It's been too long my friends...

Well, I have to admit I didn't even realize it had been over a month since my last post! I'd have to say the past month and some change has been wonderful. I got to spend time with my family at the lake and the beach, got to Ikea for the first time, play corn hole for the first time, go to Lilly's Pizza with Jocelyn and Olivia, move into school a week early, reunite with some great friends, attend a Matt Papa concert, all while experiencing God's goodness in news ways every day.

As I sit here trying to put things into words, I keep rewriting, backspacing, and scratching my head because I so badly want to put into words what God has done in my heart even just over the course of the past month. All I know to say is that my relationship with Him is turning more into a love story than a set of rules to follow. This summer, He really showed me that there has often been times in my life when I did things because I knew they were the right thing to do not because I was compelled by His love and that growing in Him doesn't start with behavioral changes but heart changes. Even though I cannot comprehend the full measure of His love, the more I realize how sinful I am, the more I realize how much I need him to sustain me every day and how selfless He is to love, want, and die for me. There is so much freedom in knowing there is nothing I could do that would make Him love me more or  less and that I serve Him to say "thank you" instead of trying to win His approval. While this is something I have known and believed ever since I accepted His gift of Salvation, He has certainly stamped this truth on my heart over the past months and I just want to fall in love with Him more.

"For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died." 2 Corinthians 5:14