The Guided Tour of Life.

Ever since I've been back home, I've felt like a new person.

I feel confident, unafraid. I feel excited about life and the possibilities of a job. I'm helping Chris paint houses, and when we go to lunch together in our matching painting whites, I feel like I'm in a ball gown. I feel stunning... glowing. Something about working with my hands- even if it's vacuuming up spiders from a dusty garage so we can paint it- it suits me.

I have not been easily overwhelmed. I've been able to make phone calls and talk to strangers with ease. I'm managing my money better and eating healthier and feeling undaunted by trips to the grocery store.

Something really has changed.

A friend of mine put a perfect picture to all of this last night, and it really resonated with me. She said something about a bud pushing up through the ground after a long, long season of being buried and in the dark and cold dirt. So simple, yet my insides leaped as if they'd been discovered. As if a spotlight suddenly drenched them and the jig was up. She also said that the time spent underground was not wasted... that God needed that time to cultivate and prepare for the difficult push upward... the breaking of ground... the sunlit days ahead.

These past three years have felt very buried. Ever since Ezra was born, I've felt plunged into the soil... left to trust that the seed of motherhood would germinate and I'd burst through the dirt ceiling again in time.

This all goes along with what I feel God has been telling me over the last couple of months. Every single time I would start to freak out about what to do with my life or what direction I should be heading in or what decision to make or how I felt I wasn't fulfilling my purpose in life, I would clearly hear him say

"Emery... Just know Me."

And then I'd have a moment of clarity, like, Oh yeah! It's not my job to have everything figured out, is it? It's not my job to plan my steps! No wonder it has felt like a responsibility that is too much to bear... I can't see the whole picture. How am I supposed to map my way towards an ending I want but don't even know?

Impossible.

So, instead of muscling my way through endless days of confusion and worry, I pause and remember that this is a GUIDED tour... that as long as I'm close to the guide, everything's cool.

It's only when I try to cut my own path into the jungle that I get gobbled up by tigers or something.

I'm SO done being tiger food. So, I'm trying to stay close. And slowly, my strength is returning. My step becomes firm. And the adventure begins.