Growing Up In Love.: From the inside out.

These last couple of months have been hard, really hard. i think living day to day here in the DR allows us to maybe see sins and evils easier and more prevalent than in the States. I'm not saying that there are more sins here, but definitely less hidden, where we as Americans want everything to look perfect when maybe on the inside everything is falling apart or already in pieces. So i kind of view the DR as a place where hardships and great evils are almost thrown in your face on a daily basis and a lot more than you like. over the past month God has allowed me to go to dark dark places that I have been avoiding for a long time. places that I don't know if I've been ready to go to until now. And I'm scared, these places are just so dark, and the more i explore the more i realize how damaged and broken i am. how lost and confused i have been for so long. i guess i have always felt like i have to put on this front or had to portray this girl the way i thought people viewed me. the keely that people see is about a good time and life might seem perfect. even to my very best friends i have hid the darkest places, but i have slowly started to become less ashamed and realize that those people are the people God gave me for a reason, and that they will love me no matter what i share with them. no matter if i am in the happiest of happy places, or if i am struggling to even drag my feet through the darkest places i have ever been. note: there are many many people with way more darker places than i could ever imagine or handle. i think that is why God gives you only what He knows will make you seek Him ferevently. so this is not a feel sorry for keely blog. but back to my best friends, they always seem to pick me up and continue to fight Satan standing right beside me. So to my very best friends (and you know who you are) i cannot and never will be able to thank you enough or thank God enough for you. but i'm writing this to share what i am starting to figure out, not to tell y'all that my best friends are way better than yours (which they are) or to feel sorry for me, but through all of these dark places, where God is taking me. i have started to really learn what it is like to seek my Father, and before this point i am positive i had no idea what that looked like. i think that is why i felt so lost, i didn't really know Him. i just thought, Kee you have this image to uphold, this persona that you have to have it all together, and you are fine. that's why i think i was so trapped, so dark, and in such dark places. i didn't know my Healer. and now as God continues to walk me through those places and continues to shine His light into my darkness, i realize i'm always going to be broken and damaged, but i also realize that every day i am being healed by the ultimate and only Healer. when i feel like i can't continue to explore my dark places, MY HEALER picks me up and wraps His arms of love around me and carries me telling me "daughter, keep going". I pray with all of my broken self that God continues to walk with me through all of the bad but also all of the good. AND THERE IS SO MUCH GOOD, Y'ALL.

i heard an example this weekend about how we are like jars of clay with cracks running all through it. so damaged and cracked, but if you put a light in the middle of that clay jar, you will see the light shine through those cracked and damaged parts of the clay. so God, i am exactly like a jar of clay- cracked damaged, so imperfect, but i pray you let people see Jesus shining through all of my cracks and know that i am being healed from the inside out and redeemed by the only Healer.

Heal me from the inside out, Father. Let your love radiate from and through me, and become a daughter that is constantly seeking You.

I don't know why God would want to love or have a relationship with a selfish sinner like me, but I am so in awe and glad he does. Praise The Lord, O my soul!

Psalm 103

1. Praise The Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

2, Praise The Lord, o my soul, and forget not all his benefits--

3. who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

4. who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion

...

8. The Lord is compassionate and gracious slow to anger, abounding in love

9. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever.

10. he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

11. for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him

12. as far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13. As a father has compassion on his children, so The Lord has compassion on those who fear him;