Return!

Since it's a new year, I decided it was time for me to return to blogging. And since it's a new year, I also decided it was a good time to do some reflecting on last year and give myself a new direction for my blog.

I set off last year to embrace being single and celebrate myself. While some of it was fun, most of it didn't quite go how I was expecting. My plan was that doing all sorts of fun things would make me excited to be single even though most of my friends are married. It kind of backfired...a little...and I spent a lot of time being pretty sad about it. And a lot of time being convicted over my pride and selfishness.

I just finished reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third book in C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series. (I saw the movie too--totally not as good as the book...but is anyone surprised by that? Not really.) There's a part in the book when one of the characters, Eustace, gets turned into a dragon. Eventually he turns back into a boy, and he tells Edmund the story of how he got un-dragoned. Basically, Aslan comes and gets him one night, and they walk away from where everyone else is asleep. Eustace tries a few times to take off his dragon skin, but every time he tries, it grows back. After the failed attempts, Aslan tells Edmund that he's going to have to take off the skin for him. Here's the passage where Aslan takes it off for him:

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off....Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off--just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt--and there it was, lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been."

I feel like that describes last year for me. I tried and tried to make myself ok with being single. But every time I tried, it, like Eustace's dragon skin, just came back. No matter what I did to convince myself I was fine, I couldn't do it. And finally, late in the spring, God brought me to the place where He told me that He had to do it for me. I had to admit to Him that I was sad. I had to admit that my life hadn't ended up the way I thought it would and that I was upset and angry about it. I had to let Him change my heart into a heart that delighted in Him and trusted Him with every part of my life. And when I did, He took my dragon skin off and it stayed off. It hurt. A lot. And it went deeper than I thought. But it was worth it because I knew that God was turning me into the girl I was supposed to be. He was setting me free.

So now, when I say that I'm ok being single, I can say it and mean it. Because it's true. Like Eustace, I'm sure I'll have some relapses, but "the cure has begun."

So in that spirit, I've given myself a new focus for the year. Last year was about loving myself....this year is about loving God. Last year was about being single. This year is about having a relationship with Him. Last year was about serving myself. This year is about how God wants to use me in this season of my life to serve Him and to serve others. I think it's going to be better than last year.