Over the past few months, I have seen myself involuntarily becoming more and more like Christ. Not that I don’t want to become like Christ; that is my biggest desire while I’m here on earth. It’s just I’ll look back at the “Old Heather” and go, “Wow, I sure don’t like the same things I used to; the things in life that brought me pleasure are not the same things that bring me pleasure now.”
For example, I used to shake my booty to all kinds of music…and now I can’t stand to listen to the Top 40 radio station. I don’t think music has gotten “worse”, because I’ll look back at the things I used to kick it to, and go, “Why did this ever bring me joy?”
Of course I’m writing about something greater than my booty-shaking. If you know me, you know that (minimally) I have a loud personality. I speak out of turn, I laugh L O U D, I say what’s on my mind, and I am not the definition of “calm”. I’m emotional, and that drives all the things I listed. So I think about a few things that have happened to me in the last month–totaling my car on a horse on the highway at midnight, losing an eighth grade girl who means the world to me, and one of the residents at the girls’ shelter trying to kick down my door to kill me. The Old Heather would have freaked out in each of those situations. She would have cried hysterically. She might have harmed herself, emotionally or physically. She would have blamed God; she would have failed to see His mercy in any of this; she wouldn’t have looked at the positive; she wouldn’t have been able to testify of God’s grace through these situations. Who I am today is not the same person I was when God chose my heart. He has conformed me to the likeness of His Son in ways that are inexplicable. I am still loud; I am still driven by emotions. But I understand God’s purposes a bit better, and have been blessed by the Spirit’s gifts of discernment, wisdom, patience. Even in a time right now, where I’m having a dry patch with the Lord, does He call on me, choose me, and change my heart. I don’t deserve any of it. And this blind-sided me; that I would ever go through situations like these and BE CALM IN THE LORD.
“since I got that call, no more Saul, now I’m Paul.” –Kirk Franklin, “Lose My Soul” with Toby Mac.
Heather Lea Kenison 
Don't mean to burst your bubble on the music one, but you might just be getting older. All of us eventually turn into our parents and look down on the junk the younger generation listens to, it's inevitable. But the rest is pure inspirational. You've dealt with real-life stuff and kept giving glory to Christ and that's very awesome. You may not minister to youth forever, but what you're doing now is real Jesus-style ministry. Props.