It's a good thing Jesus never said this would be easy.

There's also a saying, be careful what you wish for. How many people have prayed for God to give them patience only to be put in situations where their patience is tried? I've been praying for God to re-excite my heart for Him and His Word. I still mean it, even after realizing what I've asked for. I've asked for joy, and trying times. For feeling loved, and feeling convicted. Complacency in your faith is a dangerous thing. You start to believe that everything is okay, and nothing (including yourself) needs work. Then God grants your prayer of bringing a fire for truth in your heart, and you see yourself, and the world for what it is. Broken. And with seeing all this, there is now a desire to move forward and have him work on your heart, and your relationships, and the world. And it's not going to be easy or pain-free, but it's something that needs to be done. So here goes. My heart must be broken to be built up even stronger. It's going to hurt, but I'm glad I have God on my side throughout it. "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4

This little light of mine...

I'm gonna let it shine. I recently realized I should probably figure out what type of blog this should be. I could write about house projects, but that's kind of boring. I'm not in Africa anymore. And while I'd love to rant and rave about the poor English skills in Texas ("I'm a'fixin' to go to the store"), I can't bring myself to write something like that now that my blog has been RSS fed to Facebook. I'd love for the to be a blog only about my spiritual life, hopefully being a light to the world, but I can't do that only either. That wouldn't reflect my whole life, which is kind of the purpose (I think) of blogging. So it'll be pretty random, as it should be, since that is currently how my brain is functioning. I'm on the tail-end of the semester, with one huge exam to go. With summer, house projects, and more school looming, I can't help but be scattered brained. So here, in relatively organized list form, will probably be the most random post I write.
-I like popcorn. A lot.
-I'm smart and it kind of makes me guilty to share my grades with others.
-I can't stand when people use outright poor English. Dear Texas, "fixin" is not a word. At least not in the sense you use it. "I'm fixin' to go to the store." Not English. That thing is not "broke", unless it has no money, it's "broken". And while I've wanted to use "ya'll" I just can't bring myself to do it.
-These past couple weeks with God have been really amazing for me. I've finally learned (at least for now) how to stop putting pressure on me to be the "perfect" Christian. If I was perfect, I'd be Jesus, and in heaven right now, but I'm not, so I obviously have some huge character flaws. I've realized that by starting my day (and I have every day) with a little devotional is for now, enough to help me focus my day on Him. I'm learning to delight in so many little things, and start to recognize how everything is for His glory. I think I was worrying too much about me.
-I can't wait for this semester to be over. I have a huge list of to-dos for the house, and an entire stack of books to read. That sounds like a perfect between semesters break. Plus we get to go camping and see friends in Colorado!
-I love sarcasm. And that will in the end not serve me well.
-You may only get one post a month for me. It'll be interesting to see how often I feel okay to bare my soul. More often than not, I will. Typing it is much less terrifying for me than speaking it.

Take 2?

I guess I turned out to be not much of a blogger. Not really surprised. But part of me was thinking about it recently. I really love reading other people's blogs, and I think part of is because people who blog are in general not afraid to bear their soul. That could be why I haven't written. I know that at times (okay, most of the time), I become so self-absorbed that I worry constantly about how people are going to react to what I say, do, think, etc. Am I afraid to let people know that I love God? This thought has been a constant in my life. The answer varies with the season. Right now, no. I spent a long portion of the year (since coming back from Africa) on a letdown from the most amazing spiritual high of my life. I told myself I was going to take a little break from being so intense about study, then get back into the swing of things. I never got back into the swing of things. Life happened, and excuse after excuse came about why I wasn't reading the Word.
Luckily, God is not one to give up on people. And thankfully, I am one of those He's chosen to not give up on. He waited patiently for me to figure out there is no excuse to not spend time with someone I love. I would never tell Blair, or my family, sorry I'm too busy to put life on hold a bit for you, but that's exactly what I did to God, who I'm supposed to love more than even life itself. So I finally got the message thanks to my wonderful friend Erika, who let me hash out all of this for about 4 hours while I was back in MI. There are no excuses, and every one I tried to give was really lame. So I started. I figured out the I can look at getting into the Word just I like approach running. God isn't going to expect me to start off on a marathon. I start by training for one. 1Cor9:25-27 says " Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." I can look at training for being like Christ, like training for a race, start small, build up your endurance, then work to not just finish, but finish well. Runners know that to race instead of run, you don't just look to complete the race by building up distance. You do short runs, speed work, and rest. It all trains your body to work. To fully enjoy God and what he wants to do with my life, I need to be prepared for it. I need to be prepared to do long runs, short runs, and rest in His glory.
I've also been thinking of our mortality a lot lately. Our pastor Matt, had a seizure on Thanksgiving, then was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor. He's been given 3 years, and he's only 35. His illness hit me like a ton of bricks, but what more, is the vivacity he's continuing to live life with, and the glory he's giving to God throughout all of this. I keep thinking, if something like this happened to me, or if someone I loved got sick or died, is this how I would react? Would I go out glorifying God? I like to say that I would, that I would go out with people saying, "There's a woman who loved God". I think that's the glory I really want. Not to be the best at everything (although that's another topic I could write about), but to be the best that I could be with what God wants for my life. To show my love for him outwardly, and to let everyone I know how much I love God, and what He's done for us all. Now to do this in a smart manner, and to not scare people away from God, but point them to Him, is something I'm going to need some training on, and is why I am not like Christ yet. I can only hope that I keep going that way, even though I know what I'm asking for is suffering, and trials to help me persevere and remain strong.
I think that's all for now. I could probably go on for a long time, but then it'd be less organized and more rambly. God's really working on my heart right now. He needs to, and I'm finally up for letting him. Thanks for sticking through this to the end. If no one reads, I guess that's okay too, since I've finally gotten out what I've needed to say for a while.