Have you ever felt like you were on top of the world, like you just peaked in life? Have you ever been so carefree because everything was going your way and it didn’t seem like there were any problems? This was me around May of last year. I felt amazing and so carefree about everything. I was hanging out with friends and was always doing something fun, and I had just finished high school.
Man, I felt at the top of the world in the small town of Linden because I was planning on going to Berklee College of Music, had good friends, and I was available in the dating market. So, I thought I was great and didn’t need to change anything in my life. But, have you ever felt lost in a valley, clueless on what’s to come next, or just sad overall? That was me around July of last year. I came to a realization that Berklee wasn’t going to happen because of the cost, and I had been ignoring that key factor. I started to realize that most of my high school friends were just there for the party and didn’t really care about each other. I was starting to figure myself out and realized that I was just so, so broken inside because I didn’t know how to heal properly from a break up that I had earlier in the year. All I was doing was adding distractions in my life so that I wouldn’t have to face the hard truth.
After my true colors and reality hit me like a truck, I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea what was to come next and I didn’t trust God enough to have him take control. I knew God and believed in Him because I was saved at Camp Faholo 2021, but I was aimlessly trying to find my way in my OWN strength and not in His. When I went to Camp again the following year, God had told me to do FCA and I was, for some reason, on board with it.
Fast forward to joining the program and currently going through it, God has told me to keep trusting Him in everything that I do. Though it has not been easy, it has been really amazing and peaceful to know that God has a plan for me. He has been slowly revealing opportunities and I have never been so thankful for what He has been doing in my life.
Eight months ago I started FCA not knowing what I was doing or where I was going, and my lack of faith hindered me from trusting God. Now, I am trusting Him more and more every day and there is a sense of direction in my life that the Lord has given me. Trusting in the Lord can be scary because it requires you to lose control of your life, but the more you do so and let the Lord takeover, the easier it is to trust Him. We are supposed to live according to His will and not our own, and we are supposed to fulfill His promise and not ours. In order to make this happen, there needs to be trust in the Father.
Ian Blythe
