Walking Forward

Weeks before A. and I headed to Brunei Darusallem, Singapore and Malaysia this reality that we are about to step into feels like a dream. A really good dream.
Our guest room and hall-way are stacked with sealed boxes and in five days, we will be saying goodbye to living at Fawlty Towers. As for the people of Fawlty Towers, I'm going to miss living in our little tight-knit community; what houses our community is a red brick throwback from the 80's with rusticating iron work and temperamental plumbing but it's familiar and in the four years we have lived here, it's been home. We moved in here in June 2013, it was the making of who I am today.

I came here depressed, lonely and angry with how I had worked so hard for everything only to have it slip through my hands. But I was hopeful. I prayed to God everyday for guidance, for understanding and healing. And God helped me through that time, I remember reading a verse in the Bible about how God had knocked down a building and rebuilt it with jewels. I remember thinking to myself that God would build me up again, brick by brick, and He did.

But over time, I have come to look at that particular season of my life in a holistic way.
That season taught me to trust God completely, it taught me that I am human (I am actually still getting my head around that teaching) with perfections that outweigh the flaws.

During that dark time I also learnt how strong A.'s love is for me. So when our situations were reversed after A.'s accident, I learnt how to really listen and be there for him. 
I have learnt to embrace change and evolve rather than fight against it. 
I feel good in my skin these days. I used to hate myself so much that I would look in the mirror and say 'I hate you' when I was a teenager and part of my twenties.
 Part of that self-hatred was not being mainstream. I would go to great lengths to hide my intellectual impairment from others and I dunno, I just didn't like the way I looked or the sound of my voice. People used to give me crap about my accent too.
 But over the past couple of years, I have seen that everybody is impaired, whether it's academically, emotionally or mentally - everyone has their quirks, the things that set them apart from the crowd no matter how hard they try to blend in.

I have learnt to give myself grace.
 Love to the teenage girl who wanted to fit in.
Compassion to the twenty-five year old who was scared of what the future held.
And to the twenty-eight year old woman I am today, the courage to keep walking forward.