Identity

Your identity is who you are.

Sometimes people base identity on what you say about yourself, sometimes on what others say about you or labels that are attached to you because of things that have happened, people you hang out with, or your interests. 

We tend to find our identity in temporary things: families, friends, hobbies, likes, dislikes, possessions, successes, failures, appearance and many others. 

However, if we believe that Jesus died to provide forgiveness for our sins and we accept that as a free gift and want to live our lives for God, our identity should be found in the permanent things. In God, and the things he's promised. 

Knowing and believing our true identities can be so hard though! It's so much easier to believe the things that we're surrounded by. 

How can we know what our identity is? Read the Bible. Find out what God says about who you are. I've started making a list of verses that help me remember who I am in Christ. You can see it here-  

Which leads me into the next part. You can know every right answer, but how do you believe it? That's the hard part because it requires application and change. Some of our identity in Christ is there no matter what, like being loved and precious to God, but other parts we have to believe in order to fully reap the benefits. Like being forgiven. God forgives us, but until we're able to stop beating ourselves up and forgive us too. We have to accept that we're forgiven and move on. We have to get rid of the lies and most importantly, replace them with the truth. Read your Bible and find what God says about who you are, and when you feel the lies creeping in, read those verses to fight back against the lies. 

What exactly should we look like as someone that's in Christ? Proverbs 31 and 1 Peter 3:3-4 are good examples of what a Christian woman should look like from the outside. As God changes us on the inside, and the things we believe about ourselves change, our outside actions will change. Just be careful that you aren't only changing the outside though (Isaiah 57:12). That just leads to more problems in the end because what you're doing looks good, but you aren't actually changing. 

Just remember that God made you uniquely who you are. No one has the same identity as you and that's the way it should be!

Embrace what makes you you! 

~Moriah

Isaiah 41:13

More Love Letters

If you ask me what I've been up to lately, I'll probably answer that I've been busy with work and homework, and then proceed to babble about an organization that I recently heard of.

The organization is More Love Letters and I couldn't possibly be more excited about being involved with an organization!

More Love Letters was started by Hannah Brencher in her search for God, an end to loneliness, and her purpose.  By leaving love letters around New York City, she started a journey that couldn't be reversed.  Hannah agreed to write a love letter to anyone asking her for one and she stuck to her promise- even when it multiplied.

Now there is an organization to make sure that the art of love letters doesn't die.  To send encouragement to those who are hurting.  And to remind us that we aren't the center of the universe.

I am PSYCHED to be starting a Campus Cursive branch at Grace College this fall and can't get enough of encouraging others to write love letters.

Hannah published a book earlier this year, and I can't stop reading it for long enough to write this post......  It's great!  One thing that Hannah mentions in her book is that we are the generation that hasn't known ourselves loved on a page.  We didn't grow up receiving love letters from our crushes and secret admirers, but rather we received texts or IMs or a Facebook message.

There is just something that seems so beautiful and special about receiving a piece of paper that has come alive because of someone's scrawling handwriting.  Because they took 15 minutes out of their day, you are now holding a piece of their love.

And so I want to challenge you to write a love letter.  Maybe send it to someone that you know that needs some love, maybe leave it for a stranger.  Just share your heart, and what encouraging things you would want to hear.

I'd be willing to bet that writing the letter will help you too.

Explosions

For anyone who didn't know, I'm spending my summer as a custodial worker on my college campus. That gives me 40 hours of work for my hands, but maybe not so much for my mind.  While working, I have plenty of time for thinking, and this week I've decided that I want to break my unintentional writing hiatus.

My blog, journaling, letters, and writing poetry are all ways that I express myself, and even learn what I am feeling.  Because of how deeply writing is ingrained in me, it feels so natural to write.  I can't imagine not being able to pull out one of my favorite pens, smooth out a page of paper, and how I feel carry away my pen.

However, for the past couple of months I've felt like this quote fit perfectly.

"I wanted to write down
exactly what I felt
but somehow
the paper stayed empty

and I could not have
described it any better"
-wtm


I think I'm ready to resume writing.  If I don't go back to writing, my thoughts may explode.

So if your heart desires to read some of my heart, check into this blog every so often.

My thoughts are swirling and my fingers are typing faster than I can keep up with them.

Goodbyes

Goodbyes are the worst.

No matter how long you've known the person, and how strong the relationship is, goodbyes are always hard.

Goodbyes are especially hard when you're a young adult.  Early adulthood is when there are a ton of changes.  You graduate high school, go to college (locally or far away), start a career, make new friends, date- you know how it goes.  Since everyone is going through so many changes at the same time it can be difficult to know if those relationships will continue, or if they'll fade away as time goes on.

Tears flow as the grief squeezes your heart, and everything that is in you, sucking the air out of your lungs and leaving plenty of room for the ache that remains.

And you unfortunately cannot feign the 'see ya later, this isn't goodbye', because you know that this probably is your final goodbye to some of the people that you have had in your life.

But don't give up on relationships too quickly.  There is still good in them, even when some end in painful goodbyes.

The more painful the goodbye, the more you probably got out of the relationship.

Even though goodbyes are the worst, they also mark new hellos.  So be open for those hellos, and be ready to greet them with a smile.

Dry Seasons

Do you ever have periods in your life where it feels like everything around you is dying and that death is hurting you too?

Time is flying by for everything around you.  The passing time is working it's inevitable results, and your surroundings are fading away. 

The death that surrounds you seems to be sucking the life out of you as well.  No matter how hard you struggle to get your head above the water, it pulls you under once again.  You start to take in water, the cold liquid rushes in your mouth and causes you to sputter.  The added weight only makes you sink more.

You start to wonder, "Is there even hope in this situation?  Will I ever get out? Will I die here?"

And it is hard to remember that there is hope.

But please, please hang in there.

You are loved and things will get better.

God promises better days (Romans 8:28).

The rain will come, and you will be refreshed.

Hang on.

Running Home

When I decided to move two states away from my family for college I didn't think it was that big of a deal.  Eight hours can be driven in a day.  We've driven further than that before, it will be fine.  I spent six weeks away from home one summer.  I don't get homesick.

All of these things I told myself to make the transition seem smoother as I moved on to this new stage of life.

But then there were the days that it was the birthday of a sibling, and I was in another state, or even another country.
And I cried.  Because I was far away and it hurt to see the pictures of everyone together except for me.

And I saw my baby sister and she clung to my family because she didn't know me.

And the people around me went home to their families on the weekends and talked about their comfortable beds, and their goofy families.

And similar instances occurred and I've been reminded the importance of a home base.

Because whenever things get tough, everyone needs a home base.  It could be a physical place, or maybe just a group of people that you know and can rely on.

No one can live life alone. People need other people.

Find your home base.

GO HOME when you need to.

Ask for help.

Don't try to live life alone.