life, an update

Right now I could be working madly on school, getting college worked out, graduation all registered for, and figuring out if I'm going on any international or long distance mission trips this summer. But instead, I'm writing a blog. Brilliant, eh? Hmmm...anyway.



With all the madness that usually goes on in my life and the added list from above, which quite honestly are all really MAJOR decisions to be made, there's a lot of extra things to deal with as if they aren't enough on their own and it's all been really crazy. Yesterday I was ready to seriously knock out the next person who asked me about anything college/future related. One of the guys on the worship team asked me where I was going as I walked toward the stage steps and I stopped, went back to where he was at the back of the stage and stood in front of him and was just like "what do you mean where am I going?" He didn't realize it, but if he hadn't been referring to me walking off the stage instead of anything past the next five minutes he'd probably be waking up in ICU right now. Anyway, hang with me here as I sort it all out and share what's going on with me and how in the midst of all the craziness I'm actually learning a bit still.


I'm trying to sort out everything in my life right now, figuring out where to go to college, where or if I'm supposed to be going somewhere to work for the summer in missions, finalizing everything for graduation, and somehow finding all the finances for it all. I'm the kind of person who has had to battle questions and doubts my entire life, so it basically sucks when I am finally getting to the place where I can trust God with every thing a bit easier and then everyone around me seems to be bringing back every question I've already trusted him with and trying to ask it again. Ugghh. It's hard to keep focused when people you should be able to trust to trust in God with you are actually trying to make you question again. It's hard to answer their worried questions about your future with you're not sure yet, you're just trusting God, even though it's the right answer, all of our great 'logic' and 'knowledge' would have us second guess a faith based answer.

What I'm learning through all of this? I'm reminded of the verses that talk of not putting your trust in men, even in princes or riches, but instead to put your trust in God. My God hasn't made everything clear to me yet, but what I have felt in my soul is simply to work and accomplish what I can today with what He provides. What exactly am I supposed to do with the things I'm planning to study? I don't know how exactly I'm going to work or serve in the areas I'm going to study, I'm not even 100% sure that's where I'm supposed to be yet. I do know that no matter how many times I stumble I'm chasing my Lord's heart and He said He knows the plans He has for me, plans for hope and a future, to prosper and not to harm me. I'm learning that this life is so temporary, so quickly passing by. I don't want to waste it chasing after material things, I don't want to let the worry of anything of this world keep me from seeing the One who provides all my needs, who knows every crazy hair on my head, who gave the most precious thing He had to break the walls of sin between us. And I don't want to let my wants or needs keep me from seeing others'. The love of Christ in me has the power to change this world, to change the people I meet so I want to be wherever it is that He wants me no matter how long I have to wait for him to tell me or where I may have to go. And I need to be where He wants me, with who He wants me to be with, because I'm really learning more every day how much I need Christ.


How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! Hebrews 9:14
I'm so thankful that through grace the strongholds of doubt, questions, and distractions are broken and will be forever, continually brought down so that I am able to serve my God.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; you works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:13-16
What have we to fear? How amazing that our God saw us and loved us before we were even born, how amazing that He knew our sins already, and still chose to love us!

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11
He has DECLARED that. God has plans for us. That He has plans for us is amazing enough alone, but He says that they are plans to prosper and not to harm, to give us hope and a future. No circumstance or pressure of this world could ever take that if we rely and believe in God.

O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold on eternal things. Open my eyes that I may see; give me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste Thee and know that Thou are good. Make heaven more real to me than earthly thing has ever been. A.W. Tozer 'The Pursuit of God'
I am really liking this book, and this has definitely been a prayer that I need daily. I think it's a prayer we all need to take as our own more often.

When I said, "My foot is slipping," your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.....But the Lord has become my fortress, and my God the rock in whom I take refuge. Psalm 94:18-19,22


Yes I get nervous, I get stressed out and frustrated. But as I continue to take my tear soaked heart to God, I find that it's usually the tears and the storms that soften my heart to be molded by the Potter ever more like his own heart. Does everything in my life feel like more than I can take? I know it's more than I can handle, so I'm so so thankful that I have the love and strength of Christ and not just my own fragility to rely on.

You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness, O God our Savior, the hope of all the earth and of the farthest seas, Psalm 66:5

Love.