Blank Slate

This weekend we took a trip to Blarney Castle and the Dingle peninsula. While the trip itself was long and a little stressful the sights we got to see were so glorious and vibrant that everything seemed more than worth it. 

On Valentine's Day we were at Blarney Castle and I got to kiss the Blarney Stone. Legend says that if you kiss it you will be blessed with eloquence. We'll see. While we were standing at the top of the castle we saw the clearest rainbow I've ever seen. I could just feel God smiling at our silliness as we just soaked in his creation that surrounded us. We explored the castle grounds and it felt like we were in a fairy tale with all the moss and lush greens all around. I half expected a nymph or a unicorn to come bursting through the trees with the sun.

On our last day we drove around the Peninsula stopping occasionally to look at different cliffs and hills. We drove through some land that seemed like it was just unused land, but we learned that it used to be home to millions of people who were forced onto these tiny tracts of land and made to survive. This is where the potatoes were grown. And where the famine began. The terrain out there is very shallow soil with rock underneath. In order to grow potatoes farmers had to build up from the ground. They made "lazy beds" which were just mounds of dirt build up with sand and seaweed so there was room to grow the crops. It seemed so odd to me that a place was once so bursting with life (even if that life was not necessarily prosperous) is now completely desolate, all that's left are the remains of some old walls that were once the barriers dividing the precious land. The place has been wiped bare, waiting for a new chapter of life. 

I can very much relate to that abandoned land. I was once a person with such clear ambitions and goals and now God has wiped all that away and all I'm left with is my faith and my name. I can feel God working in me, preparing me for something bigger than I ever thought was possible for my life. While getting to know people on this program I have realized that while almost everyone has an idea about their life and themselves, I do not. I love everything and I find it impossible to eliminate anything. From areas of study to genres of music, I like everything. There is nothing that I can definitively claim as my own, as an identifier. Jesus is really the only thing I'm sure of at this point and while that's terrifying, it's also exciting. I don't know what my life's going to look like next year or even next month, but I know that if I trust God, it's all going to turn out for the best. I feel like God is stripping away all the things I used to hide behind as my identity in order to create a new one that's entirely based on who he is and who I'm supposed to be. I'm getting a clean slate, whether I want it or not.