Fear

I've never really shown my writing to anyone before. If I'm honest, it's because I'm a bit nervous. Nervous of what people will think, of what they will think of what I write, whether or not they'll like it... or even like me.

    

That's not all. For possibly the first time in my life I'm scared. Yes, me. Genuinely, honest-to-goodness, quaking-in-my-boots scared. I'm usually boundlessly confident. On the outside at least. But I find myself staring down the barrel at a decision. I have to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life. It scares me. I'm 17! I'm not ready to decide! I could go to university, and I could apply to pretty much anywhere I'm interested in, but do I really want to carry a £45, 000 debt with me into the future (and possibly into marriage)? And yet, I love to study. In a way, it's all I know. It's something I know I'm good at. Whereas if I go out and get a job, I might not be successful at my chosen field. Or I might absolutely hate it. On the other hand, I might love it, and if I never marry, having a career to pursue would be a great. But I just don't know.

     

But I am learning. I feel God has had to teach me to trust him the hard way. It's only fairly recently that I have learnt to trust God more completely for every area of my life. And he had to pull the rug out from under my feet for me to wake up to the fact that I am NOT Wonder Woman, that I don't actually have to do it all myself, and that if I insist on doing so, even if  I "succeed", it's going to be far more painful than if I just backed down and left it in God's hands. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to stop fighting, pray more, and leave it to God... Yeah, and some people might be on the receiving end of a fairly distraught phone call or two when it all gets too much, but hey, that's normal. Isn't it...?