my problem is you make me melt...

and i don't want to be frozen anymore. (incubus)

i used to scoff at people who had blogs and promised to update them daily, because i had a desk job that made it easy for me to facebook, tweet, and blog frequently throughout my 8 hour work day. now that i'm teaching 18 four-year-olds every day and making home visits in the afternoons and doing accountability and small group and supper club and serving on the special events committee for the greenville humane society and going to the dog park, there is really no time for my dear blog. i've made it my goal, though, to work really hard at updating more regularly, if for no one else but myself. i don't pretend to think i have some huge following, but writing is so therapeutic for me. i'm good with the written word. if i think about it long enough, i can form a sentence that comes pretty close to describing what i want to convey. that's a good thing when you find yourself in the midst of some pretty confusing life situations. so. here we go. this is what i've learned over the past little while:

junior year: heartbreak beyond all heartbreak. senior year through october 2009: avoid all emotional involvement, stay guarded, keep heart in safe mode. october 2009: meet someone and dare i say fall in love? april 2010: end relationship. april - july: beg for second chance. last weekend of july: realize that it's time for this to end for good. august: moving forward. that's the timeline of my life over the past several years. i tell you that to reveal something about myself: i am needy.

i hate to admit that about myself. i mean, i really, REALLY hate to admit that. and for the past few months i've done a really great job of convincing myself that that's not really the problem. however, jesus is persistent, and i've finally come to accept it. i have never had what i'd call a "good" relationship. i've always been hurt. i don't blame anybody for that, it's just the way it is, and i'm in no way saying i've never hurt anybody. the past year of my life makes it pretty clear that i do my fair share of hurting. what has happened to me, though, is that instead of finding my value and worth in jesus, i've been searching to find it in another person. i'm a pretty self-confident woman, but i so desire affirmation in the form of a romantic relationship. i'm 100% social 100% of the time, and loneliness is a really raw place in my heart right now. in the last relationship i was in, i was having my selfish desires met: attention, company, intimacy (don't take that the wrong way, i simply mean closeness), feeling wanted and needed, feeling beautiful. don't get me wrong. i wasn't in the relationship soley for myself: i had (and continue to have) very strong feelings for the person i was in the relationship with. however, instead of facing the fact that i was trying to have someone else meet needs that only christ can meet (and then becoming frustrated and disappointed when he failed to meet them all the time), i poured more and more of myself out. i lost myself in this unhealthy relationship - not unhealthy because of him, unhealthy because it wasn't healing me; in fact, it was making me more "sick."

i absolutely hate having to admit these hard truths to myself. i don't like seeing areas of weakness, and i don't like confessing that there are places in my life that i struggle with and wounds in my heart that are very fresh and very open. i miss this relationship, because it was fulfilling desires, meeting needs. but it wasn't really. it was leaving me even more drained and empty. i want to run back to it. in fact, i'd be lying if i said i didn't pray for it to be reconciled. but i know, i KNOW, that right now, i need to work on me. well, i need to let jesus work on me. i need to let him continue to expose these places in my heart and life that need more of him. i need to rejoice in the fact that he's showing me these raw places so that i can experience true and lasting healing. i need to remember that i can drink from the fountain of life and be thirsty no more. i don't need to seek out another person to try to meet my needs. i need to have my deepest longings satisfied by the one who put those longings in my heart.

massive life update

can it really have been nearly a month since i last updated my precious blog?? indeed, it has been. it's been an insanely busy three weeks in the life of ashley gardner, but i'm excited about where the past twenty-one days have brought me. i'm going to try to update you, sparing you mindless details, but filling you in on important lessons, events, and thoughts.

i left united way and started my new job on july 26th. i haven't blogged in such a long time that i can't remember if i already explained my new job or not. i was hired by the ymca of greenville (specifically, the judson community center) to be the lead 4K teacher/director of curriculum and home visits. what a blessing it's been already! i have loved (almost) every second of it. i'm walking through some unchartered territory here, learning things about my students that break my heart, and experiencing the unconditional love of a child every day. i don't even know where to begin to explain the lessons i have already learned - and i've only been at it for fifteen days. i love my kids. LOVE them. they are precious and resilient and beautiful and spirited and have wonderfully unique personalities. i feel incredibly blessed and priveledged to spend ten hours a day with them. it's interesting, because there are times when i feel myself totally in the moment with them: smiling, laughing, and loving on them with every ounce of myself - giving them every ounce of myself. then there are moments when i am tired and impatient and frustrated and at the end of my rope, and i hear myself talking to my sweet preschoolers in ways that make me cringe to recall. the thing is, they never stop loving me or thinking that i'm great or hugging on me or fighting to sit in my lap. they love me, just because i'm miss ashley. it really is a beautiful picture of how jesus loves me - just because i'm ashley and not because of what i do or what i say or how i act. praise jesus for that. i say all that to say: i love my job. i adore my babies. i leave each day feeling exhausted - physically, emotionally, and mentally. i am giving more of myself than i knew i had in me. and i love it. that's not to say that the first week didn't find me in tears a few times, feeling worn out, overwhelmed, and unsure of the huge life change i had made in switching jobs. three weeks later finds me a happy girl!

i finally came to the end of a long journey. a ten month long journey, to be exact. the past ten months have been confusing and frustrating and draining and at the same time, there have been moments of absolute bliss and contentment and joy. finally, after an especially trying four months, the trip - roller coaster - whatever you want to call it - is finished. what's funny is that closing the door was hard. it was brutal. it was sad and dramatic and ripped my heart out. but now that the door is closed, i feel better. i'm on the other side, and i made the decision. now. that's not to say that i don't still FEEL, because i do. i feel a lot. a lot of love, a lot of hurt, a lot of aching for someone. i'm reading "eat, pray, love" right now, and i swear that book was written for me. the author chronicles her journey through a very raw heartache in her life (oddly enough, about a man who shares the name of the man i've been writing about for so long now). it's been great, cheap therapy for me to read elizabeth gilbert's words, because they are truthfully my own words. a few things i've learned from her so far: you can't put a time limit on when feelings will be over. when you'll stop loving someone, wanting someone, missing someone. you have to keep living, and eventually, those feelings will go away - when you've felt them out and taken everything you needed to take from them and moved on. what beautiful advice. people are a part of your life for a reason. the second beautiful truth i've learned is this: "you've gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone is." bam. i'm the queen of wishful thinking, and i learned the hard way that sometimes you have to stop wishing and stop standing up for what you want - not settling for what you're wishing might change one day. so here i am, with the door closed behind me, still feeling out all of these emotions, but thankful to know that 1. i'm not walking alone and 2. this person and these feelings have a purpose in my life. i'm going to keep living - squee