Two things.

I'm kind of down, if we're being honest.

There's just a lot going on here now, and I have a lot of goals for myself that I'm having trouble meeting.  But it's not like they're all really important goals - some of them are just daily goals, simple goals, which makes it even worse when I don't meet them.  I might be too hard on myself right now, it's hard to tell.

Please don't worry though, okay?  This is why I haven't written in a while - I didn't want to put anything too negative on here because I was too afraid to make you worry.  Don't worry and don't think that it's like this all of the time, because it's not.  There are really wonderful days, really awesome moments, sometimes long strings of them together.  But then there are those down times, you know?  It's just life - but amplified, since I'm here, doing what I'm doing, exposed to people both here and continents away.  I believe that when you live this kind of life, you don't have the luxury of having secrets.  It's just out there.

So that being said, I've been having trouble.  We've been setting up things at our new house, but I'm tired of running errands for myself.  I want so badly to get started in what I intended to do here - going places, meeting needs, working, loving people, serving.  I know, I know, I can do that anywhere, anytime, any way - but I'm ready to step out of the "normal, every day" life that I've spent the last month setting up for myself, and I'm ready to step into places with needs.  

I had a hard time getting to sleep last night, because I was scared.  We had a hard time getting our outside gate closed (the one that goes from the street to the driveway), because it was broken, and that made me feel really unsafe - especially out in my room, alone.  And on top of that, it was thundering and raining hard, and the wind was strong.  When the wind blows - even just a little - the branches over the "barbeque" area (between my flat and the house) scrape and blow against my walls, and it makes a noise that is, well, not pleasant.  Also, the walls in my room are cement, the floor is ceramic tile, and it's been in the 40s and 50s (Fahrenheit) here at night - so it's very, very cold.

Needless to say, I had a hard time getting to sleep.  I was scared, cold, and alone.  I put on a movie to drown out the scratchy noises and to take my mind off the broken gate, and I eventually fell asleep.

But not before I prayed.

Let me tell you how I feel about prayer now.  You can agree or disagree, and that's okay.  If you feel we need to talk about it, that's okay too.  But here it is.

I feel like I spent most of my life trying to sugar-coat things for God.  When I prayed to Him, I would only give him the "nice" version of the story, or the shortened version, or the easy version.  Not the whole version.  It's like I turned my life into a corny made-for-TV movie for the only one who really saw the whole unedited, uncut version.  I don't know why I did that, but the reasons don't really matter now.

I don't want to sugar-coat things with God.  I don't want to try to put my life into a neat box for Him - He knows what a mess it is.  That's why grace is such a humbling concept.

But I realized sometime in this past year that I wasn't telling God the truth.  I wasn't "flat-out" lying to Him, but I also wasn't telling Him the whole story.  I was drawing lines, building walls, putting up signs, saying He was and wasn't allowed access to certain places in my life.

That's no way to treat the one who created me.

Now I do my best to tell God the truth, all of it.  If my eyes and brain and heart and thoughts and all of my senses are cameras that take footage, I have to believe that God deserves to see the real, raw, uncut and unedited footage that they take in everyday.  God deserves it.

I just wanted to share that with you.  If you disagree, it's okay.  If you agree, thank you for your support.  If you struggle with it, I understand.  It's hard.  Keep contending.

Either way, I hope I said something that will help.

So last night, when I prayed, I told Him that I was really scared and that I was having trouble trusting Him.

It really is better to live life without secrets.

-Tara.

Two things You told me - that You love me, and that You are strong.  (Jon Foreman)