Somewhere beautiful.

I had this thought today: I was never one of the popular or envied or pretty girls in high school. In every class, there is this set of girls, anywhere in between five and nine of them, and they really seem to have it all. The same girls who are dating the same guys they dated 3 years later. The same girls who you often go and try to see pictures of them on facebook hoping they've gained weight or in some way look worse than you do.

Its crazy, really.

Back to my thought though, I was never one of these girls. I fact, these girls silently made my high school experience ridiculously frustrating. Because I understand this mindset. Noticing that everyone thinks you have and are everything, and living in fear that people are going to find out that you really don't have it all together. And if or when they do find this out, you won't become human to them, you will become imperfect. You become discredited, and you no longer hold worth to them.

So, I kept thinking about this. I honestly have no clue where it came from, but the thought progressed into the realization that even thought I was never one of "those girls" I find myself stuck in this idea of not wanting people to see me weak or broken or like I don't have it all together.

I'm so worried about this, that I untag or delete any picture of myself on facebook that shows a sign of imperfection, or weight gained. I wear cardigans when its hundreds of degrees outside so that I won't be distracted by how much I hate my arms, and neither will anyone else. I listen to my iPod as loud as I can when I run because I hate hearing my own breathing, struggling to catch it. I don't like working out with people because I don't want them to see my physical weakness, and I rarely cry in front of people, because I don't want them to see me crying.

As much as I share my past and my heart, and I do...a lot...I don't really dive deep into my life now. I'll gladly share something I've been through and how I got through it, but I don't like to share the implications it has on my life now.

I feel that I've been through and felt a lot internally and sometimes I feel like because these things were so long ago, they aren't allowed to affect my spirit today...which is just not true.

They do.

I guess all of this to write or say that I'm a wreck, I'm a mess, and it amazes me that in the midst of that God still wants to use me.

Its about 1pm here in Tartu, Estonia and in about an hour or so, I will get in a taxi to the Tartu bus station to take a bus to Tallinn for the night and head back to Atlanta tomorrow morning.

Sitting here in the kitchen of the house I've been living in all summer, I'm trying to gather in my mind all that I've learned and all that I want to take back with me, and this is it: that I can be vulnerable and bold as hell in my relationships. That I wouldn't be afraid to share my past yes, but also my present, because its just as real. We can't hold onto the past, its the past, it doesn't exist anymore. We are where we are when we are there.

Think about it.

I am where I am when I'm there. And thats that. And that is my heart: to share my present and be in the presence of our God all of my days.

That is somewhere beautiful to me.