Just a Random Update.

I haven't updated this blog in over a year.

Wait, what? That was a year ago?

I could have sworn it was only about 13 months!....

Oh...

I won't lie people, it's been a rough and stressful year.

A lot has happened, both good and bad.

I transferred from a small State College to the big bad University of Central Florida. They told me I wasn't good enough for their art program, so I had to reevaluate what I am doing with my life. Which was really really hard.

(The whole weekend that happened I acted like I was going through a break up and kept eating anything chocolate we had in the house. I cried myself to sleep. It felt like a break up. It felt like Knightro himself dumped me. It was rough.)

I have been able to hold onto the same job for this last whole year--which trust me is greatly showing God's grace in my life. However, it is looking like I will not have a job for over the summer or in the fall, which will be hard, considering I'm paying my own way through school.

However, let's just be honest. My life has always been crazy. And I've never allowed that to stop me from venting to the internet. (Though I admit, not the best way to inadvertantly vent.)

I guess I should furthermore be honest with all five of you who read this. I have been embarassed of this blog. I have been embarassed for the things God has brought me through. I have been embarassed of the times I have been immature and juvenile on here.

But all of that defeats the purpose of what the whole point of my having this thing in the first place.

Being honest with the world about who I really am.

(I aught to change my blog description to that.)

Seriously, though. I have been embarassed about who I am on the inside. (though I have matured in the last year, I haven't changed all that much.)

You can look back through all of my past posts and see exactly who I am.

I am obnoxious.
I am a deep thinker.
I am an  overthinker.
I am an immature girl at times.
I struggle with God most of the time.
I am always quesitoning and requestioning God.
I am obnoxious (did I already say that?)

But in all honesty, none of those are really bad things. They might be annoying at times. They might cause myself a lot of trouble. And it may anhibbit my ability to make friends.

But I can't change who I am.

God made me this way.

And about my seemingly constant struggles with God, that is to be expected from a meaningful relationship. I am constantly having to learn new things from Him. And I don't always like what I learn, or what He wants me to learn. Hence: I struggle. I make things harder than they have to be, I look for loopholes. And I do finally follow Him. But usually I'm kicking and screaming for the first few hundred yards. 

It is not the most affective way to learn, but when I am being honest with myself, that is when I learn and mature the most. When God is dragging me kicking and screaming through the mud. When He is pulling me closer and closer to Himself. And breaking and remolding my heart.

 (Ironically, I usually ask Him to do this. I ask God to teach me things and pull me close. Then I get all mad when He does it in ways thay I was not expecting.)

Recently over the last year I have been praying in earnest for God to give me a revival in my heart. For Him to light a fire that has seemingly gone numb. Guess what? God answered that prayer.

I hated it. And to be really bluntly honest, I still am having trouble coming to terms with the way God answered it.

You guys don't need to hear the full story as to how that went about. If you really want to know you can send me a private message and we can discuss it there.

But--in short--God allowed something dear to me to be taken away. Removed from my reach. He never said I couldn't have it back. Or that He wouldn't replace it with something greater. But it was removed from my life, cold turkey.

That was rough. But somehow, somehow I made the decision that during that really hard time, I would turn to God. And He lit a revival in my heart. Just like I had been praying for. I still wish it didn't take the removal of said object to give me a wake-up call. But it did. And I am still having to come to terms, and even thank God for that.

Romans 8:28 sure is coming into practice.

I m still struggling with God on a daily basis. But do you know what that means? God loves me enough that He hasn't given up on me yet. He loves me so much He is willing to wrestle with me day by day until His lessons finally absorb into my heart.

God is more willing to struggle and face who I am on the inside than I am.

So, all of you people, I am sorry for being embarrased about who I have been, the issues I have faced, and all of the mud God has brought me through. Those are not things I should be embarassed about. Every Christian has a muddy past with God.

It is okay to be embarassed for how I reacted, or ashamed of my former sins. But I still have to live with who I am. And I can't board up my former self like a dusty basement.

Thank you all for bearing with me through this.

Peace out, I gotta go to work now.

Part 1: Discouragement is an uphill battle.

Discouragement is a hard thing to cure.

In fact, I'm not absolutely convinced that it can be "cured".

I have been extremely discouraged for about as long as I can remember.

From Tenth Avenue North's song, "Worn"

Discouraged for various reasons, though. It seems as if as soon as I am finished being discouraged in one aspect of my life, discouragement comes in another shape, form, subject, whatever you call it. And very rarely have I ever truly felt encouraged.

I HAVE had people try to encourage me, and I genuinely appreciate their effort, but sometimes it is as if discouragement is unaffected by words. As if it doesn't understand human language.

Growing up there were/are so many aspects about myself that I have disliked but couldn't change. This has always been a huge source of my discouragement.

I've always been bored to yawns by my name. "Hannah" ... it is just so boring. That's not the name of a great artist, or novelist, or anyone epic... Just some woman who was barren in the Bible. (Yeah, yeah, I know, she had Samuel)

I absolutely hated being my current size at the age of 12. I have matured to fit my weight and height now, but at the time I was this straight, thick, acne covered girl with braces and a big forehead. Needless to say, I am still an incredibly awkward person, unfortunately I am able to hide that fact just enough so that when I first meet people they can't tell, then as they "get to know me" I come off as obnoxious and creepy. Furtherly needless to say, I've always (probably even more so now than then) had trouble making real friends. I do not mean to offend anyone I know, I know a lot of people. But I do not have anyone I can think of that I could wake up in the middle of the night if I really needed someone to talk to.

I started attending college courses when I was 16 and graduated high school with over 30 college credits. I wanted in my heart to major in art with the possibility of a specialization in illustration. But a few things have stood in my way. 1. Being a complete lack in artistic talent. I'm not saying I'm a horrible artist, I'm just being honest. I am not talented at art. I am talented with creativity. And I am a creative person who wants to fine tune my "ability" (because everyone has the ability to do something if they try hard enough) and combine it with my imaginative and creative thinking to create art. However, unless you're truly talented a degree in "Studio Art" probably won't land you a job. Which leads me to the second reason I didn't major in art. 2. My parents weren't thrilled with the idea. Now, don't misunderstand me, my parents did not forbid me from majoring in Studio Art, but I have followed their suggestion and chosen "Graphic Design." Something that is more likely to have job oppertunities after graduation.

Ironically, the Graphic Design program at UCF is much more prestigious than their "Studio Art" degree, so I have to take a whole 'nother year of courses to create a portfolio to submit in the spring of 2015 and MAYBE they will accept me into their "very competitive" program. Meanwhile, as I take full course load and balance three dirty jobs that barely offer 11 hours of work a week, Bob here gets a full paid scholarship... because he was public schooled, and his parents could afford hundreds of dollars worth of tutoring for the SAT. Did you know that homeschoolers have to score higher on the SAT than public or private schoolers for the same benefits? (That's a whole other rant, though)

(Note: Bob is a made up generic person)

But seriously, who am I kidding?? After all of this hard work that MIGHT pay off I'm not even really going to want to get a job at all! I'll really just want to get married, have a family, and be a stay at home mom. You don't need a degree to do that! You don't need a job to do that. I don't even have to finish college to get married.

What's worse is that the older I get the more the possibility of finding a suitable Godly young man is shrinking.

I know what you're thinking.. I'm over reacting at the age of 19 that I'll never get married. Yes, I am. But with good reason. My mom was married when she was my age. And the dwindling amount of guys who not only can look past all of my weirdness and want to pursue me, but also want to settle down and raise a family with a million and two kids, on top of adopting every abandoned child we meet along the way as well as homeschool them all AND be mature enough to support that family?? Those men just don't exist. And IF they do exist, they are either not single or have already met their future wife on christianmingle or at a homeschool convention. I suppose I should have attended more of those growing up.

I am not saying there aren't Godly young men in the world. I know many very amiable Christian men. My predicament lies in that they either have no interest in me, or have no interest in the ministries God has put quite heavily on my heart, or that we cannot agree on aspects of theology or morals past that. Although it is not a need to agree on everything, there are quite honestly a few things that NEED to be agreed on, such as birth-control, and other aspects that would immediately effect a marriage and family life.

So, when I finally graduate,what will my options be? I, quite honestly, have not a single (or married) fudgepuddling clue. Every time I turn around God has thrown another obstacle in my path without hint of what He wants me to do or where He would have me go.

You may not believe this, but I will go wherever He tells me to. He just has to tell me!

I do not say all of this to throw a pity party. Trust me, those are just cold and lonely. As a girl growing up I had to move past what others thought of me.

We already addressed that I had the "awkward years" of a toad and was extremely discouraged by the way I was perceived by others. However, God did show me (when I was 16) that it literally doesn't mean a single thing to Him about what other people think of me. That I was beautifully made by Him. Beautifully. I still feel to this day though, that mirrors must distort what we see. Because I don't always feel "beautiful" despite the fact that He tells me I am. I have days where I want to hide the plushness of my stomach behind random objects because the world says that if you have a pudge at all, you're fat. I still have days where I don't want to interact with human beings at all for fear of breaking down in tears without any legible reason... I'm such a girl.

However, what I hope to illustrate to anyone who has the guts to read this all of the way through is that I am my worst critic. Period.

Most people would argue to me that I am really thin, that I am gorgeous, that I am artistically talented, and so on.

Yet none of those opinions matter to me, ... because I know it is only what God thinks that matters. The only voice I can never block out is my own. I can block out the world. I can block out you. I cannot block my own over opinionated thoughts of myself.

Again, I am not trying to throw a pity party, please bear with my nonsensical and endless jabbering. Because I hope to show that in all of this constant discouragement that I receive daily from MYSELF,  God is not silent. Perhaps not always loud. But not silent.

To be continued.