honesty (once again)

cSo if you´re not one of my close friends or someone from my home church that receives my weekly prayer requests.. you probably didnt know that my time here in Ecuador has been one of the toughest times in my life. Yes, I´m loving the fact that I get to travel the country, take photos, increase my chances on becoming fluent in Spanish, and add another stamp to my (second) passport. But in between all that.. it has been incredibly, incredibly hard.

Short version: I came into Ecuador with a TON of  great expectations (especially since the way I was led to Ecuador is such an amazing story)..and when they werent met I was just `disappointed/frustrated/annoyed/upset time and time again.

Long version: I´ve been dealing with this "dificultness" the whole time in Ecuador.. but it all came into culmination last Thursday. Lets just say, there were alot of tears, an email to my friends asking for prayer, and a SUPER long quiet time/journaling sesh with God on Sunday morning.When I journal, I pretty much write out my prayers/whatever is on my heart to the Lord. I WAS going to post my journal entry here on my blog.. in fact I even started typing it out.. but then I realized I was SUPER honest in it..and decided if it would be better if  I just kept this one between me and the Lord. BUT here´s a recent email I sent to a friend.. that kind of sums up what I´ve been going through:

This summer in Ecuador has been one of the TOUGHEST times of my life. I went in with so many expectations and when they all failed, I was just so incredibly frustrated/upset/pissed (to be quite honest) over and over again. Its taken alot of my own prayers and asking for prayers from my family/friends.. for God to finally show me that I was not trusting in him.. I was trusting in my expectations/ of my circumstances. And that he calls me to have perfect trust in him no matter what is going on around me. He also showed me (through the words of a friend) that my identity is not found in my friends (whom I miss so much), or my ability to kind of speak spanish, or the "personality" that I´ve come to lean on so much... but instead its found in him. And I´m slowly realizing that this is what post graduation may be like... its a crazy hard lesson but I need to learn how to find my identity in him as a servant of his/as a daughter of his.. versus the comforts of my "identity" I´ve built up in the last 3 years of school.