It’s been a few years in this Paradise. A place with an endless warm breeze, the sun on your cheeks, and the sand between your toes.
A dream backdrop to a life well lived.
Over the years I have said out loud “I can’t believe I live here”. The beauty is breath taking and I can’t think of a day since I moved here and called it home, that I have taken its glorious beauty for granted – no not even during that horrible hurricane a few months back. Gods beauty of the environment has been the steady win for moving so far away.
The parts that didn’t quite adjust with so much glory and honor was finding myself: mind *body*soul, here in this new land. It is a melting pot of ever changing families also seeking to live life to its fullest in paradise. It lacks roots of longevity of a small town or familiarity with generations of a family name. This is impactful when it comes to peoples truths. Everyone loves the idea of reinventing themselves – sounds so “becoming” and rich in self help. Really – it’s a map of lost roads, a shell of who you are, and more of a chameleon than a human trying to identity in its new nature. Everything suddenly infiltrates you: others perspectives, others beliefs, material things, difference in education, parenting skills, cultural backgrounds, and the list goes on and on. Normally I am so rigid and refined in my beliefs – always the first to swim upstream against the crowd- I found myself abandoning myself and reinventing who I was.Reinventing not because I wanted to run from who I was, but because I had to assimilate to a foreign land.
And today – I noticed at age 46 – I have in the past almost three years- only shared pieces of me – and only in the past six months returned to myself. Realizing – I don’t need to adjust to be included. I wasn’t made to be a shell of someone I used to know. It’s ok to go against the grain even when things are extreme. And it isn’t normal to relive high school drama over and over again when you can’t ever remember a time as an adult ever having any before with friends you have had for decades! DECADES! I also reminded myself of this factor – finding your people takes time!
My two hardest things since moving here that have impacted my being is: church and my inner circle. I finally figured out the latter- YAY for my people! But I’m sadly less hopeful about the church. Church in the south is TOUGH for me. So I continue to seek Jesus in my heart and finding church in his people and his paradise, instead of a man made building. 46 begins the year of fully returning to myself and letting go of all the things I tried that were never who I was or am- while new here. I need to stand firm and be exactly how God made me not a reinvented version because of submersion of environment. Even paradise can trick you into eating fruits from others trees that were never meant for you.
Today on my 46th birthday I have returned to my own tree. The one of deep roots I have grown into since birth. The one I have flourished with fruit and painfully grew from bud to flower. The only difference is I have chosen a different forest to plant myself. It may not be amongst the same oaks I once shivered in the cold with- but now in palms with the sunshine in my face.
seekingup
Seeking Up 
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