gethsemane and growing up.

hi. these thoughts are a little jumbled…so just bear with me.

first the gethsemane part:

I hope I never take for granted the fact that I can walk 15 minutes after church to the garden of gethsemane. I mean come on…please.

gethsemane is beautiful, and the church of all nations is beautiful too. in the garden we saw the little olive tree the pope planted while he was here visiting the other week…which I thought was rad. I loved the big olive trees there too. I love their twisted trunks. I feel like they are a little symbolic of His atonement, of the suffering that He experienced in that garden. one of a million symbolic things about those trees. I love living in a place filled with worship. people from all over the world who are desperately in love with God. it’s humbling and faith building to witness.

we sat in the church of all nations (right by gethsemane) for a while. it was quiet, and dark, with beautiful purple stained glass windows on either side. I let myself be quiet, and I felt the spirit. I was looking up at a picture of Christ, and just felt a little overwhelmed by his love. I felt so thankful to be where he once was, but more importantly to have the opportunity to be with him now, in my own heart.

now the growing up shpeel I had while @ the church of all nations: 

I had some random thoughts about growing up while I was sitting in that church. about some experiences I’ve had in the last year that have been really hard but have helped me grow, a lot.

I had a hard break up in January, and let me just say moving on is hard. really really hard. I’ve only done it once in my little short life—and it hurts my heart to know that people go through that multiple times. the only comfort that I can see in it is that it is totally and completely worth every ache…eventually. 

I’ve been working on mine—for 6 months now. (wow…I can’t believe it’s been 6 months) for a while I couldn’t see how I could ever move on. it’s been 6 months of ups and downs. 6 months of lots of shallow dates and disappointments. but the more time that goes by, the more wisdom I see in why things happen they way that they do. retrospect is my jam. seriously.

I’ll admit. my break up was a huge reason I fled to Jerusalem, among others. this past year has been a hard one for me and my family. it felt like we just kept getting hit with wave after wave of hard things. a flooded house//a hard year in school//a dying dog (kk don’t judge-this was made us cry way more than we anticipated)//a busy tax season//an emergency scoliosis surgery for our favorite climber//a heart condition//and my break up (that sounds super shallow compared to the rest of the things of the list #oops). the point is, I was emotionally exhausted. and Jerusalem was going to be my little break from everything.

I felt like I was going to gain some clarity while in Jerusalem. and I have. before walking to gethsemane, I was reading through my journal, and I skipped across an entry from last summer. I was writing about the night I think I fell in love with that boy I’m still getting over—it was up at my cabin. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. I had written a list things I loved about him. I couldn’t imagine me wanting anything else from a relationship—but reading that list now, I’m not sure. everything on that list was good, really good. but they weren’t the lasting kind of things that I feel like I need in my future partner in crime. I’m not saying this boy doesn’t have those things too, just we didn’t have them at the time.

I’ve been observing some qualities in other people that I really admire. people’s humility before the lord, their awareness of others, their strength, their faith...characteristics that I was kind of missing in my vision of what I was looking for. the biggest one though, probably being a person’s ability to love. not that these people love me, but I can tell that they will be crazy about whoever they choose to love. in addition to retrospect—words of affirmation are also my jam. I never knew if this boy was crazy about me the way I was crazy about him. and let me tell you—love needs to be a two way crazy street.

I guess what I’m getting at is that I’ve learned a lot from this break up. a lot about me//him//god//and others. I don’t know if we will ever get back together, but I do know that I’ll always be thankful that I’ve had this time to learn a lot about a lot of things. I know that my little peek of understanding I had when reading my journal helped the process of moving on along. I know that I wouldn’t be creating friendships and experiencing incredible things in Jerusalem like I am now. I know I wouldn’t appreciate and understand what I really want in my relationships like I do now. I know my testimony in HIS understanding and wisdom has grown because of it.

I heard a quote a few Sunday’s ago that said, “when you have faith in God, it doesn’t matter what you don’t understand”. amen. amen. amen. I know this is true with every fiber of my being. I know that when you align your purposes with God’s purposes…well God doesn’t let his purposes fail (just like the story of david and goliath). so I’m trying to have a little faith in all the “not understanding” that comes from being a single 20 year old girl. and it’s getting better—with time and with trust.