The whole team