Learning to love again.

From my journal:
Today I am 24. I am twenty-four years old today. I understand that's not that old, but it seems old to me. To me, the little girl that lives on Churchill Dr across from the big park feels so distant. When I recount all that's gone on, even just in the past year, and is still currently going on, I feel old. My heart feels, for the first birthday that I can remember, like it's aging. Getting stronger, getting wiser, but today I feel twenty-four, not like the little girl that I so vividly remember myself being. In this 24th year of my life, teach me to enjoy You even more. Teach me to need You, to crave You, to find my existence solely in You alone. Bring me into the position of discipline and posture that you created me for; that I may enjoy and find satisfaction in all of my toil. This coming of age story just came of age, and Jesus, I give it back to you.

Ecclesiastes 10: 11-13
I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.