Color Outside the Lines (A Look Back at 2014)

2014 was quite the year.

When I recently Google searched "2014 in review" (and recalled a few on my own), these were just a few of the highlights I found brought to you by 2014:
It was the year Taylor Swift left Nashville and country music to move to NYC and pop music (good move, TSwift, good move).
It was the year Barbara Walters retired.
It was the year Meghan Trainor and Ariana Grande performed on the CMA Awards.
It was the year a new generation was introduced to Cory and Topanga Matthews with the premiere of Girl Meets World.
It was the year Republicans gained control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in Congress.
It was the year more people watched the World Cup than any other sporting event throughout the year.

All of these things have one thing in common - change. They're different than what went before them or from simply how things were before.

Change is not something in which I can enthusiastically say I'm a fan. Truth be told, and more often than I would like to admit, I'm one of the biggest fans of constant and everything-being-in-it's-place-and-not-moving you could probably ever meet. 2014 was a hard year in that it brought along a lot of changes in my personal life, too. Changes that I loved. Changes that I couldn't avoid no matter how hard I tried. Changes that ended up molding me into the person I am now and are parts of my journey I now would regret not ever experiencing.

My 2014, in review:
It was the year I applied for an internship that would disturb my picture perfect college experience I had planned since senior year of high school (I LOVE that it did too!).
It was the year I would be a part of co-leading a group of wonderful 9th grade girls at a D-Now weekend.
It was the year I would attend church camp as a chaperone.
It was the year I would live in Tennessee for a semester with people I barely knew.
It was the year I would travel to 5 states I had never visited with the best group of friends I had just met a month and a half before.
It was the year I would learn to be less picky of an eater and try so many new foods (and yes, I actually liked some of them).
It was the year I learned that it is possible to do school online, even while traveling across the country and my laptop crashing the week before a research paper was due.
It was the year I made one of the biggest decisions of my 20 year old life-to go back and intern with the same organization for the spring semester of my junior year, meaning my entire junior year of college would be spent online, away from campus.
It was the year I spent less time on my own college campus with my friends and more time on dozens of college campuses across the south making new friends.
It was the year I spent 2 holidays away from family for the first time ever.
It was the year I had to unexpectedly say goodbye to a dear friend.
It was a year of change.

Growing up, I was that kid that would throw away a picture I was coloring if I colored outside the lines. The mere thought of coloring outside the lines was not only foreign, but terrified me. How could something you spend so much time on not be perfect? To me, that couldn't happen. It was a change that wasn't necessary. It was a change I could prevent from happening.

Funny thing about 2014 is that God taught me to not only accept the idea of coloring outside the lines, but to embrace it. And do it.

Change is sometimes inevitable, just like how we sometimes get a little crazy with the Crayola and go just a tad bit outside the lines of our coloring book. Pre-2014 me would have FLIPPED. OUT. Post-2014 me would still flip out a little bit. But post-2014 me would also be okay with ripping that page out of the book when it's done and proudly hanging it up on the refrigerator. There have been so many days in the past month that I've been back at work and I've come home with pictures my kiddos have colored for me, and nearly every one of them have color outside the lines. And you know what? They're the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen. They're perfect (and definitely refrigerator worthy) in every way, despite the crayon going outside the line.

I never saw any of this coming this time last year, looking ahead at what 2014 may bring, but God knew exactly what He was up to with me in 2014. He knew this year would be one of change, a year of coloring outside the lines, and lots of it. And ya know, I'm thankful it was.

Some of the changes that came into my life, I'm still not a fan of, like having to say goodbye to my friend and her dad who passed away in a tragic car accident or not being able to spend as much time with my friends on campus. But because of those changes, I was able to see just how much those people mean to me and how God connected all of our paths and how He is in every single part of our relationships. Those pictures may be messy at first glance, but take a second look or look from afar, and they're beautiful masterpieces.

Some of the changes, I couldn't be more of a fan of, like visiting 5 states I've never been to before with an amazing group of people or returning to intern for an organization and cause that have captured my heart and helped me to find what God has called me to for the rest of my life. Those pictures can catch your eye from a mile away.

In the midst of all of this coloring, I've learned what it means to really trust the Lord. Not to just say that I trust Him, but to actually believe it. To actually believe that this mess of a picture I've colored for my life may be beautiful in my eyes, but without Him and His help, it's a mess. I can plan and have this 'perfect' plan in mind for how things will go or what my life will look like, but that means I'm trusting in myself more than I am trusting in Him. When that happens, I create a mess of a picture with coloring outside the lines everywhere, while God creates a masterpiece with His perfect plan. It may come with change from my original plans, but it is oh so much better and looks much more beautiful than I could ever imagine.

"The Lord says, 'My thoughts are not like your thoughts. Your ways are not like my ways. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.'" -Isaiah 55:8-9 NCV

I've begun to embrace coloring outside the lines, and doing it, throughout 2014, but I know God is going to continue teaching me to embrace it and to actually do it throughout the new year. I still cringe a little when I color outside the lines while coloring with my kiddos at work, but there's a beauty in that that can't be found anywhere else. Here's to discovering more and coloring outside the lines with God in 2015 while still embracing it in these last couple days of 2014!

Easter 2014 was spent at Flagler Beach/St. Augustine with my Phi Alpha Theta friends from CU!
A huge change from my normal Easter with my family, but a fun one for sure!

Less time on campus means less time with my friends, including these two.
While I hate not being around as much, I love surprising them and spending time with them
when I can, making those times MUCH sweeter!

Just two of the many new foods I've tried this year: rabbit and waffles. The verdict?
Rabbit, I can handle. The watermelon waffles, not so much. Makes for a pretty picture though!

I still ask God "Why?" a lot when I think about this sweet friend. While I only knew Ari for a few months, her friendship is something I'll always cherish. She passed away suddenly a couple weeks ago, and while this is a change I'm still not a fan of, and the picture seems to have a lot of coloring outside the lines, I rest and find peace in knowing 1. that she's rejoicing with Him in Heaven and 2. that this picture does look beautiful, just maybe from afar at the moment.

The Great Adventure!

Guys, I'll be honest. I've started, edited, deleted, and repeated that cycle with this blog post multiple times in the past couple of weeks. I've been wanting to really process everything that happened during my internship and try to write it out now that it's over, but that has been something I've been working on, and will be working on, for awhile.

You see, I was trying to hurry up and close that season of my life for good so that I could look ahead to the next season God has for me, the next promise that I know is coming. Truth is, that season is over. Red Bus Project fall 2014 is in the books.

On most levels.

The season of my life that is Red Bus Project fall 2014 may be closed in most ways, but it's still open in the sense that there is still SO much that I have yet to learn. Little by little, day by day, I look back and remember things that I hadn't remembered before. Each of those moments are full of new knowledge and perspective - they're teaching me about who God is, about who I was and have become, but how constant and there God was the entire time. Those moments, I pray, will continue to occur for days, months, and years to come.

While I'm so excited about continuing to learn from this experience, I still have mixed emotions.

Honestly, there's a part of me that wishes that my fall internship never had to end, that tour didn't have to end, that my intern family didn't have to part ways and each of us go back to our families so we're all states away from each other now. That part of me was miserable while I was in the same town where my internship took place today because I was there and they weren't, and this part of me focused on that SO much.

Meanwhile, there's another part of me that wishes I never had to leave my friends at school either, because going from doing life with them 8 months out of the year to seeing them 2-3 times for just a day or two at a time in a semester has been rough. That part of me wishes I could combine my internship, my school, and my home all into one.

There's another part of me that is so excited to return in the spring to intern again that it's kind of ridiculous. Okay, it's a lot ridiculous. But I'm really trying to tone it down, promise.

That's where the little bitty other part of me is. This other part of me has been learning since my fall internship ended that there is a time for everything, which means, there's plenty of time to continue learning from past experiences while recognizing that they're over, looking forward to what's to come with excitement, but also learning to be content with where God has me right now.

"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me." -Philippians 4:11-13 ESV

Even though I'm not specifically facing the same scenarios as Paul, I am in my own sense. While my circumstances are different, I still have the opportunity to learn to be content.

I'm not in TN or Campbellsville for a little while. BUT, I do have a couple of months at home to spend with my family, my church family, and my fellow staffers and kids at the Y, and I get to spend these months pouring into the kids at work and into my family!

I'm not around my CU or Franklin friends as much. BUT, I do have the ability to talk to them as often as we can and to even go see them while also reconnecting with friends here at home.

At the same time, this time I have in between seasons of ministry is a time for me to step back and refocus on Christ. I think it's so ironic, but really it's God's crazy-amazing sense of timing, that I have this time to refocus during this season of advent, leading up to Christmas. There's no better time than now to step back and refocus on Christ, to rediscover the joy, the mercies, and the love that He brings.

So every day for the next 55 days, until I go back to TN for the spring, is a chance for me to choose. Will I choose to continue learning how to be content and fall more in love with God and how He plans everything for our (my) good or will I choose to struggle and lose to my humanness and focus on all of my crazy/all over the place emotions?

Charles Spurgeon says it best when he says, "Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there."

There's no other place I need to be right now than where I am.

So I will be content.
I will refocus.
I will wait, patiently.

Here's to the close of one chapter and the excitement of a new one being written, all while waiting in the footnotes of the previous chapter. Because I'm still learning from this past chapter, but I'm not quite ready or able to start the writing of this new chapter.

Some say this waiting game is hard, and it is, but most importantly, it's another part of the Great Adventure! (Hooray for ending with a SCC pun!)

     Love love love these girls! Can I get a Roll Tide? #rollRBP

One of my most favorite pictures all internship!

One last Red Bus on 3!

There are no words! I just love these guys!
I can't wait to see our family grow in the spring with our new interns!