Love, CharenLeigh

F : Facing
E : Everything
A : Aligned with
R : Reality

I have had a lot on my heart lately I have wanted to share with the world.

This new year of 01/2020 started off on a different path for me for once. Every year I have set goals and aspirations for that following year. As mentioned in blogs from the past, I start in the end of October into November with setting these goals and finding ways to accomplish them. Pretty much setting out a plan for the new year. I am sure a lot of others do this also. But one thing I learned from the years past that even by end, even if the goals are all checked off I still wanted more. I still craved to do more, be more, accomplish more. I still felt like I had not been enough for me, my family, my friends, my job, my education, or my future. That lead me to to try something different,

The beginning of 2020 felt refreshing but I also felt like I had taken a step back. I had gained the weight back that I had lost the previous year. I had started loosing interest in the mental health nursing field. I had become extremely stagnant. I had started to just follow through with the motions of every day life. Which in turn felt awful. I was beating myself up, trying to find out where I went wrong.

January passed and I was doing daily things that I knew would make me feel better. Back to regular personal journaling, back to attending my favorite gym, back to spending time with my girls. But allowing myself to just go through the motions daily without focusing on a “specific goal” to check off.

February began and ended the same way and my “feel good” routines seemed to be working. Then here comes March, the month that uprooted every one in the whole world. Some it took a little longer than others to grasp what was happening or how it would affect them personally. But for me, life hit head on and fast.

Reality was that normalcy for me is what kept me at peace. And with the COVID-19 virus, my peace was shaken. I saw death in a new form. I feared for my parents, sibling, friends, even strangers lives on a daily basis.

The months during the pandemic flew by, I was just going through the motions of trying to stay healthy, finish my Associates Degree strong, while being exposed every day to the virus. When I look back over the months of April, May, June, and July the only thing I recall is how mentally strong I really was. All the triggers from my past were reidentified, all the loneliness, and lack of being able to do things that made me “feel good”. But with God holding my hand I realized how “enough” I really was. I realized that reality was changing me for the better. I faced every trigger and every attack head on. I took advantage of the opportunites that the pandemic offered, even if it was only a few. I sat with myself and saw myself in a new light. I faced the enemies that were brought into my path without turning a cheek and I stood up for myself and others.

Now we are at the begining of September, the pandemic is not over and the virus is still real, but I am new. God uses terrible situations to change you for the better. Yes in the moment those things really suck, they hurt, they break you down, but they are changing you.

The start of the year I did not make a goal list. Thank you Jesus for that, because I would have not been able to accomplish or check them off due to the state the world would be in this year. But I did not know that at the time. I would have been beating myself up for not getting through that list and would of felt like a failure. God gave me grace and faith to just go through the motions. And because of that I got more out of the last 9 months of my life, than I have in the last 9 years.

I have spent the year 2020 facing everthing that was aligned with the reality of world, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

And it changed me. Thankful is an understantment. Faithful and grace-filled is the new me.

I posted just a few hours ago on Facebook, “I am succumbing to my fear that someone may not ‘like me’ or ‘approve of me’ and doing exactly what God puts on my heart daily. I know exactly where I stand with Jesus, that alone gives me peace.”

That is the new me. That is the me I have always longed to be. That is the woman I have become due to the failures, the setbacks, the lack of resources, and the unexpected heart breaks.

I now only focus on the plan the Lord has set out for me. I am content with whatever that is while still putting my best foot forward. Things in my life are so clear, not easy, but clear and that is all I have every wanted out of life. To be able to see Jesus’s hand holding mine and walking along the path he has given me.