Month: September 2010

Does He See…

I have been thinking a lot about where things are in my life, where I have come from, what I have come through, and all of the same thoughts for my friend’s lives as well.

There are certain markers in my life that make it easy to pause and take a look back. For example, today is a really good friend’s birthday… One year ago today we met, and instantly we became friends. Neither of us expected much out of the friendship, and neither of us expected to become as good of friends as we are especially since most of our relationship revolves around fun banter, random conversations, and doing a whole lot of nothing together… But, sprinkled in there are lots of absolutely fantastic conversations, and a whole heck of a lot of prayer. So, today is an easy day to look back and be amazed at what God has done… The path we have all taken, and the ways things have changed that I just would never have guessed a year ago. So, before I continue with that thought, I just wanna say.. Happy 23rd birthday my dear friend. You are more amazing than you realize, and God has some pretty spectacular things in-store in your life; if the last year is any indication! I love you bunches, and I pray for you pretty much every day… You’re even on my 3×5 bathroom card (whoa big deal!;).

However, looking at the last year I can very easily remember a lot of pain… Not because of my friend haha… but just in general. A lot of stress, a lot of strained relationships, a lot of unsolvable problems, a lot of doctors visits, more broken relationships, and a whole heck of a lot of mishaps that should have been avoided… a lot of pain, that is what I remember from the last year.

Ironically, just before summer 2009 came to a close I had a conversation with a woman asking how I “really was” and I told her this: “I am honestly doing really well… Life is great! But, I just have this feeling that something bad is coming.. that maybe life has been soo great for so long that it is about time for some crap in my life…” haha I had no idea what I was saying, nor what that crap would include.. but MAN was I right.

If you have been following my blog for any length of time or if you have scanned back through the last few months, it is no secret that only recently have I found contentment once again. July of this year ushered in a very welcome period of peace knowing that God is in fact in charge, and I can trust Him. He not only created all things, He created me, and has every intention of taking care of me… Whew!… Then I lost my job. haha! Things came in the perfect order, and I was totally at peace with the information that in a few months I would be laid off. I was so much at peace with it in fact that when I found out my response was “.. Ok… God’ll take care of me… Now about this…” and I was just ready to move on, it was no massive blow to my life, and I was not worried…

This entire year every month brought new crap into my life, new tasks that had to be managed and new feelings that had to be controlled. I was faced with one awful thing after another, and no redeeming anything to balance out the emotional roller-coaster I was feeling.. It was just all bad. Never once did I doubt God’s presence in my life, and never once did I curse God.. I saw Him moving AND answering my prayers in other people’s lives… the number of prayers that got crossed off my 3×5 cards was just inspiring!…. I knew my God, I knew He loved and created not but me but everything around me…

But, come June I had just reached the end of what I could handle. I was about to fall and I knew it, and finally I had reached a place where in my prayers I would pray for all the needs of those around me.. and then I would sorta just sit broken and ask… “God, do you see me?… Do you see what I am going through?.. Do you realize how close to the edge I am?.. Do you see and feel this hurt inside of me?.. Do you know that I am too weak to continue?.. I have no fight left….. I. Need. You… Do you see?” Those were my prayers in June. In July God responded with “Daughter, I see you. I am here, and I am going before you, and coming behind you. Trust me, rely on me, and let ME hold you. I. See. You.” He restored my heart, He healed my brokenness, and He calmed my mind. He saw me and made that clear.

I do not know how He does it, but He guarded my heart when I had no idea how. He protects me from myself even now, and He has made it clear that I am not to worry about tomorrow. So, I don’t. My current circumstances make no sense, and definitely point to hurt, frustration, and anxiety… and yet I feel nothing but peace and contentment. I am safe, I am loved, and I will be ok. That is all I need to know because my God sees me. He knows exactly what I am going through because He has not removed Himself from my situation to watch from afar.

Does He see me? Does He know what I am going through?…. Yes.

Pursue Me…

I love how much I learn from friends. My friends have no idea how much I need them every day, they have no concept of how much of an impact they make on my life, and they certainly have no idea how much I think about even the smallest things they do or say… I mull over their actions because I want to learn, I want to be more like them, sometimes just in the smallest ways, and they slowly change me from the inside out without any clue.

Recently I have taken on an attitude.. or air of patience and contentment.. which I LOVE, but it certainly has changed a whole slew of my responses to situations. I could go on and on about all of these reactions, but the one I have been thinking the most about is the thought and idea of being pursued. And while I have no guy in mind, I still feel like writing this as though it is to a certain person… Let me just say this to start the thought:

If you want me, come get me.

I have no desire nor intention of running and hiding, but I also have been hurt enough to know I need you to prove that I am wanted, desired, and that you will not throw me away because of something better or more appealing… or worse, you will not push me away until I break and cannot handle it anymore, forcing me to make the choice to end it and walk away.

It has become very apparent that until you come for me I am going to be so very thankfully content to live my life to the fullest that God has intended for me. I have adventures planned, and am living through things I never expected but am pretty happy with. I have no intentions of creating opportunities for you or pursuing you. If you do not initiate and make the first move, I will go about my life without you. I like to think of it as a dance. You have to work up the courage ask me to dance, and once we are out on the dance floor, I will respond to the signals you send. To everyone else, it will look flawless and beautiful.. but to us it will be hard work, and you will always have to be one step ahead of me… But, in the end it will be a blast, and we will be excited to continue our journey and adventure together with God being the music that we are both dancing to…

These thoughts come in part because of a conversation with a couple friends late last week. One of my friends spent a couple hours explaining a story from a recent trip, the story was very entertaining, of course leaving room for us girls to be… well girls. We giggled and laughed at the ridiculousness that were certain points in the story, and ended with encouraging her to stick to her God given role in the relationship. Lets not fool ourselves, at no point is it easy to leave the guy to God and let God deal with him and his heart.. but it is always the better choice.

So, here I am… Living a wonderfully exciting life full of things only God could have planned… and one of these days you will know I am the one you want and you will pursue me. I am excited and can’t wait… but really I can because until then life will keep both of us busy enough and we will learn some irreplaceable things that we will need later. All I ask is that when God tells you to, you come for me. Thanks 😉

How Great is Our God…

I tend to read every night before I hope for sleep… Last night I read Hebrews 6 due to a surprise conversation with a fairly new friend. I got the chance to hear a small portion of my new friend’s story, and he mentioned Hebrews 6, so I thought I would take that night’s readings and refresh my memory on what it says. The first half talks about the “Peril of Falling Away” as it is titled in the beginning of the chapter, while the second half focuses on “Better Things for You.” The part that stuck out to me the most while reading it last night was a couple verses near the end.

“For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.” – Hebrews 6:16-18

We (whether believing in God or not) will swear using His name, promise with something seen as “higher” and more credible than ourselves…. Yet God, owning everything, and being subject to no one…. just merely promises, and because of that then folds a double layer of promise into what He says will happen… How crazy to think about.

Then this morning I spent a long time listening to Louie Giglio’s various sermons.. He has such a unique way of putting truths.. and his passion just oozes out of him, it’s really a neat thing to listen to. The sermons I listened to had to do with how great our God is, and how indescribable He is…. I could not agree more, and this certainly comes at a perfect time when I find myself relying on God more and more as each day goes on… I am so excited about what is next, but I have literally no way of preparing for it, so my only option is to wait on the Lord…

It will be awesome.

Find Me Faith…

Is my faith certain?

This question has nothing to really do with doubting my faith so much as processing through the things I “know” to make sure I truly honestly believe with absolute certainty… deep down inside where doubt begins seeping through…

I was thinking last night as I was laying in bed really tired but unable to sleep (again), that I have absolutely no clue what is coming next. I am certain of a few things…
1. God told me this would go down like this.
Dos. I am out of a job in 3 1/2 months.
III. God hasn’t told me what to expect, but He has told me not to worry.
D. I am not worried or stressed, but I am being diligent in making sure I am not getting lax or lazy during this time.

I am really enjoying this point in time where I am just totally content. I feel quieted inside, and at peace… Which, has proven to be beyond amusing for me when others find out about my pending loss of a job. I am being consistent at work, staying diligent with my homework, and making sure to continually look for a new job. I find myself praying about my job a lot, but most of my prayers are still sticking with my friends away at war, the people I know struggling with illnesses or having a difficult something or other in their life… And, I am ok with the fact that most of my prayers stay there instead of focusing on something as trivial as a job and bills… I am really working at constantly remind myself that God has worked everything out absolutely perfectly up to now, why would I suddenly worry?

In other news, I am loving the totally content feeling I have in all areas of my life.. including the area of guys. Because of previous relationships I finally am at a place where I have no desire to “make it work.” I desire to be pursued, fought for, loved, and did I mention pursued? I took a couple months and really looked at the way I view guys in regards to me, and I am pretty happy with where I have settled. My basic thoughts lie around, guys (and people in general) are hurt and broken just like me… but, that does not mean bitterness and hurt need to rule my perspective of them. I have come to a point where I do not care to push and work at a relationship until I know the guy is pushing and working just as hard, that he is willing to fight for our relationship and me, and until then I maintain my neutral state. I am not bitter, hurting, nor fighting to keep guys away.. I am simply just trusting God to protect my heart, and going about living my life.

I have no doubts that Jesus will bring the man I need into my life at the right time… until then I have things to do, work to get done, places to go, people to see…. and lots of homework to do!

Thank you Jesus that your unwavering, undoubting, completely certain Faith has found me, and brought with it peace.

The Smiles in My Day…

Sometimes, when I pause and think about all the random little things going on in my life I cannot help but smile and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all… and, often times I feel like I should be living in a comedy version of the Truman Show! 😉

Things that make me smile today:

Emailing throughout the day with my best friend. – Our conversation are a comedy routine themselves!
Completing a matting/framing project and looking at it, proud that I still have that skill!
Watching a video posted by one of my friends and his wife of someone else’s adoption “gotcha” day.
Reading old facebook picture comments from my little brother.
Coffee… Always, always makes me smile 🙂 Especially if the flavor makes your taste-buds dance!
Friends of mine leave tonight for a missions trip to Panama… I’m REALLY excited for them! 🙂
Random people trying to “help” me… Seriously, it makes me laugh.
Running commentary…
Realizing how ironic God can be with His timing…

I am so very thankful today has turned out like it has… For whatever reason I woke up feeling ok, but as though that state was fragile, and a bad encounter would send me off the crappy crap crap day cliff… Thankfully I had some time to wake up, listen to some great music, and get a cup of coffee before I had to deal with any obnoxiousness in my day.

Still job hunting, nothing really new to report other than, I continue to apply for jobs wherever I find one that interests me.

I was talking with my dad the other day, and it was really nice to just sorta go through my thought process with him. One of the points I brought up was my curiousness at why God felt it was important to tell me two years ago this is how everything was going to go down… My dad said that part of it he thinks is how I am always saying that if God would just give me a basic direction I would feel ok, safe, and secure… The ironic thing is… I do. I am not worried, I know without any doubts this is exactly how things are supposed to play out, and I am doing my best to hang onto the ride, and gracefully handle whatever comes my way. I’m really excited about what God’s preparing to do next, even though I am totally blind. 🙂

Facts Update #1..

Here is the statistical data for my new adventure…

Last week:
Applied for 30 jobs.
1 local (meaning I will not have to move)
29 not local (meaning I will have to pack up and move my crap again)
2 rejections. = 28 pending responses… until I begin applying again…
http://www.indeed.com is quickly becoming my new best friend for job hunting.
Thoughts currently:
I’m not worried, God will figure this out since it is His plan anyway.
I found some really neat jobs, and even thought I might not be completely qualified currently to do them, I will be soon… So, hopefully something fun will come my way.
I have a few thoughts/feelings about the coming year.. I shared them with a couple friends, and we shall see what comes from them.
I am totally content to not worry about what is coming next..
I am really curious to see what God does with a couple other situations in my life… but mostly regarding my job hunt.
My school work is going to be about as much work as I was expecting.. but not really prepared for…
Life is not easy… but man is it worth the work on the other side.
I got a new bed for free!… No more air mattress!… At least until I possibly move haha