Reflections on Psalm 34

Life feels as if it has been flying by for about the past week or so.God has been teaching me a lot lately, and I'm striving more and more each day to be completely satisfied in Him. He really laid Psalm 34 on my heart in a new way this week. I started thinking about all of these different parts of my future that I absolutely have no control over, and knew that I needed His guidance. His gift to me that night was Psalm 34. To give you an idea of the thoughts of the future that have been running through my head, here's a short list:
-This summer in San Antonio
-Graduating
-Friendships
-Every day decisions
-Guatemala trip
-Life after graduation- Singleness, etc.

So often I feel as if my thoughts are consumed by questions on the future. I worry so much about it to the point that it's ridiculous. Suddenly I realized that those thoughts were taking away from my present time, and that it wasn't my life to worry about anyways. My life is His, and good thing, because He has it all under control.

There's one verse in Psalm 34 that really struck me:

"The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing." - Psalm 34:10

How many times have I wanted and hungered for something in my life to just happen? Like the answers to all of y questions to just appear. I hunger for the knowledge of little things, like "What will this summer bring me?" etc.

But it's not about me. "Those who seek the LORD lack no good thing." It's about seeking Him, and not for any benefit, but because He's the only way!

"The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." -Psalm 34:18

He guides, He comforts, He knows so much more than I do. This is why I cannot worry. This is why I cannot be consumed by the maybes of the future. Because my King has redeemed my life.

I have to constantly remember this as my hopes are let down. When friendships don't always meet the expectations I had for them, when certain things turn out to be not for me. I can take comfort and relief in the fact that God does have a plan that is so beyond me. It's not about me.

Energy!

I woke up this morning after I spent the night at my friend Allie's and while it took me a couple minutes to get going, I was all ready for the day afterwards! I went to work, I'm about to go to class, and then I'm going to find a job for next year in the Career Services building. I won't include everything I'm doing today, but it's a lot! So it's probably a good thing that this kick of motivation came today. :)

eeek.

So, for the past couple days I have been trying to figure out something that I could blog about. Nothing has seemed to come to mind...

Lately I have not been myself in that I haven't had any motivation whatsoever. Usually, I clean up my room when it becomes even the tiniest bit messy. I do this because it frustrates me to not have space. Usually, I am on top of my schoolwork and I do it on time. I haven't been doing these things. I have no idea what is going on but I need to quit it. I don't know why I have been putting everything that needs to get done.

I'm also trying to figure some things out for next year. Everything in my head is telling me do to something, but everything I am feeling is not.

I need to stop being so indecisive. I need to start acting like myself. Please pray.

Running (A nice, but pointless post)

So, yesterday morning I woke up with the urge to work out at some point during that day. As I was getting ready for work, I was planning what time would be good for this. Normally, I just say I want to work out, think about how good it would be for me to actually keep my body active (other than the physical task that comes with studying and facebook-ing), but I never actually go to work out.

Well, I ended up going running twice yesterday. My friend Allie and I went right after Children's Ministry, and ran at Heritage Park. 'Twas much fun. I even ran into my adopted mom, Shanon, there, because her boys were playing baseball. It was an okay run, but it didn't go as well as I wanted, so we went again around 10. That time we ran on campus.

Today I am really sore, but I really want to start running as a routine. I did for a *little* while during the summer, but I became lazy and took sleep instead. Now, I even made an 8 Week Plan for myself, with some help from the Internet. I'm excited about this, so hopefully I stick with it!

Now should I do this in the early morning or late night? I hope I can make myself get up early!

Great week!

Lauren and I got accepted to live in a house that we have been calling "our house" ever since we applied for it! :)It includes a loft and a breakfast nook!! I can't tell you how excited I am to be sharing a cute, cottage-like house with one of my best friends!! :) This is by far one of the greatest things that happened this week! I am so excited about having dinners and movie nights, and inviting all of our friends over all the time. A part of me is very sad that I won't be living in Huckins because my dear friend Allie was going to be in there as our RA, but I promised her she will be at our house as often as possible. I'm so excited!! So, if you have any furniture (maybe an old kitchen table?) that you want to get rid of, please let me know!! :)

Another great thing was the time I've gotten to spend with all my kids out at Children's Ministry. A few of them got to participate in the Easter Pageant again this year (which was amazing!), and I enjoyed every moment. For some reason, when I'm around them, I feel like everything's great. They bring something out in me, and I'm sure many of our volunteers that come out each week, that just makes you feel closer to God. I love that. I don't know if it makes sense, but I love it. Plus, what's cooler than being in a play about the life of Jesus with kids that you love?

God has brought me to a place that I've been praying for. That place where I don't worry about the future and what will happen in any area of my life because I'm in His hands. Now if only my stupid human flesh would stop wondering about it all... I promise it's just as bad as worrying!!

I'm leaving tomorrow for home. My mom has some awesome plans for us. We are going to try to get free trees at this huge plant/tree celebration. I don't know too much about it, but I'm all for getting free trees! I'd get to plant it in our yard, which is always way fun! :)

The Sin of Idolatry

I want to blog a little about something that really hit me at Revival. The very first night, Matt asked, "What is your hell?" He then gave examples of what many people struggle with. His first example was the single Christian girls he sees at his church that just graduate from college. The girl is thinking, "AH! I'm still single, and I'm *gasp* 22 years old." Then these girls proceed to date many guys, constantly giving their hearts away, because of their perception of hell: ending up alone.

Let me tell you, this hit me hard. That is definitely a struggle for me. I don't want to end up "alone".I want to be in love one day with a godly man. I want to have a family. I want, I want, I want, I want. Right??

While he continued to give other examples, his ultimate conclusion was that our hell should be separation from God. He went on to say that God created us with a desire to worship HIM(!!) but all too often we pin that desire on something that He created.

"...because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen." -Romans 1:25

I may not see it now, but I don't want to end up like this, 5, 10, 20 years down the road. I don't want to worship God's creation, rather than God himself.

Another thing Matt said that moved me was when he was talking about his daughter. He said that he so desperately wants for his daughter to grow up and marry a godly man, not just a cool Christian guy. How true is this!! Not only for the husband I want to marry one day, but I too don't want to be just a "cool Christian girl". I want to be a godly woman, I want to reflect His light, I want His words to constantly flow off of my lips! How beautiful will it be when I finally do meet that man of God. How beautiful will it be when I know that God blessed me because I did not give in to my desires to "not be alone", and instead of having that be my hell, my hell was being separated from Him! How beautiful will it be when I can share that love for the Father wish a wonderful, godly man! How beautiful will it be when that relationship glorifies the Lord because we are completely satisfied in Him.

And how beautiful it is that God hits me with these realizations so hard that I can find joy in Him because He is my Father, because He is good... when I delight in His love because it is so much better, powerful, and stronger than anything else I can ever find. How beautiful it is that I can be satisfied in Him and never be alone with or without an earthly relationship.

Revival Update, and Other Things...

Well, these past couple days were a blast. I got to skip a few classes and participate in something I love. :) I will never know how many hearts were changed through this year's revival, but I know that the true word of God was preached and hopefully at least one person thought about where they are with Jesus. I hope that change begins to occur in people's hearts, as well as my own.

While a part of me is sad that revival is already over, another part of me is also very relieved. I'm relieved that all the logistics were handled successfully and I'm glad that people came. Now, I cannot stress out every now and then. :)

Due to revival's late night yesterday, I had my first "semi-all nighter". I went home at about midnight, studied for a couple hours, went to bed for a couple hours, woke up at about 4ish, woke up at 6, took a shower, and studied some more. I know that sounds like academic suicide, but I think it worked! My Linguistics test seemed far easier than I thought it would be... or maybe those are my sleepy brain cells not comprehending it correctly. Who knows?! But I did count up my points and came up with a low A/high B. :) We shall see...

Now I'm at work. Enjoying the fact that I have nothing to do!

***Please pray for my dad! He's flying back today. THANKS!

Revival Week

So, Revival is finally here at UMHB and last night was a great start. Matt Chandler is our speaker, and I must say he's on my top 5 list of preachers. ;) If you have i-Tunes, you should definitely podcast him- it's free! He preached on Romans 1 last night and definitely gave me some food for thought. I'm excited about tonight and tomorrow! This has been a crazy year being involved on the committee- it takes a lot of work that I didn't realize. I am very thankful for the experience and opportunities that God has given me.

Anyways, I have to get going! ;)

5 months

In 5 months my dad will be home for good. This makes me so happy :) I just finished saying goodbye to him and my mom, and it was hard :( We hugged and just kept saying "The sooner you leave, the sooner you'll be back." I love my parents so much. They are wonderful to me.

Conversations About Religious Intolerance

My friend Lauren and I always seem to have some really good conversations. I'm sure most, if not all of you have heard of the new "youtube.com" craze. Well, Lauren mentioned to me the "vlogs" (video blogs) that some people post. So, I figured, hey, lets look for some! We were somehow on the topic of Buddhism, and so I typed in "Buddhism Vlog", and watched a couple. One of the people post a "vlog" about how she thought that we, as people, need to stop "acting" like whatever religion we claimed was true, while offending others. Well, Lauren and I looked at eachother, and we were stunned. We immediately said to eachother that we did not agree with anything this girl said.

This got me thinking about the calling that God has given us as His disciples. Are we truly claiming Christ? God calls us not to be ashamed of Him. I'm not merely talking about the times where we just can't get over our fear of mentioning God to someone (which is a whole different blog post), I'm talking about intentionally not including Him in conversation because we fear that we will offend someone. Paul says,

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." -Romans 1:16

To not be ashamed means that we shouldn't be scared of offending others. Honestly, so what if we do! How could you believe the gospel, and not have a deep desire to tell others?? This deep desire must overcome that fear! There have been certain people in my life who know this truth, that the gospel is the power of God! How can any one of us shrink back and be scared? What about passion for our Creator?

I will be the first to say that I am not perfect. I mess up. I don't always do what I know God is calling me to do. But that's just it... He has called us to live for Him. Right now. Life is too short to say that you'll talk to that person when the time is right, when you know that they can trust you. How can we be a true light if we're not shining for Him at all moments?

These are just the thoughts that have been flying around in my head while I do Spanish homework...

Ooooh, isn't it so loverly???

So, do you like it? I'm so pleased with the design that Susie put together for me :) It makes my blog a lot more cozy and I'm even more excited about blogging than I was before. ;) So, I hope you like it!!

I chose this verse because it is true for every Christian. He put a new song in our mouth, and so we have every reason to sing praises to Him. How amazing it is that He is our amazing Father, and through Him, we have complete joy. :)

I'm back at school now, and some of you have been asking how my presentation went last night. Well, I am your typical procrastinator, but that doesn't stop me from doing my best! Dr. Stafford was very pleased with my work, and I got many compliments from my peers after class. I was very surprised, because while I thought I did decent work, it turned out to be great. So, yay for presentations (that are over)!

Right now I'm at work. The volunteers at Children's Ministry, Luke (co-leader), and I have all been thinking of ways to raise money for the playground out at the apartments where our ministry is held. This playground is in horrible shape, and if nothing is done soon, one of the kids is going to get hurt. So, I had an appointment with a guy on campus that is in charge of all of the fundraisers, and it went very well! I'm excited to see where our fundraising takes us, and what our end result will be for our playground project. So, if you have any ideas on building playgrounds, please let me know! :)

I guess I also failed to mention that I got a new car. I didn't know if I wanted to blog about it or not, but here I am. I ended up getting a 2007 Nissan Sentra. Long story short, the old car pretty much died over Spring Break, and so my mom and dad figured it was time for me to invest in a new car. I was very pleased when we went test driving. What's even more awesome is that I am now investing in something that is worth it in the long run that will also help my credit. So, yay for new cars! (I knew Spring Break was unpredictable! ;)

I hope you all have a wonderful day!!

Spring Break and Homework...

..don't mix well. :)

I have a huge presentation on Flannery O'Connor on Monday night. That's her.

Is it safe to say that I thought her stories were extremely morbid? In both stories that I have read, someone dies, and it's usually a tragic death. I chose this author for my presentation because my teacher e-mailed me saying that she really wanted someone to present on Flannery O'Connor. I did not expect it to be so.. morbid.

The good news is that I have been doing some research, and have found that she was also very interesting. This lady loved Peacocks. She owned Peacocks. I mean, they were in her yard. She also had a pet chicken as a little girl that knew how to walk backwards. She was the celebrity of her town! You don't hear about chickens that much, especially those that can walk backwards.

I guess I'm trying to share this information with someone other than myself because I want to get motivated. Go American Literature!! :)

Fun Quiz

You Are Likely an Only Child

At your darkest moments, you feel frustrated. At work and school, you do best when you're organizing. When you love someone, you tend to worry about them. In friendship, you are emotional and sympathetic. Your ideal careers are: radio announcer, finance, teaching, ministry, and management. You will leave your mark on the world with organizational leadership, maybe as the author of self-help books.

The Birth Order Predictor

I thought this was very interesting. I didn't think an online quiz could guess my "birth order", but it did! :)

Spring Break is SO Unpredictable..

I almost bought a car today! That's so crazy and spontaneous of me. I guess it would've been even more spontatneous if I did buy it...

My parents have been very worried about my car because of the trouble it has been giving me lately.. It has about 133,000 miles on it.. it's getting up there. So, we went to the dealership and found this awesome Ford Fusion. Yeah- me, a Ford Fusion? Who knew I would like it so much? But, we ended up not going with it. I figured $328 a month was quite a lot on my college job pay. We ended up deciding that I should save until the end of the year, when I am only a year away from graduation to purchase a car. Oh, and if you are interested in a nice, affordable car.. I'd say look at the Fusion. They drive wonderfully!! :)

Other than that randomness, my parents and I have just been enjoying the time together. My dad got home last night, and so we have a little bit of time before he goes back. Tomorrow, my dad and I are going to all the missions around SA and flying kites. I'm excited!! :) Pictures for sure.

I haven't done any school work. Maybe I should do that so I don't make a fool of myself on Monday night... I give my presentation over Flannery O'Connor that night!! Crazy. This semester is flying by...

Airports

Oh man, today was quite the eventful day.
To spare you the lengthliness of my story, I'll give you the summarized version:
- Wake up
-Doctor's office w/ Aunt and Cousins
-Drive to Airport
-Dad calls, flight delayed for an hour due to storms all over TX.
-Go home
-Go to Airport
-Stand in long lines to receive our military pass
-Mean people work at the airport
-Dad calls- flight cancelled
-WHAT??!
-Dad calls again, rents a car with another soldier
-After waiting for about 5 hours, I was finally able to pick up my dad!!

Today seemed like it would never end. I think it was definitely a lesson on patience. But he's here, and he's asleep! Our family feels complete with him.

Tomorrow will bring many joyful moments and I am so excited!!! :)

"I'll do it later...."

I have a really bad habit of procrastinating. I blame it on college, but I think I've had it since before college. I've been given a list of chores to do (and it's not even that big of a list- vacuuming is not that hard), and yet I still haven't done it since I woke up at 7. (I know, 7 am is quite early for a Spring Break- I think my mom is trying to convince herself that her daughter is a morning person) Hopefully, after I finish posting this, I will vacuum, because we all know that the sole purpose of this post is procrastination. :)

My dad called today and told me that he should be getting in around noon tomorrow. I'm excited! It seems as if the day keeps dragging on!

I haven't done much else today. I really should clean. :( Hopefully once this summer arrives, I won't have too much cleaning to do... it's going to be my last summer living at home. That's kind of strange to think about! I'm excited about it, too, though. :)

"Bluebird Blogs"... Simply Amazing.

Well, I can definitely say a huge thanks to Susie, designer at Bluebird Blogs! She is so nice and wonderful at what she does! :) My blog design won't be up for a couple of days, but I can assure you that I love it a whole lot! :) If you ever want to have your blog designed, go straight to Bluebird Blogs!

:) Spring Break

Sometimes I forget why I have this blog at all- to keep in touch with friends, to remember random events in my life, and of course, for fun.

I always associate my Spring Break with my first steps of becoming a Christian. This week, 6 years ago, I was seeking anything I could find that would tell me more about God. It's pretty cool. :) I finally became a Christian a few weeks after that. It's always fun to think about.

Aside from that Spring Break, I think that this Spring Break is probably going to be one of the best for me. My dad is coming home for his 2 week leave, and I plan on enjoying every second of my time with home. We only have 1 more day!

He says he already has a list of meals he wants us to make, and that includes some that I have learned after having my own oven! :) I'm pretty excited about that.

Other than that, my mom and I have just been busy preparing the little things for him. We're making sure that his plants look good, and of course, his truck.

I'm also trying to get some homework done. I have a presentation to give on Flannery O'Connor the Monday night I get back. I'm not excited about that at all! :( It's okay though, I'm pretty good at working under pressure.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Spring Break!!

Nonsensical randomness...

I apologize if my posts have made no sense at all lately... including this one.

I am pretty much finished with school work right now. I only have one thing left, and it's a multicultural breakfast on Friday. Our country is Germany, which is pretty fun!

Jenn (roommate) and I have been going to the Daily Grind the past couple nights because or our new love for Tazo Chai Frozen Milk Tea (is that what it's called?). I am not a huge fan of buying tea, but oh man... I recommend this one! Plus, the coffee shop is just a ton of fun. I have known this guy that works there since my freshman year. His name is Leonard, although he sometimes calls himself "Dr. Love" for his matchmaking skills. Well, he served in Vietnam and is just a cool guy. Anyways, he pretty much gave us the best compliment I've ever heard the other night. We were on the topic of singleness (come on now, he is Dr. Love), and he told us, "There's no way you girls will be single for the rest of your lives- you're too pretty." For some reason, I just needed to hear that. Sometimes it's pretty believable that I became a nun in my sleep or something!

Oh and I have a small prayer request for myself. Lately I have been tossing things back and forth in my head that I'd really rather not toss back and forth in my head (sorry for that redundancy). It's nothing bad, I just really don't want to be thinking about these things. I feel like they're annoying, and they serve no use to me.

2 days- Spring Break! Dad's Leave-5 days!

I am so excited about this break. I don't think it has really hit me yet that I'm going to see my dad soon! :) I think it's just been different because I'm not living in SA, and so I feel like I'm the one gone sometimes. I'm just excited about seeing him though. I can't wait until the day he finally returns and we can all be a family together (well, in Texas atleast) amd life will go back to somewhat normal. That will be nice.

So, yeah. School has been going good. I'm regularly busy, that sometimes when I find myself actually sitting down and doing something that wasn't planned, I freak out a little. I am learning to cherish my sleep.

I took a test this morning that was pretty easy, and now I'm going to transcribe a poem into the phonetic alphabet. Plus babysitting, plus reading for Linguistics...

Overwhelmed? I hope not. Maybe I'm becoming numb to it all.

Oh Spring Break :)