another potentially uncomfortable post...

once again, i'm going to share some intimate, deep, and powerful thoughts with you! i won't be hurt if you choose to click "back" at this moment and avoid the whole situation. blogs are supposed to be fun without any heavy thinking! but, since i am here in northern ireland without any close friends to share this with, you should read this anyway because you love me!

i've been feeling really good about being here lately. peaceful, even. i still have a desire for home, but it's different than it used to be. i can think of home and the flat prairies and the sunshine with a smile, not tears. it's knowledge that i AM going home. it's peace from God, and contentment. it's listening to country music and knowing that's where i belong.

i used to feel that staying home was boring and made me like everyone else. i have loved my travels and wouldn't trade them for anything. but God is teaching me that i am not defined by where i live or what i've done. it's hard to change your way of thinking - i think i'll always feel the pull of traveling, but hopefully, in the future, my purpose for traveling will be different. it will not be to chase a dream, an ideal, a new life. i'm not sure what my purpose will be! it might be several years before i travel again, i think i'm OK with that. it'll take some time to be happy with being at home, and not wishing i was somewhere else.

i'm really excited for God to create this new heart, mind, and soul in me. He's already begun. i can feel it. it's beautiful. a bit painful. but SO glorious. i'm overwhelmed that God, the God of earth and the universe, knows ME and wants and desires to love me. that's humbling. and i am so grateful, because i am nothing without Him.

i desire to be proud of who i am, who God created. so often, in my life, i have compared myself to other christian women. thinking, if only i had her patience, her sense of humour, her body, her hair, her public speaking skills....then i would be happy and joyful and get married and have babies and live on the farm. i spent most of my teens (and some of my 20's) wishing i was someone else. it's taken until now to understand that God made me exactly the way He wanted me! with my personality and skills and sense of humour (or lack of it, sometimes) and common sense. i shouldn't be ashamed of them. they're God's idea of LEAH. who am i to reject that?!? it doesn't mean i stop striving for godliness. it means loving myself the way i am and always, always growing - becoming the woman God intended. i'm learning that i'm a pretty sensational girl and i don't really want to be anyone else, anyway!

so it's a work in progress. each day is different and it doesn't necessarily get easier. but that's the christian walk, isn't it? it's not meant to be comfortable and easy, because earth is not our home! heaven is our home and glorious it will be.