Letting Go

In my previous post, I mentioned that I am in a new season in life. It's been a difficult season in some areas, but a growing one in others. It's amazing, yet quite unfortunate, how easily it can be to forget who you are or who you once were or even who you wanted to be. Once upon a time, I had dreams and goals and ambitions for my life post high school. But I also had a desire to explore the world that I was just let into and to live in every moment with no regrets.

I made mistakes. Big ones.
Mistakes that will unfortunately be a part of me for the rest of my life.
Mistakes that also started to shape me as I allowed them to.
Mistakes that began to determine who I was and how I would treat people.
Mistakes that would start the building of the thick walls around me.
Mistakes that would take certain amount of joy from my life.
Mistakes that stole my identity in Christ.

Satan has had his say in my life and allowing him to play such a large role in my thoughts and actions has become the biggest mistake I've ever made.

Luckily for me, I'm not the only one who has made mistakes. We are all guilty.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23

This Saturday, my two best friends, blessings given to me by God in the past two years, have chosen to join me as we have a "burning party". Now, that may seem a little dangerous and violent, but it's an idea that came to us from a simple episode of a television show. In the show, the town has a "boat-burning celebration". At this event, items from their past, things that have defined them, things that they've had difficulty letting go of, photos of who they once were, are tossed onto a boat in the water. The burning of the boat signifies a releasing and surrender of their former self, and a celebration of a new beginning. We are ready for our new beginning as we gather old photos, letters, and memories that can no longer weigh us down.

We, as three friends, rang in the new year with the goal to let go of our pasts, and become the women that Christ has called us to be.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

I love how Paul uses an exclamation point at the end of that verse, for it is something to celebrate. I am excited for the event on Saturday and couldn't ask for better women to share the moment with. While we let go and experience the freedom from our pasts, we rejoice and look forward to a brighter future no longer defined by our mistakes, but defined by He who is in us!

Today is My Anniversary.

You may be asking yourselves: Anniversary? What? You're not married. Are you? Hmm...what are you talking about?



Well, it goes something like this:

Characters: Alyssa Walter, Megan Rendall (me)
Setting: Freshman year at NWHS, probably in the north surge I'm guessing
When: Wednesday October 15th, 2003

Alyssa: Hey Megan!
Megan: Hi.
Alyssa: How are you doing?
Megan: Eh, I'm doing alright I guess. I'm tired of school already.
Alyssa: Yeah. So what are you up to tonight?
Megan: Uhh...probably nothing as usual. Wednesday nights don't really have any good tv shows so I normally just sit around watching the Disney Channel or something. Why'd you wanna know?
Alyssa: Well our church is having this hayride tonight. It'll be really fun! You should come!
Megan: Oh yeah? Hmm...well I'd have to ask my mom first. What time?
Alyssa: We could probably come and pick you up if you want! It starts at 6:30. Oh and ***** will be there too. He goes on Wednesday nights.
Megan: (smiling really big) Oh! Well, I will definitely have to come. I'll call you after school to make sure, ok?
Alyssa: Alright. Sounds good. See you later!
Megan: Bye!

I went to that hayride. It was cold. We went and packed what seemed like a million students into a tiny little barn. I remember the games we played, the people who performed skits, even the speakers and band members. It was much cooler than my normal Wednesday nights. I kept attending ever since that night.

So, today is the 5-year anniversary of me attending Nappanee Missionary Church, or I guess church in general. Yeah, I definitely went for the wrong reasons for awhile. I thought I was in love. Haha. Yeah...not quite. I only attended Wednesday nights up until the summer before my senior year when I made a promise at summer camp to attend on Sundays. But over the past five years, thanks to my best friend Alyssa and the many people I have encountered at NMC, I have been able to start, develop, and strengthen a relationship with God. It's amazing what my Savior can do in such a short amount of time. And it's amazing the amount of impact certain people have had on me. Those people will probably never know how much they've done and still continue to do in my life. I am extremely grateful to the family I have gained in the past five years and I am extremely excited to see what happens in the future.

Finding Myself...

I'm going to be honest right now. Vulnerable. Open.

I'm scared of many things.
I'm scared of: Spiders. Bees. Most bugs in general. Storms. Driving in the winter. Failing at anything. Being forgiving. Trusting in others. Letting go. Being alone.

I recently figured out a new fear...Losing myself.


I was encouraged by a very close person to me that I was being held down so much by things and people in my past, that it was interfering with my confidence level in myself and who I am. As I thought about the idea of losing myself and my identity, it struck me that it was true. I could not figure out who I was as a person anymore. I had put aside my hobbies, my values, and my whole life because of things that slowly took their place in the past. I took the night and thought of things that I enjoyed doing in the past. I came up with my photography, of course, painting, traveling, and random last minute movie nights with tons of junk food. I continued to ponder over my past life and how great some things were and how not-so-great other things were and then it came to me that I am pretty much a robot these days. The past couple months, I have been stuck in the same routines. The same job. The same classes. The same group of friends (which I love by the way, don't get me wrong). The same life, yet a completely different one than what I used to have.

So, I have concluded that there ARE things holding me from enjoying my life. There ARE things I have to let go and forget about for awhile, maybe forever. There will be much struggling with taking steps to find out who "Megan" really is. I don't know her anymore. I hear she's pretty great. A beautiful person inside and out. A good leader. A hard worker. Worthy of something far greater than comprehension. Yeah...this is what I hear, but cannot understand or believe for some reason. I know the things I need to do. And I will admit that it's definitely not easy for me at all. I'm going to need the few good friends that I have to be there for me. Trust in me. Pray for me. Encourage me. And most importantly, love me....for the real me.

Is it possible? I sure hope so. But I am scared to death for the coming days and what's to happen.


Matthew 6:34- "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Only a Hint of Silence

I recently had a blog where I wrote about silence as a response to my prayer. The content for that blog was a brief summary of Derry's message to the Effect group right before Christmas break. Tonight, he came back to finish that message and I found myself in a different position than I was before.

Since college started, back in September, I have found it very difficult meeting new people at school. Even though I was happy for all of my friends who were meeting a ton of people at their colleges, inside I was extremely lonely and I was becoming hopeless that I wouldn't find anyone at IUSB that I could truly call a friend. I kept constantly blaming myself for the reason that I hadn't met many people. Out of the four classes I had last semester, only two of my professors knew my name, and I could probably count the number of people that I actually talked to on one hand. I began to think that my criteria for a good potential friend were too high. All I was looking for was someone who was a strong Christian and did not smoke, drink, party like crazy, or have a foul mouth. Little did I know that those qualities were going to be so difficult to find at my school. So I continued to walk from class to class every day by myself for the entire semester. All I wanted was someone I could talk to and hang out with aside from Tuesday nights and Sunday mornings. I started feeling bad for Christian, who I thought was going to get sick of listening to my cries every night.

Towards the end of November, aka the end of the semester, I began to just give up on finding friends for the first part of my school year. All I had to do was wait out Christmas break and then maybe, just maybe someone would come into my life during my second semester. It was around this time that Amy added me as a friend on Facebook. Now usually I am not one to add people to my friend's list if I don't know them; but she said she was the girlfriend of Preston, who I know from church, and her sister worked with Christian at the library. So, I went ahead and added her as a friend, totally not expecting much to happen with that. A day or two later, she sent me a message telling me more about herself. She went to IWU for her first semester, but was transferring to IUSB next semester because it was cheaper, closer to home, and she wasn't meeting anyone at IWU. She was hoping to become friends with me since she heard I was in kind of the same position.

Well, alright. So we proceeded to send messages back and forth to each other, opening up more and more each time. After about twenty messages sent to and fro, we both were extremely shocked to find out that nearly everything about us was the same. Our favorite foods, movies, shows, activities, games, and so on. Everything was exact! A month went by with more messages, some texting, and instant messaging a few times. The new semester was coming quickly and we decided that we had to meet to go on with our potential best friend status. So, last Friday, we dragged the guys along and had a double date, and I must say, I am extremely excited to see what happens with us this semester and more in the future! My prayer had become answered, but not just by this one girl entering my life. I found more people that I related to and could hang out with on a regular basis and I completely fit in! Over my Christmas break, I did get friends as a gift; and it's the greatest gift that I have enjoyed thus far.