New Year, new me. It's anything but cliché.

I'll save you an apology for kind of dropping off the face of the blogosphere and just begin this post by saying: last semester was freaking hard. Not that any of my classes were all that challenging, or that there was huge amounts of relationship drama. It was hard simply due to the fact that I don't know how to say no. So a lot of little yesses turned Kenzie into a tea saucer holding an entire Thanksgiving feast. It was stressful to say the least.

Anyway.

Dear blog,
Welcome to 2012.
Much love,
Mackenzie


With the start of a new year comes the rush of New Year's resolutions, and the all-too-cliché gym membership spree. Many of the resolutions made this time of year are unrealistic and not planned-- so unfortunately, the resolutions tend to fall through. See, I say this, and here I am with 4 New Year's resolutions (and several more unofficially):

1. Make a deliberate choice each and every day to spend time with God, to rekindle and reconnect.
2. Stay in touch with Sofia (my Compassion sweetheart).
3. Start and finish Insanity (Yes, the superhard 60 day DVD workout. Yes, I'm crazy)
4. Lose a pant size.


Cliché. I know. Lose weight. Reconnect with God. Change my life around.


But, see, friends, in pursuing the first of these resolutions, the outcome has been anything but cliché.

In just a few days, God has literally drowned me in his presence. We pray all the time, "Oh, God, pour out your spirit on me", "Oh, God, shower me with your grace", "Oh God, pour your love over me". And folks, the second I did this, God completely skipped the shower head and went straight for the fire hose. In all of His mercy and wisdom, God has literally blown me away with how in tune he is with me. It's like He was literally waiting for me to come back to Him.

But of course, the enemy can't ever just let you make a decision to rededicate your life to God. The same was true for me, and a couple nights ago I had a really rough night, trying to talk with one of my close friends about my thoughts on what would make our relationship better. After being completely shut down by this person, and essentially told that I was overreacting, I lost it.

"God, you put this person so intentionally into my life, and I've been struggling so much with their lack of care towards my feelings and emotions for about a year now, and I've let them get away with it all this time. But the second I decided say anything about it, they completely shut me down? I don't know what to do"

And then I got an urge to write in my journal. So I just sat down and wrote two pages. And when I was done, I closed my journal and went to sleep. It wasn't until the next day when I read what I wrote and I was simply blown away.

Watch over me as I sleep and
comfort me as I dream.
I am sad now, but
You wipe that all away.
You clean my slate, you take my pack.

You humble me when it's right,
You build me up when I'm down.
You're strong enough
for both of us sometimes
And that's always enough.

May my anger fizzle away
May my tears find your shoulder.
You are the one true comfort
when people fail us.

You will never let me down,
and I am always good enough
for You.
You are a Father, Brother, Husband,
all the best of each,
And there is no bottom to the
love you pour out on us.

Help me remember.
Help me recognize.
Help me know.
and most of all
Help me forgive, as you forgive.

God's presence turned my upset confusion into something beautiful.
The power exhibited by that leaves me in awe. Literally. A week before this, I hadn't really talked to, connected with or felt the presence of God in a long time. And here I am spouting His praises, organized into this beautiful poem. All I had to do was take the first step.

You take a step, God leaps a mile.

And folks, it's totally worth it.








God Bless <3 :)



Also-- check out this blog: The Sexy Celibate
Seriously, guys. It changed my life a little bit.