My eyes are a little sleepy and are beginning to well with tears as I sit down to write this. Once again my unconventional fear of blank pages has filled my body as I stare at this one. My hot English breakfast tea is steaming up the cold screen of my grey Mac. However, my heart is anything but afraid. My heart is full of unwavering love.

I have felt paralyzed, knowing that once I prick and poke the surface of my heart, my emotions will come streaming out and lay at the palms of my hands—as if I were wounded and laying in the red liquid that makes me human. Opening up means I become vulnerable to you, my loyal readers. The counterfeit person I’ve made and become will be shown, and it’s unnerving.

You see, I’ve become an excellent liar to myself. I have learned so much this year—math, chemistry, history, and literature have been occupying my time and my brain—but I’m saddened to say the one thing that I’ve become an expert at is “faking it until you make it” or even telling my peers and family I am “well” when I am not—I’ve touched on this topic once before. However, this week I realized that that phrase is completely wrong. This week I faked it until I broke.

I do not want to fill this blank screen with seemingly insignificant words but I have been holding my breath for the past few weeks. I have felt the craving to share something that has been apart of me since I can remember. I feel if I don’t breathe soon my lungs will collapse and I will pass out from the hurt. I am human and I need to breathe in the inevitable. Emotions screaming, words swirling in my head; I feel like an orchestra warming up before playing the most beautiful grand ensemble.

My eyes are tearing and my heart is full because yesterday was Good Friday, and tomorrow is Easter. That can mean many different things for many different people but for me it means spending the weekend with someone greater than me or any of the people I spend my normal weekends with. It means spending time with my Creator and the one who breathed life into me. Lately, I’ve felt as if I don’t share my faith enough in fear of judgement or loss of you, my readers. Despite that, I can’t be afraid anymore. I can’t hold my faith against me. I can’t live in the fear of losing something when I already have everything I need.

So yesterday, I went to my beloved church where I feel most at ease (besides when I sit down to write my posts on Uptown Maven). We had a visitor pastor who comes ever so often, Josh White. The message, of course, regarded Good Friday; I won’t get into the depths of the message—not because I don’t want to but because he is so intellectual in the way he speaks and well-read, I feel I wouldn’t give his words justice.

Getting to the point, I had a terrible day yesterday. I started my morning with some of my favorite worship songs (that one happens to be by Josh White himself), but then I quickly became weighed with various instances of low blood sugar and also extreme anxiety that had been filling my body throughout the week. By lunch, I had a breakdown. I was taking a test when all of a sudden I blanked—my fear of blank pages was ever so prevalent. My mind became blank and I became as frozen as the ice that sat in my water bottle. I started to cry, and my teacher comforted me. I have had a lot in my heart and on my mind this past week—staying up until eleven at night working on homework and projects didn’t help either since I get up at four in the morning. I was exhausted to say the least.

Yesterday, reality hit me square in the face. I ended up leaving school because of my unstable emotions and red eyes. I debated not going to church because of my uneasiness but instead I pushed myself. Today I realize—not but twenty-four hours after I witness Him orchestrate the little things in life—I witnessed myself change last night. I witnessed Him cook up another batch of deliberate details with such precision and attention, it made my heart rupture against the cage that is keeping it tame and contained; my eyes once again swelled with sweet, salty tears.

Pastor Josh shared a message that was absolutely a message meant for your Uptown Maven—because I’m human too. The anxiety, I learned, is all meant to be. The suffering I experience from my disease is all meant to be however, it won’t last. My Savior not only died yesterday some thousand years ago, but He also bore the weight of all the suffering I have and will experience, so that one day I can live an eternity of His sweet, sweet peace. It all became clear yesterday, that no matter how much I suffer I need to look up and remember that it’s all out of love.

I don’t know how to tell someone who is suffering an illness, a divorce, or the loss of someone loved that the pain they are experiencing is out of love. However, I’m willing to believe that it is indeed out of love because of the fact that He himself made a sacrifice. I mean, how does a Father send his only Son to be put to death? Love… nothing better describes the word more than sacrifice.

So those tears filled my eyes with the realization that I need to give it all up—my anxiety, stress, fear—the sweet, salty tears that once filled my ten-year-old eyes when I gave my life all up to Him in the begging of my journey of faith, now fill my eyes because of the overwhelming love I felt last night.

So here I am, confessing my faith to you, the people that trust me with cooking and clothing. It’s here where I sit with my now cold English breakfast tea where I await the resurrection of the one I love. I’m done predicting, calculating, and coordinating the future, it’s out of my hands. It’s here where I sit desperately wanting to fix my eyes on the immediate, instead of what might be. Deciding to leave the behind-the-scenes, I’ve come to the realization that no matter what people my think of me, I am putting my pain, anxiety, and love in the One who’s already determined my setting, climax, and resolution of this beautiful whirlwind of an adventure we call “life.”

This is for me. It’s time that I confess what I feel; its time I confess the real me. So this is the heist of the counterfeit heart, replacing it with the authentic heart that makes up the my strands of hair and tear stained face.

Bloggers I find, are always trying to convince their readers of something or trying to get something out of the readers themselves but today, this is for me. This was me pouring out my emotions to this blank page sharing the revival I experienced in the span of two hours.

Whether you celebrate Easter with bunnies or a cross I hope you find it a wonderful spring weekend either way.

So this week on Uptown Maven, I’m featuring one of my favorites… eggs. Whether you are hiding them for kids, coloring them, or eating them deviled, hard boiled, scrambled, poached, or sunny-side up they are the best. Protein packed and very universal, eggs are good at any time—Easter or not.

Maveners, I had eggs for breakfast every morning this week, which isn’t that surprising. My favorite this week was Eggs Benedict with avocado sauce (Paleo style). Basically, you  slice a tomato, put the poached egg on top, and then drizzle the avocado sauce over it. For the avocado sauce I use one avocado—peeled—, 1/4 cup of lemon juice, 1/3 cup of water, and a teaspoon of garlic powder. Put that in a small sauce pan and heat through until smooth.

So in the mean time, I’ll be here, watching Him choreograph the things in my life—big or small. I’ll be here awaiting Him carefully direct my path as He coordinates my hopes and dreams, and you know what? I’m pretty positive He’s not nearly done. However, He is done with what He had to endure, as well as the heist of this Uptown Maven’s heart.

Stay tuned lovelies, next post will have a plot twist… in location.

Your Overwhelmed in Love, Uptown Maven