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so its the end of my senior year... *que the sappy music, get the box of tissues, hug a friend*


but hold up! its all happening so fast! i hesitate to even write this, cuz i feel like everything that i'm feeling right now is so new to me, but yet i know its been felt a million times by everyone else, that no one would care to read about one more person caught between the pages of an unwritten chapter in their life...


so i'm writting this one for me. i'm getting it all out there, everything im feeling right now, because thats why i write. i feel like if i can somehow put into words what im thinking, if i can catch the crazy/sad/happy/mad/bitter/regretful/stressed-yet-calm emotions on paper... maybe i'll be rid of them for good!


so..... where to begin?? i always knew i would graduate high school, but i never really put a whole lot of thought into it. like where i would go afterwards or anything. now its here.


HERE.


NOW.


i know that God is calling me to go to Central Christian College of the Bible in Moberly, MO... but where from there i don't know. i hadn't cried at all about missing friends or about being unsure of the future; i hadn't stressed over how i was going to pay for college. honestly, i was really caught up i being busy working and just


going


going


going


all the time that i didn't have any time to slow down and realize the changing world around me.





......... until saturday night.


ok, so technically it was sunday morning at 2am, (when you are sleep deprived, emotions always run rampid) and i was opening cards from my graduation party earlier that day.


i had opened about 72,000 cards when my hands fell on a card that my bestest friend in the whole entire universe gave me.


the words were few.


the message simple.


but hot tears streamed down my face.


"i'm gonna miss you this summer and school year... thanks for bringing meaning to my life. your smile is always a bright spot in my day..."



out of NO WHERE the tears poured out of my eyes.

What??!! i thought to myself. why am i crying?? why now?

i didn't cry when my mom hugged me for the first time in months.

i didn't cry when my friends i hadn't seen since 3rd grade randomly showed up to my open house.

i didn't cry when my dad actually told me he loved me and he was proud of me. (which is totally not like him)

but when my best friend wrote me a simple note telling of how i had somehow encouraged her.... the flood gates broke! :)
i guess all i could think of was all the times she had poured her life into me, and pointed me back to God in my times of need, and all the little things she did to make my life brighter. and yet she was thanking ME??? why???
and then i kept crying, (i've found that once you start to cry, its much easier to just keep crying than to attempt to stop...)
so then i just layed on my bed and cried (at this point its like 3am) and when i was done crying i remember that i felt-- i don't know hoe to describe it-- empty. but in a good way. because God uses the empty jar and fills it again. he takes the blank canvas and paints a masterpiece....
he uses the broken life and builds a new creation.
:) so..... i'm ready for what God has in store..... are you??
--Jess--