Pressing On...

It's so weird to me...the way life works...
Two blogs ago, I wrote about the obsession that had taken over my life. And, how I had realized what was going on and decided to let it go.
It's amazing what letting go can really look like...
I haven't hardly struggled with it at all. I barely even think about it once a day. It's crazy to me that letting go of something that bound me so tightly has changed so much of my life.
I am still trying to figure out how to get everything in my life back on track, but not obsessing about that one thing has freed me so much.
I have this desire to just write and read and soak up so much in life. I just want to enjoy every second that I can. I don't want to go to bed anymore. I just want to stay up and learn and discover things I didn't know before. But, I force myself to sleep so I can energize myself for the following day.
I have been having vivid dreams lately, too. It's crazy to me. I used to dream every night...for years and years and years...and yet, they seemed to kind of go away the last couple of years. Not that I wasn't dreaming sometimes, but it seems like I'm dreaming a lot more...or maybe I'm just getting the right kind of sleep. Maybe trying not to obsess about things freed up my mind at night as well as during the day. Hmm...what a concept, huh?
I just feel different. I want to take care of myself, to get things done, to seek out others and pour into their lives. I've even been making it a point to try and put makeup on every day. That may seem like a silly thing, but I love experimenting with all my eye shadow colors and coming up with different combinations. It's like painting a tiny picture on my face, a picture I can manipulate and change every day to display something different, something exciting, something unique. If that's crazy, I'm ok with that. But truly, I think it's fun to put on makeup. These last couple of months, I haven't had a desire to do that. It's amazing how one little thing consumed my thoughts and changed everything I did in life.
I also am trying my best to just be me. To be the person God created me to be. To trust Him to lead me into situations, into people's lives, to do His will. It's not always an easy or fun road, but it's the road I've chosen, and it's the road that's bringing me a lot of joy in life.
I am reminded of my year verse from 2009. The women's Bible study I used to be a part of got together on the morning of January 1st, 2009. We made these really cool bookmarks. The main part of the bookmark is a verse. The other part consists of nine different colored ribbons, each representing a woman and her past and future. We each picked a color that we liked or we felt represented ourselves, and shared about our previous year and what we hoped the year 2009 would bring us. I keep this bookmark tucked in my Bible, in whatever passage we are going through in my Wednesday night Bible study. Each time I look at it, I am reminded of that morning, those women, and what those ribbons represent. I also love to read through the verse that we chose to use as our year verse. It is Philippians 3:12-14 (NLT):
I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be....I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I strain to the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.

That is what I want. I want to forget about my past and keep looking forward to what God has for me. It is the only way I can live my life right now, and it's the only way I want to live it from here on out.