per diem thoughts

Let love in.

These last few weeks have been rough. I have found myself filled with anxiety, sleep deprivation, and stress. In other words, its just been school. Maymester was not bad at all however I found myself bogged down with many obligations and deadlines. Thats life. However, I find that what I define as “priorities” can be very secular sometimes. Yesterday morning I left for class. It was 7:40 and the sun was just making its debut for the day. I was walking to my car to grab my ipod when I realized how little time I spent with God these past few weeks. That was not a “priority”. I am a procrastinator. I would almost classify myself as a professional one (I am working on it, honest). So my response to that thought was….’I’ll hang out with you after class”…why wait? I stopped, took out my earbuds and began walking. I starting praying and thanking the Lord for everything and anything. Apologizing for placing our relationship on the back burner. As I was walking to class, I was getting more and more worked up in the conversation. 

I got the the green and was overwhelmed with…love. I had just been reading through Francis Chan’s book “crazy love (chapter about true love). It talked about why we aren’t ‘in love’ with God. It talked about what it looked like to be in love with Him. At that moment I understood what Francis was talking about. I understood what it felt like to not want to be anywhere else but right there with Him, feeling the sun beat down on my back. I was having conflicting feelings. I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to go to class, didn’t want to do anything but sit and be with God for a bit. However, on the contrary, I wanted to go out and live life differently that day. I wanted to make him proud to call me his child.  I think thats what it means to truly love him—to want to be with him so bad that it brings you to tears. The irony in all of this? We, as people, search night and day for love all the while its been sitting right in front of us since day 1. 

Let love in. Let God in. 

Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to my mother and those women out there who have been like mothers to me. I truly have trouble finding the words to express how blessed and grateful I am to have the mother that I do. She is not only someone I respect and love but she is someone I strive to be like. I know there are so many people out there who don’t have someone like that in their lives and that only makes me cling to the love even more. The comfort, love, wisdom, joy that I gain from being around her will be something I adore for years to come. She is not only my mom but an amazing friend and hero. I thank God for her everyday. I hope all the mother’s out there had a great day and that all the kids showed the love they have for their parent. 




“Well, a mother, a real mother 
Is the most wonderful person in the world 
She’s the angel voice that bids you good night 
Kisses your cheek, whispers, “Sleep tight” 

Your mother and mine 
Your mother and mine 

The helping hand that guides you along 
Whether you’re right, whether you’re wrong 

Your mother and mine 
Your mother and mine 

What makes mothers all that they are 
Might as well ask, “What makes a star?” 
Ask your heart to tell you her worth 
Your heart will say, “Heaven on earth” 
Another word for divine 
Your mother and mine ”

-Peter Pan
 

wise or fool?

The  Lord’s faithfulness always amazes me. That probably sounds nice and cliche, but I can’t help it. Prayer is powerful and I think I always forget just how much power there is to it. The Lord will bless you when you kneel before him with a humble heart asking for his help, grace and mercy. 

Life has been a little tough these last few weeks. But  when is life not hard eh? I guess it was just a little more rough than usual. I was having a pity party for myself which is very unlike me. Everything (from my selffish perspective) seemed to be going against me and not for me. I was feeling like I had some sort of entitlment that would give me some “good moments” since I was going through a season of lonliness and uncertainity. Psh. Saturday… after a few weeks of ‘whining’ to God about my situations, asking for some sort of signs….. I physically got on my knees. I began by apologizing for where my focus had been. I prayed for various things during that time. However, all my “wants” were much differant than what I had previously been praying for. I asked for courage. Courage to change. I decided Saturday that it was time for a lifestyle change. It was time for me to honestly and earnestly look into my heart, to turn the light on all my flaws and see what kind of person I truly was being. (I feel kind of silly putting all this on here. I am not usually such a ‘feelings’ kind of person with most people, but I am so amazed by God that I just need to tell this story). Saturday night I was feeling refreshed. It was the ‘farewell’ to my previous life. The life I was trying so hard to control and manage.

Fast forward to this morning. I had planned on going to North Metro with Chel before I had to go to work. I woke up this morning and just wasn’t feeling it. Something inside kept telling me to suck it up and go. I reluctantly did.

“Gray Matters”
That was the name of the series.  The sermon opened up with a scene from Bruce Almighty. It was the scene where Bruce was yelling and complaining at God because he just needed a “sign”. That hit home. What he talked about was the gray areas in our life. The areas that the bible does not specifically talk about. Life isn’t always black and white….in fact most of the time it is gray. He spoke on how we live life—how we see how far to the edge we can go of whatever sin without going over. How do we change that type of lifestyle? We fear of the Lord. He spoke about wisdom vs foolishness. When we are foolish, we know the right from the wrong yet we choose the latter. However, when we are wise we opt to do what we know is right. We pick to WALK IN WISDOM. We don’t know when our last day, hour, breath will be on the Earth. Tonight could be our last night going to bed. Can we say that the life we have been living has been a wise one? That we haven’t taken advantage of those gray areas? Have we apologized to those that we have hurt, told those that we love that we truly love them, have we brought the Lord’s glory to the Earth every day? I haven’t. I have been living in this gray area and comparing my actions to those around me. If I am not as bad as “so-and-so” then I am in the clear. That is not how it works. I want to be the light on the hill for the Lord. I want to live a life that makes the Lord proud. 

Proverbs 28:26- “He who trust in himself (his heart) is a fool but he would walks in wisdom is kept safe.”

God bless and I hope you let this govern your life this week!

“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it”
-We Bought a Zoo

Have you ever had a specific moment that you look back on and get so frustrated because you wish you could go back in time and do it differently? You know that if you just had 5 seconds of courage things would be different. I guess I don’t really regret many things in life. The only times I can truly remember being upset with myself about something is my lack of courage or bravery and that stopping me from doing something. Earlier this week I experienced one of those moments. A time when I took the easy way out because of my lack of courage. If I had just stepped out on a limb and took the jump then maybe things would be different now. I guess we will never know. Thats the funny thing about wanting to relive a moment in time—a “do-over”. They don’t exist. Things don’t happen the same way twice. So you are left to wonder if that one moment in time may have cost you  something way more important than that fear that prevented you from a taking a chance—weather that be a fear of rejection, judgement, vulnerability….whichever.  

“take ever risk; drop every fear”

Gandhi once said “Be the change you want to see in the world”…..

When its all said and done we are left there to reflect on the day —to look back at what we did, what we said, how we acted. We get to relive each moment memory by memory and think about how each of those moments made us into who we are as bedtime approaches. We sometimes do things we aren’t proud of. We make decisions that aren’t true to who we are. We say things we don’t truly mean. We act in a way that is fake—in a way that is used solely to impress those around you. 

It’s scary to see yourself changing whether it be into someone that you are proud or someone that you are truly embarrassed to be. A question I have been pondering on since last semester is “Is it okay to want to change who you are? To change what your priorities in life are?”  I guess what I struggled with while looking for my answers to all these questions is that if i change myself than does that mean I am not staying true to myself.

I went to the Lord with this. I was compelled to go to Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” I am going to go on a quick tangent about this verse and my love for it. Freshmen year in college my opinion on the meaning of this verse changed. I used to believe that if you love the Lord, He will give you whatever you want or “desire”. As I read it more and more and began finding out who the Lord truly was my opinion changed. Now I think it means when we love the Lord and put Him above all else, He will give you the desires. He will give you the wants not the actually things. I am not sure if I explained that right but I’m just going to pretend I did and keep going. Ask me to explain again in person if it doesn’t. Well I leaned on this verse. To sum it all up, the answer that I found was when we want to change who we are we need to seek the Lord. We need to find out who we are in Him—what our identity is. When we delight ourself in his presence I think He will put new desires in our heart. He give us different ‘wants’ than what we are currently chasing after. 

“Being tender and open is beautiful. As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. Too wishy washy. Blah blah. Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a rain drop, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep, feel it all – look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love.”
-Zooey Deschanel