This blog is from a few days ago, but I just got around to posting it today so here it is!

I feel like I am really stepping into a new season. Which I mean duh Jayna you're in a whole new country on a three month trip, I'd say that's a pretty new season. But no, it's more than that. The Lord has been so sweet to just guide me back to Him constantly. But the difference in me is that I have been listening to His guiding voice and working on following where He leads me. If you know anything about me, you'll know that I am pretty independent and kinda stubborn so this idea of surrendering to God has been something that I've wrestled with actually doing for quite a while. But God has been pruning that independence out of me slowly and turning it into dependence on Him. There's this song I love by Torchbearers and it has a line that says "I wanna be fully dependent, leaning on my beloved," and I swear this has been playing in my head for weeks at this point but it is genuinely my desire. To be able to give God everything and to lean on Him for everything. So that's the change in me right now, a change in my heart is happening. Where nothing else matters but God. All I want to do is follow His lead and be where He wants me. This has already translated to so many areas in my life like deciding to come back for the spring semester. I of course wanted to come back and am so excited to, but it is also scary and definitely pushing me out of my comfort zone being thinking about being away from home for another 4 months. And I've already had to surrender in some pretty big areas in my life, I won't go into full detail, but it's just another example of how me giving up what I want leaves room for God to do more than I could even imagine.

You know I didn't even fully realize this when I did it, but I ordered a new Bible, which will get shipped to my house so I won't actually have it for a while. It doesn't seem that big, but I ordered this Bible and I think that it's a symbol of the change that God is doing in my life. I just had the urge to order it kind of out of the blue a few weeks ago, but I think I knew deep down that God was making changes in my life and I needed a blank slate for fully surrendered Jayna to be able to use. Like it's a new Jayna coming out of this trip and a new level or relationship with God that almost called for a fresh start and a new place for God to speak to me. So my heart is new and it is the Lord's and I keep getting these sweet moments of Him showing this to me.

Side note I think that relationship with God is like a muscle, like the more I work it and sometimes struggle through pushing through, the more it grows, the more He just flows from my life and my heart and my mouth in everything I do. The more my prayers start to feel more real. The more I make deeper connections with friends. The more I know where my worth and foundation is. It just all revolves around God.

Anyway, that's just a little realization from recently! I'll post an update blog later this week!