A Little Life Update.

My oh my… how life changes. God has taken my life and completely flipped it upside down in the most beautiful, challenging, stretching, and unexpected ways. In this post I would like to share what this past season has been like for me and just really update my followers on what has been going on in the life of Aj recently! This post is probably long over due because I have been getting a lot of questions, but I have not been writing as much because quite frankly, I am still figuring it out myself. So, let’s jump in!

Many of you know that I grew up as a ballerina. I danced for years and years and I even taught ballet and tap for a couple of years. To me, dance was my life. It was what I thought about daily, what I did daily, it was my outlet, my escape, my form of creativity, my platform for friendship and growth, and so many more things. In 2016 some of you may remember I broke my back dancing. We are not exactly sure of the exact cause of the injury, we think it was an injury that developed over time because there was not one specific instance that broke my back. When this accident happened I was in a back brace for 3 months and had to “take it easy.” This was when I discovered I am very bad at “taking it easy.” I tend to say yes to everything and I enjoy keeping my schedule busy. So, this was a new and unexpected transition for me. One that I HATED. However; in the midst of change, so much beauty began to spring up. I started paying more attention to other things I was good at, paying attention to people outside of my studio, I dabbled in other gifts/talents God had instilled in my heart that I never paid attention to simply because I did not have the time. I had more time to focus on school because fun fact…. I was failing math at the time because I did not have the time to learn it. I started painting, I focused more time on music, on people, on what my actual dreams and goals for my life were, etc. It was during this time that I discovered I wanted to be a counselor and I actually had no vision for myself in dance past High School. This was a whole new development that I had never realized simply because I had allowed dance to become way more of an idol in my life than it ever should have been.

When this school year came to a close and the summer of 2016 began, my friend committed suicide. This was my first encounter with anything of the sort and I will be honest in saying it completely knocked me off my feet. I did not feel like a person for a long, long time. After the shock of his death wore off my focus was to get myself back to a healthy place and figure out what God was doing in my life. It seemed at the time that life just completely sucked but I trusted God with my whole heart that He was taking me somewhere, I just had no clue where yet. So, during this time I quit dance cold turkey, took a nanny job 2 minutes from my house, worked on school, was on the worship team at my church, and spent time with my family until I had some kind of clue of what was next for me. This was a really special time of healing for me that I desperately needed. My life had a consistency to it that I began to enjoy. I loved getting to actually “be around” and say yes to things that I had never tried before because I actually had the time. I grew very close with my siblings during this season, stowed away a little bit of savings, and redefined with the Lord who exactly He said that I am. I learned my new and true identity. So, that semester I started Bible School, quit my nanny job and took a position working with friends at the studio I grew up at, moved out of my house and lived with my brother, and slowly I began to figure who God said Aj was. Not the fake identity I had conjured up in my head, the one that wore a leotard and pointe shoes and never hung out with people. God began to carve me into who He wanted me to be and slowly I began to heal.

My close friends know that as I was in this season I was pretty adamant about my “No Boys Policy.” I did not think I was ready or stable enough to be in any kind of relationship. Simply because I was still figuring things out. My friends and I would joke about me being single, but I knew deep down there was no way I was ready for something like that after the season I had just walked through.

Suffice it to say, when I posted a picture with my new boyfriend in December of 2016, a lot of people were very surprised. Including myself! I will not bore you with the details of how all of that started, Zach and I wrote about that together in an earlier blog post, so if you are nosy you can go check that out!

Zach and I dated for 71/2 months before he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. We were engaged for 6 months and we got married in November of 2017. Zach and I have now been married for almost 5 months (WHAT!!!) and that leaves me with where I am at today.

In this season of being a newlywed life has been QUITE the adventure. But do not be fooled. This season has also been extremely hard. EVERYTHING IS NEW! My home, my church, my friends, my family, my status, my city, my schedule, everything. Oh, also have I mentioned that I have not been working? When I got engaged I quit my job and took a semester off of school to prepare myself to be a homeowner, a wife, plan a wedding, and develop friendships in this new community I was going to call my own.

After we got married I quickly jumped back into school but gave myself time before I started working again. This was very, very, very hard for me. I HATED not working. I started discovering how important it was to me to have a status. Somehow I had conjured up in my head busyness = worth. NOT TRUE! So, in this season God has quite literally been beating that notion out of me and it has been painful! But, there is a lot that I am redefining in my heart. I am learning how to give my husband my time, my full attention, and my availability. Having this luxury has been so sweet because by just saying no to things and making him a priority in my life, has caused our relationship to grow probably faster than most. There is just so much I am learning in this new season of life. I am learning how to be content in the silence, how to rely on God even when life does not at all look or feel familiar, and how to be ok with change. So, as of right now I am trusting the Lord with my life and with my next step. I am learning to let go of things I thought were important like dance, certain friendships, and a false identity of who I thought I was. I will continue to work toward my counseling degree and follow my husband wherever he may take me.

Let the Adventures begin!

Isaiah 40:8

“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our Lord will stand forever.”