"Let the ruins come to life..."

I finally got a chance to listen to the whole Hillsong Glorious Ruins album (delayed I know!) , and as always they did not disappoint! The title track of the album, also called Glorious Ruins seems to have however stuck out the most for me. I feel as if it adequately describes the place I feel I have been in recently; a place of brokenness, where so much of what I knew fell apart around me and where many of those I counted on disappointed me. Basically, a place of ruins.

As my main goal in this life is to follow in the footsteps of Christ, I have realised I need to take a cue from 2 Timothy 2:3 and "..endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." And that realisation has brought me to the journey I am on now, one of rebuilding and starting afresh in most areas of my life. Yet please don't get me wrong, I am not a ninja warrior who just took everything in stride! It took a while for me to get to this realisation. For months I sat in the rubble of the life I had become accustomed to and cried for " the way things used to be." As silly as it sounds I even hoped that things would just surprise me by "fixing themselves" but they didn't. It took a while before the fog cleared and I realised that things were never going to be the same again, and that this was possibly one of the best things to happen to me. When I stopped staring into the past and focused on God, it began to dawn on me that the past really wasn't as great as I allowed myself to believe. I had gotten comfortable in sin; in a relationship where we pulled each other away from God as opposed to closer to Him and in friendships where we promoted the worst and not the best in each other. I had left the path that God predestined me to walk in and was well on a journey that was fast leading to my destruction. So God came and ripped me away from all of it. He took a wrecking ball to the life of sin I had started to enjoy living in, and it hurt like mad, it still kinda does. But now I understand that He had to save me from myself. That's how much God loves us, He is prepared to hurt us for our good. He is not afraid to give us some tough love, because sometimes the greatest threat to our destiny is ourselves.

Sometimes God will reduce some things in your life to rubble so you can start again right

So now that I understand why basically everything I loved had to be reduced to ruins, I can start again. I can begin again and lay the foundations of my life with God at the centre. I can consult Him in this life I am trying to build, in the dreams I want to accomplish and the desires that are rooted so deep in my heart. And that is why the song Glorious Ruins speaks so profoundly to me. Because I know with God, out of these ruins will come forth something I believe will be amazing, and out of these ashes God will bring forth beauty. So to anyone out there who may feel like everything is falling apart, you are not alone. My encouragement to you and to myself is to let God be God. If He lets your house be reduced to rubble, He has a better one in store. His plans are always greater than ours, and His ways higher than ours. So let's cling to Him in faith, believing that He will bring the ruins of our lives back to life.

" Enter through the narrow gate..."

Matthew 7:13-14

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

I have been contemplating starting a blog for more than a year now, and I will admit that the number one reason I have not done so until now is FEAR. Fear that no one would read it, fear that people wouldn't like what I have to say but most of all, the fear of exposing myself. I have feared that people would get to see how messed up I am. That despite being a Christian, I am not as "together" and "holier than thou" as people seem to think Christianity is all about. One of my biggest prayers this year is that my life become a "talking testimony" if I may call it that. That my experiences, successes, failures and fears may be made apparent to the world, not that I may get attention or that people can see ME, but so that they can see the GOD that is doing His work within me. So as much as starting this blog freaks me out, if wearing my heart on my sleeve is the next step I have to take in allowing God to continue making me more like Him then I am prepared to do so.

And so, "Entering through the narrow gate" seemed like such a fitting title because it accurately describes the place I am in right now and the things I am striving for. I'm 22 years old and somewhere between the transition from being a girl to becoming a virtuous woman. In a world that tries so hard to mould us, I choose to walk through this life with Christ as my example. Oddly enough this has made me more "weird" than "normal" in the eyes of many... yet everyday I strive toward the goal. I hope that this blog and the experiences and thoughts that I share will show just how imperfect everyone (including Christians), really are. And to show that as I try to navigate this life, I encounter the same highs and lows, temptations and victories that many "normal" people do. So here's to entering through the narrow gate, and to all the things I will encounter along the way. As I strive to place my hand in that of God's everyday, I know that He will never let me stray.

*Remember you are loved!*