I know it's been a long bit since my last blog in which I said I would be posting the continuing story of what started as the semester from hell.... well, sorry :). I started to write many blogs but it just wasn't.. right. I couldn't find the words. I couldn't express it. In fact, many days there were no words. No words at all.
Some days, it was just too deep to even express. It felt as if I put words to it too early, I would be defiling the holy ground that God was moving on within my heart. So I ended up just leaving it there for a bit. I hope that was okay with you.
There has been some time, some space, that I feel I can begin to put to words this unfolding journey God has me on. So, if you feel so obliged, come sit with me for a bit and let me share with you the depths of my heart. And I say that very, very purposefully...

Since the day our feet has hit the soil of this country God has pushed me, challenged me, debased me, and completely stripped me. Over and over again. Immediately, my world was rocked to it's core. Not just the semantics that a move like this brings of transition and getting resettled in life, etc. Not only was going to grocery store enough to put me in tears for the night, or the stress of running outside in the rain to grab my nearly dry laundry off the line just to have it smell like mildew for the next few days because I couldn't get it all the way dry in the heights of Sydney winter. Nevermind the frustration of having to pretend you understand what someone is saying when you actually haven't the slightest idea. Just smile and nod :)
All that seemed nothing compared to the utter crushing that God has been doing in me. When I say there where days I had no words, I mean I had no words. I would try and they just weren't there. Many times all I could do was just cry. In worship I would just cry. Many times my prayers were just tears pouring and pouring down from my face, from my heart. But honestly, those times that I couldn't speak were times I felt God so near to my heart. No words were needed. I knew He heard me when I couldn't say anything. He understood me when I couldn't understand myself. A year and a half and I haven't been able to understand what God was doing. I couldn't see it. He was always so near yet felt so vague.
But it wasn't just with God. Even with those around me, I just felt so.. lost. All the time. I never felt like myself. Normally someone who always has something to say and is usually full of passion for something going on inside her or around her, I felt completely silent and empty on a constant basis. And I succumbed to this silence and emptiness. 
It was during this time that I went from being completely crushed and broken down by God to being flattened and stretched farther than I ever have before. Much like when one uses a rolling pin to flatten dough, stretching it out a little farther every time. I felt so at my limit on every level I was afraid a nervous break down was in my very near future. This was during my semester from hell :).
I didn't know when to fight and when to submit. I didn't know what was God and what was the enemy. I could barely catch my breath and I had to constantly run to God just to keep sanity about me. My capacity to handle was pushed to it's utter limit. Handle what, you ask? Anything. The smallest thing required more than I had to give.
I felt like God was pushing me so much from the inside and it was showing up through my ability to handle pressures on the outside. And I just wanted Him to stop. Just so I could feel like a normal person again.
All this culminating with a break down in the dark, in my garage one day,with my dad on the phone from the other side of the world listening to me sobbing over the line. I was done. I was finished. I couldn't handle anymore.  So I quit. I quit both jobs I was working. I pulled out of singing in Kids. School was done for the semester so all my responsibilities were done for the year.
And I just breathed.
I felt completely different. Slightly scarred, but utterly at peace. Totally empty but ready to be filled. Completely broken down but in the hands of the Potter.
And it was in this breathing that He began to reveal.
It was at this moment that I realized a huge truth about myself. My complete and utter inability to just be. To be vulnerable. To be okay. To be still. To be God's daughter. To be the passion of Jesus' affection. To just be with Him. To just sit in His presence. To be transparent with others and let them in my heart. To be imperfect. To be me. As I am. Without all the answers. Without all the ability I need. Without having it all together. Without my facade, my barriers and walls that I didn't even know were there.
There were many, many other lessons I have learned and truths that God has revealed during these times but this one has been the heaviest for me. And the most challenging. A total redoing of my identity. How can I be when my whole life has been in doing? I realized then that I have built a life on letting what I do be what defines me. Take away what I do, and what do I have left? Not much. Just me. And that has always been my fear. That I am not enough. The soul-reaching fear that I am not enough in and of myself.
Though God has been dealing with this in me for many years it just went to whole other level this past year and a half. He has used circumstances and relationships in my life here to break me down so He can build me back up correctly. Firmly planted in my true identity.
I can be honest and say this is a journey because if you were to ask me what that identity is I don't think I know all the way, and what I do know I can't yet put into words.
But I hope I will live my life finding that out.

"Father, I pray that I will always first and foremost know what it means to be Your daughter above all. The daughter of my King. The bride of my Saviour and Lover of my soul. That if I never "do" anything for You, that I am enough for You, as I am, failures, weakness, and all. Help me, Jesus, to be a lover of Your presence above all else that has my heart. That in the midst of doing, I will first remember to be."

What a journey we are on. I don't know why I chose to write about this other than it is a feeble attempt to be on my part. To be transparent and vulnerable. To let people into my heart and be at peace that I wrote this first to Jesus, second to you. So whatever fears I would have about it I can lay it to rest, because the love letter of my life is already nestled away in His heart and my Father is already proud of me.