Dependent Independence.

Dear God,

I’m kind of nervous about my trip. Being my first time travelling alone, I don’t know what to expect. I know I’m good at hiding my nervousness, but this kind of feels like the time I went to Quebec. I would be away from home for 5 weeks, which didn't really terrify me until my parents left, which is when I burst into tears. 

Being independent is weird. I mean, I'm still dependent on my parents, completely, but becoming an adult, becoming self-sufficient, it's different. Scary. Good because I'm growing, but scary.

I feel like older people reading might think, 'Oh well wait 'til you get to my age!', and yes, I cannot empathize with people who've had more experience than I have but this is all I know, and like the self-centred youngin' that I am, this is the biggest problem in my own world.  

I'm not whining. I'm just trying to sort out my thoughts. Writing has a way of doing that. It helps lay out all the chaos and voices that are trying to overpower each other into a literal easy-to-read transcript. 

So yes, I'm nervous about flying however many feet up in the sky across 3 provinces by 2 different planes, and then having to do that all over again. Whenever I travel with my parents, my dad takes the lead, and I like to take it with him and act like I know what I'm doing and where I'm going. Is it lame that I'm a 21-year-old who wants to be treated as an unaccompanied minor? It is, isn't it? Rhetorical question.

But I know it'll be fun. I can't wait to see my friend. It will be a great experience, a time where I will be completely out of my comfort zone, taking on the role of an independent adult lady travelling alone... 

There's this tension between my independence and dependence, my self-sufficiency and my need, my anxiety and my being at peace, because in the middle of my racing heartbeat and shallow breaths, I'm reminded of whose hands my life is in. 

The God who you trust has given up his son's life for your good, for your salvation, for his glory, is the same God who runs your entire life, who is in control of every move, thought, and word you speak, and yet you're still responsible for your actions, your thoughts, and your speech. Compatibilism - look it up. It's a thing. 

Your Salvation, your Saviour, your Propitiator (woah, did not think that would be a word, I kinda just hoped it would be and now that it doesn't have a red squiggly line under it, I'm kinda proud of myself), your Justifier is the one who sent you his Spirit to be with you always. 

You don't know whether you'll die next week, tomorrow, or in the next 5 minutes. You aren't guaranteed tomorrow. You aren't guaranteed anything. The only one thing that hasn't changed, isn't changing, and will never change, is God himself. He is the same yesterday, today, an hour from now, forever. And if God is love, then there's absolutely nothing you can do to make him love you any more or any less than he already does. He is constant even when you can't even manage to keep up with your schedule or your responsibilities. Even when you run as far away as you can, even when you've cursed his name, under your breath and aloud, once you have Him and once He has you, it's for good. 

There is nothing that can separate repentant creation from its Maker. When you realize your need for Christ, when you realize your need for a Saviour, when you can admit that you are messed up and understand that nothing on this earth can ever satisfy, not even your best self, look no further than the cross - the death of an innocent man for the long-term good of those who trust in him and the glory of his Father who sent him. 

This is truth. Know that nothing else can or will satisfy you more than the joy of knowing Jesus Christ as your Saviour and being justified by his blood, freed from the power of sin, living dependently independent by the Holy Spirit for the glory of an even more powerful God.


What is your only comfort in life and death?
That I am not my own, 
   but belong with body and soul, 
   both in life and in death, 
   to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. 
He has fully paid for all my sins 
   with his precious blood, 
   and has set me free 
   from all the power of the devil. 
He also preserves me in such a way 
   that without the will of my heavenly Father 
   not a hair can fall from my head; 
   indeed, all things must work together 
   for my salvation. 
Therefore, by his Holy Spirit 
   he also assures me of eternal life 
   and makes me heartily willing and ready 
   from now on to live for him.
- Taken from the Heidelberg Catechism

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