Learning to Yearn

If I said the weeks following graduation have been easy... I would be lying.

Since graduating from university, I've had a difficult time coping with the loss of losing my close-knit spiritual community of friends and the weekly routine of regular spiritual formation, prayer, and activities.

I miss walking into my friend's dorm to enjoy a home-cooked dinner while watching Korean dramas; I miss long, tearful, convicting conversations that start at 8pm and end at 3am; I miss the fatigue of spending long hours bearing our souls at a retreat, eagerly waiting for a spiritual breakthrough, conviction, or peace.

I miss my college church family, and it's been hard to adjust to the quiet, slow pace of this "new normal" before entering into the unknown (Dallas). I know I should be exuberantly excited and overflowing with joy, but - if I'm being honest - I've felt mostly sadness, struggle, and ... yearning.

There are days when I'm at work (Chipotle) sweeping or cleaning by myself and will suddenly start to get teary-eyed at the idea I'll be over 1,500 miles away from EVERYONE. Not just my family, which is heart-wrenching enough, but truly EVERYONE: my friends, my extended family, my safety net.

It's so strange to me because I knew this was coming; I knew that I would leave behind all that I've ever known and grown accustomed to being surrounded by and dive head-first into unknown territories and cultures; I knew this would happen and what I always wanted - so why does it feel so hard to let go?

Recently I've been struggling with this internal conflict about how I view myself and my relationships. Everyday since graduating, I've been defining, redefining, and relearning what it means to give love as a friend, a lover, or a daughter while also learning what it means to receive love well. I've always fought hard to keep the people I love closest to me because I felt incomplete without them or the love they give me. But these past few weeks God has been utterly destroying that insecurity to make room for something else: a deep yearning for assurance that can only be found in Him alone.

It has been an extremely painful process, I'm not gonna lie LOL

There's been days when I slipped back into old habits of being hard on myself or others. There's been moments when I literally went days upon days feeling apathetic as a way to mask my inner frustration, only for that apathy to turn into hurtful anger against those around me. I had a lot of nights where my mind would be overwhelmed with a flood of "what if?"s about the future: What if something happened back home? What if I made the same mistakes as two years ago? What if I get hurt in another friendship with people I don't even know?

But God...

I was listening to United Pursuit's monthly playlist on SoundCloud and stumbled upon this song, "Peace Be Still":

https://soundcloud.com/unitedpursuit/peace-be-still?in=unitedpursuit/sets/up-live

Honestly, Will Reagan and United Pursuit have led me to some of the greatest spiritual breakthroughs I've experienced this year. They have a way of perfectly crafting songs for those going through a season in the valley while reminding them of the light that lies ahead. This song came right when I was feeling the most overwhelmed and crying out for something - anything - from God to remind me that He was there and that everything was going to be okay.

And He did...

So... though it will be scary and hard, I will be still and continue to hope in His promises because He is with me through it all - now and forevermore.