Not a New Year’s Resoloution Post

     This one is a chatty post. My heart and mind intermingling in a effort to express the spaghetti inside me. Although honestly the rest of this blog is not far off from that. Perhaps I’m attempting to prepare the three new people who may read the lines to follow. Consider yourself prepared friends.

     My first moments of 2018 were spent writing in what has become one of my most prized possessions. In the quiet stillness of my sleeping home, I kissed a page and wrote a love note with ink from the well of my heart. As I re-read the entry now I almost want to call that sweet Bella naive, though I know that is just the statement of the mind to distract from the ache of the heart. Jokes and jabs: signs of deeper pain. In reality I know that childlike, hopeful wonder is what I should draw near to rather than look at life through the foggy glasses of past hurt. To choose “naivety” doesn’t make sense to the logical mind. By the world’s standards I am meant to learn the art of hardness from my past. Oh but thank you Jesus, I am not of this world. 


     Tonight, I went and picked up that little journal. A journal where it was rare I went eight days without writing in, now hadn’t felt the touch of a pen in over six weeks. My heart had been so tender that the idea of squeezing hope out of it felt like the most disingenuous act in the world. Or at least, my world. As the minutes of 2018 ebbed away, this journal starred at me from across the table. I knew what Jesus was asking me to do. It was daunting and gut wrenching. Something that may not seem like much to those reading this, but it is so so real to me. But even in the ow that drains my soul, Jesus is my sufficiency.


     I sat in process for a bit, knowing God wasn’t going to rush me. He wanted me to do this from my heart. And full disclosure, my heart had been trying to grow jagged. It wanted defense mode. To ready itself for another attack. Which is worse: a hardened heart or a jagged one? Don’t quite know the answer. All I know is that Jesus keeps whispering to me “Bella, keep your heart soft.” In the moments when thorns begin to form He will sweep His loving hand over me. I then proceed to waste mascara on my cheeks. Which everyone knows I love to do. He is the Snuggle softener to my dirty laundry. 
   And so my first moments of 2019 were spent writing in what is still one of my most prized possessions. Curled up in a couch corner in a very empty apartment, the Holy Spirit was so present. For so needed was His comfort. Here I kissed a page, with no lacking of tears, and wrote a love note from a true depth of my heart.

I choose His goodness. I choose His promises. I choose to hope. 

Because fear does not own me.