What God can do in under a week.

Wow, it has been an amazing week spiritually! It is truly miraculous what the Lord can do when we are finally able to take ourselves out of it! I was going to start with today and work backwards, but I think it will be better to start on Wednesday and work up to today as that will probably make more sense......


As you have hopefully read in my previous blog, I have started really trying to focus on my prayer life this week (and for the rest of my life, really) and have already had some life changing encounters with The Lord On High. I truly believe that, for the first time in my life, God is fully in control. I think up to this point, I have employed God as a sort of consultant, never ever going to Him to find out what the true direction should be. It's kind of like in a business how you know what you want your company to look like and so you bring in an outside opinion to offer a different perspective but if it doesn't line up with what YOU want, you pay your fee and do what you wanted to do anyway. Obviously, this is a sin. And it is EXACTLY how I have been living my life. But on Wednesday night, I truly believe that I stepped back from the helm and let the Lord take it over. And it is beyond description, this freedom that I feel. I literally mean that I cannot find the words to describe how full my heart feels, how unstressed and clear my mind is. I don't think that I can explain to those of you who may be struggling with this what to do as it was a deeply personal experience. I am sorry in that, but every person must make their own peace with God. I will certainly pray for those of you who ask me to, that you would be able to find this peace in your own life.


Now, on to the not so pretty details.


I am utterly terrified that I am going to disappoint The Lord again. Not in such a way that it is taking away from my peace of mind, but merely that I am so very aware of how human I am and how prone to leave my King. To attempt to safe guard against this, I am literally getting out of bed in the morning, getting on my knees at my bedside, and giving my life back to Him.  I do this because, like I have said many times and will say again, I know how terribly human I am and how easy it is for me to take my life back again. But I think this is part of my growth process, learning that I will never be able to say, and truly mean it forever and ever, that I give my life to you, oh Lord. There is probably far more complexity to than that but I don't know if I can accurately put it into words. .....


And on to the next epiphany I have had this week.


I went to church today for the first time in longer than is really good for me to admit, and even though the message was very good, I got something else out of it entirely. The pastor referenced something in 1st Corinthians something and I got a little sidetracked in chapter 7, Instruction on Marriage. As you probably know by now, I have a hard time with the fact that I am single (which is actually mostly beat into submission now, I think) and that God has not brought that special man into my life. But as I was reading chapter 7, I began to realize the absolute truth of a couple of things. One is that singleness truly is a gift! When am I ever again going to be able to just pick up and leave if that is what God asks me to do? When am I ever again going to give away every item in my house without a second thought if that is what God says I should do? I am so thankful that I am single right now! And I can say that honestly and without a hint of sarcasm for the first time in my life! I am SO blessed:D The second thing I realized was that the who doesn't matter so much as the what. What I mean by this is that I don't need to be looking around wondering if this great man or that great man is my future husband so much as the fact that I am glorifying God within that relationship. This is also true in any and every other aspect of my life. The where of after school doesn't matter so long as I am doing everything within my power (and the power that Christ works within me) to bring honor to my King. Fascinating, is it not? I firmly believe that God will bring me a husband, and I am excited at the prospect. But I am equally excited that I am currently single. I am also beyond thankful that God has given me more time to draw closer to Him before He brings me the distraction of a man. Praise God in His infinite wisdom!!!!!!!


I could keep going, but I will let your eyes rest until next time;) 


God bless you! 

Epic. Failure.

Two weeks it has been since my last post. TWO WEEKS!!! What an opportunity for growth is all I guess I can say about that; learning how hard it is for me to stick with even the simplest tasks... Le sigh.

On the up side, I actually have some things to talk about now!


To start with, I am not going to be an RA this coming year and am going to live off campus with some good buddies of mine! While I am excited about this new direction, I know that if I had taken the time to actually pray through this, I would have realized that I should be an RA. Again, growth opportunities in that I had to humble myself a bit and at least try to go down the path that God would have preferred me to take. This is an interesting topic and one that I have been discussing with a good buddy of mine quite a lot recently. My stand is that God does not make your decisions for you and that the more you live your life in a manner that is consistent with Biblical teachings, the easier it will be for the decision making to mirror the characteristics Christ desires of us. So I am trying to learn how to do just that.....


I think one of the best ways to figure out God's will is to pray. A lot and seriously. How I am undertakng this challenge is to, literally, get on my face and pray for at least a half an hour. I have, so far, only done this twice ( I started on Sunday so I am on track) and it's hard. But it is SO worth it. I can already feel a change in myself, the breaking down of walls and the loosening of the death grip I have on my life. Not to mention the fact that 30 minutes is already not enough time.

Next on this list of ideas for growth: I am on a media fast. What this looks is that I am not on FB (except to post this), I am not listening to music, and I am not watching TV or movies. I felt like I needed to do this because when I went down to pray the first night, I had a hard time being still and hearing what God might try to say to me because I kept running through the shows that I had watched and thinking about how I would have written them or acted them or whatever. Then I would switch to different songs that were stuck in my head and singing those. And it is mighty hard to hear God when you have Adele rolling in the depths of your mind (see what I did there?). And of course FB is just time consuming and really very pointless if you think about it.

I am really trying to do these things because Christ has been faithful to me and has given me stewardship over things that I have been utterly failing to be faithful with. I am such a superficial Christian and have always been terrified of going any deeper, so this is my attempt at learning to trust that God will ALWAYS be faithful. I can't even begin to explain why I don't and never really have because I'm not even entirely sure. I just know that this is not how I want to live and I have never truly believed that walking away from this relationship that started ages ago is an option.....

Well, I'll keep you all (all, what? 3-4 of you?) updated on how this goes!!

Man, nothing like a public journal to make you realize how boring your life is.

Yet another week has gone by, and I still have changed nothing. I am undecided as to whether this is because I am just a lazy, non-dedicated person, or because my life really will never change........ Either way, nothing new to report.


Just as an academic update though, I will have taken 5 tests by the end of this week. Maybe all my calendars are wrong but I didn't think finals started until the end of April...... The life of a college junior;) Prayer that I would keep my head on straight would be greatly appreciated! 


Also prayer that the Lord would just sustain me. I have this tendency to just want to sleep all of the time of when things get to crazy and this seems to have started happening again. Any suggestions on how to deal would be appreciated as well. 


So, short, sweet and to the point seems  to be the theme today! Hopefully, something will have happened by this weekend. I'll type at ya later!