Today is a Saturday. Not just any old Saturday, but one of the most important Saturdays in the spiritual year. The Saturday of waiting.

I think about this day and how difficult it must have been right after Jesus died. After “it is done.” Something Pete Wilson said a couple months ago has really stuck with me. “Who you become while you are waiting is more important than what you are waiting for.” God knew that He would fulfill the promise to His people. He knew all along what was coming Sunday morning. But the people? They just had to wait. They had to have faith in the hardest of times. I can’t imagine the doubt they must have felt.

I think about hard times that I’ve gone through in the past two years. My mom’s cancer. My dad’s heart issues. Me being 31 and still single. Me having to come to grips with the idols in my life. Finding self respect, self worth, and self love. Realizing that life doesn’t slow down and that change is inevitable. In those moments of doubt, I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to have faith that God would bring me through those hard times. I wanted, more than anything, to run away, to ignore the problems, to pretend they didn’t exist. But life doesn’t work that way.

For every time I acknowledged that God had a plan, I also thought, “Your will be done, but please don’t let my mom die, please make dad’s heart beat normally, please let things stay the way they were, please don’t make me uncomfortable.” I feel like I was playing a negotiating game with God. “If you leave my family alone, I’ll read Your word more, I’ll pray more, I’ll be a better Christian.” As if I had control over ANY PART of the situation in which negotiating with God would fix the problems.

It wasn’t until mom’s ultrasounds came back negative for cancer, when dad finally got a pace maker put in, when I could look back and see how I had grown through all of these circumstances, that I realized the importance of the journey. Of the waiting.

God has strategically placed people in my life to challenge me, to uplift me, to hold me accountable, to show me that He knows. He knows what He’s doing. Through everything I’ve been through, I’ve accepted that He does love me. That I am worthy. He loves me enough to teach me how to be patient. He loves me enough to put me in circumstances that, while completely uncomfortable, allow me to grow into the person He’s made me to be.

As we wake up tomorrow on Easter Sunday, the day of new beginnings, I pray that I remember that Saturdays are worth the wait and that Sunday will soon come. Happy Easter to you all!

I have always been the self-deprecating, funny, “quirky” one in my group of friends. But when I picked up and moved to Nashville 7 and a half years ago, I had to start over. I didn’t know a soul. It took a good 2 years to find anyone that I was willing to get to know on a deeper than surface level. And that was someone I met at work. She was married, but she was the youngest teacher in my school so it seemed appropriate that we would click and get along.

And we did. She’s the one who introduced me to Cross Point. We had similar interests, we were both young and loved teaching. But again, she was married. The more we hung out, the more I found myself trying to fit into the married world as a single girl. I tried to fit into that group, but because I wasn’t married and didn’t have those stories to share, I failed miserably.

I am not a joiner. To put myself out there, to be so vulnerable, to share my stories and experiences with virtual strangers is just completely out of my comfort zone. But like Pete says, God cares more about our character than our comfort. But I was missing something in my life at the time. I wanted to be in this married stage of life but I didn’t know how to get there. So after being depressed about not being able to live in that stage of life, I decided to start living in the one I was, the one I still am, in.

As I started going to Stretch, I found that many people were so much younger than me. I wondered what in the world I could learn from 23 and 24 yr olds. In my mind, I didn’t think they could possibly understand what it felt to be my age and single and feel all this pressure from society, from family back home, from friends who are already married, to be married.

But over the past year, I have found that wisdom can come from ANYONE. It doesn’t matter how old you are, what stage of life you’re in, whether you’re male or female. Life experiences bring us together. Wisdom comes from growth.

I just spent the last few days with a couple of 24 yr olds who have more wisdom in their pinky fingers than I feel I have in my whole body. We had the best conversations about everything, from family, to faith, to mistakes we’ve made, to how we feel people perceive us. We spoke truth into one another, we laughed, we listened, and not once did I feel like I was the old lady in the group. We truly experienced authentic community. I learned so much more from these two amazing women than I could possibly have taught them.

• I learned that speaking truth into someone is different from calling them out
• I learned that being quirky is not a bad thing
• I learned that it’s important to know who you are, but more important to know who you are becoming in Christ
• I learned that your past may shape you, but it doesn’t have to define you
• most importantly, I learned that these two women are in my story for a reason. They have helped me realize that God’s love is enough and that if who I am isn’t enough for someone, whatever type of relationship it may be, it IS enough for Him and that’s all that matters.

People say age doesn’t matter. Society tries to convince us that young people don’t know anything about life. But these girls are proof that society is wrong. I’m so blessed to have these amazing women of God in my life. I can’t wait to see what growth will come from the community we have formed.

It’s no secret that I have issues with self worth. I make jokes about myself before others can beat me to it. If I’m the “always joking, self deprecating” girl, no one wants to be around that all the time. I choose to be friends with people who are “safe” and don’t let my guard down so I won’t get hurt. I give people a way out so I won’t get hurt. But I’m always left thinking less of myself.  If I was really worth it, they would have seen through that facade and stuck around.

I befriend guys who are unavailable because in my head, they are the safest. I can’t get hurt by someone who’s in love with/married to/dating someone else.

I often compare my self worth to my activities, the amount of time I spend with other people. If someone wants to go grab dinner or coffee or just hang out, then they must like me. If they want to give up their time to spend it with me, or invite me along, then I must have done something right. So I feel good about myself.

But if then one day, they quit calling, inviting me, wanting to spend time with me, I worry that they must have figured me out. They must have found something in me that they didn’t like and decided that I wasn’t worth spending time with anymore. I figure someone else must have come along who was more fun than me. And then there goes that ounce of self worth I had for a split second.

I know that God loves me for me, no matter what. I know that. But God also says that we should live in community. But what happens when I sabotage that community to prove to myself that I’m not worthy of community?

I’m currently in a season of my life in which I feel as though God is testing me to see if I truly believes that He loves ME FOR ME. I feel as though he’s pushing me to let go of my issues with trust, abandonment, commitment, and self worth. I know He loves me for me, but is that enough for me? I hope that once this season is over, I can look back and KNOW that I’ve been changed by the mistakes in my past and that I truly believe  HE IS ENOUGH.

Yesterday at church,  Pete talked about how as kids, we always hated it when we asked our parents for permission to do something and their response was, “Let’s just wait and see.” To me, that response meant, “I’m gonna make you wait for the answer, but it’s already ‘no’. I just want to exert my control over you and give you false hope.” The answer was usually no, but there were those very rare times where “wait and see” meant “yes.” Because they were so rare, every time we asked permission, there was always that glimmer of hope that they would say, “yes.” My brother, sister, and I clung to that hope.

As an adult, I still hate being told to wait. In this ever-changing society, we really don’t have to wait for anything. At least anything that we have control over.

If I want something to eat but I don’t want to cook or go to a restaurant to sit down and wait for someone to make my food, I can run to the nearest Taco Bell and have my food eaten by the time it would have taken me to make it myself

If Target is out of something I want, I can just go online and buy it. I can even get it delivered the next day if it’s something “really important.”

If I’m single and not dating, not even getting asked out, I can go online and date. In fact, I AM single but I REFUSE to date online. Refuse. I really don’t think God put my husband out there for me to find on a computer.

Patience has always been something I struggle with. In my mind, to be patient is to not be in control. I have a hard time just being patient to let God do his thing. If things aren’t going the way I think they should be going, that’s when I step in and try to fix it myself, but I usually have NO IDEA how to fix it or get what I want when I want it. And I end up so much worse off than if I had just waited.

I can look back at the blessings of my life and see God’s hand in my life. I just have a hard time with the future and trusting in His plan for me. Because I can’t see it. I just have to wait.

“The farther on I go, I’ve seen enough to know that I’m not here for nothing. He’s up to something.”

^“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” -Proverbs 3:5-6

“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.”- Psalms 37:7

“A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” -Proverbs 16:9

After telling the story, Pete challenged us to think of something that would be our own “sun, stand still” prayer. It had to be something that would be considered a miracle if it happened.

I didn’t have a hard time thinking of one, but even as I know the Bible as Word, I had a hard time thinking that if I prayed this prayer, that it would be granted, like Joshua’s prayer was for him.

Pete’s sermon was amazing. He truly has a gift for taking the problems of the world that we face everyday and finding a solution from the Bible. The Biblical people had naysayers, disbelievers, skeptics, just like we do, but they simply believed. Mary with her unborn child who was to become the Son of God, Abraham, who was far too old to produce children, Joseph, whose brothers threw him in a pit to die, Jesus, who was sent to die on a cross for no reason except to save the souls of believers yet to come.

I think the hardest thing about Faith to explain to someone who has no belief at all is that we just believe. We have nothing tangible to prove that God exsists except for a book. And people write fictional books all the time. We can’t see God, but we experience His creation all around us. What we do have, is the ability to give God the glory and credit when things happen  in our lives that look like miracles to naysayers, disbelievers, and skeptics.

My One Word 2011 is “Intentional.” One thing I’ve talked about being intentional about this year is my prayer life. Sometimes, to me, prayer feels like giving up. Like I’ve done all I can in the situation, and my teeny, tiny prayer is the last resort. Maybe I’m the skeptic. Shouldn’t prayer be the START?

When Pete proposed this “sun, stand still” prayer request yesterday, my first reaction wasn’t that I couldn’t think of any prayer that might be a miracle to me if God allowed it to happen. My first reaction was, I want the kind of faith that BELIEVES, to the core of my being, that God does answer “sun, stand still” prayers and that He would answer mine. I want to give up all control in the circumstances of my life that my “sun, stand still” prayer lives in.

So, to be Intentional in 2011, I will pray my “sun, stand still” prayer and let that faith filled moment fill me with the belief that it will be a miracle to ME if God answers my prayer. And I WILL give him all the glory and credit, because it won’t be a miracle to God. To Him, it will just be a breath closer in becoming the woman HE has made me to be.

I was born at 3:03 in the morning.

The only house number I ever put as my return address, that my parents live in to this day, is 303.

When I was in high school, I started noticing that probably 75% of the time, when I looked at the clock, the mileage on my car, or the football scoreboard time countdown (I was in marching band, we had to watch the time to know when to line up in our stuffy uniforms, dirty feather plumes, and with our dented, rented instruments), it had a 33 somewhere. Since I was born at 3:03 and lived at 303, instead of being freaked out, I embraced the number.

All throughout my life, I’ve looked for the number. It is a sort of comfort, if it’s possible that a number can bring you any comfort. But sometimes my life gets busy and I forget about it. When I’m searching it out, it’s exciting, it fires me up, gives me something to look forward to. Like I don’t know when to expect to see it or find it and that’s the beauty of it.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I want to be INTENTIONAL this year. In many areas of my life, including my prayer life.

Jeremiah 33:3 says “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know”

Comfort.

This summer,  I had a MAJOR, LIFE CHANGING surgery, I was more afraid for my life than I have ever been. I truly thought I wouldn’t wake up from the anesthesia. The morning of the surgery, before we left for the hospital, I checked my email. I receive a daily bible verse. June 8th, the day of my surgery, the verse was:

Psalms 3:3: “But you are a shield around me, O LORD; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.“

Comfort.

Another one of my very favorite verses:

Proverbs 3:3 Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

Comfort.

Some random facts about the number 33:

Jesus was thought to be crucified at the age of 33, in 33 AD. (I know AD means ‘after death’ and that he was 33 so that would be 33 AD. It’s the same year. I get that)

Jesus performed 33 recorded miracles.

If you add the numerical value of the word AMEN it equals… you guessed it…. 33.

There are other random facts about 33 that aren’t happy and shiny and glass-half-full, so I don’t bother about those.

I used to be more observant of 33. I noticed it, paid attention to it. I saw it EVERYWHERE in my life.

And then, over time, it sort of because dull, it lost it’s luster. It was still there, but it didn’t seem shiny and new anymore. It wasn’t as exciting. My life took over and I quit trying to find it all the time.

Perhaps that’s what my spiritual life has been like. God has been like 33 to me. Always there, but I didn’t pay attention. I try to take over and I end up pausing my search for Him. I quit trying to find Him in every aspect of my life. Even though I know HE IS THERE!

It’s a NEW YEAR. I’m probably more excited to start a new year this year than I ever have been.

Here’s to getting excited, fired up, looking forward to finding my 33, my God in EVERYTHING I do.  AMEN!

Just had a crazy, strange, “things happen for a reason” kind of moment.

This weekend, I was challenged by Grant and Alece to join in, what I like to call, a movement. I really do think it will be a movement. One Word 2011. It’s a simple task.

Participants are posed with the task of finding ONE WORD that you want to focus on for this year. Immediately, all kinds of words came to my mind. Hope, Faith, Prayer, Love, Grace, Peace, Purpose. I could go on. I’m a words person. I like inspiration that is short and to the point.

So I stewed for about a minute and came up with my word. I wanted something that meant the opposite of procrastinating. The same as getting things done. The opposite of fake. The same as genuine. The opposite of comfort. The same as squirmy. And I have it. My word sums up what I want my life to be about. The kind of friend, daughter, teacher, pet owner, child of God that I want to be, that I’m called to be.

My word is…..drum roll please……

INTENTIONAL

{intentional}

It’s a simple word, but it packs a punch. It’s a lot of stuff in a little package. I feel like it will be a challenge, though a welcomed one, to be intentional about every aspect of my life. I’m not going to list the definition because I chose the word for what it means to me.

One area of my life that I am positive that I need to be more intentional about is my prayer life.  I’m a control freak. I feel like praying is asking for help. And I don’t need help. I may be single, but I’m a big girl. I’m an independent woman!  ROAR!!

Back to the “things happen for a reason” moment.

Grant made a Twitter List of all of the people participating in the One Word 2011 challenge. I happened to click on the list today and saw Jeremiah 33:3 pop out at me. My favorite number is 33. When I look at the clock, I like it to be :33 after. I like to stop gas at .33 after the dollar. If I’m working out, I like to stop on 33 seconds, or 33 minutes, or something and 33 calories. I stalk 33.

So of course, I had to go check out what Jeremiah 33:3 said.

³ ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’ Jeremiah 33:3 NIV 2010

I had to laugh out loud. It TOTALLY fit my word. It most definitely made me think about how my prayer life needs to be more intentional.

So I laughed out loud at God because, man, that guy sure knows what He’s doing. Even if I don’t have a CLUE!

Not only because Grant asked if I was going to, I always like a challenge, but also because I do want to try to make every area of my life to be INTENTIONAL, I will blog about this journey of intent.  I’m not sure what this will look like, but I’m sure willing to give it a shot…Join me, won’t you?

I wrote until I hit 533 words.

YES!!!!!!

I want to listen more and talk less.

I want to give more and take less.

I want to serve more and be served less.

I want to shine more and flicker less.

I want to trust more and control less.

I want to read more and watch less.

I want to do more and say less.

It’s a big list, but I’m confident that the things are attainable.  Life is a choice. You can live it or you can let it live you. I choose to LIVE.

These are my words from last New Year’s Day. 365 days is a long time ago. But I know that I did accomplish some of these tasks that I set out to accomplish in 2010.

I joined a small group, well, NOT SO SMALL, but a group that forced me to listen more to others and try to talk less. Which sometimes ended up in talking more. It made me be a lot more reflective. Which has been good for me. I’m not great at reflection. I’m sort of a “get ready, get set, GOOOO…. and don’t look back!” kind of person. Being reflective slows me down a bit.

In January, when the earthquake in Haiti hit, I organized a shoe drive at my school for soles4souls that gathered at least 3,000 shoes. It was a stinky job, putting probably 4 car loads of shoes into my car to drive them to the drop off site, but it felt great to teach my students about giving.

In terms of serving, this year has been an explosion of opportunities to serve not only people I love, but strangers as well. The flood victims, the homeless, the refugees, my students. I have found that the more I serve, the more I desire to serve. But I don’t always make that choice.

Flickering as a light for God is something I don’t think about but I know I do. In the moments where I feel like I’m shining, I try to pause that moment and remember it in the moments where my flame is not only flickering, but about to go out.

Oh the trusting part. That will always be a struggle. It’s gotten better, with my students, with my family, with my friends, but with my own life? I’m still working through that. I feel myself saying that I will let go of the control I crave, now is the time to prove it.

Then there’s the reading. People who dive into the Word, who take what it says to heart, who make the Word their life, those people inspire me. I’m working on that one as well. I did start YouVersion Bible reading plan. Do I read every day? No. But I’m working on it.

I’ve done a lot this year. I’ve also said a lot that I didn’t do.

2010 was a good year. I grew a lot. I did a lot. I crossed a few things off my bucket list. I stepped on the road of crossing a few other things off my bucket list.

What have I learned? I’ve learned that as soon as I’m comfortable with where my life is headed, what God is doing, as soon as I feel calm, BAM! Another mountain, another struggle, in my mind, another opportunity to grow, in God’s mind. With all that I’ve done in 2010, it’s just a drop in the bucket. There is still SO much more to do.

IN 2011…

I want to listen even more and talk even less.

I want to give even more and take even less.

I want to serve even more and be served even less.

I want to shine even more and flicker even less.

I want to trust even more and control even less.

I want to read even more and watch even less.

I want to do even more and say even less.

I want to continue to step out of my comfort zone to experience growth.

I want to continue to be faced with choices that allow me to be challenged to make the right choice.

I want to put others first and put myself last.

I want to continue to grow into the person God created me to be.

I hope 2011 brings health and happiness, growth and discovery, love and forgiveness to all of you. Cheers!

The majority of my friends are all married and have families now, so where we used to see each other a lot at parties and other festive gatherings, that time is now reserved for each other and their families. Which is fine.…

In Pete’s Christmas Eve sermon, he talks about the part of the story where Mary hears that she is to bear a son before she even marries. She wasn’t expecting it, this was definitely NOT in her plans. The people around her shamed her and made her feel like what she was doing was wrong. But she simply said, “Let it Be.” Whatever God had planned for her, let it be. She trusted.

I thought maybe that by 31, I would have my own family, my own Christmas traditions, my own happy memories of seeing the faces of little ones on Christmas Day. But because I don’t, Christmas ends up being about what I don’t have.

I’ve got it all wrong.

Christmas isn’t about ME at all.

It should be about the GIFT I have received.

We celebrate Christmas because of a tiny baby, born to die. It’s about a young woman who simply said, “let it be.”

Whatever your plan is for me, God, let it be.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas. Let it be.

A couple months ago my Dell Laptop caught a virus, probably from the 6 year olds that pick their nose and wipe it on my sweater. It’s that kind of virus, right? ha. Well, anyway, the computer had to be completely wiped clean. That wasn’t fun.

It took forever to get my itunes all back and my pictures back on there and documents and everything else that I had stored on that computer for the last 3 years. *note to self, BACK UP YOUR STUFF!* I should have learned that from the “Sex and the City” episode where Carrie’s computer has that little man with the “x’s where his eyes should be.” You know, where she had “the bomb. well, not ‘da bomb’ but you know, a bomb” on her screen. Well, I’m invicible and nothing bad ever happens to me. HA!  That is just such a stupid and egotistical way for me to think. And completely untrue. I’m a klutz. I can’t have nice things cause they don’t stay nice. Even my not so nice things don’t stay nice. Ah well, it’s part of my charm… or something.

So not a week after I got my computer almost back to normal, I accidently spilled water in the back by the fan. It died. For real. Toast. sigh

So now, 3 weeks later, I’ve decided I’ll need a computer over Christmas break so I went and bought this pretty Mac Book.  I waited forever in the Apple Store, feeling cool for a split second, like I had joined the group of people who embrace the ever-changing technology. Keith Urban’s drummer was in there, various other young musicians, (I could tell by their dirty hair, skinny jeans, and plaid shirts), and a handful of people who were around before the computer was even invented yet. I sort of felt like I belonged there. Like I looked like I belonged there. (that became obviously untrue when I pulled out my 4 year old blackberry instead of texting on my I phone).

I drove carefully home, put her and her new printer in the trunk while I ran errands, got her home, took her out, fired her up….

I’m having a hard time not being able to right click.