Independence

Finding out the true meaning of independence is something that requires much more sacrifice than I imagined. People, as much as they may tell you, don't truly support the idea of your independence, they won't just let you go, even when they tell you to spread your wings and fly. This is a fact that includes myself. I have found that true independence costs something, that something being a trust that you never think is necessary until you've realized you've already given it away. I don't want those people around me to go and do their own thing, mainly because it's not my thing. I've lost sight of what it is to become your own person, to let God mold and shape me into what He wants, not what everyone else wants. 

I've had to give up any idea of my life going exactly how everyone has told me it will and grasped on to the fact that my loving Father has something much better, much more exciting for me than the life I imagined growing up. There's been a great discovery within myself: I've grown up with certain ideas and mindsets pressed and engrained into my brain, into my dreams, these things must be dug out, uprooted, and thrown away (after careful examination of their validity). 

Living the life God has for me has never been anything I've expected but rather it's been everything I could ever have wanted. The Creator of this world truly does know what's best for me, and what's best for me isn't a miserable life of slaving away at work I don't want to do! What's best for me is what I will look back on and praise God for! 

True independence is something that doesn't simply happen like a leaf falling away from a tree in Autumn, rather it's something that must be taken by a graceful and loving force, knowing that God is behind you all the way. True independence isn't independent at all, but it's the act of taking man's dependence away from himself, from the world, even from other men, and placing it in Jesus Christ.