i believe in once upon a time, because i believe in a once perfect garden.

i believe in princesses, because i believe that all girls are one.

i believe in knights, because i believe in the greatest battle, already won.

i believe in true love, because i believe it died on a cross for us all.

i believe in happily ever after, because i believe in the promise of Heaven. 

You can seek the beautiful alone for as long as you want, and you will get a lot out of it. You will see sunrises and sunsets and listen to great songs and sit in the grass and feel warm breezes and read books that steal your soul and drink great coffee and travel to cute places and take pictures of walls and you can seek a lot of beautiful things alone. You just can. You know you are loved, you know there are plenty of people who think that you, yes you, are great. But at some point you are going to be lonely. You are going to wish you had a best friend right where you are. You are going to wish that someone felt incomplete without you, and was right next door. You are going to wish you could go back to days when there was always someone to spend time with you and laugh with you. You can have the people you see everyday and the people you work with and your teammates and you can be a part of a lot of things and still feel like an outsider. You can still feel completely alone at times, even when you’ve been reminded a million times that you are not. And you can love where you are and the people around you a whole lot, but sometimes you are still going to wish that beyond all that, you just had a real and true best friend still. 

everyday is a new beginning. God is doing something new.
one year ago i was praising the Lord that the year was over.
one year ago i was wanting to forget, and relishing in the chance of the new.
God promises we are a new creation, everyday. there is always something new.

let’s compare.

God is not a God of disappointment, He promises we are new creations, and this year became the year of joy and growth and something new.

this year i learned what love was; what it means to say it, promise it, and live it.
i learned that patience is important and prayer is the only solution.

this year i started working with the sweetest of three-year olds, who honestly have taught me so much and become one of the greatest sources of joy.

this year i left the country for the first time in piedras negras, mexico in the constant lesson of selfless living and loving in Christ.

this year i got to live with one of my closest friends and eat too much nutella and watch too much bachelor and get sick all too often.

this year i became a younglife leader and was blessed beyond belief with a team of outstanding encouragement and love, and a million high schoolers to laugh with.

this year i went back to my second home in dahlonega for the last time, and had a million elementary campers and danced at every sparrowwood dance and stayed up playing supermodel way past bedtime and talked about Jesus and loved every minute of each “week one”.

this year i understood my need to be Jesus true love first, and that sometimes the best experiences in relationships is to be worlds apart both growing in Him.

this year i experienced deep loneliness and the lies that go along with it. this year i learned to fight for the truth that we are really and truly loved by the Father.

this year i admitted that i’m probably a hopeless romantic, without the hopeless part because somehow i got blessed with a boy who only brings hope to my life.

this year i decided to become a teacher, something i’ve fought against my whole life. this year i decided that it was about time to stop being stubborn.

this year i appreciated my family more, and learned more about being content.

this year i remembered why i love to run. i began to taste the joy and freedom in competition and that the framework for a team has to be bigger than myself. i ran faster and stronger and farther and realized that it was never all i would need.

this year i turned twenty-one and made life decisions and realized it is all pointless without the people you care about around you.

this year i reverted more into childhood, and dreamed simpler, yet bigger things.

this year i fell more in love with a boy for 365 days.

this year was filled with sunshine and coffee and long runs and laughter and sisters and friends and kisses and good pens and stress and classes and campers and beaches and the west coast and lonely nights and workouts and lima beans and hard lessons and good music and lots and lots of Jesus .

six years of tradition.
six years of unbreakable friendship.
six years of pure joy.

 

that’s where our dreams are kept.