eighteen.

This past week has been rocky. Its been really good. I've been really happy for the most part I would say. But there have been periods of stress, confusion, sadness and anger.

I think maybe I have more on my plate right now than I want to admit to myself, because I would like to believe that I am strong enough to handle everything without getting irritable and snapping at people. Well, I can't get through anything on my own and I am not strong. Its so hard for me to remember how much I need Christ. I take comfort in knowing that He is with me always, but I would also like to believe I'm strong enough to get through life on my own.

I've got this verse that I stamped and put on my desk. "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing." I'm trying to make that more applicable to my life. I don't think I've been a very encouraging person lately. I've been very selfish lately. Yet I feel like I've also been ignoring myself, that I've been putting on this strong persona of a girl who can handle it all. I can't. I need Jesus and I need love and encouragement. I feel like I'm talking in circles.

What I probably need to do right now is cry, but I'm not ready to let myself do that.

Only God can fully love or know us in this life. Other people cannot, will not and should not be that for us.

-Stronger Than You Think, Kim Gaines Eckhert

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

-1 Corinthians 13:11-12

i'm the hero of this story. i don't need to be saved.

And on a completely random note, I pierced my cartilage. I like it.