Get a Little Love.

I've wrapped myself in the arms of boys who never cared - who wanted me for a night, two, a few. I've wrapped myself in the arms of boys who promised me the world and then took it away - boys who I wanted to love but who were never going to love me back. I've wrapped myself up with boys - to belong, to feel love, to feel anything.

Once upon a time, I was the girl who knew she deserved to be treated like a princess. The girl willing to wait. The girl who was secure in herself. I used to be that girl - the innocent, doesn't date, doesn't do anything girl. The prude. The Christian. The "abnormal." I used to not care. I was a hopeless romantic content on dreaming, content on hoping, in no rush to find what everyone else was killing to discover.

There is a place in my past where I prided myself in my innocence. And I vowed I would never give it up. But the world doesn't listen to your plans and you'll discover that "best friends" can turn out to be your worst enemies. Somewhere along the way I stopped believing in the truth. I've been trying to find my way back ever since...

They don't tell you what happens once you allow yourself to fall. They don't tell you how long it takes to get back up. They don't tell you until it's already too late. And then they convince you it's better here, with "them", because now you belong. Now, you're the same.

Since when did conformity become a trend? In a society centered on the individual - prideful and selfish - it seems we're all protecting the same similarities instead of our unique differences. The world has taken control of our fire - they have become the matches that choose when we see. To fall is to play by their rules, to resist is to run blind in a world full of masked faces.

I used to be someone else. I go back to her sometimes. I revisit her in journals and blog entries, in hidden notes, and forgotten photographs. I hear her in the songs on the soundtrack of her "past." I notice her in the joy that has been stolen and in the mistakes she can never take back. I see her in the faces of people she no longer knows. She comes back to me in my dreams and asks me Why - Why didn't she know better? Why did she want it so badly? Who did she want to be?

I used to be someone else. And, if I could back, I wouldn't.

They say your choices define who you are. But your past is simply a stepping stone - not a final stop. The journey doesn't end because you're ashamed. The journey doesn't lose significance in the midst of visions that haunt your dreams. There's a whole new world out there waiting to be discovered. Climb out of the hole and set yourself on fire again.

I want to burn. I want to shine in spite of where I've come from and who I've been. Time and time again. Because, I am who I am and that's enough. At least, for someone.

I've wrapped myself in a love that will never fade - in a promise that will never be broken. I've put my faith in a world that will never end. I've wrapped myself in arms that will never let go. I've surrounded myself with the beauty that finds its' way into my brokenness. All of my life - past, present, and future - is significant here. I've wrapped myself in the presence of King, in the arms of a Father.

For, Jesus made me new again. He lifted me out from the darkness. He showed me to believe in myself again.