Beauty in the Breakdown

SO, ahem, notice anything......different? :D

I can't start this post without saying a HUGE thank you to Tricia! Tricia was an absolute joy to work with, and I could not be more thrilled with her work. I'm serious, y'all. I love this design so much that the sample she sent me a few days ago of the header and background has been my computer screen background just so I can look at it all the time and grin like a fool every time I do. It's perfect. It's a thousand times better than anything I could've dreamed up in my head. Tricia, thank you thank you thank you!

Okay, now that I got that very important piece of business out of the way, I can get down to explain the new title and subtitle.

Well, I actually got "Beauty in the Breakdown" from the song of the same name by The Scene Aesthetic.  I've known the song for years and love everything about it, but I mostly just love how pretty the phrase "Beauty in the Breakdown" feels when I say it.



Here's why I chose it for the new title of my blog, though.  It has a couple of different meanings for me:

One, I feel like a recurring theme on my blog over the past few years, and specifically this year, has been my struggle to find the beauty in tough situations, how people have seen that quality in me even when I didn't see it in myself, but if you break any situation down enough, you can find something good in it, because God is everywhere and God is always good.

Two, there's something from this post reflecting on my baptism that I think fits here:  "I've never remembered the details of an event so clearly.  I still remember everything, the sights, the people, the music, the emotions.  That's why I'm so grateful for this blog, because if I ever do start to forget, I can just go back and read that post and be taken right back to the moment, the moment when I realized everything that had been waiting for me when I was too scared to let go and just FALL."  The most beautiful, God-breathed night of my life happened once I finally let God break me.  He broke down every wall I'd been fighting to keep up, every fear I'd been holding onto, and basically shoved me into the coolest thing I've ever experienced.  If I hadn't been broken that way that night, if I had kept fighting His will and love, none of the amazing things that happened during the rest of that night or the months since then would've happened.  When God breaks you the way He broke me that night, it's absolutely terrifying, but it is even more beautiful than I can ever explain to you with words.  I didn't understand it until after it happened to me.  Sometimes I still have trouble understanding what happened to me on April 5th.  Nothing in my life will ever match the way I felt in that church.

The Scripture reminds me of this post.  God has made so much beauty out of the ashes that was my life.  You can see His work throughout the pages of this blog.  There's still a lot for Him to redeem, so to me, it's a reminder to have hope that He will continue to work in my life and the lives of the people I love.  His timing is perfect.  He hasn't done what I keep praying for Him to do because He knows it's not time yet.  I just have to hold on to Him and wait.  As I let go more and more of that fight for control, the more He'll be able to do His thing.  Also, I think it goes with the title in that they both talk about beauty.

So there you have it.  Yes, after 3 years, I was tired of the old design, but mostly, I just felt that it really didn't fit me anymore.  I wanted something new, something to mark the incredible transformation I'm going through as I let Christ fill me up with His love a little more every day.  For the first time in my life, Christ is my priority, and I wanted something new because I am new.

Plus, I graduate in less than 20 months, and I can't possibly see this blog ending at that point, so I wanted something that didn't have "College" in the title.  ;)

Welcome to the new blog for the new me.  I can't wait to see what beauty unfolds before me in the days and weeks to come.