restarting.

today is the first day i have felt like blogging since before Christmas conference...

i have about 3 months of stuff in my head/heart so it should be interesting to see how this all comes out. i have been forcing myself to blog, but none are ok to post because they are a little too personal.. and by little i mean WAY.

as i have talked with older people about my life recently, they have ALL said the same thing and let me tell you something.... IT PISSES ME OFF. every. single. older. person. i have talked to says in some form or fashion 'Oh dont stress about that! stop worrying! the Lord will make it all clear to you!' in which i want to say...

ARE YOU EVEN HUMAN!??!!!?! how bout you think back to when you had 5 weeks left in college and had NO FREAKING CLUE what you wanted to do with you life... how did you feel? did you feel calm? did you feel at peace? did you feel worry free? ya. thats what i thought. so why the hell are you telling me to 'not worry about anything'?!

instead i just do the mature thing and laugh and say 'oh i know...' when really i want to punch them in the face.

these past 3 months have been a huge ball of blaudgalkdsjf. i am stressed. i am so confused. i feel like i am looking for one freaking mustard seed in the pacific ocean. i am anxious. i am exhausted. and i am not trusting the Lord at all because i feel like i have nothing to trust.

i think that the past 3 months, the Lord has been turning the heat up and i have maintained by boil-overs thus far, but in the past 4 days i have had a constant boil over that has been uncontrollable haha and i am very certain the Lord intended me to have them at this very time.

i went to dinner last night with a younger girl that means so much to me. i've done a biblestudy with her and some other girls before and it has been so neat seeing her grow as much as she has in the past year. when we sat down last night she just vented about how confused with life she is right now. she asked me questions like How do you discern Gods will for you life? How do you figure out what you are supposed to do with your life? When people tell you 'well just get in the word and the Lord will reveal his purpose' what does that even mean? How do you really study the Word? and the questions went on and on and on... and i just sat there, half wanting to cry and half wanting to burst into laughter because i am asking myself those same exact questions.

what is Gods will for my life?

how do i figure out how to do what i love, do what i am good at, and do what God has for me? and how do all those mesh into one THING?

am i really in Gods will right now?

i keep going to the Word for answers, but i leave more confused. is there a right and wrong way to study the Word?

and on and on and on....

but as i began to talk with her and tell her about everything i have been going through recently, show her scripture that i have read recently, and laugh about the way we think... i realized that without even knowing it- the Lord has been giving me answers. the Lord has been comforting me. the Lord has been guiding me.

i have been so blinded by my desire to figure it out, that i havent been able to see the Lord unfolding his will right before my eyes. that being said, i still dont agree with EVERYONE who keeps saying be calm, dont worry, Gods got it... God gave us emotions and i have every intention of using them. this is not a calm/worry free time of life. BUT to lose sight of faith in my worrying is where i have gone wrong.

i have been SO consumed with worrying that i had begun to just give up. i had almost gotten the point of - screw it. im just gonna do whatever the heck i want. instead of saying -

Lord i am FREAKING OUT. but i bet Noah was freaking out when you told him to build an ark when there was no rain. and i bet Jonah was freaking out when he was sitting in the belly of whale. and i bet Joseph was freaking out when he had to go to the King and interpret his dreams and then help run a country. and i bet Daniel was freaking out when thrown into a lions den. and i bet Ruth was freaking out when she chose to stay with Naomi even though she really had no reason to. and i bet Mary was freaking out when you told her that she, as a virgin, was going to conceive a child. and i bet that Mary Magdalen was freaking out when she came to mourn over you and you were not in the tomb. and, if we're being honest, i bet you were freaking out when your own father commanded you to lay your life down on that cross. so here i am- laying down my desires on my own cross and begging you to show me what it is you have for me in this short life.

i was re-reading THIS and was reminded of alot of truths i have become numb and blind to... i HATE the idea of limitation. i hate thinking that i cannot do something because someone told me i cant. i hate thinking that there are parts of living that i wont get to experience because someone told me i cant or because its not ok for me to do. really. i HATE that.

but i had lost sight of the TRUTH and the FREEDOM that the Lord is giving me. i had began to see certain aspects of my family, of my friends, of certain relationships, and of my own self as boxing me in and keeping me from things. and i have been angry. REALLY angry. and when the Lord finally turned the heat all the way up over spring break (which btw was THE GREATEST SPRING BREAK EVER!!!!!!! hands. down. AMAZING! blog about that to come soon!) anyways.. when the Lord really broke me over spring break, i came back and realized how desperately i need to go back to square 1 and restart.

i need to go back to what i know. i need to go back to the posts that make up that fence of freedom. i have to preach to myself every morning that God is GOOD. that God is sovereign. that God is faithful, my rock, in control, here for my good, and merciful, loving, gracious, and forgiving. now what of all that sounds confining? none. but i have to get my heart back to believing those truths.

... music is always what helps me the most. usually not christian music, because i honestly think 'christian music' is annoying, predictable, and cheesy. (and sung by people with NO sense of style) HOWEVER, this song has been on repeat the past week and the words are applicable to someone going through a transition like i am, or something as serious as death. and what they say in this video is what i feel like the Lord has recently done in my heart...

Every week I hear a story of a miracle

And if I’m honest I’m tired of seeing none at all

I don’t need to see a dead man come alive

All I want is you to fill me up inside

I need You Lord

Even more than the air I breathe

I need You Lord

Right away

I need You Lord

Every minute of every day

I need You Lord

Right away

Today I’m asking for a miracle

Anything you got God big or small

I don’t need to see the cancer go away

All that I want is to know that it will be ok

I need you I need you

abc.

QOTW.

i have been stru-guh-ling when it comes to this here blog! life has gotten pretty crazy this past month in a half. there have been very specific reasons for each QOTW that i have chosen for Jan/Feb and as soon as the GRE is over on friday and i get back in town, i am getting caught up on all the things that i love... one being this blog. so, though i know none of yall (whoever 'yall' is) aren't, like, on the edge of your big comfy chair just dying to see what i have to say... i am! because i never know till i sit down. so, i will return with a stellar post to make up for my absence... for the sake of none other than my own head.

oh man arent you pumped?!

abc.

decades. who needs em?

more so than usual, people have been telling me that i was born in the wrong decade. i have literally gotten this comment about 9 times just this week. and, frankly, i agree.

why couldn't i have dressed in ridiculous layers with colored hair at a cyndi lauper concert?!

or i mean, really? this is what my hair looks like when i wake up. things just would have been so much easier.

or even just a hippie so i could wear tye-dye every day with a million braids and feathers in my hair.

heck, i'd settle to be Pocahontas too.

until then, i will thrive off of dress-up parties and pinterest to quench my desire for fringe, tye-dye, feathers, and all things neon.

abc.

QOTW.

instead of looking at confusion, im choosing to see joy.

im in the noonday and dont even know it...

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QOTW.

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the beauty of pain.

i know its a long quote.. but its C S Lewis so you know its good. read it.

"... Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing i expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me and one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. you may think that, being a dragon, i could have knocked any lion out easily enough. but it wasn't that kind of fear, i wasn't afraid of it eating me, i was just afraid of it - if you can understand. well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes, and i shut my eyes tight. but that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it."

"you mean it spoke?"

"i dont know. now that you mention it, i dont think it did,but it told me all the same. and i knew id have to do what it told me, so i got up and followed it. and it led me a long way into the mountains. and there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. so at last we came to the top of a mountain id never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. in the middle of it there was a well...

i knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it... and i thought if i could get in there and bathe, it would ease the pain in my leg. but the lion told me i must undress first. mind you, i dont know if he said any words out loud or not.

...oh, of course, i thought, thats what the lion means. so i started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. and then i scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, mu whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after and illness, or as i was a banana....

but just as i was going to put my feet into the water i looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. oh, thats alright, said i, it only means i had a smaller suit on underneath the first one, and ill have to get out of it too. so i scratched and tore again and this under-skin peeled off beautifully ad out it steeped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe....

well, exactly the same things happened again. and i thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have i got to take off? ... so i scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. but as soon as i looked at myself in the water i knew it had been no good...

then the Lion said... 'you will have to let me undress you.' i was afraid of his claws, i can tell you but i was pretty nearly desperate now. so i just lay flat down on my back and let him do it.

the very first tear he made was so deep that i thought it had gone right into my hear. and when he began pulling off the skin, it hurt worse than anything i've ever felt. the only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. you know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. it hurts like billy - oh but it IS fun to see it coming away....

well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as i thought id done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was, lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. and there was i as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than i had been. then he caught hold of me - i didn't like that much for i was very tender underneath now that id no skin on - and threw me into the water. it smarted like anything but only for for a moment. after that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as i started swimming and splashing i found that all the pain had gone from my arm. and then i saw why. if turned into a boy again..."

there really is no way for words to better describe the beauty of pain. walking faithfully with the Lord brings about so many moments/periods of us thinking we had repented and our Heavenly Father having to come in and claw. away. our filth and throw us into the well of his grace. and it hurts, and it doesn't make sense, but...

"...we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

(2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ESV)

Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow.

difficult or easy, Praise the Father.

abc.

my mud pies.

its funny how when you are searching for something, you don't usually find it. and when you're not really looking for something, you find it.

i have this rule of thumb - if i lose something, i refuse to look for it. because it somehow always seems to turn up when i forgot that i lost it.

recently the Lord has been shaking me up and kinda re-routing what path i thought i was heading down... a fork in the road if you will. so today i went to get in the word and was looking for a verse that i didn't know the reference for, which means of course i couldnt find it. i looked, and looked.... and nothing. so when i flipped to the back of my bible to the concordance, a sheet of paper i had taken sermon notes on from a long time ago fell out and instead of a verse to claim, i got a whole sermon.

dated: 1. 19. 2009.

preacher: Andy Lewis (check him out... he is LEGIT)

title: faith - what is it?

concluding note: "elation from desperation"

we never know what the Lord is preparing us for when we go to church on a sunday 3 years ago. or how sweet these 3 little words might be 10 years from now. or how peaceful a reference will be 5 months from now... we just never know what our Father is preparing for us...

its always intesting to me that the times i journal, pray, study the word, memorize scripture, listen to sermons, and every other stereotypical christian thing i could do, are when i am in desperation. desperation for clarity, guidance, understanding... desperately searching for the Lords will for my life.

but isnt that ironic? elation from desperation. desperation = seeking HARD after the Lord. seeking HARD after the Lord = Jesus. Jesus = elation. pretty simple, huh?

so why do we wait till we're desperate to seek HARD after him?

for me? because im distracted. i am SO easily distracted.

c.s.lewis knew what was up:

"Our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We’re half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition. When infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

my hope and prayer is that in my day in/day out life - i wouldnt wait for desperation to sink in till i finally look to my Father. but that in all, above all, and first of all

i would seek the precious face of Jesus causing

'all the things of this world to grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace'.

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QOTW.

so i've really been slacking on the whole blog thing.... post to come soon! "runners high and road-trips" sounds intriguing, doesn't it?! until then...

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QOTW.

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