The Morning After...

No, I don't mean the morning after as in the reason you take a "morning after" pill...I mean, the morning after a storm of emotions and desperation to get out of my current circumstances. I fell asleep praying last night and had a crazy dream about a crazy adventure that I was trying to hide from my family, but they became a part of it anyways.

That's exactly what this whole San Angelo thing has been, all of my planning and thinking and plotting ways to make it happen on my own, but I've ended up having to get all of their help at one point or another along the way. The funny thing was that my friend was driving the car in the dream and I was in the backseat and he kept on driving through deep water and I was soaked, but every time I thought we couldn't go on, a ramp would appear out of nowhere to save us...Call me strange, but I really feel like that's God telling me that HE will make this happen. That HE has called me to this. I'm just sorry that I haven't been more obedient to Him over the summer. Yes, He's been faithful to grow me and change me and make me more like Him and feel more in love with Him - - - but, that doesn't change the fact that I haven't done what I know I was supposed to do. What I had known I was supposed to do all along.

Anyways - long story short, I went to bed letting everyone else's (as in my parents and a close friend) fears and concerns get to me - I was doubting the fact that I've heard God in this and the fact that I KNOW I CAN DO IT because some of those closest to me were doubting my ability to do it...and I've awaken with a fresh passion and a fresh sense of victory. I'm so excited to see God come through for me and make a splash in the world of San Angelo! I'm so ready to see Him move through me and work through me in just the right way. I know without a doubt that San Angelo is where I'm supposed to be this semester and I'm excited to find out the specific reasons why that is so.

So, you know what I have to say to anyone who doubts: BRING IT ON. God's got this, and I trust in Him with my whole heart.

I need this more than anything right now

I've just spent the entire night re-evaluating my decision to go live in San Angelo even though I'm not going to be in school this semester...well, I did it while sipping on chocolate and playing solitaire, but sometimes that's the best way for me to think and pray, okay?

Well - the conclusion that I came to is that I need this move more than anything. I've lost myself this summer. While I'm in Weatherford, although I'm happy, I'm living someone else's life. I'm living the life that my parents have chosen for me, or the life that my siblings have chosen. Everything I do is dependent on someone else. I desperately need the independence that I will have in San Angelo. I need to be able to make my own choices again and to chose my own activities. Everything I've done this summer has been based on what other people are doing, and I've merely been a tag-along the whole time. I need to go out on my own again, or else I'll slip into this whole world of not knowing who I am again. I'll slip into what's comfortable rather than what's right for me.

God sent me to San Angelo almost a full year ago and I didn't know it at the time, but He sent me there because I myself needed it, not because of the people that I was sent to minister to. Yes, I did a whole lot of ministry, and yes, I saw God move in some of the most powerful ways I've seen Him move in my life...but the most awesome thing about it all is the way He changed ME...and the work that He did in ME. I came back to Weatherford a completely different person - - - and in only three short months I've been slipping back into what it was that I used to be. So I know that I need this. I know that God's called me to San Angelo for His purposes, and that I'll never be truly happy anywhere other than where God has called me to be. And, that somewhere right now is San Angelo.

God never gave me a job this summer because I was being disobedient. I didn't listen to Him when He called me back to San Angelo early. I had a stupid boy on the brain and didn't want to miss the budding relationship...so, that got taken away, too, but still I refused to listen to God laying the road marks that led back to San Angelo...I went along my merry little way flippantly enjoying my time in Weatherford rather than soaking up what it was that God had for me in San Angelo...and I'm kicking myself for that. Who knows how much of God I missed out on by not being obedient this summer??? I feel terrible for not obeying Him!

But, now, I can't refuse the call that He's placed on my life. I can't refuse to move down there and start out on a new adventure. God's called me to great things and I can't wait to see just what they are...and just what He has in store for me this year in San Angelo. (And, every time I type the name of the city I think to myself "of all the places He could have sent me to...why San Angelo?" lol.)

So, no matter who believes in me, and who thinks I can or can't do this - - - I'm following what, after a whole night of praying and thinking, I'm absolutely positive is God's plan for my life!

My Mountain Maker

Last summer my sisters and I went on an epic road trip to Portland, Oregon to see our cousin get married. You know how there are so many "coming of age" movies and books out there - either from childhood to teenage years or from teenage/college to adulthood? Our road trip was the type of trip that inspires those things.

I was on the eve of moving hours away from home for the first time, my sisters were about to get their first apartment in town, and it was the very last summer that the three Crume sisters would be living at home together. We were all facing different feelings and thoughts about the adventures we were each individually setting out on starting that fall, and the only thing we knew for sure about life after that trip was that it would never be the same again - as soon as we arrived home, everything that we knew about our lives was about to change. Now, it wasn't about to change because of some dramatic happening or tragic event, but simply because it was time for us all to spread our wings, take flight, and grow up.

We laughed and goofed off for much of the trip. We also fought quite a bit too and I finally stood up to my oldest sister, giving her a taste of her own medicine - unflinchingly treating her the way that she had treated me for years. Tears were not absent on this trip and neither was an incredible sense of adventure. Adventure that included a flat tire at 2am right as we started into Death Valley, but led us to an amazing little town right on Route 66. It was truly an epic trip in every sense of the word.

Out of the whole trip, though, the moment I will treasure the most was the first time that we were driving up near the mountains of Colorado. I hadn't driven in the mountains in a car in quite some time, and I forgot how absolutely tiny you feel when driving around the base of a mountain of epic proportions. As I gazed up at them I was reminded of the fact that the same God that made them is also the God who cares for every detail of my life and who carries me through all of the major problems and drama as well. I had an amazing sense of peace in the knowledge that God was taking care of me and that He was already going ahead of me into the year that waited for me when I got back to Texas, the year that would change me forever.

Well, here I am a little over a year, one major move, four amazing dances, countless tears, one amazing holiday season, numerous new friends, one fruitless job hunt, thousands of laughs, one dance under the stars, one amazing spring retreat, hundreds of movies, hundreds of hugs, one kiss, one pair of hands held, and two broken hearts later...and I need to be reminded of that very same lesson. The very same God that made the mountains with a pinch of His finger is holding my life in His hand and will take care of everything that's causing my fragile heart to fear...because He is my very own Mountain Maker and no matter what has happened and changed, I'm still his barefooted little princess.