I'm eighteen years old. There are some days I get out of bed and then I just want to get back in right away because it's too much and this world is just a hard place to be. I could. I could just stay in bed and pull the sheets over my head and hide there and make people bring me food and water and just kind of survive under there until I die from lack of sun and love and people and disintegrate and fade away. When I think about it that way though, it seems worth it to pull myself up and out into the day, to splash water on my face and go fill a mug with coffee and sit on the porch and ask for grace to live the day. But still, sometimes I hit a point in the day where all my energy literally just leaves- like it's been spent and I'm just done. I hate that point of the day, I hate those moments where I just want to cry because I'm weary of trying and striving and hurting and living on this broken earth. I'm leaving for college in a week and none of my clothes are packed, there are many dear friends who I haven't said goodbye to, I'm spoiled and used to having coffee already made for me when I wake up in the morning because my mom is basically a saint, and now I'm gonna have to make my own coffee and figure out random adult things like bank accounts and paying bills and figuring out what I want to do with my life. It's kind of scary. I think it's too messy. I am a mess. I lose things easily. I hurt people's feelings, I forget to treat people with patience and kindness. I make mistakes. I panic when I shouldn't. My eyes are frequently puffy and tired and I've got freckles on my nose and peeling skin on my toes and fingers because I pick at them. I'm so imperfect. My belly has a little more fat to it than I wish it did and my thighs seem too big. I spilled iced tea on the sofa yesterday, I look at my phone too much when I could be having a real life conversation, I get discouraged, I forget to pray, I get smeary mascara when I cry, my life does not look like pinterest and when I try to make it look like pinterest, recipes turn out looking and tasting like something you'd find in a swamp. I find myself constantly living under the pressure of life needing looking perfect like instagram and my clothes looking put together and my devotion times including beautiful typography and photography... And then it hits me: this is too much to live up to. this is ridiculous. why am I trying so hard. what is grace. where is grace. where are things that matter.
Hi. I'm Emma Buchanan and I'm a real person. I'm currently in the process of learning what it means to be imperfect. to be a mess. and to be beautiful in the midst of it. to let life be beautiful anyway. Some days are hard and ugly and I get frustrated. I cry a lot. I wrestle through things with God and with dear people who take the time to listen, and through this struggle I'm learning to see goodness. This is what Christ came for, this is what He died for, and I am learning the gospel story day by day, again and again. My sin, His grace, His goodness, my joy, my strength to live each new day and be filled with purpose yet again. My goals in life currently are:
1. let there be mess. let things be imperfect. be okay with that. find beauty in that. be REAL. accept God's grace because He's given it to me specifically because He knew ahead of time how messy and imperfect I would be.
2. live with less. less clothes, less stuff, less random shoes I never wear, less plans of how my life is supposed to be going, less requirements of what it means to be "happy"
