Transparent.

It's often difficult to even almost impossible to make your skin seem invisible and let people in. It's even more difficult to do so with people that you've been hiding your real self from. And it's the worst when you hide it from someone that God has blessed you with in the best way possible.

I've learned lately that if you keep the pain in your life to yourselves...it will eat you and it will fill you up with random anxiety. You could be sitting in a moving vehicle with some of your most favorite people in the world and it hits you. So you remain silent and these people who know you well enough know that there is something and there is a reason. We sit on the dock and we talk about the guys in their lives and the absence of any in my own. Then they turn to me, and I know it's my turn to talk. I express that this anxiety is from the pain and that it seemed to circulate around my mind all weekend, but I didn't understand why it was so evident while I was in fellowship with people who love the Lord and for some reason or another-love me.

So I spill and they listen and they speak truth into me and then they lay their hands on me and start praying to our Father who is the only one who will bring true comfort. And I know that they love me because I know that they love the Lord, and it is unmistakable.

We leave happy and comforted and Caroline and I chase after a frog. We head to eat more good food and we laugh until we cry, I mean literally the tears were rolling I was laughing that hard. I hug Randi goodbye at the end, not knowing if I'd see her until after Africa but just having this unexplainable joy that I have her in my life and she has the Lord at the center of her heart...just makes me wanna run to Him more, myself.

Caroline and I drive home and talk and listen to good music. We laugh about how I put Diesel in my car...because that sitution would really only happen to us. We get home and she doesn't feel well and there's this peace that I'm not feeling? I don't know why I'm not feeling it because I had the best day with friends, I really did. That morning Care and I went to that seemingly perfect park and sat on the log in the river and had some time with God. We te granola bars and come on we saw Randi and it was good and well and so very centered on our King. Caroline washes her face and I look online at my grades and that was enough to tell me that I needed some air.

I told her that I was going for a walk, and left. She texted me to ask me if I was okay and I really just wasn't. I sat in the slide at the sketchy park across the street and I pray for the peace to come and the pain to stop. And this pain wasn't from loss, or anxiety, or anything we had prayed about earlier. This was a different tug and though I didn't want to believe what it was, I knew. God has been paving the way. He has been aligning everything up for His cray good purpose and here I am, not being transparent. Carrying around this guilt and shame and hurt. I had prayed about it ever since it had become a struggle again and I knew what I had to do. Caroline came to the park and sat next to me in the dirt. We sat in silence for a really, really long while. I don't know how she had so much patience for me because she really had no idea what was going on.

I talked in circles and rambled and cried and felt this tug that I couldn't ignore. You see God is giving me this passion for Africa. He has given me this sister...this soul that longs for the same thing I do. Which is to follow God's plan which just so happens to align with mine. So if He is blessing me with this friendship-then i should be transparent.

I know that I am messing up. That I am dissapointing the only Father that will care enough for me. That I am hiding my struggles with this friend I care so much for. That I have no one to keep me accountable. That I can't keep knowingly falling short and sinning because even though the cross exists, I cannot allow myself to live in darkness. But I was scared. I was ashamed. I know that the sin in my life is forgiven and forgotten by the Lord, but my friend had no idea about any of it. She had no idea how much this person she's about to spend 4 months with was struggling. So I told her. I straight up told her that even though for a while it was easy to deny those toxins, that it wasn't anymore. And that if I forget about God even for an instant that I am weak and I fall into this sin that I despise so much. And sweet Caroline...who isn't perfect because she is human, but who had never struggled with anything like that. I asked her if she hated me or if she thought of me differently and though she hates eye contact, she told me to look at her and said she thought of me no differently. That she knows that I'm not that person anymore and that she is so glad that I trusted her enough to be so transparent with her. She reminded me of the cross, and she just loved me. I know she didn't judge me which was so rare for me to expirience.

The joy of the Lord is like none else. And I know I will fall and I will mess up today, even. Tomorrow for sure. The next day a given. But I know what the love of the Lord feels like, and sometimes it manifests in the best ways through the people on earth you care about the most.